Twenty-five-year-old Benjamin Evans Jr. was just “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” according to the attorney for the man who killed him.
He was on Tyler Avenue in the Robinwood neighborhood of Annapolis, outside his girlfriend?s residence, the evening of Feb. 25, when a man started firing a semi-automatic pistol in the area.
“Man, why you shooting over here? Can?t you see we are sitting here?” Evans asked, witnesses said.
That was all it took for 22-year-old Derrick Lamont Brown to start firing in Evans? direction, striking him in the chest. Police recovered at least 13 cartridge casings from the sidewalk, court documents say.
Brown was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison for the crime.
As part of a plea agreement, charges against Brown were reduced from first-degree murder to second-degree murder. Prosecutor Fred Paone said he partially made the compromise because of difficulty getting some of the roughly 20 witnesses to the shooting to testify in court.
“Justice was served today,” said Evans? sister, Torria Evans-Watkins. “But no amount of time can bring Benji back.”
Evans worked as a janitor at the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court. He had two children, a 1-year-old and a 7-year-old, who are now living with his girlfriend, his sister said.
Defense attorney David Putzi said he believed his client might have been using PCP at the time of the shooting. Witnesses told him they had never seen Brown act the way he did that night.
Putzi said Evans was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Brown has been charged with drug offenses in the past. In the sentencing hearing Wednesday, Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Paul Hackner granted Putzi?s request that Brown be recommended for drug treatment at the Patuxent Institute.
Hackner said easy access to guns and drugs in the city is “an unfortunate problem which is ruining the community.”
