People inside a College Park home ducked for cover when they heard gunshots, later discovering when police arrived that a wounded woman had wound up on their doorstep.
The shooting happened in the 4200 block of Metzerott Road, near the University of Maryland campus. The sounds of gunfire in this quiet neighborhood across from Acredale Park caused alarm Thursday night, but fear quickly gave way to concern for the shooting victim.
Tammie Rinker, a pastor, heard the gunshots and called 911.
"We heard heard five gunshots and we turned off our lights and we got away from the windows," she said. "And I called to report it."
Rinker said when the police arrived, she heard a commotion in front of her house. She went outside and discovered the wounded shooting victim lying on her front steps.
"I'm a pastor of a local church so this is painful," she said. "It's painful."
Rinker knows, though, what she'll tell her congregation: "The same thing I tell them all the time, to love one another and help each other through these sorts of things and pray for a better world and work for a better world."
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Next door at the Christian Community Church, people also heard the gunshots and called 911. It turns out they know the victim, a homeless woman who felt threatened by something or someone.
"I do think that she was trying to — she was coming to this property for protection because she was out further in the yard, and then she moved the night before the shooting occurred," Elizabeth Knox of the Christian Community said. "She moved closer to the house and slept on the deck."
The victim is hospitalized with multiple gunshot wounds to the upper body. It's believed she'll survive the shooting.
No arrest has been made. A witness saw a car driving away after the shooting.
