In the winter of 2011, the life of 35-year-old Rodney Deron Edwards, a Black man from Landover, Maryland, came to a sudden and violent end. On the evening of December 17th, a Prince George's County Police officer on patrol spotted Mr. Edwards lying in the grass on the side of the road. The officer, later identified as Corporal Michael Owen, Jr., stopped to check on his welfare. According to the police account of the events that followed, as Corporal Owen approached, Mr. Edwards brandished a handgun and pointed it at him. Fearing for his safety, the officer discharged his service weapon, striking Mr. Edwards. He was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The official narrative provided by the Prince George's County Police Department was that the shooting was a justified response to a direct threat.
An investigation was conducted, and Corporal Owen, who was placed on administrative leave as is standard procedure, was not criminally charged in the death of Rodney Deron Edwards. However, Mr. Edwards' family publicly contested the police's version of events from the beginning. They maintained that he did not have a gun at the time of the encounter, raising questions about the necessity of the deadly force used. For years, the case remained closed, a painful and unresolved chapter for the family of Mr. Edwards, who was a father of three.
A significant development in the case emerged nearly a decade later. In January 2020, Corporal Michael Owen, Jr. was involved in another fatal shooting, that of William Green, who was handcuffed in the front seat of a police cruiser. This incident led to Corporal Owen being charged with second-degree murder. In the wake of these new and serious charges, the Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office announced that it would reopen and review the 2011 shooting death of Rodney Deron Edwards. This decision brought a renewed sense of hope to his family that the circumstances surrounding his death would receive fresh scrutiny.
Despite the announcement of the review, the subsequent public focus shifted heavily towards the murder trial of Corporal Owen for the death of William Green, a case in which he was ultimately acquitted. Information regarding the specific outcome and findings of the reopened investigation into the death of Rodney Deron Edwards has not been publicly detailed in the available online sources. As a result, the official conclusion of this renewed look into the nine-year-old case remains unclear, leaving a lingering question mark over the final determination of the events that transpired on that December night.
