Five people were shot and killed in two separate shootings in Baltimore on Friday night, marking a deadly two hours as the city dealt with a deep freeze.
The first shootings took place around 8 p.m. near the 5200 block of Fairlawn Avenue, where three people were killed and a fourth injured.
The subsequent fatal shootings were reported at 10:20 p.m. in the 4500 block of Pennington Avenue in the Curtis Bay neighborhood. Officers found a man and a woman who had been shot to death. Police initially said both victims were male.
No arrests were immediately made in either shooting, and police said the investigations were ongoing.
Police Commissioner Richard Worley said the Fairlawn Avenue shootings appear to have started inside a business and spilled outside. Worley didn’t give details of what type of business on Friday night.
One person remained in critical condition, according to authorities.
“We think it started inside,” Worley said. “We’re not even 100% sure that it started inside because we have casings both inside and outside the business.”
Worley also said he did not know if the victims were colleagues.
Officers tried to render aid to the three shooting victims but were unable to revive them. One deceased person remained inside a building and the two others were outside, Worley said.
“Obviously, we don’t have anywhere near the amount of facts that we need,” Worley said. “So, we do know that there was at least one gun on the scene, possibly two or three. We’re not sure with any of that yet. We’d have to look at ballistics.”
Worley took a moment to express his frustration with gun violence in the city.
“Even all through the year 2023, a lot of incidents that would not become shootings in the past became shootings because someone had a gun and was either [in an] argument or disrespected, or something like that, and it turned into a shooting instead of just a fight or an argument,” Worley said.
The shootings took place as snow and ice blanketed the streets and sidewalks of Baltimore and temperatures hovered in the high teens and low 20s.
This story has been updated to correct the gender of one of the victims of the Curtis Bay neighborhood shooting.
