WASHINGTON —D.C. police are seeking information from anyone who may have seen a deadly shooting on northbound Interstate 295 during the Thursday morning rush hour.
One man is dead and another man is wounded after someone fired shots into the the car they were in. The shooting happened on northbound I-295 in D.C. near the Naval Research Laboratory exit before 9 a.m.
Thursday night, police identified the man who died as 50-year-old Pedro Melendez Alvarado, of Alexandria, Virginia.
Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier is asking anyone who called 911, or was on the stretch of road between 8:45 a.m. and 8:55 a.m. to dial 911 or 202-727-9099, to speak with detectives.
“There were a number of shots that were fired, so somebody had to have seem something,” Assistant Chief Peter Newsham says. “We are thinking that during rush hour, that we probably had a lot of people who might have seen something.”
Lanier says the black SUV the victims were in has Virginia tags. She has not issued a description of the car that apparently shot into the SUV.
The shooting and subsequent investigation shut down I-295 in D.C. near the Naval Research Laboratory exit. The northbound lanes of I-295 reopened at about 1 p.m. after it was closed for more than three hours. The ramps from the inner and outer loops of the Capitol Beltway to northbound I-295 have also reopened to traffic.
Initially, Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the shooting appeared to be a road rage incident. However, she later told The Washington Post it did not appear to be road rage.
“We have nothing right now to indicate there was any confrontation,” Lanier said to The Washington Post. “Right now, it does not look like road rage. The vehicle involved followed [the victims] from Virginia, before they entered the District.”
