Diners flee upmarket restaurant favoured by Biden as two people shot in downtown Washington DC

‘You could see them hitting the ground, they were semi-automatics and it sounded like a war zone for a hot second, like Afghanistan’

People embrace near the site of a shooting on July 22, 2021 in Washington, DC (Getty Images)

Diners fled from an upmarket restaurant as two people were shot on the street in downtown Washington DC.

The shooting was witnessed by CNN anchor Jim Acosta, who posted dramatic video of people running from the nearby Le Diplomate restaurant as gunshots rang out.

“Just heard what sounded like gun shots on 14th street in NW DC. People fleeing the popular Le Diplomate restaurant which seemed a few blocks away,” tweeted Acosta with his video.

Police say that two men were shot and suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the incident near the city’s Logan Circle, according to WTOP.

Officials say that the suspect, who wore a green hoodie, fled from the scene in a black sedan car.

“Shooting at the intersection of 14th / Riggs Street, NW. Lookout is for a B/M male wearing a lime green/yellow hooded sweater fleeing in a older black Honda Civic with DC Tags last seen eastbound towards S Street, NW,” tweeted DC Police Department.

Igor Bobic of HuffPost took to Twitter and said that the shooting took place outside the Mexicue restaurant.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins also witnessed the incident.

“Was pulling up to the intersection as this happened and watched one gunman shoot at someone multiple times, in the middle of very busy 14th Street,” she tweeted.

Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris dined at Le Diplomate in May, his first dining out trip as president.

The Bidens have frequented the buzzy brasserie run by Philadelphia restaurateur Stephen Starr on several occasions, as have the likes of Barack and Michelle Obama and Ivanka Trump.

An eye witness to the shooting told Acosta what he had seen as the violence unfolded and a weapon was fired from a car.

“The windows went down and that is when I saw a gun barrel,” the man told the CNN journalist.

“I told everyone to get down and then they started to open fire on the group of kids, they scattered everywhere, but their guns were shooting everywhere.

“You could see them hitting the ground, they were semi-automatics and it sounded like a war zone for a hot second, like Afghanistan.

“People were in shock for about five seconds, until they realised what was happening, then it was ultra panic.”

The witness said that there was return fire from an apartment complex towards the car.

The shooting comes less than a week after an MLB game was postponed on Saturday when shots were fired outside Nationals Park in the city.

The DC Police Union laid the blame firmly at the door of “elected officials” after that shooting.

“Welcome to Washington, D.C. Where violent crime permeates everything,’ they tweeted.

“It is a tragedy that elected officials won’t let us do our jobs.”