Man convicted in Morgan State University homecoming shooting that wounded 5

A Washington man was convicted Friday of opening fire during homecoming celebrations at Morgan State University in 2023, wounding five people.

Marquis Brown, 20, was found guilty in Baltimore Circuit Court of five counts of attempted second-degree murder and related crimes. He was found not guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit murder and five counts of attempted first-degree murder.

At the time of the shooting, Brown was 17. He did not visibly react to the verdict, but one of his loved ones became overcome with emotion and stormed out of the courtroom before the foreperson of the jury finished reading it.

“No one else is to leave the courtroom!” Baltimore Circuit Judge Althea M. Handy ordered.

In a statement, Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates said Brown faces a maximum sentence of 259 years in prison.

Brown “recklessly endangered the lives of hundreds of people who gathered to celebrate what should have been a joyful and safe event,” Bates said. He added that’s it’s “truly a miracle that no one was killed that night.”

“Our office remains committed to seeking justice for the victims, their families, and the Morgan community,” Bates said. “We look forward to presenting our case at sentencing and advocating for the maximum penalty, so this defendant is held fully accountable for the harm and trauma he caused through his violent actions.”

Prosecutors said Brown and Jovan “Chewy” Williams opened fire on Oct. 3, 2023, after the crowning of Mr. and Miss Morgan State University.

The shooting led the historically Black university in Northeast Baltimore to cancel additional homecoming events and classes for the week.

Assistant State’s Attorney Marina Makkar argued that Brown and Williams indiscriminately fired into a crowd and “recklessly endangered the lives of hundreds of students and visitors.”

“We can all agree a tragic event took place at Morgan State University. But who is responsible?” Makkar said in her closing argument. “It was Marquis Brown and Jovan Williams.”

Investigators pulled surveillance video, created flyers and distributed them to law enforcement and the public.

Metropolitan Police Detective Herman Kelly recognized two men as Brown and Williams, Makkar said. And one of the victims identified them as the shooters, she said.

Makkar said there’s no evidence Brown and Williams had been targeting the people who were wounded.

“Guess what? Bullets don’t have names on them,” she said. “We are lucky it was just five people. But how horrific for them and that community.”

At the time of his arrest, Brown was with a man who had a gun, Makkar said. It was consistent, she said, with being one of the weapons used in the shooting.

But Brown’s attorneys, Assistant Public Defenders Judit Otvos and Jennifer Davis, contended their client was simply on campus that night and committed no crime.

Davis said there were no text messages, DNA or fingerprints connecting their client to the shooting. She cast doubt on the eyewitness identification and described the surveillance video as fuzzy, blurry and faraway.

Prosecutors, she said, were trying to distract members of the jury and appeal to a desire to hold someone accountable.

“There is zero evidence,” Davis said in her closing argument. “Zero.”

Brown was also convicted of use of a handgun during the commission of a crime of violence, reckless endangerment and related offenses.

Williams, 21, of Washington, was sentenced in 2025 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to serve 15 years in federal prison for marijuana distribution and armed carjacking.

Brown was supposed to stand trial in 2025, but the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office dropped all the charges against him and obtained a new indictment after Handy denied a request from prosecutors to postpone the case.

Otvos and Davis then filed a motion to dismiss the charges.

Though Handy criticized the tactic as unprofessional, she refused to throw out the indictment.

Brown is being held at the Metropolitan Transition Center, according to jail records. He’s scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 12, though that date could change.