In the early hours of March 17, 2009, 26-year-old Nicholas A. Howard of Southeast Washington, D.C., was shot and killed outside Gill’s Holiday Liquor Sports Bar and Restaurant on Branch Avenue in Temple Hills, Maryland, after a confrontation with police. Employees had called 911 because a handgun had fallen from Howard’s pocket. Officers from the Prince George’s County Police Department and the Maryland-National Capital Park Police escorted him outside to pat him down, and police say Howard broke free, produced a .40-caliber pistol and fired, receiving a gunshot wound to the abdomen before retreating back into the bar.

Witnesses dispute parts of that account. A friend of Howard’s said officers fired first, and later said officers continued to fire after Howard was already on the ground. Inside the crowded bar Howard briefly held an inebriated woman at gunpoint but released her after a friend pleaded with him to surrender. When he stepped back outside and fired two more rounds, at least 14 officers returned fire, discharging an estimated 90 rounds that riddled Howard and the front of the bar; no one else was reported injured.

All 14 officers who fired were placed on paid administrative leave while the department investigated use of deadly force.

If anyone witnessed the shooting or the events inside the bar that night, please share what was seen or heard.