Public Safety

14-year-old boy charged with murder after a shooting on a Maryland basketball court

By Dan Morse and Michael S. Rosenwald
Yesterday at 12:11 p.m. EDT

A 14-year-old Maryland boy armed with an untraceable “ghost gun” opened fire while at an outdoor basketball court Wednesday night, killing one man and wounding three teenagers, prosecutors and police alleged Thursday.

Authorities accused Shilen Wylie of firing approximately 16 rounds during an altercation. He was charged as an adult with one count of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder.

“The allegations are very serious and also very disturbing,” Montgomery County District Court Judge Eric Nee said from the bench Thursday, ordering that Wylie be held without bond.

The night before, according to prosecutors, Wylie had traveled by Metro train and bus from Silver Spring to the Plum Gar Community Recreation Center in Germantown. With him was a friend who had been arguing by text and phone with a 16-year-old.

The pair found the 16-year-old, along with two of his brothers and his friends, on the outdoor basketball courts at the recreation center, according to Assistant State’s Attorney Donna Fenton. Wylie’s friend and the 16-year-old squared off in a fistfight, Fenton said.

“The fight only lasted for several moments before this defendant, armed with a ghost gun, pulled that ghost gun from his waistband and began to shoot,” Fenton said.

The 16-year-old was struck in one knee, Fenton said. His older brother, Axel Trejos, 20, was hit four times. Two others were struck: a 13-year-old who was shot through his shoulder and a 15-year-old hit in the chest and an arm, Fenton said.

Trejos, a 2020 graduate of Clarksburg High School, was taken to Suburban Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to arrest records filed in court. The three other victims were taken to different hospitals, and by Thursday afternoon, all had been released.

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Clarence Williams and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

By Dan Morse
Dan Morse covers courts and crime in Montgomery County. He arrived at the paper in 2005, after reporting stops at the Wall Street Journal, Baltimore Sun and Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is the author of "The Yoga Store Murder." Twitter https://twitter.com/morsedan

By Michael Rosenwald
Michael Rosenwald is an enterprise reporter writing about history, the social sciences, and culture. He also hosts Retropod, a daily podcast. Before joining The Post in 2004, he was a reporter at The Boston Globe. Twitter https://twitter.com/mikerosenwald