A Montgomery County teenager is being held in the stabbing deaths at a Wheaton mall of two men wielding bamboo sticks pulled from the decorative displays at a Philippine cuisine restaurant, according to law enforcement and witness accounts.
The suspect, Angelo Lamont Jackson, 17, of Montgomery Village, faces two counts of first-degree murder. He allegedly stabbed Angel Alfredo Gomez-Pineda, 24, of Silver Spring, and Kevin Siloe Moya Cruz, 22, of Wheaton. Jackson was charged as an adult Wednesday and was being held without bond Thursday, court records show.
It is not clear whether Jackson knew the victims before they crossed paths Tuesday at the Westfield Wheaton mall.
But police said words were exchanged. “The suspect and victims had opportunities to walk away. None of them did,” said Capt. Paul Starks, a Montgomery County police spokesman. “The stabbings were violent and unnecessary.”
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Police and witness accounts painted a chaotic scene, with Jackson allegedly stabbing the first victim and then, still armed with his knife, pursuing the second victim and stabbing him.
“There was a lot of blood here,” said a store employee who saw one of the stabbed men fall to the floor. Like several others interviewed Wednesday, before police detained the suspect, the worker asked not to be identified by name.
Jackson is in the ninth grade at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville and attended Clarksburg High School last year, according to schools spokeswoman Gboyinde Onijala.
Police investigators have put together a timeline of what happened, based on surveillance video and witness accounts. The video shows Jackson always alone.
Police believe that the two victims came to the mall with two friends, and they split into two groups. Two of the men crossed paths with Jackson, according to police. It is unclear what the argument was about and how long it lasted, or whether Jackson displayed a weapon. Jackson and the men parted ways, according to police, and the men went to look for their friends.
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By about 3:15 p.m., the two men — now joined by their friends — met up again with Jackson, near a mall exit between J.C. Penney and Macy’s, according to police. It is unclear whether they had gone looking for Jackson or ran into him by chance.
They met close to the Lumpia, Pansit Atbp restaurant, which had displays of bamboo sticks in planter boxes just outside its doors.
“I was ending my shift and saw people were messing around out front with our bamboo sticks,” said Eli Parry-Giles, a waiter.
He and his manager went out to see what was happening. It seemed clear there was a heated argument, Parry-Giles said: “One person ran up and threw a beer can at another person.”
The can of Blue Moon erupted when it hit a door, he said. His manager grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back into the dining room. After closing the doors, they went to the back of the restaurant.
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It was in a subsequent review of surveillance video, according to Starks, that detectives saw Jackson stab one victim and chase the other.
The two victims fell in different places. One collapsed outside a dentist’s office, according to witnesses, and the other fell outside the next business, a Hollister store.
The victims were taken to hospitals, where they died.
“It just goes to show how deadly persons armed with a knife are,” said Capt. Darren Francke, commander of the police department’s major crimes division. “In a matter of seconds, one guy with a knife ended the lives of two other men.”
After the stabbings, detectives distributed still images of the assailant to other officers. Several of them identified him as Jackson “from having prior contact with him,” Starks said.
Officers arrested Jackson on Wednesday afternoon as he exited his residence along Hawk Run Terrace in Montgomery Village.
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The area where one victim fell is a highly trafficked spot in the highly trafficked mall. About 12 million customers visit Wheaton Westfield every year, according to its owner, Westfield Corp. The mall recorded $504 million in annual retail sales, according to the most recent figures from Westfield.
That is similar to Westfield’s Montgomery mall in more upscale Bethesda, which posted sales of $531 million.
“It’s a vibrant place,” said Tristan Bailey, shopping at Westfield Wheaton on Wednesday. He had just picked up a pair of cleats and a jersey for an upcoming flag football tournament. Despite the stabbings, he said he felt safer there than in other malls in the Washington area.
“You always get a few crabs in the barrel,” he said. “Some individuals just take the opportunity to do boneheaded things.”
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Fred Gage, stretched out on a mall massage chair Wednesday some 50 feet from the Hollister store, shared similar thoughts. He said that as long as a person doesn’t run his mouth or run with the wrong crowd, “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”
The stabbings and the aftermath, of course, were shocking to see.
A retail worker was in the back of her store Tuesday when she heard commotion, drawing her to the front of the store. She saw the victim outside the Hollister store.
“He was hyperventilating. He was having trouble breathing,” she said. “All you could see was his chest going up and down, gasping for air. It’s tragic. It’s tragic for their families.”
Correction: The online display of this article has been changed to remove a photograph and a caption that erroneously indicated the stabbing victims retrieved bamboo sticks from a planter display just inside the restaurant’s front doors. The sticks were taken from a planter outside the front door. The text of the article also has been changed to more clearly state the victims took the sticks from the outside display.
Donna St. George contributed to this report.
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