WASHINGTON - Police are asking for the public's help Thursday, as the suspects who killed one man and injured another in an Adams Morgan shooting Wednesday night, remain at large.

Darrell Goins' friend Paula Romero lives near the site of the robbery. "All I hear is pop pop pop... My friend was back there and he was not really breathing and his eyes were closing. And all I remember saying is 'wake up, wake up!'"

People who knew 21-year-old Darrell Goins say that his murder must have been a case of mistaken identity. Another friend, Jeffrey Hill, said, "He was a good person to get along with. He ain't never start nothing." And Romero adds, "A lot of people respected and looked up to him, and a lot of people wanted to change because they saw somebody like that."

Soon after the shooting, police descended on the scene along with the mayor and neighborhood leaders. This is the trendy Adams-Morgan neighborhood's first homicide this year.

"You couldn't ask for a better kid -- had a full-time job, never touched a drug in his life, never got in trouble with the law," said ANC Commissioner Bryan Weaver.

Goins' cousin, Chenoki Williams, said she is devastated over her loss. "It's just hard for me to deal with from seeing him as a little boy and growing into a man and then his life just taken away," she said.

It happened shortly after 8:00 p.m. at a playground near the corner of Kalorama Road and Champlain Street Northwest, just a block off of the popular Adams-Morgan strip. Police say two young men walked up to a group of men who were getting into a car and started shooting. Goins was hit multiple times and died within the hour.

The men were shot just steps from where officers were patrolling on another call.

"The police officers were right there," district councilmember Jim Graham insists. "In fact, there's every reason to believe that the shooters had to pass the police officers in order to fire their shots. And so these are people out of control."

"Our extra resources were in the alley when the shots were fired, and they were able to run and jump out of the car," said Assistant Chief Diane Groomes of D.C. police. But instead of catching the assailants, they found only the two victims: Goins and another man, who was shot in the leg. The second victim is expected to fully recover.

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