SILVER SPRING, Md. — A 16-year-old boy pleaded guilty to shooting an 18-year-old to death at the Wheaton Metro Station earlier this year.
On May 18, two groups who were strangers to each other got into an altercation on an escalator at the Metro station.
According to Montgomery County Court records, 16-year-old Emmanuel Simmonds, of Gaithersburg, pulled out a gun and shot 18-year-old Tenneson Vaughn Leslie, Jr. of Greenbelt.
Simmonds pleaded guilty on Thursday. He will be sentenced on June 28, 2024.
“This was a shockingly brazen, callous act by a young offender," said State’s Attorney John McCarthy. "The defendant executed a young man on a crowded metro platform, not only claiming one innocent life but placing many other people at risk as there were other citizens, simply using the metro system, that easily could have been struck by a bullet."
Per a plea agreement, his time in prison will be capped at 40 years and prosecutors will request that the judge recommend he be admitted to the Patuxent Youthful Offenders program while incarcerated.
The Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office said that there was another 14-year-old involved in the deadly altercation whose case is going through the juvenile court system.
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