Maryland man faces assault charge in connection with knife threat

An after-midnight complaint from two young Philadelphia men triggered a search for an alleged knife-wielding assailant who was later apprehended and charged with assault. At about 2:25 a.m. on the last Saturday in June, an Ocean City, Maryland police officer on patrol was approached by the two men and told they had been assaulted by a group of men in the city’s downtown area and threatened with a knife. Police were able to compile an effective description of the alleged assailants and the vehicle that they drove away in when they fled the scene of the purported assault.

Ocean City police broadcasted the description over the radio and the vehicle was later seen heading north on Baltimore Avenue and pulled over. The vehicle’s occupants were detained by the police and questioned. The police were able to determine that one of the vehicle’s occupants, a 19-year-old from Salisbury, fit the description of the alleged knife-wielding assailant. The young man was also found to have a knife in his possession that appeared to be the one that was reportedly used in the assault. The man was then taken into custody and the knife was seized for use as evidence.

A variety of charges were filed against the alleged assailant, all of them serious. Bail was set at $110,000 by a District Court Commissioner. The other occupant of the vehicle, a 17-year-old juvenile, was also charged as a minor.

Considering the serious consequences that a conviction could bring the young Maryland man, his defense will need to focus on the specific details of the crimes he was charged with in relation to the verified and proven facts. The defense will need to carefully review the arrest documents and witness statements in order to determine if there are possible discrepancies or inaccuracies. In order to make the assault charge stick, the prosecution will need to first fulfill its obligation by law to competently prove – beyond any reasonable doubt — that the alleged events claimed to have taken place in the arrest report occurred exactly as they were described.

Source: The Dispatch, “Assault Charge For Knife Threat,” Shawn J. Soper, June 28, 2013