Editor’s note: This story, originally published at 2:12 p.m. on March 14, 2025, was updated at 11:26 a.m. on March 17, 2025, to add a statement from Roniyah Thomas’ public defender.
A 20-year-old Prince George’s County woman was arrested Thursday for her alleged role in a February shooting during an attempted carjacking in Chevy Chase, Montgomery County police said in a press release Thursday.
Roniyah Thomas was arrested at her residence in District Heights after detectives obtained an arrest warrant Monday, police said. Thomas faces charges of attempted first-degree murder, attempted carjacking, first-degree assault, armed robbery and use of a firearm in a violent crime, according to digital court records.
Thomas is being held at the county central processing unit in Rockville. She awaits a bond hearing Friday afternoon in Montgomery County District Court in Rockville.
District Public Defender Sean Mukherjee, who is representing Thomas, said in a statement emailed to Bethesda Today on Saturday that the case is “defined more by the lack of evidence than any proof positive.”
“Ms. Thomas looks forward to confronting these accusations and to her day in Court,” Mukherjee said.
Thomas’ arrest is connected to a Feb. 4 incident in which a man was shot during an attempted carjacking in Chevy Chase. Just after 7:42 p.m. that day, county officers responded to a report of a shooting near the intersection of South Park Avenue and The Hills Plaza, the statement said.
According to radio transmissions that evening, two callers reported a shooting at the strip of businesses off Wisconsin Avenue. One caller reported a man was shot in the leg and was awake and breathing.
Responding officers found a man suffering from a gunshot wound. According to radio transmissions, one officer advised the gunshot wound may have injured the man’s femoral artery. The femoral artery is a large blood vessel that provides blood to lower extremities, according to the National Library of Medicine.
Officers applied a tourniquet and the man was transported to a local hospital, the release said.
After the shooting, detectives determined the man was standing outside of his gray 2023 Subaru when an armed suspect allegedly approached and demanded his car keys, the release said. When the man resisted, the suspect shot him and fled the scene on foot.
According to police, county detectives identified Thomas as a suspect during an investigation of the incident.
