A suspect has been hooked for a Northwest DC shooting that put one man in the crosshairs of death. The Metropolitan Police Department's NIBIN Investigations Unit, together with the ATF, nabbed 56-year-old Rodney Baggott from Northeast, DC following a near-fatal incident that unfolded in broad daylight earlier this year, officials said.
According to the MPD's statement, the call came in on January 30 just after 4 p.m., painting the scene at Q Street and Connecticut Avenue with the grim hues of urban violence, cops rushed to the location after shots broke the afternoon calm, discovering a male victim riddled with bullets—his life hanging by a thread inside his car; the victim's identity remains withheld as he continues fighting for his survival at a local medical facility, this according to the information provided by MPD's report.
The break in the case came on April 15, when Baggott, the alleged shooter, found his freedom curtailed by the cuffs of justice. A U.S. District Court arrest warrant was executed; the charge—Assault with Intent to Kill, a declaration of the severity of his alleged intent to snuff out a life as casually as one extinguishes a candlewick.
MPD and ATF agents, part of a specialized collaborative effort aimed at cracking down on trigger-pullers, pieced together the case that landed Baggott behind bars, after months of their combined detective work the manhunt for the Northwest shooter culminated with Baggott's capture, this strategic partnership between local and federal law enforcement aims to staunch the flow of bullets and blood that sometimes seems as perennial as the Potomac, though further details on the arrest have not been made public as of yet.
The case against Baggott is expected to unfold in the coming weeks; officials will likely lay out their evidence garnered from the gritty streets to the somber courtrooms in order to weave a narrative of justice for the victim who, by a thread, still clings to life. The news of the arrest comes as a small solace in a city wearied by too many tales of gun violence, yet it offers a flicker of hope that perpetrators will face the reckoning of the law.
