Howard County police charge four men after theft from Lowe's; one man was shot by police after hitting police car while fleeing
Aug. 17—Tuesday, Howard County police charged four men in connection with a theft from a Lowe's store in Elkridge and an altercation that ended with one of them shot by police.
Online court records show three of the men — Donte Bernard Shaw, Taquan Neal and Percy Brown — had been charged in a string of recent thefts in Carroll, Charles and Frederick counties.
Neal, for instance, was charged in an Aug. 1 theft from a Charles County Homes Depot, according to a spokesman for the county police department. In that case, he fled in a car with other individuals and had a polymer handgun in the vehicle, the spokesperson said.
After the alleged theft in Elkridge, around 3 p.m. Monday, police say the four men fled in two cars to a storage facility in Jessup, where police officers confronted them. Police said one of the drivers, Shaw, 31, of Washington, D.C., was attempting to flee the area in a vehicle and struck a police car. A police officer shot and injured Shaw, who has been charged with two counts each of first-degree assault and second-degree assault against a law enforcement officer. No other shots were fired at the scene.
Shaw, who was taken to Shock Trauma, is now being held without bond at the Howard County Detention Center.
Two officers sustained minor injuries in Monday's incident, including Police Officer First Class Brian Meekins, who shot Shaw. Meekins, a six-year veteran of the department who was assigned to the repeat offender division, has been placed on standard administrative leave during the investigation. Meekins was transported to Howard County General Hospital after the incident, but has since been released.
The incident began when police learned a group of suspects, some with arrest warrants, had stolen a large quantity of power tools and other merchandise from the Lowe's store. Police followed the suspects to the Life Storage in the 8200 block of Washington Blvd., and saw them with the stolen goods.
After the shooting, police arrested the three other suspects, none of whom were injured: Neal, 32, of District Heights; Brown, 26, of Capitol Heights and George Shaw, 48, of Temple Hills. No attorneys were listed for the men in online court records.
Police charged all four men with theft, and three with weapons violations, after they discovered a loaded handgun in the younger Shaw's vehicle and two loaded handguns in the other. Donte Bernard Shaw was also charged with destruction of property.
