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Teenager charged in roadside gun assault
Rifle allegedly pulled on motorist
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
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A Mechanicsville teenager was released from custody Monday on $50,000 bond after his arrest on charging papers alleging he passed a motorist in Charlotte Hall and pointed a rifle at her at an intersection.
Nicholas Wayne Weekley, 19, was charged with first-degree assault from the incident Sunday on Route 5, where Angela Small reported that a green Ford pickup truck began following her northbound vehicle.
The truck got so close behind Small that she could no longer see its headlights, court papers state, before it passed her, drastically slowed down in front of her and stopped at a red light at the highway's intersection with Golden Beach Road. Police report that her vehicle also stopped at the light, next to the truck.
"The victim observed the operator of the truck … reach behind the truck's front seat with his right hand," St. Mary's sheriff's deputy Brian Connelly wrote in a statement of probable cause. "She observed him lift a rifle from the rear seating compartment," charging papers state, "and then turned his entire torso toward the victim, aiming the rifle at her."
The sheriff's deputy found the vehicle and the suspect at the nearby McKay's shopping center. "He advised he was in an argument with an operator of another vehicle, but denied ever producing a gun," the deputy wrote in a statement of probable cause.
A .22-caliber rifle was found lying on the back seat of the truck, court papers state, and Weekley was arrested and taken to the county jail. At a court hearing on Monday, Weekley asked that he be released on personal recognizance, but St. Mary's District Judge John F. Slade III denied the request as he reviewed the charging papers filed in the case.
"It involves the use of a rifle, … pointing a rifle at a stranger on the highway," Slade said. "The court considers this to be a very serious matter."
Weekley told the judge that he works at a power plant in Benedict.
Mechanicsville man held in gun assault
In a separate matter, the judge ordered that Marquis DeAngelo Barnes, 20, of Mechanicsville remain jailed in lieu of $50,000 bond on a first-degree assault charge in court papers alleging he pointed a pistol at a woman on June 2 in Lexington Park.
"I can end your life now," Barnes allegedly said to his former girlfriend, Shatoria Saanea Williams, at her home on Brighton Avenue, according to a charges application filed by sheriff's deputy Keith Moritz.
