Police ID Stafford Man as Shooter in Sunday Incident

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Image: Robert Lee Shorts (PWCPD)

The Prince William County police have identified a Stafford County man as the suspect who shot a local teenager on Sunday afternoon at the Triangle Shopping Plaza in Dumfries, but he remains at large.

Detectives with the police department’s Violent Crimes Bureau have obtained arrest warrants for Robert Lee Shorts, 20, of the 100 block of Eaton Court in Stafford, the department announced Wednesday. Shorts is wanted for aggravated malicious wounding and use of a firearm in commission of a felony.

He is described by police as a black man, 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighing 145 pounds with a medium build, black short dreadlocks and brown eyes. Attempts to locate Shorts have been unsuccessful, the police said. He was last seen on Sunday wearing a white T-shirt.

The Prince William police responded at 2:10 p.m. Sunday to the report of the shooting in the 18100 block of Triangle Shopping Plaza in Dumfries.

The shooting victim, a 19-year-old man of no fixed address, told police he was walking to the plaza along Fraley Boulevard when he encountered Shorts, an acquaintance. During the encounter, both men became involved in a verbal altercation that escalated, according to a police report.

The suspect then pulled out a handgun and shot the victim in his lower body, police said. Shorts, and an unknown woman accompanying him, fled on foot towards a nearby wooded area.

The victim was flown to an area hospital with non-life threatening injuries, police said. They searched the area with a helicopter and a specially trained police dog.

Previous reports on this incident indicated there were three suspects. That information was later determined to be inaccurate, police said.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call Prince William County Crime Solvers at (703) 670-3700 or 866-411-TIPS. You don’t have to give your name, just the information. You could earn a cash reward of up to $1,000.