Potential Lifetime in Jail for Largo Slayings

Man Pleads Guilty in 3 Shootings After Fight During Pizzeria's Super Bowl Party

Tron S. Johnson is facing a 100-year prison sentence because he couldn't walk away from a bar fight.

Harassed by three men at a Super Bowl party at a Largo pizzeria in February, Johnson, 22, said he called a friend and asked him to bring a gun to the restaurant. Then, when the argument turned violent, he shot the men, Johnson acknowledged yesterday as he pleaded guilty to murder and manslaughter.

"He faces 100 years in jail because he wouldn't walk away," Prince George's County State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said. "He felt that he would rather kill three unarmed people for a minor dispute than walk away."

In a written five-page statement that he read to the court, Johnson, a prospective barber from Landover, described how Curtis L. Poston, 26, of Temple Hills began to argue with him soon after he arrived at Uno Chicago Grill to watch the contest between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants the night of Feb. 3. The barbs continued even though Johnson said he refused to respond.

"So me, being from the streets, I call for a little defense," Johnson said in a statement read in court. After calling several friends, he reached Charles Harris, whom he identified as Busky. "I'm like, 'I got a situation on my hands, and I need a [weapon] just in case.' "

A videotape of the parking lot of a restaurant next to Uno's showed Johnson meeting Harris there, retrieving the gun and returning to the bar. A few minutes later, shots were fired. Poston, Charles D. Harrison, 25, and Terrance L. Sneed, 22, both of Landover, were mortally wounded.

The Super Bowl party shootings shook Prince George's, which has averaged more than 114 homicides a year for the past decade. The brawl and subsequent shooting happened as dozens of men and women milled about, drinking beer and sipping cocktails while watching the game.

Johnson, a slight man who was described by friends as mild-mannered, did little to provoke the fight, by all accounts. But when trash talk turned to fisticuffs, police said, he pulled the .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic handgun from his jacket and fired at his attackers. Inside the bar, Sneed was shot first, and then Poston, who was described as the aggressor. Harrison was shot in the back of the head as he ran for the parking lot. In his statement yesterday, Johnson said he followed him outside because the men had made statements about having a gun and he was afraid Harrison would return to shoot him.

Stephen Gensemer, Johnson's attorney, said Johnson chose to stay at the bar that night instead of leaving "because he wanted to resolve the situation." He feared that if he left, he might encounter the men again in the neighborhood, perhaps when he was with his girlfriend or nephew, Gensemer said, citing another statement Johnson made in court.

"I think he felt he needed to go in and resolve the situation to avoid any future problems," Gensemer said. With the gun in his pocket, "he could deal with it and at the same time feel protected. The gun offered him the protection he felt he needed at the same time without bringing in his whole group of friends, which would guarantee an almost immediate altercation."

After the hearing, prosecutors said Johnson's decision to stay and call for a gun fueled the situation and led to the murders. They rejected his claim of self-defense and that he feared for his life.

Dozens of relatives of Johnson's and the victims' were in the courtroom for the hearing. Several relatives on both sides cried as the judge announced the sentence: 10 years for voluntary manslaughter in Poston's death; 30 years for second-degree murder in Sneed's death; life with all years suspended except 100 in Harrison's death, deemed a first-degree murder; and 20 years for using a firearm in the commission of a felony. The sentences will run concurrently.