A local man narrowly escaped with his life when two men dressed as cable technicians barged into his home, handcuffed him and shot him Wednesday morning, according to police and witnesses.
Around 9 a.m., witnesses and Prince George’s County police say two men dressed in Comcast uniforms entered a first-floor apartment on the 5600 block of Regency Park Court in Suitland. Less than five minutes later, the man who lives in the apartment came crashing through a window, handcuffed and bleeding, and fell onto his front lawn, said Marvin King, 79, a neighbor who was sitting on his front porch filling out a word puzzle at the time.
“He stumbled around a bit and then crawled back in through the window, ran around inside and then came out the sliding doors,” King said.
The victim, who was shot in the stomach and is being treated for what police say are non-life-threatening wounds, was yelling for help when he first ran out, and his hands remained locked together in front of him even as he was taken away in an ambulance, King said.
One of the two men then fled in a Comcast van, which police were still looking for as of Wednesday evening. The other man left on foot, witnesses said. The van, which went squealing out of the parking lot, is white, says Comcast on the side and has ladders on the roof.
Last week, a Comcast van was stolen at gunpoint in Silver Spring by two men who police believe had just shot and killed a store clerk nearby. Those two Latino men have yet to be caught.
The men in Wednesday’s incident are described as being black and in their 30s. Police do not believe the crimes are linked.
Outside the Suitland apartment, it was clear the cable box had been tampered with; wires had been pulled out, and the cable providing television service to the victim’s apartment was cut. Around noon, two Comcast investigators arrived on the scene but declined to comment. Calls to Comcast were not returned.
An investigator at the scene said it was not uncommon for home invaders to cut cable wires and use failed service as an excuse to gain entry to a victim’s home.
