Editor’s note: This story, originally published at 1:20 p.m. on April 18, 2025, was updated at 5:57 p.m. on April 18, 2025, to include details about the arrest of Isaias Orellana from a Monday police press release.
Montgomery County police responded to a shooting in the 600 block of University Boulevard East in Silver Spring on Sunday night and arrested a 46-year-old man in connection with the shooting, police said in a Monday press release.
Police arrested Isaias Orellana of Silver Spring, the release said. At a Monday afternoon bond hearing at the Montgomery County District Court in Rockville, Judge Rand Lewis Gelber ordered Orellana to be held without bond.
The arrest stemmed from an incident that began as an argument between Orellana and his friend with a group of people, according to the release. During the argument, police said, Orellana and his friend were assaulted, and later Orellana allegedly pulled out a handgun. Police allege Orellana hit the victim on the head with the gun and “fired rounds as he left the scene” westbound on Piney Branch Road.
Just after 8:30 p.m. Sunday night, police were called to the Longbranch Beer and Wine store at 649 University Blvd. E. for the report of an assault in progress. The dispatcher said the caller advised that people were outside of the store “fighting and throwing rocks at each other.”
An officer later found a man at the 7-Eleven at 650 University Blvd. E. with a laceration to his head, according to radio transmissions. The officer requested Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service crews to treat the victim.
Later, the same officer reported the man had been “pistol whipped” and that multiple witnesses told him shots were fired at the “exit way from 7-Eleven onto Piney Branch” Road.
Another officer found a second man at the intersection of University Boulevard and Piney Branch Road with a laceration to his head a short while later, according to the transmissions
Officers investigating the scene found live rounds, shell casings and a firearm magazine in the roadway on University Boulevard, according to radio transmissions. Officers shut down Piney Branch Road around University Boulevard toward New Hampshire Avenue during the investigation Sunday night.
Later, a dispatcher advised officers that another person called 911 and reported seeing someone hiding in a parking lot in the 8800 block of Piney Branch Road, according to radio transmissions. Police who responded to the location found the suspect and took him into custody just before 9:10 p.m.
In their release, police called the person who reported the suspect in the parking lot a “Good Samaritan.”
The man who was struck by the handgun was treated by Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service personnel at the scene and was later released, the release said. The second victim, Orellana’s friend, was transported to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries
After his arrest, Orellana was transported to the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit in Rockville, police said. He was charged with second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, discharge of a gun in an urban area and other handgun-related charges.
Around 9:45 p.m., county police said in a social media post that officers were at the scene of the shooting and there was no current threat to the public with a suspect in custody. No information was provided about the suspect.
In the post, police said two adult males suffered “minor injuries” but neither had been shot.
