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2 men attack another man behind shopping center in Elkridge

Merchants fear unchecked illicit activity
Posted at 4:36 PM, Sep 11, 2017
and last updated 2017-09-11 17:50:27-04

From the front parking lot at the Elkridge Corners Shopping Center, you can see a host of businesses offering a variety of goods and services, but an area behind the building littered with shopping carts, borrowed crates and no shortage of beer cans has become a party place for vagrants, loiterers and now criminals involved in illicit activities.
    
Jim Davis is one of the many people who work in the plaza who avoids the back lot.

"I see them back there in the evening when I get off, but that's about it," said Davis.
    
Some local merchants no longer use their back doors fearing for their safety, while others say they have witnessed people drinking and using drugs as they take out their trash.
    
What has for the most part been a nuisance became something more on Sunday afternoon when two men attacked another, cutting him with a knife.
    
For now, police will only say that one of the suspects appeared to be 18 to 20 years of age wearing a green shirt and gray sweatpants, but for those who make a living on the other side of the building, the expectation is that the cutting will serve as a wake-up call for officers to crack down on those who have used the concealed hideaway to stay at arm's length from the law.

"They don't even do nothing over here at the shopping center,” said Davis, “The kids are always riding their skateboards up and down the curbs.  So, yeah, clean it up."
    
Paramedics transported the unidentified victim to a local hospital for treatment after the cutting.
    
There's no word yet on his condition, although police described the wound to his leg as a minor injury.