Terror replaced excitement for holiday shoppers last November when gunshots tore through a crowded food court in Annapolis Westfield Mall.
“The last thing anyone expected to see that night was the attempted murder of a United States Secret Service agent and a high school football star ? but they did,” said Assistant State?s Attorney Jennifer Alexander during Tuesday?s opening statements of an attempted murder trial.
Javaughn Adams, 18, is charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder and several assault and handgun charges after he allegedly fired a gun, injuring two people.
Neighborhood rivalries
Alexander described a Nov. 18 fistfight between rival groups from two public housing communities in Annapolis.
Adams, then 17, and his friend, Floyd Simms, then 17, of Annapolis, identified with the Robinwood community.
Their rivals, Dejuan Stevens, C.J. Wiley, Tyres Brown and Tahzay Brown, were from Annapolis Gardens, Alexander told the jury and Anne Arundel Circuit Judge William Mulford II.
The brawl stemmed from fights at Annapolis High School among neighborhood rivalries, police said.
Agent?s intervention
She also described how off-duty Special Agent Paul Buta tried to intervene and was shot in the hip.
A group of six to eight young men began beating Adams? friend Floyd Simms, who had his shirt pulled over his head, Buta testified.
“He started to go fetal … he tried to curl up. … In my mind, I thought this guy is probably going to get killed,” he said.
Adams fired four shots, striking Buta in the hip and Adam?s rival Tahzay Brown, then 16, in the leg.
Buta pulled his handgun and fired back at Adams, striking him twice and ending the fight.
“This decision was a deliberate and premeditated act to shoot his rival Tahzay Brown … [Adams] was shooting to kill, because he was going to settle the score that had been brewing at Annapolis High School for months,” Alexander said.
Different picture
But defense attorney David Putzi presented a different story, one of an ambush by a group of teenagers who came to the mall only to beat Floyd Simms.
He said the rival group had an unidentified girl seen on the video surveillance stalk Adams and Simms in the food court and alert the teenagers to come to the mall for the fight.
“They pounced on Floyd and started their attack … they gathered around Floyd?s body and kicked him in the stomach,” said Putzi, adding Adams only pulled the gun to rescue his friend and fired it downward.
“He was defending me,” Simms said as he waited outside of the courtroom Tuesday.
He said he has no idea why the teenagers beat him up that night.
