The footage showed a teen with a man and woman approach a group of young people at a street corner near the school, according to the police. The three “started assaulting” an unidentified minor, police wrote, and the teen suspect assaulted the unidentified minor with a black semi-automatic handgun.
After that assault, police wrote, the teen approached two other young people on the sidewalk. He “exchanged words” with them, then pulled out the same firearm and started shooting. One of the two people on the sidewalk pulled out another handgun and “started shooting back,” police said.
Both of the two young people on the sidewalk were shot, and police wrote that the teen suspect also appeared shot — he was hopping on one leg and holding his left side.
The description of the assault and shooting appeared in charging documents for the two adults who accompanied the teen. They are each accused of being present at the shooting and are charged with offenses that include first- and second-degree assault, as well as reckless endangerment and accessory after the fact.
In a news release Friday, police said the two adults had “participated in the assault, during which the 15-year-old pistol-whipped the unidentified victim.”
Charging documents say that the man is the teen suspect’s father and the woman is his wife. He was ordered held without bond at a Monday bail review hearing before Baltimore District Judge Katie M. O’Hara. The woman also was held without bail, according to Emily Witty, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office.
The two teens who fired weapons, both of whom are 15 years old and suffered gunshot wounds, will be charged as adults, according to police. The Friday police news release said both would face various charges “to include attempted murder and handgun violations.” Police said Monday that the two still were hospitalized in stable condition and that their charges were “pending.”
The third shooting victim, a 16-year-old, was released from the hospital Friday.
On Friday morning, several Carver parents waited outside the building, down the street from the crime scene, hoping to pick up their children. Some expressed dismay about when they were notified of the shooting, and many voiced concern about the trauma that students might be experiencing.
“Even though he may not have witnessed anything, this is trauma,” one mother said of her son. “To know that you came to school this morning, and something like this occurred.”
The school had staggered arrival times for students Monday. Those making their way to the building before 8 a.m. largely said they weren’t worried about returning. One parent, who said he gives his child a ride to and from school, said it’s the surrounding neighborhood that poses a greater risk.
Yasir Ronaldo, a ninth grader at Carver who is interested in studying cybersecurity, commutes from across the city — about a 20-minute drive or hourlong bus ride. He said he feels safe at school, though he doesn’t feel as safe in the area that surrounds it.
”It’s kind of a bad location,” he said.
In the Friday release, Mayor Brandon Scott called the accusations against the adults “a despicable example of parents facilitating the escalation of everyday conflict between young people into reckless gun violence endangering innocent lives.”
“We cannot tolerate this,” Scott said. “My hope is that those responsible for this incident, including the parents, will be brought to justice.”
The shooting was captured by ShotSpotter, according to charging documents, which alerted police to eight firearm discharges. Detectives located “several” 9 mm and .40-caliber shell casings at the scene, the documents said.
Police on Friday accused the adults of transporting the teen to Carver “in order to assault” the unidentified victim. Charging documents say police viewed footage from a camera near Braddish Avenue that showed the movement of the adults and teen before and after the altercation.
The three came from a house on Braddish Avenue and got into a silver Ford before the shooting, according to a description in the document. The vehicle then returned and the woman went into the house and left with different clothes. Shortly afterward, a medic arrived at the home and took the wounded teen to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center. The woman accompanied him and the man remained.
The documents describe that the man gave a different story when officers spoke with him.
He told patrol officers he’d picked up his son, who had a gunshot wound, and drove him from Carver to Braddish Avenue, as his mother called 911. He later told a detective that a black SUV with three people wearing ski masks inside was following his son, who ran to Carver. The man said he’d lost communication with his son around that time, then drove to the area of the school and found him suffering from a gunshot wound.
The charging documents also describe that police recovered a gray hoodie from inside the adults’ vehicle. Police wrote that it is “the same hoodie” that the teen assault and shooting suspect was wearing in the video footage.
Based on that, the video footage, and unspecified “evidence seen in the vehicle,” police wrote that they believe the teen was a shooter and that his parents were there.
At the Monday bail review hearing for the man, prosecutor Saleem Safdir said he had a “willful disregard” for public safety and presented an “extreme danger” to the community.
An attorney representing the man from the public defender’s office emphasized that the charging documents contain no allegation that he provided the teen with a firearm. Cosmo Pappas, the public defender, also said there was “scant” evidence of conspiracy.
Pappas, who declined to comment after the hearing, requested home detention for the man. He was overruled by O’Hara, who called the circumstances “quite serious” and determined the man should be held without bond and have no contact with any victims, witnesses or co-defendants in his criminal case.
A Department of Juvenile Services report released in September found that crimes committed by young people have risen since pandemic years, but are still down from pre-pandemic levels. It identified a roughly decade-long overall decline.
It also, however, identified a fourfold increase in young Maryland residents suffering nonfatal gunshot wounds. In Baltimore specifically, from 2013 to 2022, the number of young people shot fatally doubled and the number nonfatally wounded rose 188.9 percent, the report said.
Baltimore has seen decreases in both homicides and nonfatal shootings so far in 2023, compared with the same time period in 2022. There have been 224 homicides, compared with 277 at this time in 2022. And there have been 545 nonfatal shootings, compared with 600 at this time last year.
Baltimore Sun reporter Dan Belson contributed to this article.
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