Three men who terrorized Washington, D.C., and Prince George's County, Maryland, during a six-week string of armed robberies and carjackings in 2024 were sentenced to more than a decade in federal prison each on Wednesday. Kanard Bishop, 28, described as the crew's ringleader, received 15 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release. Edward Leroy Brown, 26, was sentenced to 12 and a half years, and Khalil Boyd, 20, got 12 years, closing out a case that began with a botched convenience-store robbery in Capitol Heights and ended in a shootout outside a District Heights GameStop.
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras handed down all three sentences, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal prosecutors had pushed for a 252-month, or 21-year, sentence for Bishop, citing his leadership role in orchestrating the spree, but Contreras settled on 180 months instead. Brown, listed in court filings under the alias 'Shiesty', and Boyd, known as 'Lil Bill', each pleaded guilty on March 26 to conspiracy to interfere with interstate commerce by robbery and to using and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, and their individual sentences were confirmed by WJLA, which reported that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office announced the sentences in D.C. federal court.
How a Six-Week Spree Began With a Botched Robbery
The spree began Feb. 14, 2024, when Bishop and Brown walked into Big Ben Market in Capitol Heights, Maryland, and pointed firearms at an employee, the Justice Department's account states. When the pair couldn't get the store's register open, they fled and robbed a nearby McDonald's instead. Over the following six weeks, the trio carried out a total of 13 robberies and carjackings across Prince George's County and Washington, D.C., hitting fast-food restaurants, mini marts, and delivery drivers, per the same federal account.
The spree escalated sharply in its final 24 hours. On March 27, 2024, Bishop and Boyd carjacked a driver at a District Heights gas station, stealing a 2022 Dodge Challenger, then held up two FedEx delivery workers at gunpoint inside their truck in Washington, taking their wallets, phones, and four packages, according to the Justice Department.
The GameStop Robbery That Ended the Spree
The next day, March 28, 2024, Bishop and Brown entered a GameStop on Silver Hill Road in District Heights wearing masks, struck an employee behind the counter, and demanded that workers open the registers and the store safe, the Justice Department said. Boyd waited nearby in the stolen Challenger while the robbery unfolded inside.
Prince George's County detectives were already watching the store. According to the Prince George's County Police Department, its Carjacking Interdiction Unit and the Washington Area Vehicle Enforcement Team had tracked the stolen Challenger to the Silver Hill Road store in real time. When officers moved in, Bishop and Brown tried to flee; an officer shot Brown in the lower body, and police recovered a loaded ghost gun -- an untraceable, privately made firearm without a serial number -- from him, per the Justice Department.
Boyd, waiting nearby in the Challenger, tried to escape as officers closed in. The Justice Department says he rammed an unmarked police vehicle, carjacked another driver at gunpoint, and fled across the district line into Washington, though WJLA's account of the chase describes Boyd crashing into two police cruisers rather than a single unmarked car. Metropolitan Police Department units then helped track him down on Anacostia Road SE, per the same federal account.
The Federal Statutes Behind the Decade-Plus Sentences
Prosecutors charged the trio under 18 U.S.C. § 1951, the federal Hobbs Act statute covering robberies that affect interstate commerce, which carries a maximum of up to 20 years in prison per count, the Justice Department noted. Each defendant also faced a separate count under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) for brandishing a firearm during a violent crime, which carries a mandatory seven-year minimum that must run consecutively to any other prison term rather than concurrently with it. That statutory structure, stacking Hobbs Act robbery counts on top of mandatory firearm enhancements, is why federal sentences in cases like this one routinely stretch into the double digits.
The sentencing closes out a case that stretched more than two years from the men's arrests in March 2024 to Wednesday's hearing, as WJLA reported. It also brings to an end a spree that touched two jurisdictions, multiple retail businesses, and at least one delivery service across the Washington region.
