Prince George's County man indicted on 71 counts in shooting spree

Prince George’s County prosecutors said Larry James Simpson, 68, faced 71 counts after a violent shooting and carjacking spree that cut across six locations and left 17 victims frightened in several northern county neighborhoods. The indictment included 17 counts of attempted murder, three counts of carjacking, and additional counts tied to assault, handgun use, and reckless endangerment.

Prosecutors said the violence unfolded in May along the Kenilworth Avenue corridor, with the danger spreading through Greenbelt, College Park and Riverdale in a matter of hours. Court filings described a chaotic sequence in Riverdale in which Simpson allegedly sped up a hill, flipped his car, got out with a rifle and fired wildly before authorities stopped him as he tried to carjack a third victim. Investigators said he had run out of ammunition and appeared not to know how to operate the manual transmission in the third vehicle.

The case reached the indictment stage after Simpson initially faced more than 60 charges and was being held without bond. A preliminary hearing had been scheduled for June 15, and prosecutors moved the case forward with the grand jury’s 71-count indictment on June 11. The breadth of the allegations put one of Prince George’s County’s most serious recent violence cases squarely before the courts.

State’s Attorney Tara Jackson also used Simpson’s history to raise broader questions about supervision and early release. Jackson said Simpson had been convicted of first-degree murder in 1987, served about 35 years in prison, completed a drug and alcohol program in October 2023 and was then placed on one year of unsupervised probation. His earlier sentence had been life plus 40 years, after it was extended following an attempted escape from a Cumberland, Maryland, prison early in his incarceration.

The indictment now ties a fast-moving burst of public violence to a longer debate over how the justice system handles people released after long prison terms. For Prince George’s County, the case is about more than the number of charges on paper. It is about the victims caught in the middle, the neighborhoods that were put on edge, and the decisions that shape whether a dangerous offender remains under meaningful oversight after release.