It’s an unusual day at the stoop on 1701 Euclid Street. It’s usually a tranquil hangout spot where generations of the Bennett family and their friends relax and socialize. Today, shots were fired. According to Theresa Bennett, who lives at 1701, and who rushed home from dining at a restaurant in Bethesda when someone called her with the news—the shots rang out at about 3:30 p.m.

Bennett says that her son, mother, and niece were out front of the family’s deep-red row house when bullets started flying. Two “little boys” on a moped were the culprits, she says.

Bennett rushed back from the restaurant: “I’m sure I got caught on some cameras,” she says, referring to D.C.’s infamous red-light cameras. When Bennett arrived home, she found her family members intact. The two bullets fired took one of the house’s bricks, but that’s all. Bennett says she has no idea why anyone would want to shoot at her family.

Cops on the scene said the two moped-riding shooters fled but were nabbed by police when officers flooded the area following the incident, and that K-9 units were being dispatched to search for a gun.

In 2004, Washington City Paper reporter Jason Cherkis wrote a cover story about the Bennetts and their welcoming (if at times controversial) stoop:

“As most of the neighborhood’s social landmarks have disappeared into memory—the movie theater, the roller-skating rink, the bowling alley, the arcade, the pair of teen centers, the laundromat—the stoop has acquired additional significance. It has become part of civic lore, an accidental institution and sentimental head nod to anyone who ever spent time on Euclid Street.”

So what’s the Bennett stoop like hours after bullets zinged it? Absolutely full. Though a little tense, to be sure, family and friends gather on it.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery