Eight people were gathered around the porch of Tomeka Bishop's East Baltimore rowhouse on June 27, 2013, when the bullets started flying. Bishop hit the ground as her friends and family tried to scatter.
When the shooting stopped, three people had been hit. Two would die.
City prosecutors told jurors Monday that the reason for the shooting was a long-simmering grudge between Bishop and Tierra Fallin, 31, who believed Bishop had said something about the father of two of Fallin's children.
Fallin and Darryl Martin Anderson, who is accused of firing the shots, are on trial facing two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Michelle Hitchens, 51, and Gennie Shird, 20, along with attempted murder for the shooting of Cierra Williams, who was critically wounded.
Fallin often had cross words for Bishop, Assistant State's Attorney Angela Diehl said, but on this night she recruited two men to shoot up Bishop's home, in the 3300 block of Elmora Ave.
"'Air this bitch out!'" Diehl yelled, quoting what witnesses attributed to Fallin. "'Do what y'all do!'"
Anderson, who has also been charged in a string of other crimes, was dubbed Baltimore's "Public Enemy No. 1" that summer, and eventually was arrested by U.S. marshals in Alabama.
He stood trial in December 2014 in Baltimore County for an unrelated murder, and was convicted by jurors in that case. He will be sentenced in March.
Anderson's attorney in the city case, Linda Zeit, said that while Bishop and Fallin have a long history, no one who identified Anderson as the shooter had ever seen him before. She said it was too dark outside to make a positive identification.
"Where does he come from? What is his connection?" Zeit said. "It doesn't make sense."
The second man who was allegedly with Fallin that night has not been identified.
Bishop was the first witness to take the stand Monday, and she said the bad blood with Fallin had been going on for more than a year. She said Fallin would come by her house, yelling at her, trying to start a fight.
"I'm too old for that," Bishop testified.
On the night of the shooting, Fallin came to Bishop's house and got into an argument with Bishop's daughter, Bishop testified. Fallin vowed to return with supporters. Concerned a fight was going to break out, Bishop said, she called for others to come to the house.
Anderson was identified as a suspect after Fallin's grandmother mentioned his name to police, and Bishop later contacted police and said Anderson was the shooter after seeing his picture in a news media report in early July.
Diehl said their identification was trustworthy. "They're not going to forget his face," she said.
Bishop told Diehl that she had no doubt Anderson was the shooter. But on cross-examination, she said she didn't see the shots being fired. Bishop's initial description of the shooter to police was only that he was wearing a hat and had dreadlocks.
Fallin's attorney, Robert Cole, suggested to jurors that Bishop's family had synced up their stories, and that prosecutors lacked independent witnesses. He also noted that police had been called to Bishop's home 20 times, including for a home invasion shooting a year earlier.
"It's a house where there's always activity going on," Cole told jurors.