Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison implored any witnesses to talk to police after four kids were injured in a shooting this week outside a vacant East Baltimore rowhouse.
“What we are asking for is asking anyone who has information, we want them to please get us in touch right way,” Harrison said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun. “It angers all of us that children are being shot and desperately want to apprehend those involved.”
The kids were shot Tuesday in the 1700 block of N. Milton Ave. in East Baltimore’s Broadway East neighborhood, near the Baltimore Cemetery. The victims were a 17-year-old girl, twin 14-year-old girls and a 12-year-old boy. All four suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
“These were children and it was a school night. They were out and vulnerable and someone took advantage of them,” Harrison said.
The shooting was one of nine across the city Tuesday that left one man dead and four others injured, in addition to the youths. On Monday, a 17-year-old boy and 14 year-old boy were shot in the 2300 block of E. Hoffman St. On Thursday, two men were fatally shot: a 20-year-old man died in the 2400 block of Reisterstown Road and a 27-year-old man died in the 3500 block of Cliftmont Ave.
“This is entirely unacceptable,” Mayor Brandon Scott said in a statement posted to social media Wednesday. “Our children should be focused on completing homework and preparing for another school day rather than petty beefs that cause harm and perpetuate pain.”
Scott said he met with Harrison and his staff Wednesday to discuss violence involving young people. There have been 13 people under the age of 18 killed in the city so far this year, just three fewer than the number of youths killed in all of 2020.
Harrison said investigators have not yet determined a possible motive or suspects, or whether the children were the intended target.
“These conflicts do not have to be resolved this way. People are resorting to violence to solve their conflicts. It doesn’t have to be that way,” Harrison said.
Adeli Acosta lives in the Broadway East neighborhood near where the kids were shot. She emigrated from Honduras to escape hardship, but she said she remains concerned for her safety.
“It is still safer, but I still have fear,” she said. “I’m still a bit scared here. There have been shootings and drug dealing.”
Across from her home is a row of boarded-up houses with broken windows and signs for vacant home listings.
Acosta said she would like to see an increased police presence and security in the neighborhood.
“If [the city] put more cameras around here it would help,” she said.
City police spokeswoman Lindsey Eldridge said investigators are reviewing CCTV footage from the area.
While other cities have experienced a sharp rise in overall killings in the past year, Baltimore’s homicide rate is roughly the same as previous years. As of Thursday evening, 243 people were killed in the city, up six from the same date as last year, while non-fatal shootings have declined. There were 497 shootings in the city, down from 516 at the same time last year.
The city has counted at least 300 homicides every year since 2015.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan also expressed frustration about the recent violence at an event in Baltimore Wednesday.
“It’s outrageous and acceptable that we continue to have more than 300 people murdered on the streets, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a real willingness to get anything done about it,” Hogan said in a recording from WBAL News Radio.
The Eastern District, where the kids were shot, continues to be a busier for the police department. Last year, 43 people were killed in the district, and 32 people have been killed in the Eastern so far this year, according to the latest available city crimes stats.
Still, Harrison said the police department has seen improvements in clearance rates, which have hovered around 50% and are higher than at the same time last year — though clearance rates fluctuate throughout the year.
Harrison said more cases are benefiting from the community’s help.
“It has allowed us to do a better job,” he said. “On these cases, we need it again.”
Harrison said investigators also are looking at camera footage from another shooting on “The Block,” a block of strip clubs near City Hall and police department headquarters. A 35-year-old man was shot there this week and was listed in stable condition, police said.
Harrison would not say if the victim had been inside one of the clubs.
“We have some camera footage, and we need more information about what transpired before that,” he said.
The shooting is the second in the city’s strip club district in about a month. On Aug. 12, Baltimore Police Officer Alexandros Haziminas shot 31-year-old Terrance Tyrone Hillman, who officers said was pointing a handgun at a group of people. Hillman treated at a hospital and later released. He faces gun charges from the incident.
Four other people were shot in the city Tuesday, including a man who was fatally shot in the 1800 block of N. Smallwood St., near North Avenue in West Baltimore. Police have not yet released the man’s name.
Additionally, a 21-year-old man was found shot in the back of his head in the Edmondson Village neighborhood; an unidentified woman was found shot in the stomach in the 2800 block of Boarman Ave. in Northwest Baltimore, and a 33-year-old man was shot in the wrist the 2700 block of Park Heights Ave.
Anyone with information on the shootings is asked to call Metro Crime Stoppers tip-line at 1-866-7LOCK-UP.
