Prosecutors dismiss case tied to illegal ammunition

Copy of search warrant was never provided, lawyer says

Baltimore prosecutors dismissed their illegal ammunition case Wednesday against an employee of the city Safe Streets violence intervention program.

David Caldwell, who was the supervisor of the Safe Streets site in the city’s Belair-Edison neighborhood, had faced one count of possession of ammunition despite having been convicted of a crime that disqualified him from being allowed to have guns or ammo. The charge stemmed from an October search of his home by the FBI, which also raided the Safe Streets office in Belair-Edison and another staffer’s residence.

Caldwell’s attorney, John Cox, told The Baltimore Sun that city prosecutors never provided him with a copy of the search warrant authorizing FBI agents and Baltimore Police detectives to enter his client’s home. Without producing the warrant, the state couldn’t proceed with its case against Caldwell, according to Cox.

“They’ve sealed the warrant and to my knowledge it has not been unsealed,” Cox said after court Wednesday.

Of his client, he added, “He’s happy to have this behind him and move on.”

Caldwell, 37, left court without speaking to reporters.

A spokesman for Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates, a Democrat, declined to comment, citing “an open investigation.”

A spokesperson for the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office said the agency “does not confirm or deny, or otherwise provide updates, on specific investigations.”

The FBI’s search of Caldwell’s home on Kermit Court produced a magazine with nine rounds, “narcotics packaging material” and several electronic devices, according to Caldwell’s charging documents.

“All property was submitted to FBI evidence by the FBI search team,” a city police detective wrote.

Along with the raid on the Belair-Edison site, the search of Caldwell’s home was one of 15 court-authorized searches completed Oct. 26. There had been no federal arrests as of a week after the searches, an FBI spokesperson said at the time, declining to comment further because the affidavits submitted in support of the search warrants were sealed.

LifeBridge Health’s Center for Hope, a hospital-based health outreach organization, operates the Safe Streets site in Belair-Edison and five other locations. The organization “will be assessing” Caldwell’s “employment status with the program,” LifeBridge spokesperson Stephani Renbaum said.

The Belair-Edison site has been inactive since at least October because of staffing levels, Renbaum said, adding that LifeBridge is working with the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and community members “to ensure that the site can be operated safely.”

Sources told The Sun in October that the federal probe was believed to be limited to the Belair-Edison site, rather than a larger investigation into the violence intervention program.

Established in 2007, Safe Streets is a community violence intervention strategy that deploys “violence interrupters,” people who have knowledge of the streets and credibility in their communities, to intervene in disputes before bullets fly and to connect people at risk of gun violence with services or opportunities.

While the program has faced scrutiny, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University also found that it reduced nonfatal shootings and homicides in the areas where it operated.