Brandon Braswell was gunned down in a parking lot outside a Temple Hills nightclub in February, a shooting that occurred amid a crowd of nearly 100 people who were leaving a go-go concert. Just weeks later, Phillip Watson was shot to death in an Edmonston nightclub parking lot, shortly after a fight broke out inside the club.

In March, Brian Cooper was killed a mile from a Capitol Heights club, where earlier that night police received several reports of fights that spilled out of the venue and continued all the way to the gas station where Cooper was shot.