A panic caused by a mistaken belief that a gun had been fired during a pride parade in Washington, D.C., sent people running through the streets of the nation's capital on Saturday evening, city officials said. Police said some of the people who ran sustained minor injuries and seven were taken to hospitals.
"As the officers were going to the scene, there was a crowd of people going away from it and some of the individuals in the crowd said there was a man with a gun and that someone had fired a shot," said Guillermo Rivera, a commander with the Metropolitan Police Department.
The man was taken into custody and is facing a gun possession charge, Rivera said.
City officials said no shots were fired.
"There is NO Active Shooter at Dupont Circle. There are injuries from people running from what they thought were gunshots. But there is NO ACTIVE SHOOTER at Dupont Circle," Kevin Donahue, the deputy mayor for public safety, said in a tweet posted shortly after the incident.
Mayor Muriel Bowser tweeted that she had been briefed by police and there were "no shots fired." She said fire department personnel were "on the scene to treat minor injuries / due to reports of a shooting."