More News

Four teens have been charged as adults with attempted murder for their roles in a vicious gang attack nearly two weeks ago on a 16-year-old from Gaithersburg who police say was stabbed nearly 50 times and left to die in the woods near Gaithersburg High School.

Prosecutors speculate that the victim, who remains hospitalized at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, was trying to leave the Vampire Bloods street gang. Three of the suspects are members of the gang, according to police charging documents filed in Montgomery County District Court. One of the suspects recently served a year in juvenile detention for a gang-related stabbing in Gaithersburg. Another was a victim in a gang-related shooting at the Shady Grove Metro station.

Three of the teens are in jail; one has been released on bail.

The 5:15 p.m. attack on Sept. 13 was premeditated and carried out on a path near the Bohrer Park Activity Center by two teens from Gaithersburg, one from Germantown and one from Silver Spring, police said.

The victim, who attended an alternative high school in Gaithersburg, was stabbed in the abdomen, chest, face and hands and suffered major wounds to his heart and other organs, according to police and charging documents. After the attack, the victim made his way to a residential driveway on Summit Hall Road, where he collapsed, the documents state. The home's owner and a passer-by called police.

Montgomery County Assistant State's Attorney Jeffrey Wennar said at a bond hearing for one of the suspects last week that it is "hard to say" what the motive for the stabbing was. "I can speculate that the victim was trying to leave the gang," he said.

Gaithersburg Police Cpl. Shawn Eastman characterized the motive as "inner gang rivalry." Wounds pointed to an emotionally driven crime, he said.

"The extent of his stab wounds and his stature, you wouldn't expect someone to live through that," he said.

The teens charged in the attack are: Gaithersburg residents Ricardo Mejia, 16, of the 200 block of Summit Hall Road and Oswaldo Michael Lainez, 16, of the 100 block of Bates Avenue, Omar Diaz, 16, whose last listed address is in the 8600 block of Piney Branch Road in Silver Spring, and Germantown resident Edgar Garcia, 15, of the 19000 block of Frederick Road. They are each charged as adults with attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault, reckless endangerment and two conspiracy charges, police said.

Mejia, a student at Gaithersburg High is accused of holding the victim down while he and others stabbed him. He is being held without bond at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Boyds, according to jail spokesman Capt. Amando Gomes.

Lainez, a former Gaithersburg student who is accused of driving the getaway car, posted $50,000 bond on Tuesday.

Diaz, another former Gaithersburg student, is being held without bond at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility. Garcia, who attended the Emory Grove Center, an alternative school in Gaithersburg, was being held without bond at the Montgomery County Detention Center pending a bond hearing Tuesday.

The suspects all have prior juvenile criminal records, according to prosecutors.

Diaz was recently released from the Alfred D. Noyes Children's Center in Rockville, said Assistant State's Attorney Victor Delpino at a Monday bond hearing.

He spent nearly one year there for his involvement in a gang-related stabbing at Lakeforest mall.

Lainez spent time at Noyes last year for his role in two burglaries, said his attorney, Richard Finci of Rockville, who said in court that his client was "less than actively involved" and may not have known plans for the Bohrer Park attack.

Public defenders for Diaz, Garcia and Mejia could not be reached for comment.

Wennar said in court that Lainez is one of two teens shot on Nov. 12 at Shady Grove Metro station by two members of the United Neighborhood Bloods Gang in an incident linked by county police to three stabbings, one fatal, near Lakeforest mall in November.

District Judge Barry A. Hamilton banned Lainez, if released from jail, from contact with Jesus Carlos Mercado, 27, of Gaithersburg a member of the Bloods who was a victim in the Nov. 6 stabbing near Lakeforest by members of the Crips street gang. Mercado was convicted of ordering five juveniles to commit an armed robbery at a 7-Eleven in Gaithersburg in 2006, as part of a gang initiation, according to ??

"Obviously there are some difficulties on the streets," Wennar said.