Police are investigating a possible gang connection to a double shooting outside a Montgomery County Metro station.
Two teenagers were shot while standing at a bus stop at the Shady Grove Metro station on Monday night. An 18-year-old from Rockville was shot through the hand, and a 15-year-old from Gaithersburg was grazed in the leg by a bullet.
Metrospokeswoman Candace Smith said there are police patrols at Metro stations at all times, but that the transit authority does not plan to increase security at the Shady Grove station at this time.
“If we see patterns of crime, we increase security, but not in response to a single incident like this,” Smith said.
Possible gang-related incidents in Montgomery County in the past few weeks, including a Halloween shooting in Rockville and two incidents of stabbings last week in Gaithersburg, have police on the alert for increasing gang activity.
“The Montgomery County Police Department is investigating to determine whether or not this recent shooting incident is related to any gang activity,” police spokeswoman Lucille Baur said.
Baur said the incident developed when the two teenage victims were waiting in the “kiss & ride” area on the east side of the station at about 9 p.m. She said the two teens got into an argument with three males. Baur did not know whether the victims knew their assailants.
According to police reports, one of the three unidentified males told another member of the group to shoot the two boys. Baur said that suspect followed that suggestion, taking out a handgun and firing several shots at the victims. The suspects then fled on a bus, but when the police stopped the bus later at East Gude Drive and Crabbs Branch Way, the suspected shooters were no longer on board. The police did find the gun used in the shooting on the bus.
The victims were treated at an area hospital and released later that night, Baur said.
