Two Maryland teenagers — 14 and 15 — were charged in a fatal shooting that allegedly stemmed from an ongoing feud between gangs in the Germantown and Gaithersburg areas, officials said Wednesday.

       The victim, Taon Lamont Cline, 20, was shot four times the night of April 22 in the Fox Chapel neighborhood of Germantown. Prosecutors asserted that he had been warned over social media by the 15-year-old not to come there.

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       “He told the victim through an Instagram message that if he comes to the Fox, and ‘my men see you, you’re getting upped,’” Montgomery County Assistant State’s Attorney Kimberly Cissel said in court Wednesday, describing upped as slang for violence.

       That teen, and the 14-year-old, were charged as adults with first-degree murder. The Washington Post generally does not name juveniles charged in crimes until they are in circuit court. Their family members declined to comment Wednesday.

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       Police said the case remains “an active and ongoing investigation” and indicated others could be charged.

       In court Wednesday, attorneys for the charged boys argued that evidence against them was weak and that neither were tabbed as the shooter. The attorneys asked that the two be allowed to return to their residences under home detention, pending further court proceedings. Their efforts will continue at additional hearings this week.

       He was 14 when he was charged with murder. He could be out of custody in less than a year.

       Joseph McKenzie, an attorney who represented the younger teen at Wednesday’s hearing, said the youth had never been in court before.

       “He is literally a child,” McKenzie said.

       He added that at the time of the incident, the teen was in a nearby building with family when they heard gunshots. He went to the scene to check on his friends, McKenzie said.

       “There’s no direct nexus with my client being associated with shooting anyone,” the lawyer said.

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       He acknowledged that detectives alleged in court filings that the 14-year-old — days after the shooting — posted an image of himself on Instagram holding a weapon. But McKenzie downplayed it.

       “That is not evidence, your honor,” he told District Judge Patrick Mays.

       Allen Wolf, the head public defender in Montgomery County who represented the 15-year-old in court Wednesday, noted that the police did not allege he was the shooter but instead indicated he was with the shooter.

       “There is no allegation that he has a weapon, there’s no allegation that he fires a weapon,” Wolf said.

       The attorney said detectives also had found online postings tied to his client, but he argued the postings don’t appear to mean much.

       “After the shooting, there is information about him posting inflammatory statements on social media, but nothing in terms of what he was doing at the time,” Wolf said.

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       Under Maryland law, suspects can be charged and convicted of murder without using the weapon if they participated in the event

       Cissel, the prosecutor, acknowledged that the 15-year-old may not have been the shooter, but she noted the threat delivered to the victim about being “upped” if he came into to Fox Chapel.

       “That’s exactly what happened,” Cissel said. “The victim went to this neighborhood and he got shot four times and there were multiple other shots fired.”

       Even if the youth wasn’t holding the gun, Cissel said, “he was certainly the one making the threats, intentionally planning this, and warning what could happen. And it did happen.”

       Prosecutors essentially have about two weeks to decide whether to seek criminal indictments against the teens. If the youths are indicted, the case would move from district court to circuit court.

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       At that point, defense attorneys would get the chance to ask a judge to move the case into the juvenile system, which is geared more toward rehabilitation and often yields far shorter sentences for defendants found to be responsible.

       New case law in the Maryland is generally making it easier for youths charged as adults to have their cases moved to juvenile court, according to attorneys in the state. That happened recently in Montgomery County for a 15-year-old who was 14 last year when he was accused of opening fire at on outdoor basketball court — killing one and wounding three — in Germantown.