A convenience store clerk is facing a stack of criminal charges after police say she pulled a handgun on a customer and struck the woman with a metal pole during an early morning altercation at a Royal Farms in East Baltimore. Officers responding to the 6200 block of Pulaski Highway early Sunday found a 34-year-old woman who had gotten into a physical fight with a 40-year-old store employee, and the confrontation ended with the clerk in handcuffs and a firearm seized as evidence.
According to WBAL-TV, police say the store employee threatened the customer with a handgun during the dispute, and the clerk reportedly struck the customer with a metal pole, hurting the woman's arm, according to police. Officers found the handgun in the employee's bag, and the victim declined medical treatment from responding medics at the scene. The clerk was taken to central booking, and the station reports the investigation remains ongoing.
The 40-year-old employee now faces multiple counts of assault, along with reckless endangerment, obstruction, and handgun violations, per the outlet's report. That combination of charges carries serious statutory weight under Maryland law.
What the Charges Could Mean in Court
Maryland's wear, carry, or transport law, Criminal Law Section 4-203, carries a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $2,500 for a first offense, according to FrizWoods LLC. Reckless endangerment, covered under Criminal Law Section 3-204, is a misdemeanor punishable by up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $5,000, or both, the firm notes, and each person exposed to a substantial risk of death or serious injury can result in a separate count.
Second-degree assault, meanwhile, is a misdemeanor carrying a statutory maximum of up to 10 years in prison under Maryland Criminal Law Section 3-203, according to The Herbst Firm. That charge encompasses intentional physical force or striking someone with an object such as a metal pole, the firm explains. Taken together, the clerk's charges carry combined potential prison exposure well beyond a decade if she is convicted on all counts.
A Corridor With a History of Store Violence
The seized handgun now sits under an official property hold, since Baltimore Police Department policy requires any weapon taken in connection with an alleged CR 4-203 violation to be logged in official management systems and subjected to state forfeiture proceedings. The Pulaski Highway corridor where this altercation unfolded is a major East Baltimore commercial strip that also houses city facilities, including the police department's central vehicle impound lot at 6700 Pulaski Highway, and it serves as a heavily traveled route connecting the neighborhood to Baltimore County.
It is not the first time a Royal Farms location on that same corridor has seen violence against staff. In June 2025, a man was sentenced in Harford County Circuit Court after surveillance footage showed him grabbing a female clerk by the neck and throwing her to the ground during a robbery at a Royal Farms on Pulaski Highway, according to Patch. And in October 2022, a security guard at a South Baltimore Royal Farms was charged with attempted murder — and later convicted of second-degree murder in 2023 — after shooting an aggressive customer during a store dispute, CBS News reported. That guard claimed self-defense, but trial evidence led jurors to reject the claim.
A Chain Built on 24-Hour Access
Royal Farms is a privately held convenience store chain headquartered in Baltimore, founded in 1959 under Cloverland Farms Dairy and operating 304 locations across seven Mid-Atlantic states as of January 2025, per CSP Daily News. The chain is widely recognized across Maryland for its round-the-clock stores and fried chicken, but that same 24-hour model puts overnight clerks in frequent, isolated interactions with the public. Multiple 24-hour convenience stores across the Baltimore metro area saw overnight security disruptions this month, including an armed robbery at a Glen Burnie Royal Farms and a shots-fired incident in Anne Arundel County, a trend Hoodline has previously reported on.
The Pulaski Highway altercation comes even as Baltimore's overall violent crime numbers have been trending downward. The city logged just seven homicides in July 2026, the lowest monthly total for July in its recorded history, marking a 25.9% year-to-date reduction in homicides compared to 2025, with officials attributing part of the decline to targeted group violence reduction strategies. Even so, commercial corridors like Pulaski Highway remain potential friction points, as this weekend's altercation shows. Police have not released the clerk's name, and the investigation into exactly what led to the confrontation remains ongoing.
