An 18-year-old arrested earlier this week was charged Friday with fatally shooting a man during a spate of violence in Baltimore over the Memorial Day weekend, according to a police spokesman.
Police said officers caught the suspect — Shawn Demetrice Jones — with a loaded revolver on North Lakewood Avenue in East Baltimore's McElderry Park, three blocks from where 18-year-old Davon Dorsey was shot in the head on North Rose Street about 1:15 a.m. Saturday.
That shooting and another slaying 45 minutes earlier and a few blocks away on East Monument Street were the start of a weekend of bloodshed that left 10 people dead across Baltimore from early Saturday through Tuesday afternoon.
Police have said they believe the shootings on East Monument and North Rose streets are related and tied to gangs. The brazen nature of the gunfire has raised concerns — while detectives were standing at the crime scene on Monument, gunfire erupted on nearby Rose.
Police have made at least one other arrest in the spate of holiday violence — in a stabbing linked to domestic dispute — but have warrants in several other cases.
Authorities have said they are particularly concerned with the East Baltimore slayings. Operation Safe Streets, a group of ex-gang members who mediate disputes before they become violent, works in McElderry Park and has been successful in reducing the number shootings there.
Earlier this week, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said there might be a "common suspect" in both shootings, but as of Friday, Jones had been charged with first-degree murder only in the Rose Street slaying.
Police sources have said Dorsey and the victim from Monument Street, Timothy Gaskins, 22, were believed to be members of the Lueders Park Piru, a Bloods gang sect. The sources said they believe the men were targeted by the rival Crips gang. Court charging documents had not been filed as of Friday, and a motive has not been divulged.