PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. — By any measure, January was a chilling and disturbing month for homicide investigators in Prince George’s County. According to the police department, there were 16 murders in January 2021 compared to just six during the same period last year.
The county’s chief homicide investigator told WUSA9 there are no threads tying the crimes together.
”There's no war going on out on the street between groups of people in Prince George's County," Maj. Brian Riley said. "That is not happening. We are seeing the same trend as what we saw in 2020: an argument takes place, anger happens in the middle of it, and then somebody pulls out a gun."
Perhaps the most chilling murder to date happened Saturday night in Upper Marlboro where someone outside shot into the home of 48-year-old Metro employee Sharone Redding. She died inside her house.
No arrests or suspects have been announced.
Including Redding's death, four murders happened this past weekend in the county.
“Overwhelmingly our murders year to year are known suspects, and known victims," Riley said. "They know each other or some kind of argument takes place. That is happening again in 2021. We've just had a large number of those cases happen in a very short amount of time.”
According to Prince George's County Police, 80% of cases in 2020 resulted in arrests and charges. So far in 2021, 10 of the 16 murders have been solved with arrests.
Closed cases include four people charged with the murder of a store clerk in Fort Washington on Jan. 18, and five suspects accused of stabbing a 16-year-old during a robbery on Jan. 1.
One officer was shot at while investigating the death of a 16-year-old in Langley Park. Two teens were arrested in that case.
"Prince George's County police officers took about 1300 guns off the street last year," Riley said. "About half of the people that we arrest have previous handgun charges. About 90% of our murders this year, in particular, are involving handguns."
Police leaders say they are now approving overtime for officers to beef up patrols and investigations in affected neighborhoods.