Baltimore Man Shot In Face At Walmart Sentenced One Year
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A Baltimore man who was shot in the face during a late-night fight at an Ellicott City Walmart store last fall has been sentenced to one year in jail.
Matthew Allen Spencer, 24, of the 100 block of Hillvale Road was sentenced Thursday morning.
A county grand jury indicted Spencer earlier this year and he pleaded guilty to one count of reckless endangerment on July 10.
Police were called to the store in the 3200 block of North Ride Road around midnight on October 8, 2017, for a report of shots fired.
Officers arrived and after a brief chase, stopped a vehicle that Spencer was a passenger in.
At the July plea hearing, Assistant State's Attorney Tricia Cecil stated that an auxiliary police officer checking for handicap parking violations observed Spencer leave the store, take a rifle from his trunk and fire the weapon toward the Walmart sign over the store entrance.
Spencer then returned to his vehicle with the weapon and drove away quickly.
Store surveillance video and eyewitness accounts showed that two men had some kind of interaction as Spencer was leaving the store. Spencer then returned to the store for another interaction, resulting in De'Andre Edward Eason pulling a handgun from his waistband and shooting Spencer.
Eason, 20, of the 3100 block of West Springs Drive, Ellicott City pleaded guilty to one count of attempted second-degree murder and a firearm charge in March. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Spencer's attorney told the court that the gunshots were meant as a warning shot to Spencer's assailant.
Spencer was sentenced to five years, suspending all but one year to be served at the Howard County Detention Center.
He was ordered to forfeit the weapon and placed him on two years of supervised probation, along with additional condition upon release.
Follow @WJZ on Twitter and like WJZ-TV | CBS Baltimore on Facebook