Argument at Oxon Hill Complex Leaves 1 Dead and 3 Injured

One person was killed and three others were wounded after an argument sparked a shooting early Tuesday at an Oxon Hill apartment complex, authorities and neighbors said.

The gunfire rang out just before 1 a.m., police and neighbors said, in an apartment building in the 6400 block of Livingston Road. Chaos then erupted in the parking lot of the Portabello Apartments, neighbors said, when two women screamed that they had been shot, one man coughed up blood and another man collapsed near a dumpster.

Prince George's County police said a man, whom they did not identify, died of gunshot wounds and another man was critically wounded. The women struck by gunfire were expected to live, police said.

Police did not identify the survivors but said all those involved knew one another. Police also said a description was broadcast for a suspect but declined to provide further details. The four shooting victims were taken to hospitals, police said.

Helen Ingram, 53, said she was reading her Bible in her apartment when she heard what sounded like 10 or 12 gunshots. She peered into the darkness and saw two women. One yelled, "I got hit!" and the other screamed, "I can't feel my back!" Ingram said.

"I just sat there and prayed for a minute, and the next thing I know I'm going out my door," she said. "It was almost like a nightmare. I never seen anything like this."

Outside, she found one of the women had been shot in the hip, thigh and knee, and the other had been shot twice in the back, Ingram said. A man on the ground coughed up blood as he faded in and out of consciousness, she said.

It was unclear how many times the man had been shot, Ingram said, but she told him and the women to remain still and save their breath. The woman who had been shot in the hip grabbed Ingram's hand and asked her to stay and pray, Ingram said.

Down the street, other neighbors said they rushed to their windows and saw a man stumbling across the parking lot. He eventually collapsed near the complex's dumpster, said Luis Damian, 25.

A trail of blood was visible Tuesday leading from the stairwell of the apartment building, and detectives and crime-scene technicians pored over an apartment inside. They declined to comment.

Ingram said the woman shot in the hip told investigators that the shooting stemmed from an argument, and she pointed to a woman standing near the apartment building, describing her as the shooter's girlfriend. Another neighbor who declined to be identified because of fear of retaliation said the shooting was the result of a family dispute.

The incident is the second quadruple shooting in Prince George's in recent days. Four people were shot near Atwood Street and Rochelle Avenue in the District Heights area Sunday after a street robbery led to gunfire, authorities said.

A police spokesman said the shooting incidents were not related.