Cockeysville man sitting in his driveway shoots 3 masked men on Halloween, killing 1

A Cockeysville man who fatally shot a masked man and wounded two others who approached him with a gun in his driveway on Halloween night had been targeted, Baltimore County Police said Monday.

Police responded to a call in the 10000 block of Greenside Drive around 10:40 p.m. Saturday, according to a news release from the department.

Officers met with a resident who said three masked men, armed with a handgun, had threatened him while he was sitting in his driveway. The resident told officers he responded by pulling his own gun and firing at the men before they fled and he called 911, according to the release.

In court records, police said the three men told the resident and his associate to go into his home, with one of the masked men brandishing a gun. The man responded by firing his own weapon, which he had on his person at the time, police said in court records.

Police canvassed the area and found one of the men, Amon Walker, 20, dead on the grounds of Cockeysville Middle School. Officers later located the two other men seeking treatment for their gunshot wounds at local hospitals.

Police said Monday they’d arrested Elias Bitar, 22, of Parkville and Aaron Walker Jr, 24, of Baltimore. Bitar was charged with attempted home invasion and first-degree assault for his alleged involvement in the incident, according to online court records.

Aaron Walker Jr. faces attempted home invasion, first- and second-degree assault and firearm violation and attempted burglary charges, online court records show. Both men have bail review hearings scheduled for Wednesday at 1 p.m., and neither had attorneys listed in online court records.

In court records, officers said Bitar told them they drove to Cockeysville together to assault someone. Along the way, Bitar said, Amon Walker told them that a person he had an issue with was at the Greenside Drive residence.

So, the three men exited the vehicle in a nearby apartment complex and walked toward the residence where someone outside the home began shooting at them, causing them to flee on foot, according to court records.

Police said they recovered a loaded handgun that they believe was in the men’s possession. They also seized the victim’s handgun and a quantity of suspected marijuana during a search of his home.

How many times the men were shot remains unclear. Homicide detectives continue to investigate the shooting.

“This incident appears to be targeted and there is no active threat to the community,” county police said Monday.

Neighbors mistook gunshots for Halloween noises and pranks

Neighbor Kiran Thapa was home when the shooting unfolded.

He said the corner house where the shooting happened was decked out in Halloween decorations, attracting candy-seeking children and others who stopped to take photos in front of the spooky display.

By Sunday afternoon, most of the creepy spiders, terrifying skeletons and monsters that had filled the front yard and driveway were gone. One especially horrifying figure remained: a more than 6-foot-tall blue-haired clown in a purple-and-black-striped suit, standing on the lawn.

Thapa said a woman and her son lived in the home. He described them as longtime residents and “nice people” who had even given him candy earlier in the night when he returned home.

A man who answered the door declined to comment on the shooting.

While Thapa recalled hearing an unusual sound that night, he initially thought it was just the decorations on a neighbor’s lawn making noise.

Thapa’s wife, who asked not to be named, spent most of the night on the front stoop handing out candy to the hundreds of trick-or-treaters who came through the neighborhood. She said she missed the shooting by mere seconds.

She had just called it a night and gone inside to help her friend’s daughter put on her shoes when she heard several pops. Instinct kept her inside. But when her friend left about 10 minutes later, she saw the street crawling with police cars and officers.

The couple were surprised to learn there had been a shooting in the neighborhood, something they had never experienced before.

Another neighbor said her family was home when it happened. Her children told her they had heard gunshots, but she initially brushed it off, thinking they were adding to the Halloween mischief. She reconsidered when she saw police in the neighborhood.

By Sunday afternoon, the neighborhood had largely returned to its usual calm, with children riding an electric scooter down the sidewalk and one neighbor mowing his lawn. A couple of homes still had yellow caution tape as decorations.

This story has been updated.