Four killed in Baltimore gun violence Friday, including double homicide: ‘We shouldn’t have to be scared’
An especially violent Friday left four men dead and another injured in shootings across Baltimore, including a double homicide where victims were found unresponsive in a vehicle near a Northwest Baltimore apartment complex.
A body was also recovered from the water under Interstate 95 in Westport. The person’s age and gender are unknown, officials said. Emergency crews responded to the 1900 block of Annapolis Road around 9 a.m. Friday. A cause of death has not been determined in that case.
That was about 24 hours after Baltimore police responded to reports of a person found unresponsive in the 800 block of Bradhurst Road in Mid-Govans. Darius Jones, 26, was pronounced dead and investigators later determined he died from a gunshot wound.
It was not immediately clear when and where he was shot to death, and whether his body was dumped on Bradhurst Road.
Neighbors said the body was found in the grass near an alley that runs parallel to the street with a small park on the other side. They said the news came as a shock because the area, a residential street lined with mostly owner-occupied brick rowhouses, is usually so quiet.
About 1:15 p.m. Friday, Baltimore police responded to a reported shooting in the Belair-Edison neighborhood. The victim, a man in his early 30s whose name has not yet been released, died at the hospital after being found with gunshot wounds in the 4200 block of Parkside Drive near its intersection with Belair Road.
On Saturday afternoon, few signs remained of the crime scene; a few strands of yellow police tape spilled from the top of a plastic trash bin in the alley behind Parkside Drive.
Sarah Seipp-Williams, who lives in the neighborhood, said she bought her house about a decade ago largely because of its close proximity to Herring Run Park. She loves the park — and devotes much of her free time to keeping it clean — but she said the gun violence, drug activity and other problems sometimes make her consider moving.
“This is not the first shooting, or the second, or the third. The issue of gun violence goes way back,” she said. “So where did it start? Why is the neighborhood going downhill? Why aren’t the police helping? Those are the questions we need answered.”
She said city officials keep jumping from one proposed solution to the next without adequately addressing the root causes of violence. So far this year, at least 225 people have lost their lives to violence in Baltimore, according to records maintained by The Sun — a slight increase over the same time in 2021, which puts the city on track to record more than 300 homicides for the eighth year running.
“We all lead different lives but there’s something common in all of us. I wish the world could see more of that,” Seipp-Williams said.
“We shouldn’t have to be scared,” she added, describing how she routinely wonders whether she’s hearing fireworks or gunshots. She doesn’t let her daughter play outside unsupervised and worries that the numerous liquor stores along Belair Road attract drug dealers.
Several hours after the Parkside Drive shooting, a man was found slumped over in a vehicle on North Montford Avenue in East Baltimore. He appeared to have several gunshot wounds, police said. He was alive when Eastern District officers found him, but died a short time later.
His name has not yet been released. That shooting was reported about 6:40 p.m. in the 1400 block of North Montford Avenue.
Around 8:40 p.m. Friday, two men were found shot to death inside a vehicle in the 4000 block of Wabash Avenue, close to where the street dead ends in a wooded area. Both victims were pronounced dead on the scene.
The spate of deadly shootings on Friday followed a separate attack around 4:45 a.m. that morning when a 54-year-old man was shot multiple times in the 600 block of South Smallwood Street in Carrollton Ridge. The man was hospitalized and police said his condition was unknown.
Anyone with information on the shootings is asked to call homicide detectives at 410-396-2100 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7Lockup.
