Background: The site of the shooting in Rodgers Forge, Maryland, in September 2024 (WBAL/YouTube). Inset: Mark McKenzie (GoFundMe).
A teenager in Maryland will spend decades behind bars for shooting a father who was unloading soccer balls from his vehicle behind his home.
Kai Wilson was sentenced to 40 years in prison with all but 25 years suspended for shooting Mark McKenzie, according to Baltimore County court records reviewed by Law&Crime. His sentencing came after he submitted an Alford plea — signifying that the state has evidence that would likely result in a conviction but allowing the defendant to maintain their innocence — on a charge of attempted second-degree murder.
On Sept. 13, 2024, McKenzie was in an alleyway outside his home on Dunkirk Road in Rodgers Forge, Maryland, a suburb just north of Baltimore. He was unloading soccer balls from his vehicle when a masked Wilson approached.
Wilson, then 15 years old, held a handgun with an attached laser pointer up to McKenzie and demanded money before hitting the older man with the gun, regional CBS affiliate WJZ reported. A struggle ensued, and Wilson shot McKenzie in his midsection.
Authorities arrived to find McKenzie with a gunshot wound. He was rushed to nearby Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore with injuries to his gallbladder and liver and spent 12 days on life support.
A GoFundMe set up for McKenzie recognized how much the man meant to his community and said he faces "several surgeries and a long recovery" after a "senseless act of violence." The fundraiser has raised $139,905.
"Your decisions that day were deadly," McKenzie reportedly told Wilson at the sentencing hearing. "I'm only alive because Johns Hopkins brought me back after I coded."
Officers with the Baltimore County Police Department investigated the shooting and identified Wilson as a suspect, as well as then-16-year-old Kamar Thompson, who drove the stolen getaway car. Wilson was apparently seen on surveillance footage laughing after the shooting before scrubbing down the vehicle with bleach.
Authorities arrested both suspects. Thompson was sentenced to 25 years in prison, according to the local outlet.
Wilson's public defender explained how her client was homeless at the age of 9 and had been shot at several times in his neighborhood as he grew up. Though she did not dismiss his actions, she said he "has become a different person" since.