January 8, 2009
Two killed, two injured in Odenton shooting
Police have no suspects in gunfire outside bar
Two men were killed and two were seriously injured in a quadruple shooting in a parking lot behind a bar and strip mall in Odenton shortly after last call early yesterday, according to Anne Arundel County police.
Most customers were still in the Traffic Bar & Lounge, a neighborhood tavern and dance club across from Fort Meade, manager Bill Major said, when a security guard heard gunshots outside while trying to clear loiterers. Major said he and other workers shut the bar doors, which open to the parking lot and to Annapolis Road, and wouldn't let anyone leave until police arrived.
"I couldn't believe it. I thought, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" he said. "Of course we had a lot of people at the bar, but it was an easy night, nothing rowdy. There wasn't any arguing inside the bar. People were having a good time."
Yellow police tape and several police officers remained when other business proprietors in the strip mall arrived yesterday morning to open their doors. North Odenton Plaza also houses a tattoo boutique, a laundromat, a package liquor store, and restaurants and take-out establishments. Like Major, many managers expressed disbelief but said rowdy patrons often congregate and drink in the parking lot, and that police have been called to disperse crowds.
When Anne Arundel police responded about 1:30 a.m., they discovered two men dead, apparently of gunshot wounds, and a third seriously injured. Police found the fourth victim, also apparently shot, a short distance away. He had tried to flee in his car and crashed, according to a news release.
Police said they did not know of a motive, nor had they immediately identified any suspects. Bill Chewning, who owns the mall property, said police reviewed video from a camera that overlooks the parking lot.
Authorities identified the slain victims as Terrence James Covington, 25, and DeMarcus Terrell Beans, 20, both of Annapolis. The two victims who survived, ages 30 and 23, were taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where they were in critical but stable condition yesterday, authorities said. Police did not release their names.
Major said he approached the police tape stretched around the crime scene to see whether he recognized the dead men and said he didn't. He said the incident happened in an alleyway that connects to the parking lot.
Two years ago, in the parking lot of the nearby My Place Bar and Lounge, a former officer in the Federal Protective Service, which guards federal buildings, was fatally shot as he sat in his Ford Expedition.
Kelly Beans, sister of DeMarcus Beans, said her brother had planned to hang out at Traffic Bar on Saturday night. She said that when her brother was younger, he had been arrested on drug charges but that he put those incidents behind him and had gotten a job as a janitor at the Naval Academy.
"He's not the type to go looking for trouble at all," Beans said, "so that's why we want to know what happened."
Mohammed Islam, who runs Deno's Pizza on the south end of the strip mall, said he tries to avoid the loud and noisy patrons who gather in the parking lot and tells his employees to do the same, instructing his delivery driver to park closer to the main road. His storefront window is cracked from recent vandalism.
"I try to take it easy," Islam said. "I try to be safe."
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