[UPDATE: The victim has been identified as Kenly Wheeler, 29. He appears to have a number of arrests on his record, but none since 2005, according to the judiciary case search website.]
City police are investigating the killing of a man whose body was found on the grounds of an East Baltimore elementary school this morning. Police said someone reported the discovery at about 8 a.m. near a basketball court at Dr. Bernard Harris Elementary School, in the 1400 block of N. Caroline St. School officials and school police alerted city police to what was initially termed a "suspicious death," but spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says police soon discovered the man had been shot in the chest. They found a gun underneath him and a "half ski mask," he said.
It was not clear whether a student, parent, teacher or someone else made the grisly discovery, but when I visited the scene this morning there did not appear to be any signs that the school had briefly been a crime scene. The littered area around the basketball court, on the campus' south boundary, didn't include crime tape remnants that we often see after police leave the area. Edie House, a city schools spokeswoman, said the school was not placed on a lockdown.
The killing is the 25th of the year, compared with 37 at this time last year. That's a drop of about 33 percent. It's the second time someone has been killed in the Oliver neighborhood this year.
[UPDATE: Police have tentatively identified the victim as a 28-year-old man. They still have to make the next-of-kin notification.]