Update: A dispute over parking led to the mass shooting, charging documents say.
Six people were shot — three of them fatally — at a home in Annapolis on Sunday, and police reported they had taken a “person of interest” into custody.
Officers responded at about 8 p.m. to a home on Paddington Place near Edgewood Road and found six people with gunshot wounds, Annapolis Police Chief Ed Jackson said at a briefing late Sunday. The three men who died, he said, ranged in age from roughly their 20s to their 50s, “as best we can tell.” Police did not immediately release their identities.
Police recovered a weapon in addition to taking the person of interest into custody Sunday night, Jackson said. Law enforcement did not provide the name of the individual, and no charges had been filed.
“This was an interpersonal dispute,” Jackson told reporters at the scene. “I want to assure the community that there’s no public safety threat as a result of this unfortunate incident.”
Jackson said investigators collected a lot of information but had not established a firm motive for the shooting. He described the case as a “very active and fluid investigation,” adding that police would work through the night.
”We’re still trying to determine everything that occurred,” he said. “We’re still piecing it together. We have a lot more work to do.”
Half the block remained closed to traffic on Monday morning. FBI agents were on scene. Meanwhile, police were speaking to an older man at the home.
Paddington Place, a quiet neighborhood about 3 miles southeast of downtown Annapolis, was jammed with emergency vehicles after the shooting. Neighbors stood outside on the street waiting for news about what was happening.
The community consists of single-family homes, cottages and split foyers. It is located on the city’s eastern edge.
A cellphone photo that a passerby sent to The Baltimore Banner showed a man’s body on the front lawn and another at the edge of the driveway, in a pool of blood.
A woman was loudly, hysterically crying outside in Spanish. At one point, more than a dozen people — including several children, teens and young adults — were huddled around the front door.
Terry Goble, 60, said he heard what he described as rapid-fire gunshots. “It wasn’t firecrackers,” he said. “I could tell.”
Then, Goble said, he heard sirens.
Rich Perry, 59, was watching TV with his wife and father-in-law when he saw an ambulance rush past their home, he said. He described the neighborhood as nice, adding that it’s a place where everyone respects each other.
“You just don’t see stuff like this,” Perry said.
In a post on Facebook, state Sen. Sarah Elfreth, a Democrat from Anne Arundel County, wrote, “Our community experienced a tragedy beyond words this evening.”
Elfreth urged people to keep the families and first responders from the Annapolis Police Department and Annapolis Fire Department in their thoughts.
Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley expressed sadness for the families and the city and lamented the gun violence.
“Tonight was an example of, yet again, senseless violence: people trying to resolve issues with guns,” Buckley said. “It is the most ridiculous thing that we can do as a society.”
Buckley said, “This sort of thing can happen anywhere.”
“And nothing,” he said, “gets resolved through the use of a gun.”
—WJZ-TV and breaking news reporter Penelope Blackwell contributed reporting to this article.
dylan.segelbaum@thebaltimorebanner.com
brenda.wintrode@thebaltimorebanner.com
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