[UPDATE, 10 a.m. Sunday: Police confirmed the identity of the victim, and it was the man whose name was given by the frantic women. Dwight Taylor, 27, was pronounced dead at Maryland Shock Trauma Center at 6:10 p.m.]
The two women came barreling down the street, wailing as they sprinted over the downtown light rail tracks and towards the crime scene in front of a barber shop.
"Please tell me he's not shot," one shouted, holding a cell phone. "Please tell me no."
A gruff police commander walked over. "How do you know he's been shot? We don't even know who it is," he said.
After catching her breath, the woman replied, "It was on Facebook."
Just before 5 p.m., police found a man shot several times inside the Focal Point barber shop in the 200 block of W. Saratoga St. It was not clear whether the women in fact knew the victim, but, as another commander said after they transported the pair to police headquarters, "It doesn't look good."
The shooting was the second violent incident during the day in the downtown area since Friday, when a 46-year-old man was critically wounded in a stabbing across the street from Lexington Market, also just before 5 p.m. Police said they were looking for a male and female suspect in that case.
The barber shop shooting had bystanders rattled.
Mario Worrell, 65, was passing through the area and mused that if he had been there 15 minutes earlier, he might have found himself face to face with the gunman. "It's just so bold – the place full of people, on a Saturday afternoon," he said. "The Lord works in mysterious ways."
Another man, who lives in an apartment in the block and said he was too fearful to give his name, said he doesn't personally feel unsafe but said there's been a rash of what seems to be drug-related violence.
"It's kind of unnerving," he said, "but, it's Baltimore."