Cops: Suspect in Maryland shootings a former prison guard
HANOVER, Md. - Police have identified the man suspected in several shootings in Maryland as a former prison guard.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Anne Arundel County police said that 35-year-old Hong Young was arrested without incident Tuesday night and is cooperating with authorities.
Police looking for a 1999 Lincoln Town Car seen at some of the shooting scenes pulled Young over near the Anne Arundel Mall where the first shooting was reported February 24. Inside the vehicle, they found a .380 semi-automatic handgun and shell casings that linked him to a shooting at the National Security Agency (NSA) and other recent shootings, Anne Arundel County police said in a statement.
Four shootings were linked through ballistic evidence, said Lt. Jarriel Jordon, a spokesman for the Prince George's County Police. Another Prince George's police spokesman, Pfc. Michael Owen, said the gun used in the shootings, a semi-automatic pistol, was at his department's lab.
The head of Maryland's prison agency said Young resigned from his job with the Maryland Department of Safety in May 2014 and that there was "nothing remarkable" in his file.
Anne Arundel police charged Young with attempted murder, assault and gun charges in the shooting near Arundel Mills mall. A man driving away from a gas station near the mall was injured by glass shot out from his car, police said.
Following the mall shooting, there were reports of shots fired Monday near a Walmart in Laurel and outside the AMC movie theater at the Mall in Columbia. Police say that on Tuesday, Young fired on a truck on the Inter-County Connector in Prince George's County. One man was injured by breaking glass from his vehicle and was treated at a hospital and released. Police said they found a bullet fragment on the clothing of another man in the vehicle.
Later Tuesday, the NSA reported damage to one of its buildings.