A day after seven people were shot in East Baltimore, including a 3-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl, students in purple City Springs Elementary/Middle School shirts flooded the area after school let out Thursday.
Some filed into apartments at Douglass Homes, a public housing community that dates to the 1940s. Others waited on the Maryland Transit Administration bus.
The two playgrounds and one basketball court in Douglass Homes were empty despite clear skies and a blazing sun. Perhaps it was just too hot.
Residents were saddened and upset that a child was a victim of gun violence but said this is still their home. The environment is such that anything is bound to happen at any time, including a shooting, they said.
“I don’t care how secluded you think you are in your neighborhood, you ain’t safe nowhere. Violence is everywhere,” William Fleming, 67, said.
Baltimore Police were searching Thursday for whoever opened fire at the intersection of North Caroline and East Fayette streets at around 9 p.m. Wednesday, wounding seven. None of the victims had life-threatening injuries, but police and city officials expressed outrage that anyone would shoot at a crowd and strike a child.
“We don’t have very much on them now. We’re going to work diligently to find out who did this cowardly act and hopefully hold them accountable,” Police Commissioner Richard Worley said Wednesday night.
The 3-year-old was in serious but stable condition after being transported to a hospital by officers in a patrol car and undergoing surgery Wednesday night, police said.
The police department had said Thursday morning that the youngest shooting victim was a 4-year-old girl but in the evening went back to its initial report that it was a 3-year-old boy who was shot.
The 16-year-old girl also remained hospitalized but was in stable condition Thursday, police said. The other victims, who went to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, ranged from 18-43. Five victims have been released, police said Thursday evening.
On Thursday, Mayor Brandon’s Scott’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement was initiating a coordinated neighborhood stabilization response, in which officials flood an approximately six-block radius around the mass shooting scene and offer resources to residents, spokesperson Jack French said. It begins with distributing a letter signed by the mayor.
“Please know that my team is here to support and facilitate your healing and well-being in this moment. We know that incidents of violence — especially those involving our children — have any number of personal, mental, and/or emotional impacts and we are here to discuss the support services and resources available for you according to your needs,” the letter reads.
The shooting happened near a busy intersection that leads to Douglass Homes, which is named after Frederick Douglass and managed by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City.
There’s a small park with benches, along with a liquor store and bus stops, at the intersection. There are also surveillance cameras all around, and Worley said police planned to examine video to determine how the shooters got to the scene and what led to the gunfire. He said all the shots came from one direction.
“I have no idea what these cowards were thinking,” Worley told media Wednesday night. “It was a group of people. They opened fire indiscriminately. They had no idea who they were shooting at.”
The Youth Peace & Justice Foundation, a Texas-based organization founded after the 2022 Uvalde school shooting that killed 19 children, is offering a reward up to $5,000 for information that assists police in apprehending suspects.
The brazen shooting happened Wednesday night despite a police car parked nearby, one neighbor said.
The immediate area has experienced previous violence, including drive-by shootings, said Arch McKown, a community public safety leader in the police department’s Southeast District, a precinct that until 2023 encompassed the shooting scene.
Police are known to park a cruiser in the median or the parking lot of the liquor store, he said.
“There’s retail there. There are some small takeout shops. There are a couple gas stations along that stretch where people will be filling up their cars, commuters from Hopkins … [and] you have several bus routes that overlap at the corner there at Caroline and Fayette,” McKown said. “You have students and a variety of walks of life that converge at that intersection there.”
Fleming grew up in East Baltimore and has lived in Douglass Homes for two years. Even though he sees how bad things can get in the neighborhood, he said knowing a child was hit is disturbing, especially as someone with nine grandchildren — the youngest being a 4-year-old girl.
That was most upsetting for Maurice Coleman, too.
“You have no heart, no morals, no nothing,” Coleman said of the people who opened fire.
He works at a nearby bakery and stops by Douglass Homes on his break to see family, including his grandchildren, one of whom was playing outside Thursday afternoon.
“Kids come out here to play,” Coleman said. “That child didn’t deserve that.”
Joyce Green has served for 23 years as the president of the community relations council for the Central District, of which the shooting scene has been a part since 2023. She was awakened Wednesday night by a text message from the district’s commander, Maj. Scott Swenson, detailing the violent outburst.
“Why would you go shoot up a crowd of people? And a child is involved. And it’s probably not over something important,” Green said.
Thursday, Green remained stunned by the previous night’s events despite being hardened by years of working with police.
“Until we can get to the point where guns aren’t needed to solve petty problems or major problems, these kinds of things are going to happen,” Green said. ”This is part of the reason I hear a lot of parents say they don’t like their kids to play outside. And I can understand."
Scott, who stood alongside Worley at the scene Wednesday night, said anyone involved in the shooting should turn themselves in.
“There is no way, to those individuals, there is no way for you to reclaim humanity after doing that,” Scott said. “But, if you want to try to save yourself and save your soul, turn yourself in. Because everybody in the goddamn city should be looking for you.”
Banner reporters Tim Prudente and Sara Ruberg contributed to this article.
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