3 Weekend Incidents Result In Shooting, Stabbing Deaths

Two men were stabbed -- one fatally -- inside a Brentwood restaurant early yesterday during one of several violent incidents over the weekend in Prince George's County.

Police said the men were stabbed about 3:45 a.m. shortly after an altercation with three people at International House of Pancakes on Bladensburg Road, close to the District border. The victims were taken to a hospital, where one was pronounced dead and the other was treated for injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening, said Cpl. Clinton Copeland, a county police spokesman.

Police would not release the name of the man who was killed because his relatives had not been notified.

Copeland said the five people involved in the incident were customers at the IHOP. Investigators were interviewing numerous witnesses but had not made any arrests, he said.

A manager at the restaurant was not available to comment, said an employee who answered the phone there yesterday afternoon.

Police also are investigating a homicide in the Hyattsville area, Copeland said. A man was found fatally shot shortly after midnight yesterday at Rhode Island and Baltimore avenues, he said. That man also was not identified pending notification of next of kin.

The incident was initially reported as a pedestrian being hit by a vehicle, Copeland said. Hyattsville City Police contacted county police after discovering that the man had been shot once in the upper body, he said.

In a third incident, a Greenbelt resident shot and wounded his wife Saturday and barricaded himself in their home for most of the day before taking his own life, local police said. Junior Anthony Bennett, 44, was found in the basement of the couple's townhouse with a gunshot wound to the head, Officer George Mathews said.

Mathews said police had been called to the house, in the 8200 block of Canning Terrace, the previous evening because of an argument between the couple. Bennett agreed to leave the house, and no one was taken into custody, Mathews said, describing police's handling of the complaint as "by the book."

The next morning, Bennett had returned to the house, Mathews said. He and his wife argued, and he shot her in the arm, Mathews said.

The woman fled the house and went to a neighbor's, Mathews said, adding that her injuries were not life-threatening.

The police were contacted shortly before 9:30 a.m., a standoff began and the county police department's conflict management team was called. Bennett "did not want to cooperate with negotiators at all, and eventually all communication was lost," Mathews said.

Police forced their way into the home about 5 p.m. and found Bennett, who was pronounced dead. He apparently died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Mathews said. Police are not believed to have fired any shots during the standoff or their entry into the house, he said.