Lawmaker: Ice cream slaying reveals failed justice system
FREDERICK, Md. - A state senator says last weekend's fatal shooting of a Frederick ice cream truck driver was a failure of Maryland's justice system.
Frederick Republican Michael Hough said Thursday that Larnell Lyles, the man charged with shooting 22-year-old Brandon Brown, should have been in jail for repeated probation violations.
Lyles, 27, served five days of a five-year sentence for second-degree assault last year. The remainder was suspended and Lyles was placed on probation for three years.
Probation agents had requested twice that Lyles be arrested and returned to jail for violating probation. A hearing on those requests was scheduled for last Thursday, two days before the shooting. But the hearing was postponed because Lyles had new charges pending, alleging possession of synthetic marijuana, that hadn't been resolved.
Lyles is accused of fatally shooting Brown on Saturday as children were lining up outside to buy treats at the ice cream truck Brown was working.
Lyles' defense attorney Carol Somerlock has said Brown had been stalking and trying to kill Lyles for months over a $20 debt.
Somerlock told The Frederick News-Post that Brown violently confronted Lyles at least three times since February - and at least one of those times, Brown was armed with a gun.
Somerlock says Brown is not a professional ice cream vendor and that "the use of the ice cream truck was a means of being clandestine."