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Two teens were shot Sunday night at the Inner Harbor following a fight among a large group, police said.
The shooting occurred around 9 p.m. on Easter evening in the 400 block of East Pratt Street near Shake Shack, as police were arresting an individual they said was involved in the fight. Spring break week has seen many Baltimore teenagers socializing at the Inner Harbor, and Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said there were more than 200 people in the area at the time the fight broke out.
Harrison said the victims, a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old, were brought to separate hospitals. One of the teens was shot in the leg and the other in the back, leaving one person in “critical but stable” condition and the other in stable condition, the police commissioner said.
The shootings are part of a wave of gun violence among high school-age Baltimore residents that has only worsened in recent months. The first three months of this year have marked the deadliest start to a year for Baltimore teens since at least 2015.
Mayor Brandon Scott condemned teen gun violence and stressed that the city will be enforcing youth curfews as the weather warms up, saying “we’re going back to the old days.” The city’s youth curfew policy requires kids younger than 14 years old to be home by 9 p.m., and kids between 14 and 16 to be home by 11 p.m. between Memorial Day and the last Sunday of August.
The rest of the year, the curfew for the latter age group is 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 10 p.m. the rest of the week.
“We’re not going to sit idly by and let this happen,” the mayor said. “When that street light comes on, you have to have your butt at home.”
The Baltimore Police Department has had a heavy presence in the Inner Harbor in recent days, breaking up a crowd of teens gathered there Thursday night but making no arrests. At the time of Sunday’s shooting there were close to 30 officers in the area, Harrison said.
Police made two additional arrests in the wake of the Pratt Street fight. Officers tracked one individual leaving the scene on a dirt bike. That person rode the dirt bike into a garage at police headquarters, where the person was arrested for possessing a loaded handgun, Harrison said. It’s unknown whether that individual was involved in Sunday’s shooting.
Officials arrested a second individual a few blocks away from where the shooting happened; that individual was carrying a loaded ghost gun and matched a description given to police, Harrison said.
Scott said the city is going to “put some sense of accountability on families” of young people.
“Because we want our young people to come and enjoy the Inner Harbor, we want them to do that in a safe way. I did it as a young person, we all came down here,” he said. “But we’re not going to tolerate anybody who wants to shoot people.”
adam.willis@thebaltimorebanner.com
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Adam Willis covers city government for The Banner, including the impacts of the large COVID-19 stimulus package that Baltimore received from the federal government.
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