I saw Carlos Woods two years ago inside his rowhouse on Chapel Street in East Baltimore. He was sitting in a wheelchair a few days before Christmas opening a a gift -- a Superman sketchbook.
The time I saw him before that he was on a stretcher being rushed to an ambulance amid a frenzied and angry crowd. A cop screamed for people to get out of the way, "so we can get this baby out of here!"
Carlos was hit in the head by a stray bullet in April 2001, when he was just 2 years old, while retrieving a juice bottle from his doorway. Somehow he survived, though he suffers from symptoms similar to cerebral palsy. His smile will break your heart.
I went back to see Carlos today as she joined classmates at the Mondawmin Mall. I'll have more details on the visit in Thursday's Crime Scenes. It was a touching moment for Carlos and everyone else. Teachers and staff at the William S. Baer School took 188 students to the mall, a tremendous undertaking given that most are in wheelchairs and about have require feeding tubes to eat.
Above are pictures of Carlos with volunteer Rob Paymer and meeting Santa (Luke Durant) at Mondawmin.
Here is perhaps the saddest thing I learned when visiting Carlos at his home in December 2008:\
Here is some for from that column two years ago:
Carlos Woods turns 10 today.
Ordinarily, that would not be a remarkable event. But the last time I saw Carlos was in April 2001, his tiny body on an adult-sized stretcher, surrounded by paramedics pushing him through a crowd of crying neighbors on a narrow East Baltimore street, a police officer screaming for people to get out of the way "so we can get this baby out of here."
Carlos had been shot in the head while retrieving his juice bottle from the doorway of his Chapel Street rowhouse, hit by a bullet fired by one man shooting at another man who tried to escape through Carlos' living room. Doctors gave the 2-year-old less than a 50 percent chance of surviving.
A prosecutor at the suspect's first court hearing told a judge, "This is as bad as it gets."
I visited Carlos last week. After writing about a string of children who had been shot and killed in the city over the years - a toddler in a barber's chair, a girl getting a cup of ice, a child throwing a football - I had to see someone who had survived.
Carlos lives with his great aunt, 37-year-old Nicole Coombs, who took custody of him when his mother, who was 14 when she gave birth, couldn't handle the complicated care. He is in a wheelchair - suffering from symptoms similar to those of cerebral palsy - unable to form consonant sounds, and with braces on his legs and arms to help his coordination.
"We just hope for the best," Coombs told me. "Whatever Carlos is able to do, we'll encourage him. Just him being able to eat is a step forward. Just to put his food to his mouth is a challenge. Right now, he doesn't put his spoon to his mouth; he puts his head down to his spoon."