Seven people were killed in D.C. over a recent span of five days in the deadliest stretch the District has seen so far this year.
Among the victims were two boys, ages 12 and 14, whose deaths have rattled their community in Northeast Washington and prompted broader fears about an uptick in gun violence that typically unfolds in warmer weather. While police have deemed the majority of the killings “targeted interpersonal violence,” D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) emphasized that those responsible should be held to account.
“Any time you have children who lose their lives at the other end of a gun, it’s senseless,” Bowser said Wednesday. “Any crime is too much crime.”
Violent crime in the city is down overall, according to police data, with homicides 51 percent lower than they were this time last year. Overall, there have been 20 such killings in the District so far this year. By this time last year, officials said, there had been 41 homicides citywide.
“We keep a close eye on all reported crimes and adjust our outreach accordingly,” a D.C. police spokesperson said in a statement to The Post. “MPD is continuously developing strategies to address problems as they emerge throughout our communities.”
The last time D.C. saw a concentrated rate of killing on par with this month, according to a Washington Post analysis of D.C. police statistics, was in July 2025.
The spate of violence began on April 9 with the killing of Robert Stokes, 42, near the Friendship Heights Metro station. Police said Stokes, who had worked for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority for more than a decade, was leaving work at the bus depot when Terrell Cross, 44, a colleague, fatally shot him before turning the gun on himself. Both men were pronounced dead at the scene.
Kristal Stokes, 37, said her husband and Cross had an “ongoing dispute” that predated the shooting. She declined to discuss the details of the disagreement.
“Whatever it was,” she said, “it wasn’t worth that man doing what he did.”
Robert Stokes was a dedicated Baltimore sports fan, an adoring father and the kind of spouse who filled their home with laughter, his wife recalled. He had four children: the 5-year-old daughter he shared with Kristal Stokes and three older kids from a previous relationship.
Kristal Stokes said the days following the murder-suicide have been a nightmare for her family. Though she’s tried to remain strong for those around her, she said, it has felt like moving through a fog: “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I don’t really even remember what day it is.”
To learn that her husband’s killing was just the beginning of a violent spike in D.C. homicides, she said, was devastating.
“It’s just senseless how people will kill other people,” she said. “Everybody doesn’t need a gun. Especially those people who are out here acting out of emotion or out of their mind. My husband didn’t have a gun. He didn’t have any way to defend himself. He was just leaving work.”
In the days that followed, police said, several more people were shot and killed around the District: 25-year-old Deangelo Scott; 18-year-old Dereon Womack; 29-year-old Levon Livingston; 34-year-old Delonte Turner and the two boys, 14-year-old Tyale Coates and 12-year-old Mhilo Young.
The two boys were shot in the 700 block of Kenilworth Avenue NE, just outside of a convenience store, where neighbors and relatives later said the boys had gone to scope out a new food truck.
Tyale was pronounced dead at the scene. Mhilo was transported to the hospital, where he later died.
Police have said the two boys were walking in a tightly packed group around 3:30 p.m. when rapid gunfire began, spraying the crowd with bullets. The two boys were out of school on spring break.
Witnesses who spoke to television reporters at the scene later that day said they heard dozens of rounds fired. D.C. police have not yet identified any suspects in the killing of the two boys.
Tyale was an eighth-grader at KIPP D.C. Valor Academy, a public charter middle school in Northeast Washington. Mhilo had previously attended the school, officials said.
In a statement, school officials said both boys were “cherished members of the KIPP D.C. Valor Academy family and their loss is profoundly felt by our students, staff, and families.”
“Our focus at this time remains on supporting our community, and we have made arrangements to provide students and staff with access to grief counseling and support services,” school officials wrote.
Though the attack happened in the parking lot of a convenience store, officials said, security cameras on the property were not working and identifying potential suspects has proved challenging.
Police have offered a reward of up to $50,000 for information in connection to the killings.
Jonathan Edwards contributed to this report.
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