A judge denied bond and rejected a house-arrest request for a 17-year-old Edmondson Westside High School student now facing more than a dozen criminal counts, including second-degree attempted murder, after prosecutors said his gun was equipped with a device that let it fire like a machine gun. The teen remains in custody until his preliminary hearing.
The case, first reported by FOX45 News, stems from an alleged shooting near the intersection of Dolfield Avenue and West Cold Spring Lane in northwest Baltimore. According to the outlet, the juvenile is accused of opening fire on a vehicle after the driver reportedly brandished a gun while trying to stop him from robbing someone else at gunpoint. He faces charges of second-degree attempted murder, first- and second-degree assault, armed robbery and multiple weapons violations.
During the hearing, the judge said the teen's gun was reportedly equipped with a machine gun conversion device — a detail that visibly rattled the bench. “That just boggles my mind,” the judge said, according to FOX45's account of the proceeding.
A Criminal History That Weighed on the Bench
The judge pointed to the teen's prior record in explaining the decision to keep him locked up, citing an arrest earlier this year for an unlawful carry weapons violation and a 2024 arrest for carjacking. The juvenile's public defender told the court he had been on monitoring before and asked the judge to grant house arrest instead of continued detention.
The judge denied that request, as well as any request to transfer the case, and went on to call the teen “a grave threat to public safety.” He will stay in custody until his preliminary hearing, per the same account.
What a Conversion Device Actually Does
The device at the center of the judge's alarm is often called a switch or an auto-sear — a small attachment that turns an ordinary semiautomatic pistol into a weapon capable of fully automatic fire. Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley has said the devices can be produced using a 3D printer, according to CBS News Baltimore. Guns fitted with these switches can unleash bullets at a rate of more than 1,000 rounds per minute, according to a review by The Baltimore Banner, which found the devices are commonly made of metal or 3D-printed plastic and sometimes sold online as keychains for less than $30.
The Banner's review also found that guns recovered in Baltimore with conversion devices had an average magazine capacity of about 25 rounds. Baltimore Police recovered at least 59 of the devices in 2023 alone, more than five times the number seized the year before, and the Banner reported that switch-equipped guns in the city that year were connected to assaults, carjackings, burglaries and at least two homicides.
A National Pattern, and a City Bucking the Trend
The Baltimore case fits into a wider pattern law enforcement agencies have flagged across the country. A 2023 ATF report cited by WBAL found that 5,454 guns equipped with machine-gun conversion devices were taken into federal custody at crime scenes between 2017 and 2021 — a 570% jump from the 814 seized in the preceding five years, according to WBAL. Officials told the outlet the devices are believed to be manufactured largely overseas and sold online, with some 3D-printed versions going for as little as $20.
Other cities have seen the same hardware turn up in violent crimes. WBAL reported that a Glock 22 pistol fitted with a switch was recovered after three masked gunmen fired more than 30 shots at a Philadelphia SEPTA bus stop in March 2024, and that a 14-year-old boy in Columbia, South Carolina, was charged with murder after a shooting involving an illegal device. The outlet also noted that police recovered 93 shell casings and eight guns, including one with a Glock switch, after a June 2024 shooting at a late-night party in north Detroit that wounded four people.
Closer to home, four Baltimore teenagers ages 16 to 19 were taken into custody on June 1 with five weapons, ammunition, extended magazines and an auto-sear device, per the CBS News Baltimore report. Even so, the city's overall violence numbers have been trending down: Baltimore recorded 56 homicides year to date as of that report, a 24% drop from the previous year and the lowest total ever recorded, while nonfatal shootings were down 25% from 2024, with 128 reported year to date.
