WASHINGTON — A National Guard member was shot in the leg late Sunday while he was responding to a fight on Capitol Hill, and a man accused of firing toward the troops was wounded when three Guard members returned fire, according to D.C. police.
The confrontation occurred about 11:10 p.m. in the 400 block of Eighth Street SE, near the Barracks Row commercial corridor. Interim Police Chief Jeffery Carroll said at an early Monday briefing that seven or eight Guard members were in a van watching a group of people on the sidewalk when a fight broke out.
According to Carroll’s preliminary account, troops got out of the vehicle to intervene and heard gunshots. A person involved in the fight was firing a gun, Carroll said. The Guard members ordered him to put down the weapon, but he pointed it toward them. Three Guard members then fired, striking the man in the abdomen.
The wounded Guard member and the man identified by police as the shooter were taken to hospitals with injuries not considered life-threatening. Authorities did not immediately identify either person, and Carroll said investigators had not determined which Guard member fired the shot that struck the man.
The department’s Internal Affairs and Criminal Investigation divisions are examining the shooting. Police said they did not believe there was an ongoing threat to the neighborhood. The incident comes nearly a year after two National Guard members were shot near Farragut West Metro station in November 2025; one of them died.
