The words “Free Pun” were spray painted across Annapolis, reappearing every time city officials painted over the graffiti tag. Javaughn Adams, 19, nicknamed “Pun,” is glorified in the Robinwood Community for opening fire in a busy Annapolis mall in November 2006, injuring a rival teenager and a U.S. Secret Service agent.
“The defendant is being portrayed as a martyr in that community,” said Assistant State?s Attorney Jennifer Alexander on Friday in Anne Arundel Circuit Court.
“He?s known as someone who shot a police officer, took a police officer?s bullet and lived to tell the tale.”
Alexander said Adams, of Annapolis, has ties to a violent gang called the Robinwood Crew and a prior criminal record for second-degree assault.
Defense attorneys said the gang ties were speculation, but Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Williams Mulford made sure Adams was taken off the streets.
He sentenced Adams to 100 years in prison with all but 65 years suspended. The sentence is five times the recommended guidelines.
“The problem with a gun, Mr. Adams, is that when you pull the trigger and bullets get out, you can?t pull it back,” Mulford said.
“We have a tragedy in this country ? a tragedy of violence.”
Adams? friends and family sobbed through the proceedings and passed around tissues.
They spoke of a man who wanted to escape a neighborhood riddled with gunshots and yellow crime scene tape.
They said Adams was enrolled at the Lincoln Technical Institute trade school in Columbia in Howard County and wanted to distance himself from his friends in the Robinwood Community.
Tanjela Brown, the mother of victim Tahzay Brown, then 16, Adams? rival, read a letter written by her son asking the judge to give Adams a second chance.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” the letter read.
The second victim, Special Agent Paul Buta, was less forgiving. He said his daughters are traumatized from watching a man shoot at their father.
“He wanted to act like a man; he wanted to be a man. And now he has to be held accountable like a man,” Buta said.
Adams apologized to the victims and said he regrets his actions.
“I?m thankful that I have my life today and also that Mr. Brown and Mr. Buta have their lives,” he said.
AT A GLANCE
An Anne Arundel Circuit Court jury found Javaughn Adams, 19, of Annapolis, guilty Oct. 26 on two counts of attempted second-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault charges and lesser handgun charges.
