A shooting on a street in the nation's capital left three people dead and two others hospitalised Saturday night, police said.

Officers responded to the sounds of gunshots around 8 p.m. in the 1600 block of Good Hope Road Southeast and found five victims who had been shot.

Two men and a woman were pronounced dead at the scene and two men were transported to area hospitals, Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department Acting Chief Pamela Smith said during a news conference at the scene.

The conditions of the hospitalised victims were not immediately known.

“This kind of gun violence is not acceptable in the District of Columbia. This is not a war zone. We want our residents to feel safe,” Smith said.

Smith asked for help from the public in collecting information about what she called a disturbing fatal shooting.

“We realise that there may be others who may have been injured tonight. We are asking you to come forward,” Smith said, adding that the community needs to be involved in stopping the city's violence. “It can't rest upon the metropolitan police department to determine what works and what doesn't work."

Washington experienced another mass shooting last month when nine people were wounded while celebrating Independence Day in a neighbourhood about a 20-minute drive east of the White House.