A Canton homeowner says the alert on her phone around noon on Monday led her to footage she never expected: two young people on electric scooters, one of them holding what looked like a machete, right behind her house. By the time Baltimore police responded, the pair was long gone, and officers say they have no further information on who they were.
The homeowner told WBFF her Ring camera captured two young people on electric scooters with a machete in the alley behind her home. She estimated the pair were somewhere between 12 and 14 years old. According to the footage, the two briefly left the machete behind before circling back to retrieve it, climbing a chain-link fence as they went.
In the video, one of the young people is seen pulling the object from his pants before the pair returned within minutes to grab it again. The homeowner said she activated her Ring camera's siren, and the two ran off. She contacted authorities after reviewing the footage.
Police Responded But Found No One
Baltimore police responded to a 911 call around 12:27 p.m. on Nov. 9, 2026, after a caller reported two males riding Lime scooters, one of them reportedly carrying a machete. The two individuals were gone by the time officers arrived, and police said they had no further information; the seed facts indicate officers did not recover a weapon.
The homeowner said she regularly uses that alley to park her car and let her dog outside, and the encounter has changed how comfortable she feels doing so. She said she has occasionally dealt with package theft in the neighborhood but had never witnessed a weapon being brandished there before.
She has since shared the video with local community groups, hoping someone who recognizes the young people will come forward. She said she believes police contacted some area schools, and she hopes the schools can help identify the pair — and that, if identified, they face consequences both at school and at home.
A Neighbor Questions Accountability
Blake Amat, who has lived in Canton for about five to six years, said he was concerned after seeing the footage. He questioned the role of the children's parents in the incident, a sentiment the homeowner has echoed in hoping for consequences closer to home.
The homeowner also reached out to Lime to ask whether scooter-account information might help identify the individuals. Lime's published guidelines state that information collected through its service can include location data, along with a rider's phone number, email address, name, account start and end dates, registration IP address, and payment method — details the company says it discloses to law enforcement that submit a search warrant, court order, subpoena, or equivalent legal request. For private parties, Lime says it generally requires a valid subpoena served through its registered agent before processing a request, and that it may reject requests deemed overly broad or vague. It remains unclear whether a formal request was made in this case or whether any records were produced.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Scooter Incidents
This is not the first time rented scooters have been tied to unsettling encounters involving young people in Baltimore. In September, police said an 8-year-old's Lime scooter was taken and another boy threatened to shoot the 8-year-old's 14-year-old family member, though officers said no weapon was seen or displayed in that case and the three teenagers involved were never identified, according to WBFF. A Baltimore resident quoted in that report argued that the city was failing its youth, saying, “The city is just giving up on their youth. All the doggone programs are shutting down.”
Separately, a large youth gathering at The Rotunda in Hampden saw two students on Lime scooters lose control and crash, with one scooter striking a Cinnaholic storefront window and another hitting a parked vehicle, according to CBS Baltimore. Police there broke up several fights before officers, security, and property management dispersed the crowd, and Baltimore City Public Schools later reminded students that their conduct during transit hours may fall under the Student Code of Conduct. Police told the outlet they were not aware of gatherings being on the rise. A prior Hoodline report also detailed teenagers estimated between 12 and 17 robbing a Canton resident at gunpoint and throwing rocks at him.
Rented e-bikes and e-scooters are a fixture of daily life across Baltimore. Riders made more than 1.6 million trips citywide in 2024, according to Baltimore Brew, with Lime recording more than 597,000 rides between July and December of that year, narrowly ahead of Spin's 571,787. Shared dockless micromobility rides citywide topped 3 million in 2025. None of that volume establishes any link between this Canton incident and the broader scooter boom, but it underscores how central the devices have become to how residents, including the youngest ones, get around the city.
