Youth Pleads Guilty to Assaulting Columbia Security Guard

October 9, 2009

At a plea hearing before Howard County Circuit Court Judge Louis A. Becker this morning, 18-year old Derrod Petterson pleaded guilty to assaulting a Columbia security guard last May. Petterson, of the 8800 block of Flowerstock Row in Columbia, entered a guilty plea to a charge of second degree assault in the attack on an apartment complex security guard in which the guard was fired upon by another suspect using a handgun. The guard was not struck by the gunfire.

Sr. Assistant State’s Attorney Colleen McGuinn told the court that on the evening of May 13, 2009, a number of young men confronted the on-duty guard sitting in an unmarked car at the apartment complex. McGuinn stated that it was Petterson who knocked on the driver’s window and who punched the guard in the face when he exited his vehicle. She stated that the guard was attacked in retaliation for an earlier altercation between one of the attackers and a different security guard earlier in the day. “They went after somebody who hadn’t done a thing to them,” McGuinn asserted.

Following Petterson’s apology for his role in the attack, Judge Becker sentenced him to 18 months in jail, suspending eight and a half years of the 10-year sentence. Peterson must also serve five years of supervised probation upon his release.