A 65-year-old man and a 24-year-old man were hospitalized Saturday morning after a shooting in the Cherry Hill neighborhood of South Baltimore, according to the Baltimore Police Department. Officers located both victims suffering from gunshot wounds, and the pair were taken for treatment following the attack.
The shooting was first reported by The Baltimore Sun, which detailed that both men were hospitalized after officers found them with gunshot wounds in the South Baltimore community. No further details about the circumstances, exact location within the neighborhood, or possible motive have been released, leaving open questions about whether the men were targeted or caught in crossfire.
Saturday's shooting adds to a string of violent incidents that have struck Cherry Hill in recent months. Hoodline previously reported on a fatal shooting near a playground in the Cherry Hill Homes public housing complex, and just a week before that, a 19-year-old walked into a hospital seeking treatment for a gunshot wound suffered in the neighborhood.
A Neighborhood With a Recent History of Gun Violence
The pattern stretches back further. In May, a double-shooting on the 2900 block of Spellman Road left 21-year-old Tyriel Simms dead and another 21-year-old man injured, according to WBAL NewsRadio. That same month, Hoodline covered a separate shooting that wounded a 78-year-old woman and a 22-year-old man in the neighborhood. Then in September, FOX45 Baltimore reported that homicide detectives opened an investigation after an unidentified adult male was fatally shot on the 3400 block of Spellman Avenue, with police responding just after 1:30 a.m.
Cherry Hill Homes is a public housing development in South Baltimore.
Homicides Across Baltimore
The Southern District, headquartered at 10 Cherry Hill Road and covering the neighborhood, accounted for 13 of the city's 89 homicides recorded across nine police districts through October, according to WBAL-TV. Five police districts combined were responsible for 63 of the city's homicides this year, the station reported.
City's Dual Strategy of Policing and Outreach
The city reported that, through August, agencies and law enforcement working under Mayor Brandon Scott's Group Violence Reduction Strategy made over 675 arrests and connected more than 420 high-risk individuals to social services. The approach pairs focused-deterrence policing with non-policing intervention.
The non-policing side includes Safe Streets Cherry Hill.
Police have also ramped up firearm interdiction citywide, seizing 1,367 illegal firearms, including 138 ghost guns, and making 826 gun-related arrests through late August, the City of Baltimore reported. Meanwhile, the Baltimore City Council is reviewing a proposal this month to create a permanent Department of Neighborhood Safety, which would fold non-policing violence intervention agencies and alternative crisis responses into the city's dispatch system, partly funded by opioid restitution money, per WBAL-TV. How that proposal might reshape outreach efforts in neighborhoods like Cherry Hill remains to be seen.
