A man is dead and six others are wounded after a shooting at an illegal car rally early Monday morning in Howard County, Maryland, according to police.
One person is in critical condition and five people suffered injuries that are not considered life threatening, according to Sherry Llewellyn, a spokeswoman with Howard County police.
The shooting happened at a Columbia parking garage in the 6700 block of Alexander Bell Drive, where police said a group of roughly 50 people from Virginia had gathered for a car rally.
“We do think that there was an exchange of gunfire involving multiple shooters in this incident,” Llewellyn told WTOP’s Michelle Basch.
When officers arrived just before 5:30 a.m., they found one man, who died at the scene, and a woman, who was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
“In the hours since then, we have had people walking into various hospitals around the region who are injured and were connected to this event,” Llewellyn said. “We had a juvenile female walk into a hospital in Virginia.”
Witnesses told police around 40 or 50 people attended the rally, which was coordinated online.
“We believe that they were known to one another, and also that they were from Virginia and had not really been in Howard County before,” Llewellyn said.
Police believe organizers “staked out” a spot to hold the rally and apparently picked the garage because it’s “far enough off the beaten path to not be noticeable, and also did not have surveillance cameras.”
Howard County’s police department is part of a task force aimed at preventing or stopping illegal car rallies or car takeovers
“Here in Howard County, we’ve seen about a 66% reduction since 2023, so we are making a lot of headway in this regard,” Llewellyn said. “But this particular group from Virginia was new to us.”
The task force, led by state police, has prevented or broken up a few car rallies in recent months, including meetups in Prince George’s, Anne Arundel, Montgomery and Howard counties.
Llewellyn said officers are still investigating how many cars were at Monday’s rally, and they haven’t recovered any of the firearms involved.
Police asking anyone with information about Monday’s incident to contact the department at 410-313-STOP.
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