A 20-year-old Suitland, Maryland man is facing weapons charges after police say he was connected to a shooting on a Southwest D.C. block Wednesday afternoon. Devin Wingate was arrested and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and endangerment with a firearm following the incident on Half Street SW.
According to WJLA, Metropolitan Police Department officers responded to the 1300 block of Half Street SW at approximately 1:27 p.m. Wednesday after receiving a report of gunshots. Officers arrived to find evidence of a shooting, though police did not report any victims or property damage at the scene, per the same outlet's reporting.
Charges and the Investigation Ahead
Wingate was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon involving a gun and with endangerment with a firearm, the station's report states. MPD's investigation into the shooting remains ongoing, and no further details about what led up to the gunfire have been released.
The endangerment charge stems from a D.C. statute that applies when a person knowingly discharges a projectile from a firearm outside a licensed firing range and meets certain other conditions specified in the law, according to the D.C. Council Code. Separately, the assault with a dangerous weapon charge carries a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison under D.C. law, as laid out in the D.C. Council Code.
A Block With a History of Gunfire
Half Street SW has seen gun violence reported before. In December 2023, WJLA covered a quadruple shooting in Southwest D.C. in which police searched for a suspect vehicle last seen in the 1300 block of Half Street SW. Years earlier, in June 2020, officers responded to the same block for a reported shooting that left an adult male with a gunshot wound to the leg, according to a post from the Official MPD 1D Google Group.
Citywide Numbers Show a Mixed Picture
Wingate's arrest comes amid broader shifts in the District's violent crime statistics. A Council on Criminal Justice analysis found that D.C.'s gun-assault rate rose 13% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. That same analysis, which examined offenses in D.C. and 35 other American cities from 2018 through June 2026, found the city's reported aggravated-assault rate jumped 45% over the same comparison period.
Despite the year-over-year increase, the Council on Criminal Justice noted that D.C.'s gun-assault rate remained well below levels from earlier years — 14% lower than the first half of 2019, and the first-half 2026 rate of 40.4 per 100,000 residents sat 42% below the same period in 2023. The organization cautioned that not all crimes are reported to law enforcement and that local jurisdictions may later revise the figures.
