A teenager was fatally shot Thursday afternoon on a platform at the Brookland Metro station in Northeast Washington, police said, at a time when the area was teeming with students who had just finished school for the day.

The teen was involved in a fight with other young people when a person who was not involved in the altercation pulled out a gun and fired, said Metro Transit Police Department Deputy Chief Maurice McKinney.

The incident occurred just before 4 p.m. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said on X that trains were temporarily bypassing the station. Catholic University told students on its main campus, about a 10-minute walk from the Metro station, to shelter in place because of “ an active threat,” according to the school’s website.

An armed security guard on the platform was able to “shield patrons and get them to safety,” McKinney said.

By the evening, police were still searching for a male with a black jacket, light blue jeans and a square gray backpack. The D.C. police department published a picture of him on X; in it, he was on an escalator with a hood over his head and a mask over his mouth.

D.C. Police Chief Pamela A. Smith, speaking to reporters from behind crime-scene tape Thursday evening, said the city needs to examine “how our young people are engaged in conflict resolution.”

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The deceased teen, whom authorities did not publicly identify, is the third juvenile to be slain in the District and the first homicide reported inside a train station this year. Police announced Thursday night that the victim of a fatal shooting whose body was found Wednesday morning on Fort Dupont Drive in Southeast was also a juvenile, 14-year-old Irving Laboard, who lived in Northeast D.C. In 2023, the District’s deadliest year since 1997, violence soared both inside the Metro system and among children and teens — two trends that top public safety officials in Washington have vowed to reverse.

As part of the effort to curb crime, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said she would boost police presence at certain Metro stations in the city. Just yesterday, she introduced a bill that would require the Office of the Attorney General in D.C. to more aggressively prosecute children and teens who commit certain crimes and take action to resolve all truancy cases.

Killings in the city are down by 32 percent this year compared with the same period in 2023, according to the latest police data.

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Angry Brookland residents joined in the brief news conference outside the Metro station Thursday evening, where they peppered law enforcement with questions about safety. Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, 60, who has lived in Brookland for 10 years, told Smith that “young people who have guns and who use them need to be locked up and kept locked up.”

Smith pointed him to the bill on truancy and public safety that the mayor introduced Wednesday.

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