Mayor, Chief Take Action After Rash of Violence

The murders Saturday night and early Sunday morning have D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and Police Chief Kathy Lanier making an appeal to witnesses to come forward and tell police what they know.

"We are extremely serious about protecting the neighborhoods and bringing criminals to justice," Fenty said. "We want to make sure anything residents see is communicated to the police department because it could be a tip of bringing a violent offender in."

Both the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office have agreed to work with the police department to speed up both the apprehension and prosecution of known criminal offenders.

Lanier says her department will be "looking for those most violent predators in the community."

Here's the sequence of events in D.C.:

At 10:30 p.m. Saturday, police found Deon Peoples, 29, of Northwest with multiple gunshot wounds in the stairwell of an apartment at the 1500 block of 7th Street Northwest.

At 11:40 p.m. Saturday, police found Kevin Bradshaw of Southeast with multiple gunshot wounds at the 800 block of Yuma Street Southeast. Bradshaw, 41, was apparently attacked as he walked home from a bus stop after undergoing kidney dialysis at Howard University Hospital, his brother tells The Washington Post. Police are investigating robbery as the motive in that case.

At 2:46 a.m. Sunday, an unidentified man was killed with a baseball bat at the 1200 block of 11th Street Northwest, after he allegedly was swinging it at several other men. One of those men, identified only as 21-year-old Herman Melendez, allegedly took the bat from the first man, and allegedly struck and killed him with it. Melendez has been charged with murder.

At 3:11 a.m. Sunday, officers found an unidentified man suffering from multiple gunshot wounds in an apartment at the 300 block of 54th Street in Northeast.

D.C. police are reminding people a $25,000 reward is available for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for a homicide in the District. If you know something, call 202-727-9099.

It wasn't just the District that saw a spike in violent crime over the weekend.

In Prince George's County, Darius David Berry, 20, was shot several times through the sliding-glass door of his ground-floor apartment in the 900 block of Marcy Avenue in Oxon Hill. That happened about 2 a.m. Sunday.

An hour later outside J's Sports Cafe in the 12600 block of Laurel Bowie Road in Laurel, a man was shot during an argument. The victim was identified as Travis Lashawn Robinson, 29, of Suitland, Md.

(Copyright 2007 by WTOP and The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)