The wrenching saga of Terrence Johnson, convicted as a teenage cop-killer from Prince George's County and released from prison as a promising college graduate, ended yesterday on his 34th birthday. He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger after a foiled bank robbery in Aberdeen, Md., police said.
The sudden close of the Johnson drama -- which divided many in the Washington area before and after he received a chance at a new life in 1995 -- stunned those who had been repulsed by Johnson's past as it shocked others who had been confident about his future.
"I'm very distressed. I'm very disturbed. I'm saddened," said Circuit Court Judge Warren B. Duckett Jr., who had urged the Maryland parole board to give Johnson another hearing. Johnson served 17 years in prison after killing two white police officers, in what he claimed was self-defense against racially motivated brutality. The release outraged many police officers and the families of the two slain officers.
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"I guess I called that one wrong," Duckett said. "I really thought he was going to make it. . . . I may have misread the guy. I would like to think I hadn't. Now I'll never know.
"In retrospect, I guess he was not ready to get out. I guess the Prince George's County people {who fought against his release} were correct. Yes, I feel a little bad about that. I feel a bit responsible for that."
After his release, Johnson became active in community affairs, worked as a paralegal and enrolled in the law school at the University of the District of Columbia. Last week, he abruptly withdrew from UDC, citing financial problems and his father's illness.
Yesterday, according to a witness, two robbers wearing tan trench coats and black knit caps entered a NationsBank branch in the Beards Hill Plaza of Aberdeen about 9:30 a.m., and demanded money. One man had a gun and one a knife.
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"They had loud, powerful voices. . . . They were shouting and hollering," said the witness, Chuck Cross. "We paid attention to them. . . . They knew exactly what they wanted. They were not nervous at all."
Aberdeen police said the robbers were Johnson and his brother Darryl, 35.
The two men fled on foot for a quarter-mile to an alley behind a Sheraton Hotel. When pursuing officers got within 15 feet, Aberdeen police said, they ordered the men to lie on the ground. Darryl Johnson did, police said, but Terrence Johnson turned and looked at an officer, put a gun to his head and fired. Darryl Johnson, of Baltimore, was arrested and charged with armed bank robbery, first-degree assault and using a handgun in the commission of a felony.
He was being held last night in the Harford County Detention Center.
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Word of Johnson's death spread quickly at Prince George's police headquarters, where officers, black and white, reacted with satisfaction, vindication and, for some, glee.
Said a white veteran officer, "Justice has been served." Mused a black officer who was raised in the same neighborhood as Johnson, "God works in mysterious ways."
But John A. Bartlett Jr., the president of the county's Fraternal Order of Police, said reaction among police officers was very mixed.
"We have wide range of officers now, and things have changed," Bartlett said. "There are those who say this man killed two individuals who were respected law enforcement officers, but not all officers feel that way. I have officers who feel it might have been racially motivated and that Terrence might have been defending his life."
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Johnson was a skinny 15-year-old on June 26, 1978, when police stopped the car in which he was a passenger. The car was traveling at night with its headlights off, police said. His brother, Melvin, who was driving, couldn't produce a license or registration, and police had been on the lookout for a similar brown car involved in a laundry break-in. They took the brothers to the Hyattsville police station.
There, Terrence Johnson scuffled with two Prince George's officers he later said were beating him. He lunged at a holstered gun belonging to one of the officers, and, in a flash of gunfire, killed James Brian Swart, 25, and Albert M. Claggett IV, 26.
After a sensational trial a year later, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He earned a business degree from Morgan State University, but his petitions for parole repeatedly were denied. He finally was released after a public campaign waged nationally on his behalf.
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Johnson went on talk shows, even hosted some for Cathy Hughes's WOL-AM radio station; stitched himself into the District's activist community; helped those organizing the Million Man March; worked as a paralegal for his attorney, Charles Ware; and entered law school.
Gail Ross was his literary agent who was circulating a proposal to New York publishers. The book, she said, was "an effort to talk about his life and use it as a way to inspire people across the country who'd supported him to overcome obstacles of all sorts."
Russell Cort, associate dean for education at the UDC School of Law, said that Johnson had been a student for 1 1/2 years and was in his fourth semester when he withdrew Feb. 20. Cort said Johnson was a student in good academic standing.
"He was absolutely in love with the law," Cort said. "He loved it and was really looking forward to being an attorney. . . . He expressed great disappointment that he had" to withdraw.
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Arthur "Bud" Marshall Jr., who prosecuted Terrence Johnson, told reporters: "I don't like to see anybody die, but it didn't shock me that he died during an armed robbery. I felt he was going to get involved in criminal activity again."
Blanche Claggett, mother of one of the slain officers, said: "We're relieved. We don't have to worry about him anymore." Staff writers Liza Frazier, Hamil R. Harris, Jon Jeter, Philip P. Pan, Katherine Shaver, Todd Shields, Jackie Spinner and Valerie Strauss, and Metro resource director Margot Williams contributed to this report. A LIFE IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Terrence Johnson, who spent more than half of his life in prison for the 1978 shooting of two Prince George's County police officers, has a well-documented history. A glimpse of his life since the slayings follows: June 26, 1978: Johnson and his brother, Melvin, are brought to Hyattsville police station for investigation of a $29.75 holdup at a coin-operated laundry. At the police station, Terrence Johnson, 15, fatally shoots two officers, Albert M. Claggett IV and James Brian Swart. June 27, 1978: Johnson is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and bond is set at $1 million (later reduced to $100,000). March 1979: Trial begins before a jury of eight whites and four blacks. March 31, 1979: Johnson is convicted of manslaughter and illegal use of a handgun in Claggett's death, and found not guilty by reason of insanity in death of second officer. Two days later, in protest, 142 of 150 Prince George's police officers fail to show up for the morning shift. May 3, 1979: At Johnson's sentencing, 200 people gather outside the courthouse, one side shouting "Free Terrence Johnson," the other yelling "We want justice -- 25 years." Inside the courthouse, Johnson, now 16, is sentenced to maximum of 25 years in prison. May 1979: Johnson begins serving time at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown, known to some of its inmates as "Hillbilly Heaven." Late 1979: Johnson is transferred to the Patuxent Institution, where he spends the next seven years and earns his high school equivalency diploma and an associate's degree from a Baltimore Community College prison program. In 1986, at age 23, he earns a business degree from the prison program of Morgan State University. Aug. 26, 1989: Johnson marries his longtime girlfriend in a brief ceremony at the Jessup Pre-Release Unit. They later divorce. 1991: Johnson denied parole for fourth and final time, but later petitions to overturn the decision. August 1994: Parole board agrees to release Johnson in February 1995. Feb. 1, 1995: Johnson is released from prison. He has spent nearly half his life there and is now 32 years old. Fall 1995: After his efforts to begin law school at Howard University are met with strong opposition from faculty and alumni, Johnson enrolls at the University of the District of Columbia. Feb. 27, 1997: Following a bank holdup in Aberdeen, Johnson is cornered by police and apparently commits suicide. CAPTION: Terrence Johnson and his brother robbed a Maryland bank, police say. CAPTION: Terrence Johnson a year ago in the law library at the University of the District of Columbia's law school. He had abruptly withdrawn from UDC last week.
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