Police seek two men in stabbing

Police acknowledged yesterday that it remains unclear who wielded a knife in the stabbing of a Terps football player over the weekend, but said charges brought against a student on Tuesday were appropriate because of his alleged role in the crime.

Prince George's County Police District 1 commander Maj. Kevin Davis said yesterday police are still working to identify two other men who attacked freshman defensive back Trenton Hughes over the weekend. Hughes said in an interview Wednesday that sophomore Messai Belayneh was not the man who stabbed him.

Hughes did, however, pick Belayneh out of a photo lineup as one of his attackers, charging documents show. The documents also describe a chaotic scene at Belayneh's Knox Box apartment early Sunday morning. A scuffle broke out when Hughes came to the defense of his girlfriend after she was called derogatory names by someone at the party, after which Belayneh and several others approached Hughes, documents state.

One person pulled out a knife and placed Hughes in a chokehold. Then Belayneh "and his accomplices all worked in unison and began to assault the victim," Det. K. Humbel wrote in the charging documents. "During the beating, the victim was stabbed twice in the upper body."

Someone came to the aid of Hughes and helped him flee the scene, Humbel wrote. Davis said Hughes didn't realize he was stabbed until later, and was then transported to a local hospital.

The case has remained a priority investigation for detectives, Davis said, because police have identified Belayneh as part of a "loosely-knit group of troublemakers" that has committed crimes in College Park in the past.

Two men who frequented Belayneh's Knox Box apartment, Davis said, were arrested last month in connection with a string of burglaries that targeted student homes. One of those men, Younatan Havbtu Gobezai, 18, was also arrested in connection with a College Park street robbery in September, Davis said.

"That just heightens our sense of urgency in terms of bringing closure to this assault investigation," Davis said.

Although Davis said he understood friends of Belayneh's are proclaiming their friend's innocence, he urged the university community to trust that police have strong evidence tying Belayneh to the crime. He also noted police are "actively following leads, but certainly we haven't reached a point where we have probable cause to arrest other persons."

Friends of Belayneh could not be reached yesterday, and Belayneh's mother declined to comment.

Addressing Hughes's comments yesterday that Belayneh was not the one who stabbed him, Davis said, "There's more than one person involved in the assault. [The charging document] doesn't necessarily put the knife in our defendant's hand."

The case has taken on special importance despite other more serious crimes in District 1, Davis said, because "35,000-plus [students] go to school at the University of Maryland, so that means, you know, realistically there's 75,000 parents out there that think that College Park is a safe enough environment to send their kids to get an education

"It would be my personal expectation, as it is the university's and the City of College Park's, that this environment be as safe as humanly possible," he added. "The police have a role to play in that safety."

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