A 29-year-old man died Saturday after he was shot in the stomach in Cherry Hill in South Baltimore, city police said.
Officers were called at about 4:30 p.m. to the 400 block of Swale Ave., a few blocks from the Southern District Police Station, where they found an adult male shot in the stomach.
He was taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he died, said Detective Jeremy Silbert, a Police Department spokesman.
Police declined to identify him, citing the need to notify relatives, but family and friends confirmed his identity as Harry Hicks. A man and a woman who identified themselves as his aunt and uncle declined to comment further.
Kareem Abdul-Aziz, who coached with Hicks in the Maryland American Youth Football Conference, said the news spread quickly in the Cherry Hill community.
"He truly is going to be missed. It's a close-knit community. They are definitely grieving," he said.
Abdul-Aziz said Hicks coached the Cherry Hill Eagles 10-12 Jr Midget team, which finished third in the league. Abdul-Aziz, who coaches the Liberty Lions football team, said he knew Hicks for several years when they both started coaching. He said Hicks was a dedicated coach who spent many hours with his team.
Although the football season ended in the fall, Abdul-Aziz said Hicks also officiated youth basketball at the Patapsco Rec Center.
"He's from Cherry Hill. He lived there his whole life. He enjoyed seeing the kids learn," Abdul-Aziz said, adding that Hicks saw coaching as "a way to make it better for the kids" who have nothing else to do.
Abdul-Aziz said Hicks was married with young children.
This is the second shooting in the community this week. On Thursday, 21-year-old Rhidel Price, a former basketball player at Northwestern High School who was picked in 2007 as one of The Baltimore Sun's players to watch, was found dead in the 2900 block of Denham Circle.
Police said that Price was sitting in a parked car when a van pulled up and that he started to walk away and was shot.
Silbert said police have no suspects and know of no motives in the Hicks shooting.