The Associated Press
ASPEN HILL, Md. (AP) - A Montgomery County detective shot and killed a man carrying a pellet gun, police said Friday. The suspects had just robbed two men leaving an Aspen Hill check-cashing business, police officials said Friday.
This is the second time in as many months that a county police officer has fatally shot a suspect, police said. On Aug. 12, an officer fatally shot a man she said was threatening her with a box cutter after he ignored her orders to drop it, police said.
Around 4 p.m. Thursday, plainclothes detectives were looking for suspects in a string of armed and strong-arm robberies around Lotte Plaza on Georgia Avenue. The detectives saw Anthony Quentin Dailey and Mark Anthony Gooding, both 21, assault two men leaving a check-cashing business and take their wallets and money, police said. The men fled when they saw the detectives and split up.
Detective Robert Cassels confronted Dailey in a wooded area behind a house on Hewitt Avenue and shot him once after ordering him to drop a gun, police said. A pellet gun that resembles a .357 handgun and a knife were found near the Germantown man, police said.
Other officers arriving on the scene began CPR and Dailey was taken to a hospital where he later died.
Cassels, who has been on the force for nine years, was placed on routine paid administrative leave.
Gooding was arrested and charged with two counts each of robbery, second-degree assault, and theft under $500. The Silver Spring man was also served with a warrant charging him in an August armed robbery. Gooding was held on $750,000 bond pending a hearing Friday.