On August 1, 2016, at about 12:30 p.m., 26-year-old Erik Anthony Kelly was found in a parking lot on the 4600 block of Red Hawk Terrace in Bladensburg, Maryland, with multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. The Prince George’s County Homicide Unit treated the shooting as not random and identified 40-year-old Kumalo Ealom of Silver Spring as a suspect. Ealom was arrested within days and charged with first- and second-degree murder and held without bond while detectives continued investigating.

Prosecutors later concluded Ealom acted in self-defense. Investigators reported Ealom had been working as a security escort for a dry-cleaning business owner who was transporting cash when an attempted robbery occurred and Kelly was shot during that incident. The murder charges were dropped; in December 2016 Ealom pleaded guilty to illegally transporting a handgun and received probation before judgment.

Did anyone in Bladensburg or nearby communities see the parking lot incident or have information about the events that led up to the shooting?