A convenience store clerk on the 4500 block of Benning Road SE was threatened with what appeared to be a gun after asking a customer to leave, according to police, who are now asking the public for help identifying two suspects. The confrontation happened around 3:55 p.m. on May 17, but the Metropolitan Police Department only released surveillance images and a public appeal this week, months after the incident.
According to WJLA, one of the two suspects rode a scooter into the store before the employee asked him to leave. Police say the two suspects then threatened the worker, and the man displayed what the victim believed was a gun tucked into his waistband. The employee was not injured, and the suspects left the store before officers arrived, per the station's report.
One of the two suspects was captured on surveillance video, images police have now released as they seek the public's help identifying him and a second, unidentified suspect. MPD is offering a reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest and indictment in the case — a payout tier the department reserves for non-fatal “other serious crimes,” well below the up-to-$10,000 rewards offered for non-fatal shootings and robberies.
How to Submit a Tip
Anyone who recognizes either suspect or has information about the incident is asked to call police at 202-727-9099, or to send an anonymous tip — including photos or video — to MPD's Text Tip Line at 50411. Police have specifically advised the public not to approach the men themselves.
Displaying or implying a firearm during a threat can escalate what might otherwise be a misdemeanor into felony Assault with a Dangerous Weapon under D.C. law, according to Ervin Kibria Law, exposing a suspect to up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine even if no shots are fired and no one is physically hurt. Separately, D.C.'s threats statute allows prosecutors to charge verbal or displayed threats as either a misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail or, in more severe cases involving serious injury or property damage, a felony carrying up to 20 years, according to Rollins and Chan.
A Corridor With a Violent History
The 4500 block of Benning Road SE sits within MPD's Sixth District, which covers Ward 7 and is patrolled out of the district's main station on Hayes Street NE and a substation on Pennsylvania Avenue SE. The block has seen serious violence before, including a fatal shooting in May 2025 that killed Jacquise Zanders and a February 2023 homicide in which a victim was shot inside a vehicle, according to MPD.
Local Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners in ANC 7F have repeatedly flagged commercial stretches of Benning Road as priority safety corridors eligible for Safe Passage programs and commercial-corridor safety grants. MPD's Sixth District crime suppression units also routinely conduct joint patrols with federal agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, along the corridor, as reported by The Washington Informer.
A Citywide Spike in Weapon Assaults
The incident lands amid a broader, counterintuitive trend in D.C. crime data. Citywide, Assault with a Dangerous Weapon cases jumped 42% year-to-date as of August 6, rising to 758 incidents compared with 534 during the same period in 2025, even as overall violent crime grew by just 3%, according to MPD statistics. That surge stands in contrast to the city's recent trajectory: total violent crime fell 35% in 2024, and homicides dropped another 32% in 2025 to 127 — the District's lowest annual homicide total since 2017, per reporting from The Washington Post.
This is not the only recent case of an alleged weapon threat at a Benning Road business. In March, two teenagers were arrested after a store robbery on the 5000 block in which suspects implied they had a gun that later turned out to be a paintball gun. In October 2025, a 61-year-old man was charged with Assault with a Dangerous Weapon after a shooting on the same 4500 block, and a loaded firearm was seized. No arrests have been announced in this latest case as police continue seeking the two suspects.
