19-year-old wounded in shooting

By Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer 8/21/08

The scene of a drive by shooting occurred at 9900 Block of Ridgeline Drive in Gaithersburg, Md on Wednesday, August 20, 2008. Greg Whitesell/Examiner Neighbors say a 19-year-old was shot outside a Montgomery Village home Tuesday night near an area where mysterious shots flew in early July.

The unidentified 19-year-old was shot while standing on the sidewalk on the 9900 block of Ridgeline Drive around 10:10 p.m., Montgomery County police said. Police arriving on the scene found blood splattered on the concrete and bullet casings scattered on the road, but no injured person.

As officers investigated, a friend of the wounded man arrived and said he had taken his bleeding friend to a nearby hospital. The 19-year-old was airlifted to a trauma center and was listed in critical condition, but he is expected to survive, police said.

Neighbors, who declined to be identified fearing reprisal, said the two shooters — who police say sped off in a gold Honda, possibly an Accord — fired their shots near a house where cars were damaged by gunfire last month.

On July 7, Montgomery County police reported several shots being fired on the same block of Ridgeline Drive, damaging several cars. Hours later, more shots went off at the intersection of State Court and Federal Court about three miles away. Police have said they believe the shootings were related.

Police spokeswoman Melanie Brenner said detectives were still trying to determine whether Tuesday’s Ridgeline Drive shots were fired near the area where July’s incidents occurred, adding “investigators are looking into the possibility that the two incidents are related.”

Detectives do not believe the incident is gang-related, she said.

In July, Brenner said, neighbors in the mostly Latino Ridgeline Drive neighborhood were not cooperating with investigators.
“It’s hard to get people to come forward when whoever is responsible is clearly armed.”

And even with a man now seriously injured, we aren’t getting as much cooperation from the victim or the witnesses as we’d like,” Brenner said.

Witnesses to Tuesday night’s shooting did describe the suspects as two black males, one in his 30s with a jacket tied around his waist.
The other was in his 20s, of average height and a thin build, and wearing black pants and a white T-shirt.

Anyone with information is asked to call Montgomery County police at 301-840-2347.

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