The congressmembers, including committee Chairman James Comer (Ky.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), were greeted by chants and boos from the protesters.

The congressmembers have been deeply critical of the way D.C. police and Mayor Muriel Bowser have handled the protest, calling it unlawful and antisemitic. They are calling on D.C. police to remove the demonstrators as the university requested last week.

“We’re hearing from Jewish students that they don’t feel safe,” Comer said. “We’re hearing from administrators that they don’t feel like they area equipped to handle these types of protests.”

“We bless Israel,” Boebert said, raising her voice as protesters chanted. “We bless Israel. Those who bless Israel shall be blessed. We stand with Israel, our greatest ally in the Middle East. That is who we stand for.”   

Bowser called the visit “interesting.”

“The members have universities in their own districts, especially the member from North Carolina, and I was watching a lot of activity in North Carolina,” she said. “It would seem that her energy would be best placed there.”

There are still hundreds of protesters at University Yard and on H Street, and they say they have no plans to leave until their demands are met. They are asking the university to commit to protecting students who speak out in support of Gaza and also to divest financial support from Israel.

Bowser’s office issued a statement Tuesday.

GW encampment

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“We support peaceful protests, and I rely on the Metropolitan Police Department and their experience and expertise to decide what types of interventions are necessary,” the letter said in part. “[…] We will not tolerate violence of any kind; we will monitor and ensure access to streets, parks, and safe and sanitary conditions; and we will continue to be supportive of universities or other private entities who need help.”

The House Oversight Committee scheduled a hearing for next Wednesday on the matter, with Bowser and Police Chief Pamela Smith invited to testify. Bowser’s office didn’t say whether she will attend, but they will have some type of response.

D.C. police declined to comment on the House Republicans’ remarks. George Washington University has yet to respond to News4’s request for comment.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and Education Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) called the protests “radical, unlawful and antisemitic” in a letter Tuesday. They threatened to use the “legislative powers” of Congress to intervene.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office issued a statement in response.

“We support peaceful protests, and I rely on the Metropolitan Police Department and their experience and expertise to decide what types of interventions are necessary,” the letter said in part. “[…] We will not tolerate violence of any kind; we will monitor and ensure access to streets, parks, and safe and sanitary conditions; and we will continue to be supportive of universities or other private entities who need help.”

Protests at the university reached their sixth day on Tuesday, with some students saying they’re in it for the long haul. Police were stationed nearby and had not moved to dismantle an encampment.

“We are prepared to negotiate, and President Ellen Granberg has not even granted us a meeting,” sophomore Reem Ladabdi said.

She said she and fellow students want GW to commit to protecting students who speak out in support of Gaza. They also asked the school to divest from Israel.

A group of mothers from Bethesda visited the campus on Tuesday to show support for Jewish students.

“While we respect the rights of free speech and other people to have their opinions, it is important that all students feel safe and feel supported,” Robin Galkin said.

The protesters at GW were joined by students and professors from all over the D.C. area.

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Professor Nader Hashemi, director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, said the demonstrations reminded him of his own activism against apartheid, decades earlier.

He said he doesn’t expect the protests to create immediate change, similarly to how it took years for opinions to shift against the Vietnam War.

“I view this in the context of the broad evolution of history, where this is the beginning point of demands that hopefully will create some momentum,” he said.

GW declined to comment on students’ demands or their request for a meeting.

More than 200 people, including “professional organizers, activists, and university students,” have joined the demonstration, the university said Monday, as protests continue on college campuses across the country.

Video shared on social media shows a rush of demonstrators breaking through the bike rack-style barricades set up near the encampment. A drum is beating, there is chanting, and some protesters kick or jump on barriers. Police attempt to push back or hold on as the barriers are moved. Someone can be heard saying, “Whoa, whoa, hey.”

“Yesterday, the crowd rallied, and we, the crowd was like, we need real liberation, and we dismantled the barriers. They were gone,” sophomore Selina Al-Shihabi said. “And just the feeling, you know, the energy of finally feeling free. I mean, it’s a fraction of what the people of Gaza are going through.”

One person was escorted away by campus police, but they were not arrested, according to the university. The barriers were placed as a way to limit access to University Park instead of resorting to forcible relocation, the university said.

By Monday morning, the barricades were in a jumbled pile at the center of the encampment.

“This is an egregious violation of community trust and goes far beyond the boundaries of free expression and the right to protest,” the university’s update said in part.

Dozens of students set up tents on Thursday in University Yard — which is bordered by GW’s law school and other GW buildings — to call on the university to divest itself from financial ties with Israel, according to student newspaper The GW Hatchet.

Five days later, on the final day of classes for the spring semester, the number of people participating in the encampment swelled, and a second encampment had cropped up on H Street, on D.C. property, according to the university. 

Over the weekend, the university reduced the space in University Park to allow for 20 people to remain and “to minimize further disruption to university activities.” They were allowing demonstrators to access food and water and shared how to find medical assistance, GW President Ellen M. Granberg said in a Sunday message to the campus.

“GW continues to offer Anniversary Park as an alternate demonstration site and implores demonstrators to vacate University Yard immediately,” Granberg wrote in part.

When access was limited to University Park Friday evening, protesters set up a new encampment of about 20 tents on H Street.

Al-Shihabi thinks students standing in solidarity with Gaza is making a difference.

“I definitely think it’s helping raise awareness. I mean, we’ve been getting messages from the people of Gaza — voice notes, photos — just telling us how much we appreciate them, which is so ironic because we draw so much of our inspiration from them,” Al-Shihabi said.

‘Liberation Camp’

Students celebrated the first 24 hours of the “Liberation Camp” protest on Friday.

Protesters say that their solidarity is with the Palestinian people, not with Hamas. While any protest movement has extreme elements that diverge from the core cause, most of the protesters at GW say they want to keep the focus on why they’re in the encampment — killings and what they’re calling a genocide in Gaza.

“We’ve been very clear with our demands and we’ve been very clear that we are here in solidarity with Gaza,” said one young woman protesting on Thursday, who did not want to be identified. “We are here in solidarity with Palestine.”

GW said it decided to request D.C. police assistance after multiple instructions from university police officers to relocate to another site on campus went unheeded.

The university also issued a statement saying protesters are trespassing and “any student who remains in University Yard may be placed on temporary suspension and administratively barred from campus.”

Several students told News4 Friday they were prepared to get arrested in order to stand up for what they believe in, and others said if they are removed, that would only embolden them in their protests.

“Missing class, it’s nothing compared to what the people in Gaza are going through right now,” said the anonymous protester. “It’s not about us, it’s not about our so-called sacrifice.”

Counterprotester Eric Hirshfield said he tried to enter the encampment “just to see what’s going on and make sure they’re not disenfranchising the rights of others.”

Leaders of the Jewish Student Association said they feel uncomfortable walking by the pro-Palestinian protests.

“A lot of people have family in Israel, and when there are slogans used that call for the destruction of where people live, it’s very intimidating,” Co-President Alana Mondschein said.

“The campus climate, the protests, are just unproductive,” Co-President Jacob Wise said. “There’s no effort to speak to other students who might disagree.”

Last fall they had to help replace posters of Israeli hostages at the Hillel building after someone tore them down. GW said it suspended the student involved.

 This is a developing story. Stay with News4 for updates.

Israel-Hamas War Apr 22

Pro-Palestinian protests sweep US college campuses following mass arrests at Columbia

Israel-Hamas War Apr 23

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Dozens of students set up tents in University Yard — bordered on two sides by GW’s law school and by other GW buildings on the rest — to call on the university to divest financial ties with Israel, according to student newspaper The GW Hatchet.

“We’ve been very clear with our demands, and we’ve been very clear that we are here in solidarity with Gaza,” said one young woman protesting, who did not want to be identified. “We are here in solidarity with Palestine.”

She, and other protesters, say that solidarity is with the Palestinian people, not with Hamas. While any protest movement has extreme elements that diverge from the core cause, most of the protesters at GW say they want to keep the focus on why they’re in the encampment — the killings, and what they’re calling a genocide in Gaza.

“We buy into this university, we pay money into this university and we’re asking that the university take honest true stance in acknowledging their role in the ongoing genocide,” GW junior Mahmoud Beydoun said.

GW said it decided to request D.C. police assistance after multiple instructions from university police officers to relocate to another site on campus went unheeded.

The university also issued a statement saying protesters are trespassing and “any student who remains in University Yard may be placed on temporary suspension and administratively barred from campus.”

Protesters said they plan to keep going. Several students told News4 they were prepared to get arrested in order to stand up for what they believe in, and others said if they are removed, that would only embolden them in their protests.

D.C. police were present early Friday morning but have not attempted to clear the encampment, and the site was calm. Barricades have gone up around the encampment, and a contingent of police officers remain nearby.

Students celebrated the first 24 hours of the “Liberation Camp” protest.

“Missing class, it’s nothing compared to what the people in Gaza are going through right now,” said the anonymous protester. “It’s not about us, it’s not about our so-called sacrifice.”

On Thursday, hundreds attended a rally at University Yard, essentially the Foggy Bottom campus’ main quad, a mostly grassy area crisscrossed by walkways. Protesters were wearing keffiyehs, banging on drums and chanting, “Israel is a racist state” and “GW, you will see; Palestine will be free.” Some students sat between green and gray tents. Others stood along the sidewalk, chanting and holding signs.

“Everyone should be divesting from complicity in state crimes that are happening, that our taxes are paying for,” Georgetown University professor Mark Lance told News4.

Counterprotester Eric Hirshfield said he tried to enter the encampment “just to see what’s going on and make sure they’re not disenfranchising the rights of others.”

Leaders of the Jewish Student Association said they feel uncomfortable walking by the pro-Palestinian protests.

“A lot of people have family in Israel, and when there are slogans used that call for the destruction of where people live, it’s very intimidating,” co-President Alana Mondschein said.

“The campus climate, the protests, are just unproductive,” co-President Jacob Wise said. “There’s no effort to speak to other students who might disagree.”

Last fall they had to help replace posters of Israeli hostages at the Hillel building after someone tore them down. GW said it suspended the student involved.

The protest came just two days after students at American University held a walkout, protesting against the war in Gaza, and University of Maryland students staged a sit-in on the College Park campus.

Across the country, pro-Palestinian students are protesting over Israel’s war with Hamas as tensions increase with university officials. At Columbia University, students also encamped, while students at California State Polytechnic University barricaded inside two buildings.

At GW, video showed the words "Liberation Camp" written in chalk on the quad's brick sidewalk. Behind the encampment entrance, a sign on a tent reads, "No justice, no peace!"

A social media post showed what appeared to be a George Washington statue blindfolded and holding a Palestine flag.

The university sent an advisory to students about the First Amendment activity on the campus.

"The GW demonstration remains peaceful; however, there also are non-GW individuals on public property and the university is coordinating with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department," the advisory reads in part.

The advisory went on to say protestors may demonstrate until 7 p.m. Thursday. GW officials had asked them to move their tents to Anniversary Park due to another reservation in University Yard and final exams at the adjacent GW law school.

 This is a developing story. Stay with News4 for updates.

Israel-Hamas War Apr 22

Pro-Palestinian protests sweep US college campuses following mass arrests at Columbia

Israel-Hamas War Apr 23

‘We chose to be loud': Pro-Palestinian students demonstrate at American U, UMD

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Researchers behind the study, published in 2024, say communities of color were almost eight times more likely to develop higher pediatric asthma due to the pollutants.

Scientists also found that air pollutant-related diseases have increased significantly through the last decade in areas of color. They started their research in 2021, and continued gathering data until the study was published this year.

“Unfortunately, many of the communities that were chosen to accommodate heavy industry or busy highways and interstates were often communities of color,” said Dr. Gaige Kerr, senior research scientist at GWU’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health.

One of those pollutants is called nitrogen dioxide. It’s a man-made chemical compound that irritates lungs and triggers asthma attacks. The pollutant is found in cars and trucks known to heavily pollute the air.

There’s also fine particulate matter, which can be traced back to the increase in wildfires. That pollutant leads to heart disease, lung cancer and strokes.

“We found that these communities still today bear a greater burden from air pollution than majority white communities,” Kerr said.

At least 49,000 premature deaths, and nearly 115,000 new cases of pediatric asthma, were linked to fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide in the U.S. in 2019.

“We have a lot of children that are dealing with upper respiratory illnesses,” said Sebrena Rhodes, ANC vice chair for Ward 5 and a resident of Ivy City. “We have adults and senior citizens that are dealing with asthma.”

Rhodes, along with the D.C.-based group Empower D.C., are working to bring awareness to the air pollutants across the district, especially in communities of color.

“We shouldn’t have to fight to breathe,” Rhodes said. “Breathing is a right. It’s natural. Long as you’re alive, you’re breathing.”

Researchers say there are some mitigation tactics to use, and say additional actions are imperative.

“Install air filters in our houses, or maybe close windows on polluted days,” said Kerr.

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“If we really want to get at the root, we need bold policies that invest in things like a larger electrical vehicle fleet, more renewable energy, and expanded active and public transportation,” Kerr said.

D.C.’s Department of Energy and Environment says it’s already taking steps in that direction.

“DC is committed to safe and healthy environments for all of our residents, no matter their income or neighborhood,” the statement reads. “The District regularly tests air quality to protect residents, and is working with the EPA to ensure that District residents, including those in Ivy City, are kept safe. Over the coming decade, the District government has committed to a major transition away from fossil fuel use, which will make our air healthier for all.”

The hospital’s parent company, Universal Health Services (UHS), is citing healthcare industry challenges as a reason for the layoffs. The restructuring will decrease the hospital’s workforce by 3% to help reduce expenses and increase efficiency, according to a statement.

About 60 positions were expected to be cut, the Washington Business Journal reported.

“All impacted employees have been valued members of our team, and we are treating them with dignity and respect during this difficult time,” the statement said.

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Hospital officials said the majority of those affected by the layoffs were offered other positions within the organization. Most of these impacted roles are not directly involved in front-line patient care. UHS said they were trying to support impacted employees by transitioning some of them to open positions or providing eligible employees with a separation package.

Following the news, George Washington University Hospital (GWUH) Nurses United released a statement saying they were “deeply saddened” by the cuts and were not notified before the layoffs were announced.

“We are in the profession of caring and UHS has demonstrated that they are not. Our patients and staff deserve better,” the statement read in part.

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Student Noah Shapiro was shocked when he realized what happened.

“My heart skipped a beat,” he said.

He went to the Hillel building to set up for Shabbat Friday evening and noticed the posters were missing.

“It’s hard to not think of it as a deliberate attack,” Shapiro said. “I mean, this is the one place where Jewish students, really, this is our home on campus.”

According to GW Hillel, the accused student used their key card to enter the building and tore down all of the posters facing the intersection of H and 23rd streets in Northwest.

“As a Jewish student, I feel personally attacked,” Shapiro said. “I don’t really feel safe on campus. I feel like antisemitism is running rampant.” 

The student has been suspended while the student conduct process plays out, the school said.

For many in the campus community, the incident is just the latest example of intolerance at the university. 

“I do think freedom of speech is really important, but I think respecting people’s space is also really important,” student Ella Fairchild said.

GW Hillel said there will be increased security at the building for the near future.

A representative for the university said, “GW will continue to prioritize the safety and care of all members of its community. We encourage university community members to use the bias incident reporting website and reporting through student rights and responsibilities, EthicsPoint, human resources, or faculty affairs.”

“I just think the university should make sure that this doesn’t, things don’t cross into the boundaries of threats or going beyond people’s comfortability,” student David Biskir said. “I think that is a very, very good example of when things go past a certain limit.”

School administrators said they received multiple reports of concerning incidents involving Jewish and Muslim members of the campus community. In a statement, the university said another person was barred from campus for a year after what it calls harmful verbal misconduct aimed at a Muslim student last month.  

Garrett Johnson led the Revolutionaries with 21 points and nine rebounds in an 89-44 defeat of Stonehill College Monday. It was the guard/forward’s first organized basketball game in two-and-a-half years.

He first noticed something was wrong in high school.

“Throughout my senior year, I was starting to get some weird tightness in my hip, in my left hip, and it seemed kind of abnormal,” the Oakton, Virginia, native said. “From there, we found out that I had a mass in my hip.”

“There were days I felt like I couldn’t walk up the stairs or get out of bed,” Johnson said.

“I had a lot of difficulty just putting my sock on for three, four months,” he said.

The diagnosis changed his outlook on life.

“You kind of feel like you’re on top of the world a little bit, like you have your whole life ahead of you, and it kind of switched my whole perspective in a second,” Johnson said.

Originally attending Princeton, Johnson never took the court for the Tigers, eventually withdrawing due to his health. He underwent multiple surgeries and nine rounds of chemotherapy for which he chose the jersey number nine.

The desire to play the sport he loved fueled Johnson in his recovery.

“That’s the one thing kept me going was the hope of one day getting back on the court,” he said. “That was my light at the end of tunnel, honestly. There’s definitely days I didn’t think I’d play basketball again.”

His post about his comeback on X, formerly known as Twitter, resonated with many.

“It kind of felt like a surreal moment,” Johnson said about his first college game. “It was everything I dreamed of my whole life.”

His triumphant return warranted a big celebration in the locker room after the game.

“To see the joy in the guys’ faces for Garrett I think was really special and a moment that I think I’ll never forget,” coach Chris Caputo said.

“Coolest thing for me has been seeing the reactions of people who are going through cancer right now, going through tough times, have family members going through cancer, and being able to be some type of inspiration for them,” Johnson said.

He has to stay on top of his health but said he currently feels great.

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The tics, and the 80 subsequent hospitalizations, left Nayyar feeling hopeless.

“I never really saw a future, really,” Nayyar said. “I never really saw myself past college or going into college.”

Despite these constant and painful tics, Nayyar found a love for tennis and began using sports to gain more control over his body.

About four years ago, Nayyar discovered his passion for boxing, an activity that helped him deal with the frustrations that came with his condition.

“There’s that level, that anger where you just wanna punch a hole through the wall,” Nayyar said. “It’s just I was tired of letting my emotions out on the people who I love the most.” 

Nayyar is currently co-captain of the boxing club at GW where he studies sports management. He hopes that his situation serves as an inspiration for others going through similar struggles.

“I want people to know they’re not alone with this,” Nayyar said.

Supervisory officers with the GW Police Department will be armed in phases, starting with two executive supervisory officers: Chief James Tate and Captain Gabe Mullinax, the university said in a release on Monday.

In April, dozens of students protested after interim President Mark Wrighton announced the school would equip some officers with guns.

“Some community members have voiced their concerns, and our work now is to continue to ensure our implementation is guided by community feedback. Ultimately, safety is our foremost priority, and this is deeply personal for each of us based on our identities and experiences,” GW’s current president, Ellen M. Granberg, said in the Monday release.

The university said its original plan has changed since getting feedback from student groups, faculty, staff and others. Comments submitted via an online portal were also taken into consideration when school officials revised the plan.

GW maintains that arming the officers is important amid a rise in gun violence.

“This is particularly crucial in the university’s densely populated setting and during incidents when response time is critical,” the university said Monday.

Here’s the five-part implementation plan the university outlined:

• Arming scope and strategy: Only GWPD will be armed, beginning at the start of the 2023 academic year with Tate and Mullinax. More supervisors will be armed in phases as they meet the requirements and the school incorporates community input.
• Use of force policy review and revisions: After getting feedback from the community, GWPD revised its use of force policy to better define the circumstances in which officers are allowed to use force, prohibit chokeholds or any restriction to someone’s airway and clarify the use of force when protecting officers’ lives or the lives of others, as well as other updates. Read the department’s complete use of force policy here.
• Training requirements: All armed supervisor officers must complete implicit bias training every semester; de-escalation training once per month, mental health response training three times per year, firearms qualification three times per year and virtual reality simulator training once per month, the police department said. Supervisors will also undergo new background investigations and psychological evaluations before they are allowed to carry guns, and any armed supervisors new to GW will undergo a “pre-arming period” to ensure they understand the campus and community.
• Independent review committee: A committee of faculty, staff and student representatives will review all instances of use of force with a gun. GW is working on the nomination and application process for establishing the committee, and the university said it will continue to consider community feedback as that process takes shape. The school said it will put together an interim committee in the meantime before any officers are armed.
• Continued community engagement: Campus police plan to increase safety awareness and visibility this fall through student events, engaging faculty and staff leaders, collaborating with residential and student life and attending neighborhood meetings.

The school will also develop a safety advisory committee of students, faculty and staff who will meet with campus police to collaborate on safety concerns, GW said.

Arming officers is part of a greater safety plan for GW campuses that includes making improvements to mental health concerns response, building security reviews, active shooter response training and reviewing and testing emergency notification systems, the school says.

On Wednesday, Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2A held a special meeting to discuss the District’s plan to acquire the building, Aston Hall, from the George Washington University. The D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS) would convert the building on New Hampshire Avenue NW into a non-congregate shelter for the medically vulnerable and those who can’t stay in other shelters.

D.C.’s DHS said it would be the only shelter in Ward 2, and the first of its kind in the District. The building is located several blocks away from the northern edge of GW’s core campus, in an area of Foggy Bottom-West End that’s home to at least four upscale hotels.

“This is an opportunity to serve folks that we have not been able to serve previously in our system, adult families. I have a 20-year-old daughter, but if I had a 20-year-old son and we experienced homelessness, there currently would not be an opportunity for us to come into a shelter together. We would have to be separated, and right now, this is really an opportunity to fill that gap,” DHS Interim Director Rachel Pierre said.

Residents had differing opinions.

“Are we going to be part of the problem, or are we going to be part of the solution?” one asked. “And this is one of the best solutions I have heard in decades.”

Others brought up safety concerns.

“Prostitutes or drug addicts or drug dealers around there, you have to call the police. So if that starts happening, it’s going to start looking like the Chinatown Metro station,” a member of the public said.

ANC Commissioner Joel Causey said he “seriously [questioned] the choosing of this location, based on the fact that it sits across the street from Michelin star restaurant. It’s got another Michelin star restaurant around the corner, and another around the corner from that.”

A resident retorted: “Eating at a Michelin star restaurant is not a human right. Housing, on the other hand, is.”

District Hospital CEO Nayan Patel asked, “What safeguards is the shelter proposing in terms of making sure that those restaurants and hotels nearby are protected?”

“I’ve had a hotel where we had mentally ill people come in and set fire in the women’s bathroom and defecate in the lobby furniture,” he continued.

DHS said it would take about eight weeks to convert Aston Hall once the sale goes through. The shelter would have a capacity for 190 residents, and officials said medical services and meals would be available to those who need them.

Under the agreement, the city would buy the building for $27.5 million, with $19 million coming from the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the American Rescue Plan.

“There is a process that will take place where people will be admitted to this facility that largely revolves around medical need,” DHS Chief of Staff David Ross said.

If everything goes as planned, DHS would like to have people move in by October or November of this year.

Interim President Mark Wrighton announced in a letter to students Thursday that the university’s Board of Trustees directed the administration to develop a plan to arm specially trained GW Police Department officers.

“While we are not aware of any heightened threat to our university, in recent years there have been too many tragic instances of mass gun violence in communities and on college campuses,” Wrighton said in the letter, citing mass shootings at Michigan State University, the University of Virginia and an elementary school in Nashville.

But some students who marched to the president’s campus home on Monday argued that arming officers will make them feel less safe.

“I think arming them will only escalate situations, create tension between students, even though they want to emphasize community engagement, communication. This decision was not made by all students,” student organizer Jovanna Walker said.

Wrighton said that the board’s decision to equip some officers with firearms comes after a year of consideration, reviewing safety data and getting input from experts.

He said unarmed officers are unable to respond to incidents that involve weapons.

“Our supervisory officers, who are stationed on campus and know its geography best, are a very important part of emergency response,” Wrighton said. “When weapons are involved, minutes matter.”

In an interview with the student newspaper The GW Hatchet, Wrighton said about 20 officers would be armed with 9 mm handguns.

“It can be done safely and with the rising of gun violence in America, a lot of the times if a person has a weapon, you’re not really going to be able to charge in unless you have a weapon yourself,” one student told News4.

Wrighton said in his letter the school would get community input before moving forward with an “arming implementation plan.”

Catholic University told News4 its special police force is armed and some of Howard University’s police officers are armed, according to the school’s website.

American University’s officers are armed with less than lethal force, the school said. Gallaudet University said it has no armed officers.

The shooting happened at around 3 p.m. at the Columbia Plaza Apartments in the 2400 block of Virginia Avenue NW in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood, a few blocks from George Washington University.

Minutes later, an alert was sent out to residents of the apartment complex, warning them about the gunfire and asking them to stay indoors.

“I have friends in this building, friends down the road. They’re a little shooken up. Some of them were locking doors in the campus itself,” resident Mitchell Lewis said. 

The victim was taken to the hospital and is conscious and breathing.

D.C. police blocked off the entrance to the fitness center. They are still looking for the man who opened fire and took off. It is unknown what led to the shooting. 

Though the apartment building is not on-campus housing, many residents, like Lewis, are students.

“Right when I was walking up down the street here, I saw all the police, the fire trucks and ambulances. They all just kind of converged right when I was walking up. [I] was sort of confused [about] what to do. And pretty much within a minute, I saw them take the guy out on a stretcher into the ambulance, and they took him right away,” he said. 

Anyone with information is asked to call 911.

Ten sheep were brought in by LambMowers.com from Fairfax. The sheep ate the weeds and fertilized the student-run garden to prepare for the spring planting season.

“The sheep have the dual purpose of removing the crops by eating them, and then fertilizing the soil with their droppings,” garden manager Nicholas Smaldone said.

The students use the community garden to grow produce and herbs. All the produce that is grown is donated to Miriam’s Kitchen, a non-profit focused on ending homelessness, and people in need.

Although the sheep do not always do a perfect job of mowing lawns, they are a great way to support sustainability and are great for small yards and grassy areas, said Cory Suter, owner of LambMowers.com.

“When cute sheep show up, and lambs, it really attracts a crowd and gets people excited about more sustainable ways to care for land,” Suter said.

In addition to trimming the lawn, the sheep also experience benefits from the variety of grass and flowers they eat. The sheep only eat untreated lawns and get full after about two hours of eating.

“As they’re going around, they eat a little of this, a little of that, and after two hours they’ve done a lot and a lot of things are gone,” Suter said.

This is the first time animals have been brought in to help out with the garden. Around 200 students and volunteers help plant and harvest produce during the school year.

The garden began in 2009.

Student leaders Neharika Rao and Aiza Saeed worked for months to get the machine installed at GW after Roe V. Wade was overturned. They said they followed the lead of other U.S. schools that installed similar machines to ensure reproductive rights.

“After Roe v. Wade was overturned, we felt a lot of passion in making sure that people felt supported on this campus,” Rao said.

Rao and Saeed surveyed 1,500 students about the machines and received overwhelmingly positive responses.

“Not a lot of pushback; the only concern was about discreetness and how we could make sure that students felt that it wasn’t a very public way to go and get some type of contraceptive,” Rao said.  

That is why they put the vending machines in the basement of the student center, Rao said.  

“Getting something accomplished like this is kind of like a legacy for me, because I’m a senior, so I’m graduating, so now people will know, like, ‘Oh, those girls did that,”’ Saeed said.  

Besides emergency contraception pills, the machine also dispenses wellness products such as Tylenol and tampons.

GW Student Association President Christian Zidouemba told News4 that machine likely wouldn’t have been possible in his home country of Burkina Faso.

“In west Africa, oftentimes it’s taboo to be able to possess those contraceptive products overall, such as Plan B,” Zidouemba said.

He said coming to the U.S. showed him a different perspective and that he’s passionate about reproductive rights.

“I believe that anyone who wants to be able to have contraceptive products should be able to do so on their own,” Zidouemba said.

The pills currently cost $25, but Zidouemba said they are exploring options to reduce that cost in the future.

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A complaint was filed by StandWithUs, an Israel education organization, which claims a professor in the psychology program targeted Jewish and Israeli students in the program’s diversity course. The Title VI complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on Thursday.

The group also claims the professor retaliated against students who were outspoken about their alleged treatment.

Carly Gammill, a StandWithUs director, said the following statement in a release:

“The hostile environment at the George Washington Professional Psychology Program and the failure of the administration to act to correct it are unacceptable. Too often, when Jewish students raise concerns about antisemitism, they are subjected to gaslighting or false claims meant to cause self-doubt and deflect the bigotry at play.”

In a letter to the community, university president Mark S. Wrighton said a third party will conduct an investigation.

“As such, it is not prudent at this time to comment on specific allegations. However, I want to be clear that we reaffirm that the George Washington University strongly condemns antisemitism and hatred, discrimination, and bias in all forms. We remain committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive environment where all feel safe and free of harassment, hostility or marginalization,” the statement reads.

The students involved in the claim were not named.

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