Shots rang out at early this morning in Woodbridge, injuring four poeple.
When officers arrived at The Palace Bar and Grill in Marumsco Plaza at 2:15 a.m., they found a female bystander and three security guards suffering after they had been struck or grazed by gunfire.
The security guards are aged 26, 33, and 45, and the woman is 28-years-old, police said. Gunfire injured all of them following an argument between the shooter and someone else inside the restaurant. The shooter went to his car parked outside, grabbed a gun, walked back, and started shooting, police said.
Emergency crews took victims to a hospital. Each suffered non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
After the shooting, the shooter got into a dark-colored sedan. Police recovered multiple shell casings from the parking lot.
Police described the suspect as a Hispanic male, between 5-feet 3-inches and 5-feet 8-inches tall, with a thin build, tan complexion, clean-shaven face, a tattoo below his right eye, and short black hair. Witnesses said he wore a blue jacket or shirt, dark-colored jeans, and white shoes. Police encouraged anyone with information about the suspect to call its tip line at 703-792-7000.
When shots rang out, officers already in the area heard the gunshots and could quickly go to the crime scene, a police spokesman said. In August, a 21-year-old bystander was shot in the leg outside The Palace.
Tysons Corner-based retail leasing firm KLNB advertises Marumsco Plaza as a vibrant shopping destination. Over the past five years, the state and Prince William County poured hundreds of millions of dollars into widening Route 1, a significant thoroughfare carrying more than 40,000 cars a day past the shopping center.
The four injured in today’s shooting are the latest victims in a spree of shootings in the Woodbridge area. A week ago, a man was shot in a drive-by while sitting in his car parked at Stonebridge at Potomac Town Center, a busy shopping center featuring an Apple Store, Alamo Drafthouse movie theater, and anchored by Wegman’s grocery.
About a mile from Stonebridge, two men were shot on Crescent and Bakersfield streets on December 4 and 6, respectively. Also, nearby on December 4, gunfire rattled someone sitting inside a home on Castle Hill Drive. Police said no one suffered injuries and that officers found several shell casings on the ground.
On December 3, someone shot a 21-year-old in the Powells Creek neighborhood in Woodbridge, just off Route 1, about four miles from Stonebridge. Emergency crews took the victim to a hospital while police began searching for the suspects who fled the scene.
The shootings in each case do not appear random, police said.
