Man sentenced to 35 years for 2024 shooting in Rockville park
A man has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for attempted murder after he opened fire in a Rockville, Maryland park in 2024.
No one was physically injured in the incident.
The incident terrorized people, including many children, enjoying a Fall afternoon.
The man, 40-year-old Kenneth Oates of Gaithersburg, emerged from the woods and walked to the field where his on-again-off-again girlfriend was watching another man play flag football. He pulled out a gun and began firing.
The sentence of 35 years is even more time than prosecutors requested.
The man the shooter focused on told police he could see the bullets striking the ground around him as he ran through a field at Welsh Park in Rockville. Terrified kids ducked down behind the sliding board and other equipment.
The woman had been sitting in a car, and bullet holes could be seen on the outside.
The gunshots were heard on the doorbell camera of a nearby home.
“The defendant’s actions in broad daylight, in public, where there were children around, so many people watching flag football, it was incredibly dangerous,” said Debbie Feinstein, assistant Montgomery County state’s attorney and chief of the office’s Special Victims Division. “And thankfully, the court saw that and punished the defendant accordingly.”
Last April, a jury found Oates guilty of attempted second degree murder, assault and firearms charges.
Oates had been prohibited from having contact with the woman, or possessing a firearm, due to the protective order she obtained following what she described as violent assaults.
She told police she did not know how he learned she was at the park.
Turquoise Williams, executive director of the Maryland-based advocacy group “Just Stalking Resources” said that may not have been too difficult.
“Ex-partners are very likely to have logged into some kind of shared account that you don’t realize that a partner still has access,” she said.
October is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
“We are so fortunate in Montgomery County to have what we call a one-stop shop for victims or survivors of domestic violence,” Feinstein said. “They can come to one place right here in Rockville, right near the Metro, and get wraparound services.”
Court documents show Oates initially told detectives he was at his grandmother’s house in the District at the time of the shooting, but an FBI search of his phone data showed his phone was in Rockville.
