Police Swarm District After Violence Flares

District of Columbia police officials took the extraordinary step of blanketing large swaths of the city with undercover and uniformed officers and requested Park Police and National Guard helicopters after days of violence that included the killing of a grandmother and the shooting of a mother and the baby she was cradling. Chief Charles H. Ramsey announced that the equivalent of 300 additional officers would patrol the troubled neighborhoods as part of the city administration’s effort to quell the perception that violence in the nation’s capital is out of control. Four bystanders were shot in the Columbia Heights neighborhood Friday night when a gun battle broke out after a party at the Latin American Youth Center. The mother and her 5-month-old boy were shot in Southeast Washington when two masked men opened fire. A man sitting next to the woman was killed.