Harford County ended 2007 with another shooting in Edgewood early Monday, this time leaving one man dead and another in police custody, officials said.
Shortly after midnight on Dec. 31, deputies from the Harford County Sheriff’s Office responded to the 1800 block of Grempler Way in Edgewood, where they discovered the body of a black male, identified in charging documents as Tyree Eugene Brown, suffering from a gunshot wound to his upper body, Sgt. Christina Presberry said.
After a search of the area and a short pursuit on foot, deputies arrested 22-year-old Lewis L. Cochran of Abingdon, who is being held without bail on charges of first-degree murder and assault. A 2001 silver Buick Regal with Maryland license plates was missing from the home, leaving open the possibility there could be another suspect who took the car, Presberry said.
“The investigation is ongoing ? and it could very well prove that there are other suspects out there,” she said.
Charging documents say the owner of the house heard the sound of glass breaking on the lower level of her house, then saw a black male holding a gun at the bottom of the stairs. She called 911 and provided a description of the suspect that nearby members of the Community Action Response Team matched to a person they saw fleeing the area.
Deputies pursued the man toward Edgewater Village, tracking him into an apartment by wet footprints leading toward the door.
Although a female occupant said no one had entered, Cochran was arrested after he jumped from a second-floor window wearing only his boxer shorts, court records said. The occupant of the house on Grempler Way said his height, weight and hairstyle matched the man she saw.
Police have not yet determined why Brown was killed or why he was in the house, because he was a friend of the family but did not live there.
They have not yet determined whether it was gang- or drug-related, or connected to a shooting Sunday morning by members of the Crips in nearby Windsor Valley, Presberry said.
“We will continue to have concentrated foot patrols in that area,” Presberry said. “Because our CART team was there already, we were able to quickly identify a suspect and make an arrest.”
Brown?s homicide marks Harford?s sixth for 2007, which started with the killing of Walter Antonio Overton on Jan. 1 on Meadowood Drive.
“Are they letting us know that this is how our new year is going to go?” asked community activist Mildred Samy, referring to the drug dealers and gangs she has railed against.
“The Sheriff?s Office is doing everything they can, but they just don?t have the manpower,” she said.
