A child who was wounded in a shooting last Wednesday says it happened when he was stepping off a Metrobus with his grandmother in D.C.’s Brightwood neighborhood to escape a fight, according to court documents.
Police said a 9-year-old boy and 6-year-old girl had injuries that were not life-threatening when they were hit by stray gunfire at 14th Street and Fort Stevens Drive in Northwest while returning home from school around 4 p.m. on Jan. 11.
The court documents revealed that the boy told police he felt the bullet hit him when he was struck in the right buttocks. The young girl told investigators that she was on the bus with her mother and saw the fight. But she could not remember anything more about the incident in which she was shot in the abdomen.
The girl’s mother told investigators that she saw the argument on the crowded bus turn into a fight. She said she heard six to seven shots as she and the child first fled, then got back on the bus for safety. The bus operator drove two blocks up 14th Street to Peabody Street to escape the gunfire before stopping.
The wounded kids were treated at Children’s National Hospital.
Police recovered three 9 mm casings from the east side of 6000 14th St. NW and a live round inside Metrobus 54, which was crowded with passengers when the trouble began. A knife was recovered nearby.
A man wounded by the gunfire, Stephen Perdomo, 32, of District Heights, Maryland, has been charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. Police said that one of the individuals who boarded the bus was stabbed by Perdomo.
Court documents revealed that a bus rider heading home from Cardozo High School feared the presence of eight to 10 people who boarded the bus whom he recognized as gang members responsible for assaulting him three months ago. The individual said that the group attacked him on the bus. Perdomo then ran onto the bus to help him when the bus stopped at 14th and Fort Stevens Drive, according to the high schooler.
The student individual said at least three people in the group were armed with knives.
Police said Perdomo was armed with a knife and began assaulting someone when the confrontation spilled onto the sidewalk. One member of the group produced a gun and opened fire, striking Perdomo in the abdomen and hitting the two children.
Perdomo told police he does not know who shot him, and he was unable to provide descriptions of any of the suspects. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Tuesday morning in D.C. Superior Court. He’s being held without bond.
