Vacated Village Center a Concern

Wilde Lake Chief Plays Down Slaying

The shooting death near Wilde Lake Village Center last week heightened concern about the future of Columbia's oldest village, despite efforts by police to reassure residents.

"You live in a safe community," said Howard County Police Chief William J. McMahon told a crowded community meeting Monday. He acknowledged that the April 9 killing of Bryan Antoine Adams Jr., 20, makes residents feel vulnerable even as other changes are taking place.

"You live in the oldest village center," McMahon said. "I know an incident like this causes concern."

Over the weekend, police arrested Antajuan L. Wilson, 19, and charged him with killing Adams, a 2005 Wilde Lake High School graduate. The suspect had just moved to Columbia from Georgia, according to investigators.

"It appears he was very new to the area," McMahon said. Police have found no evidence so far that Adams and Wilson knew each other, or that the crime was related to drug or gang activity, the chief said.

The shooting was the first homicide of the year in Howard. Last year, five homicides occurred in the county, including a double slaying in the Wilde Lake neighborhood of Running Brook.

During the Monday meeting at Slayton House, McMahon was asked whether the village center, which lost its anchoring tenant, a Giant supermarket, more than a year ago, and the gourmet grocery Produce Galore last month, is becoming a magnet for crime.

"There is no way to speculate," McMahon said, "but I don't think so."

County Council member Mary Kay Sigaty (D-West Columbia) also has discounted connections between last week's shooting and the declining fortunes of the village center.

"I suspect plenty of people see it as a causal relationship," she said. "This is a lot to deal with."

Kimco Realty, which owns Wilde Lake Village, has presented a plan to the village board to rebuild the center as a mixed-use development that would include 500 apartments, retail businesses and underground parking. Company officials, who were scheduled to discuss the plan with merchants late Tuesday, have not responded to calls for comment about the plan.

The fate of the village center has spurred greater interest in the usually sleepy village elections, with eight candidates vying April 26 for five seats on Wilde Lake's board.