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Virginia man charged in fatal shooting during ‘car meet’ at Prince George’s Co. shopping center

A Stafford, Virginia, man has been arrested and charged with murder in connection with the fatal shooting that happened during a “car meet” in District Heights, Maryland, on Sunday.

Raheem Adams, 22, was arrested Wednesday morning at his Virginia home and is being held in that state, pending extradition to Maryland, according to a Prince George’s County police news release.

He’s charged with murdering 26-year-old John Phipps, of Waldorf, in the early morning hours Sunday during what police described as a “car meet” in the Great Eastern Plaza shopping center parking lot on Marlboro Pike. Officers found Phipps shot inside a vehicle. He was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead.

Police found another man nearby who’d also been shot, but police said his injuries were not considered life-threatening. A woman was also hospitalized for injuries that were not caused by gunshots and were not life-threatening, police said.

The shooting happened less than two weeks before new legislation goes into effect that will stiffen penalties for certain violations associated with “street meetups.”

“These car meets are a true concern to law enforcement both in our region and across the country. When the department is made aware of specific, credible intelligence, the agency plans accordingly and allocates resources to either prevent or disperse the gathering,” Prince George’s County police Chief Malik Aziz said in a news release following the shooting. “As is evident in this case, these gatherings can turn violent.”

Adams is charged with first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree attempted murder and related charges.

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Thomas Robertson

Thomas Robertson is an Associate Producer and Web Writer/Editor at ݮý. After graduating in 2019 from James Madison University, Thomas moved away from Virginia for the first time in his life to cover the local government beat for a small daily newspaper in Zanesville, Ohio.

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