13-year-old DC girl wounded in shooting: Guns need to go

WASHINGTON - Residents expressed their outrage over violence in their community at a neighborhood crime meeting at D.C. police's First District station in Southwest Tuesday night.

Everything began calm like these meetings usually do before tensions quickly escalated as they were discussing and asking for solutions.

A 13-year-old girl who was wounded in a double shooting last Sunday while walking home from a library nearby the police station attended the meeting.

Taije Chambliss told FOX 5 that she came to this meeting because she wanted the police commander to hear what she had to say. She said it is unacceptable what happened to her and her life has changed forever.

"The guns do need to go," said Chambliss. "People are not even trained to carry these weapons. That is [why] they are hitting innocent people. So I came to the meeting today because I just wanted to. Guns created a huge impact on my life so I wanted to be here today."

Chambliss sat nearly through the entire meeting, but left before it ended. The teenager said she did want to speak at the meeting, but as she sat in the audience, one of the wounds she suffered from the shooting opened up and the pain became too much to take for her.

When she walked out to leave, her eyes welled up with tears as everyone in the room clapped in support of her. She waited sobbing for a paramedic show up to help clean her bandages and to help take her home.

Neighbors said they are fed up with all of these meetings because they are seeing no answers.

"These meetings, in my opinion, they're smoke and mirrors," said Samantha Lee. "We don't get to the core of the issues and we don't get a definite resolution. I feel like they are just here for their salaries. Nothing is getting done."