An off-duty deputy U.S. marshal embroiled in an apparent road rage confrontation along Rockville Pike on Thursday night fired repeatedly into the rear window of his adversary's car, killing the man as he sat behind the wheel, according to police and witnesses.
Numerous witnesses to the death of Ryan T. Stowers, 20, at the Mid-Pike Plaza in Rockville shortly before 8:30 p.m. were being interviewed by Montgomery County police yesterday. Authorities said no decision had been made on whether charges would be filed against Arthur L. Lloyd, 53, a 28-year veteran of the U.S. Marshals Service assigned to U.S. District Court in Washington.
Montgomery County investigators survey the scene of the shooting in a shopping center parking lot along Rockville Pike.
(Dudley M. Brooks -- The Washington Post)
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"The rear window was shattered out," said Capt. John Fitzgerald, a police spokesman, who said investigators had begun to talk with at least 40 witnesses. "With that many witnesses, there ought to be a very clear picture of what went down."
Although Fitzgerald said Stowers may have driven toward the federal agent in the plaza parking lot, three people who said they witnessed the shooting told The Washington Post that Lloyd was standing with his gun drawn and opened fire after Stowers drove past him.
David Sacks, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, said the federal agency will decide Monday whether Lloyd, who was not at work yesterday, would be placed on leave during the investigation by Montgomery police.
"We will wait with everyone else for the facts of the case to become known," Sacks said. "Regarding what happened, we cannot comment until the investigation is complete."
Lloyd could not be located to comment.
Stowers, of Redding, Calif., enlisted in the Navy and had moved to the area on Navy business. A Navy spokesman yesterday would not provide any information about him.
The confrontation began in the thick evening traffic on Rockville Pike, a four-lane artery known for its routine congestion, and played out in the large, well-lighted Mid-Pike Plaza parking lot, about six miles north of the District line.
The following account of the incident was drawn from preliminary police reports, law enforcement sources and interviews with witnesses.
The altercation was sparked by a traffic incident on Rockville Pike and continued after Stowers and Lloyd turned into the shopping center lot. It is unclear whether the vehicles collided or the two drivers merely had a traffic argument.
Stowers pulled his red Chevrolet Camaro into the lot, not far from the A.C. Moore craft store, behind the dark-colored sport-utility vehicle that Lloyd was driving, with his wife and several children as passengers.
A shouting match turned into a fistfight, and Lloyd suffered a broken thumb, according to one source familiar with the investigation who declined to be identified because the investigation is not complete.
Cindy Nachman-Senders of Potomac said she heard shouting in the crowded parking lot as she strapped her 5-year-old son into his booster seat. She turned to see two men in a confrontation beside their stopped vehicles.
