Gunshots erupted at a block party in Baltimore on Sunday, killing two people, injuring 28 and leaving a sprawling crime scene that marred the US holiday weekend, police said. Three of the injured are in critical condition.
Baltimore Police Department Acting Commissioner Richard Worley told reporters there were a total of 30 victims during a news conference at the scene.
The shooting took place just after at 12:30 am at a party in the Brooklyn Homes area in the southern part of the city, Worley said.
The shooting comes amid gatherings across the country ahead of the July 4 holiday. Elsewhere, a shooting in Kansas left seven people with gunshot wounds and two more victims hospitalized after being trampled as people ran out of a nightclub early Sunday morning, police there said.
Nine victims were transported by ambulance and 20 victims walked to area hospitals with injuries from the shooting, Worley said.
Nineteen of those victims were treated in the emergency department at MedStar Harbor Hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman Debra Schindler. Nine of the seriously injured patients were stabilized and transported to Baltimore trauma centers.. All but one of the 19 victims sent to MedStar have been released.
“As is protocol after any victim of walk-in violence, the hospital was immediately closed to secure the campus and ensure the safety of all patients and associates,” Schindler said in a statement. “Multiple seriously injured patients were simultaneously assessed and evaluated by clinical staff while hospital security managed the crowd of family members who gathered in and out of the emergency department.”
Meanwhile, a dozen victims were sent for treatment at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center and four others were sent to the Pediatric Emergency Department at the University of Maryland Medical Center, according to a spokesperson for the University of Maryland Medical System. , Michael Schwartzberg.
An 18-year-old woman was found dead at the scene and a 20-year-old man was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly after, police said.
“I want those in charge to hear me and to hear me very clearly,” Mayor Brandon Scott said at the scene. “We won’t stop until we find you, and we will find you. Until then, I hope that with every breath you take, you think of the lives you took, think of the lives you impacted here tonight.”
No arrests were made immediately after the shooting. Scott asked anyone with information to come forward to help investigators track down the “cowards” responsible for the shooting.
Governor Wes Moore said his “heart breaks for these victims, their families, and the Baltimore community grappling with the loss.”
“Maryland is tired of seeing gun violence continue to devastate our state and our nation,” Moore said in a statement. “The fact that these horrific shootings continue to occur is abhorrent. We as a state will continue to do everything we can to prevent senseless acts of violence like the one we saw last night.”
Authorities said the crime scene was extensive and it will take detectives a while to work through it.
“Treat this like family,” Scott said. “How would you want people to treat you if you were in mourning, if this was his neighborhood, if this was an event in your community where this happened? We want you to treat it that way because that’s how we have to treat each other as Baltimoreans.”
Hours after the shooting, several officers remained on the scene, working behind police tape amid densely populated two-story apartment blocks. Folding tables and plastic cups were scattered around the scene, apparently left behind as people fled the gunfire.
Lakell Nelson said there were several false alarms from people who mistook the sounds of fireworks for gunshots earlier in the evening while she was at the block party. However, as she was getting to her car, she started the actual shooting.
“The shots kept going and going and going,” said.
It was then that two young women approached him and told him that they had been shot, and one woman showed how a bullet had gone through her shorts.
Nelson said he told the women to get in the car and ran red lights to get to the nearest hospital.
“When I got to the hospital gate, my car was almost getting ready to go inside the hospital, because I was determined to get those babies into that hospital,” Nelson said.
The violence comes as federal prosecutors in Baltimore this week touted their efforts to reduce violent crime in the city. Police have reported nearly 130 homicides and about 300 shootings so far this year, although that is less than in the same period last year. Authorities have vowed to crack down on repeat violent offenders.