‘Bullets don’t have a name’: 9 shot in a day
Three shootings ended in fatalities as city marks 43 homicides in past month
Nine people were shot Tuesday, three fatally, according to Baltimore City police.
The violence began around 1:40 a.m. and continued into Tuesday evening.
Around 7:30 p.m., Tanya, who declined to give her last name for fear of her safety, sat on the front steps of a rowhouse in Sandtown-Winchester in Northwest Baltimore, her young son asleep in her arms. Less than an hour earlier, they’d heard a barrage of gunfire.
“Bullets don’t have a name. … We had to duck for cover,” she said. “It’s kind of sad you got a 4-year-old asking, ‘What we running for?’ ”
Police said a 52-year-old man was fatally shot about a block away, on the 1100 block of N. Carey St., around 6:21 p.m. He was taken to University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead. Near the crime scene, family members of the victims wailed as they walked toward the crime tape. “He gone, baby, he gone,” a man called out.
It was the day’s third killing. Hours earlier, police said, a man was fatally shot in the 1800 block of W. Fayette St. in West Baltimore. He died at a nearby hospital.
Another man was killed and two people were injured in a triple shooting on Pennsylvania Avenue on Tuesday afternoon. Outside the Penn Super Market at the corner of Cumberland Street, one man, 29, was shot in the torso, one in the calf and one in the foot, police said. All three men were taken to hospitals, where the 29-year-old died, according to police. The conditions of the other men, ages 35 and 37, were not immediately available.
Overlooking the crime scene from across the street at the J&Y Carry Out, Clyde Morrison said similar scenes played out too often in the area. Morrison, 65, comes to the nearby Sandtown Winchester Senior Center several times each week, and typically stops by the carryout for lunch.
“Sad to say we frequent this stuff,” Morrison said. “It’s an everyday occurrence.”
A block away, the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Pennsylvania Avenue Branch closed early. Meghan McCorkell, a spokeswoman for the Pratt Library, said there had been an altercation after the shooting that spilled into the building and rattled library staff, prompting the cancellation of an evening reading event for children featuring city schools CEO Sonja Santelises.
Earlier in the day, two people were shot in Northwest Baltimore after midnight. At 1:40 a.m. a 69-year-old woman was shot in the lower body and a 36-year-old man was shot in the back in the 5300 block of Cordelia Ave. The woman was taken to an area hospital, while the man arrived later to a Baltimore County hospital for treatment. Police said he was “very uncooperative with investigators and refused to answer any questions.”
And just after 9 a.m., two women, ages 21 and18, were shot while sitting in a car in the 2900 block of Westwood Ave. in West Baltimore, when a gunman approached them and opened fire, police said.
There has been a spike in homicides for Baltimore in recent weeks, with 43 people killed in the past month. It coincides with significant chaos in the Baltimore Police Department. The agency lacks a permanent commissioner, and the chief spokesman resigned last week, citing “mudslinging” within the department and “political turmoil.”
“Who can we trust?” asked Tanya, as she sat with her child on North Carey St.