Police-trailing theft call ends in deadly crash in Fort Washington
A theft call on Livingston Road ended in a fatal wreck on Indian Head Highway, killing 28-year-old Juan McMillan and injuring another man.
A police response to a theft-in-progress call in Fort Washington ended with a violent crash on Indian Head Highway that killed 28-year-old Juan McMillan of Washington, D.C., and sent a passenger to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Prince George’s County police said the incident began at about 10:05 p.m. on April 29, 2026, at a business in the 11900 block of Livingston Road, where two male suspects were involved in a theft call. An officer encountered the pair as they were leaving the store and followed their vehicle only long enough to try to get the license plate number. Police later said the officer was in an unmarked car and had no lights or sirens on. The suspect vehicle then crashed near Palmer Road on Indian Head Highway, also known as MD 210, in Fort Washington.
The difference matters. What police described was not a high-speed emergency chase, but a short follow behind a suspected theft vehicle in an effort to identify it. That detail places the crash at the intersection of property-crime response, traffic danger and the limits of roadside enforcement on one of southern Prince George’s County’s most heavily traveled corridors.
McMillan died at the scene, police said, while the passenger was taken for treatment. The northbound lanes of Indian Head Highway were closed for the investigation and reopened by about 5 a.m. the next morning. On May 1, Prince George’s County police identified the driver and said detectives were separately investigating the organized retail theft that prompted the call to Livingston Road.
The Maryland Attorney General’s Office Independent Investigations Division was notified but declined to investigate after a preliminary review. That decision leaves the crash inquiry with county police, even as residents are left with another deadly scene on a road long associated with serious wrecks.
Indian Head Highway runs nearly 22 miles from the District line to Indian Head in Charles County, and state and county Vision Zero materials have flagged it as part of the county’s high-injury network. Maryland transportation officials have described MD 210 as a corridor with high travel speeds and a history of severe crashes, including serious injuries and deaths. For Fort Washington, this latest wreck adds to a familiar public-safety concern: when enforcement, traffic and a dangerous roadway converge, the consequences can be immediate and fatal.
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