Prince George's Police Face Trend of Killings 'for Nothing'

From Taunts to Fisticuffs to Shots

Johnson came with his gun to the Uno Chicago Grill in Largo on Feb. 3, police said. He was there for the Super Bowl, not to fight, he said through his attorney Stephen Gensemer.

That night, dozens of people milled about the pizzeria at the Boulevard at the Capital Centre as they took in the game. The restaurant drew a lot of young men from the neighborhood.

There was Johnson, a Mitchellville resident who had grown up in the Landover area and graduated from Charles Herbert Flowers High School. He had had a few brushes with the law but no violent offenses, court records show. He had recently started barber school and dreamed of opening a chain of shops, his attorney said.

There also was Sneed, a Flowers dropout looking for a job and trying to find ways to spend more time with his 3-year-old daughter, said Sandra Sneed, his mother. That afternoon, he had stopped by his mother's apartment. He had told her he planned to go to Uno for the game. The Landover resident arrived at the restaurant with two friends: Charles D. Harrison, 25, of Landover and Curtis L. Poston, 26, of Temple Hills.

At some point, witnesses said, Poston began throwing barbs at Johnson.

"He tried ignoring them," Gensemer said of his client. "He tried reasoning with them. He tried joking around with them. He tried just verbally saying, 'Stop. Get away. Knock it off.' "

By the game's fourth quarter, witnesses said, Poston was taunting Johnson more aggressively.

At one point, Poston approached Johnson's table, with Sneed and Harrison in tow. There was an argument, then a fight. Tables were upended. Glasses and plates flew. As the brawl escalated, Johnson reached into his jacket. Shots rang out, sending screaming patrons running for the door; Poston and Sneed fell in the bar, witnesses said. Harrison bolted for the exit, but Johnson followed and shot him in the parking lot, authorities and witnesses said.

In a written statement released by his attorney, Johnson did not say whether he had a gun or whether he fired one.

"He verified accounts that he was not the one to throw the first punch and that it was members of the other group that initiated the fight," Gensemer said, referring to Johnson's statement to The Washington Post.

Johnson's friend said Johnson never would have fired if he hadn't felt threatened. "They jumped Tron, basically," he said. "That's when Tron pulled out the gun."

The friend, 21, admitted to a reporter that he was armed. "I'm telling you now, I would have done the same thing," said the man, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation. "There are people out here who want to hurt you. I carry a gun for that very reason."