Shooting victim’s case linked to Prince George’s County clerk carjacking

A Prince George’s County man is paralyzed from the neck down after being shot during a dispute in a convenience store.

Police say the suspect in the shooting was also involved in the armed carjacking of an elected court official in the county.

News4 has blurred photos to protect the identity of the shooting victim — a 35-year old man who was an active father and is now in a hospital bed.

“He has two beautiful girls, very active in the community, very fun-loving, hard worker, and this had to happen to him, so it’s a sad case right now,” his mom told News4 in an exclusive interview.

The victim was shot in the neck at this 24-hour convenience store in the Landover, Maryland area. He was involved in an altercation there just before 9 p.m. on April 10, according to court records.

His mom said he was shot in the neck and suffered a spinal injury. This was the second time he’d been shot in the neck, but he was able to make a full recovery from that shooting in 2010.

“So right now, we’re trying to work hard to get him into rehab so that we can see if he could have the full capabilities again,” she said. “You know, we trust God, and we hope that things work out for my son.”

Her son’s shooting remained unsolved for several days, but then there was another crime — an armed carjacking — and police say they were able to link that same gun to the shooting. They took a teenager into custody.

Police say when they arrested that suspect, 18-year-old Kairee Hicks, he had a loaded 40 caliber handgun with an obliterated serial number.

Hicks is accused of carjacking Mahasin El Amin six days after the shooting just after 12:30 p.m. near the Woodmore Towne Center. She had pulled into a parking spot when a masked man came up to her car, showed he had a gun and told her to get out.

“When I took my purse, andI’m running out after I slid out, and then my back was to the car and I was like, ‘He’s going to shoot me because I took my purse, and I’m going to die,’” El Amin said.

El Amin, who is clerk of the circuit court in Prince George’s County, says it shattered her sense of safety.

“To realize that he used that same weapon and changed someone else’s life, where the guy is paralyzed from the neck down, and I got away untouched, physically, it’s unimaginable,” she said.

Hicks is facing charges for armed carjacking, attempted murder, weapons and other offenses.

“This violence out here in the streets with these guns, it has to stop,” said the shooting victim’s mom. “You know, and as a community, we all need to come together and stop fighting and thinking that shooting is the name of the game, but it’s not.”