Man in stable condition after being shot by security guard in Fells Point early Sunday morning

A security guard shot and injured a man inside a Fells Point pizza shop at about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, according to the Baltimore Police Department. Police said Sunday afternoon that the man is in stable condition.

Police said in a news release that the security guard and the victim were in a physical altercation before the guard fired his weapon. No arrests have been made.

Police arriving on the scene at 716 S. Broadway on Sunday morning found the man suffering from gunshot wounds, and he was taken to the hospital and brought into surgery, said Baltimore Police spokeswoman Lindsey Eldridge.

Employees of the pizza shop at that address, Pie in the Sky, declined to comment on the shooting. Sunday afternoon, a trail of what appeared to be droplets of blood snaked onto the sidewalk from the shop’s front door.

Pie in the Sky was open for lunch orders Sunday, but closed at some point later. A handwritten sign in the door Sunday night attributed the early closure to “technical difficulties,” noting the store would reopen for normal business hours Monday.

The block is home to a number of bars and restaurants that stay open late at night, close to Broadway Square.

Eldridge declined to say whether the security guard was employed by the shop, saying it is part of detectives’ ongoing investigation.

There have been at least three fatal shootings by private security guards in Baltimore over the past two years, prompting calls to regulate them more tightly. In two of those shootings, the guards were charged with murder: one at a Highlandtown bar and another at a Royal Farms in Carroll Park.

Keith Mario Luckey, the guard charged in the Highlandtown shooting, had a history of using force against people as a guard, including by deploying a stun gun on a woman using a wheelchair. He also had assault charges pending at the time of the incident, though he was later acquitted. The incident left Kevin Torres, a 35-year-old recreational soccer coach, dead.

In the wake of Torres’ death, state lawmakers proposed a bill that would establish stricter regulations on the private security industry in Maryland by requiring all guards to be licensed by the state, regardless of their employer, and receive certain training. Currently, guards who are hired directly by a store — and not by a private security agency — are not required to be licensed.

The bill passed in the Maryland Senate last week and is still under consideration in the House of Delegates.

Baltimore Sun reporter Dan Belson contributed to this article.