A family is seeking answers after a recent graduate of North Carolina A&T State University was fatally shot by a neighbor from whom he’d asked authorities for protection.
“He was getting his mind set to move because he was fearful,” Tonya Burch of Wilson, North Carolina told ABC affiliate WTVD about her 22-year-old son, Tyrique Hudson, who was shot and killed by a neighbor who he’d complained was harassing him.
Early on April 15, authorities were called to Hudson’s apartment complex in Glen Burnie, Maryland for reports of shots fired. Police found Hudson dead from gunshot wounds and witnesses said they saw neighbor James Allan Verombeck, 53, standing over his body.
Police arrested Verombeck after a 10-hour standoff. Verombeck, who has a history of harassment, has been charged with Hudson’s murder.
Hudson graduated early from HBCU North Carolina A&T and had been recruited to work as a software engineer with Northrop Grumman, The Baltimore Sun reported.
What family members say grips them is that Hudson sought a protective order from Verombeck, who he believed wanted to kill him.
Burch told WTVD that her son had one confrontation in February with Verombeck, who “made a throat-slitting gesture” at the young man.
Hudson also believed that Verombeck, who lived above him, was secretly recording him in his apartment, according to The Baltimore Sun’s report.
A Maryland District Court judge who was on temporary assignment in Anne Arundel County while facing suspension denied Hudson’s request for a protective order. Judge Devy Patterson Russell ruled that Hudson failed to meet the burden of proof in his request.
Russell is being reviewed for suspension from another court for screaming at fellow judges, failing to keep up with administrative work, pushing a courthouse staffer, and neglecting more than 100 search warrants, the Capital Gazette reported.
Hudson’s funeral is taking place today in North Carolina.
“It’s going to be very hard, very hard in the days ahead,” Burch told WTVD. “I believe in God and I trust in God to give me supernatural strength to get through it.”