He went by the name "Preacherman," according to federal law enforcement authorities, and he made his living on the streets of East Baltimore robbing drug dealers and selling the stolen merchandise himself.
It's a perilous way to spend one's day. Someone once dared rob "Preacherman," and, according to a federal indictment unsealed last week, he bragged to a police informant that he shot and killed the robbery suspect, Donte Vandiver, on Belnord Avenue on May 24.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says in court documents filed last week that "Preacherman" is 27-year-old Tyrell Smith. Agents arrested him June 22 after a stakeout and a midafternoon car chase through several city neighborhoods east of Patterson Park that ended in Highlandtown.
It was one of those theatrical-looking police operations that get a neighborhood talking but rarely make the news, despite a flood of cops and a helicopter that pursued the speeding car even as an occupant threw a loaded handgun onto Pratt Street, spilling seven 9 mm bullets onto the sidewalk.
The Maryland U.S. attorney's office unsealed a federal grand jury indictment July 1 charging Smith and two others with robbery, drug distribution and possession of firearms. The federal public defender's office did not return calls seeking comment. All three are being held pending trial.
This is not a large-scale drug operation, nor does it involve high-level dealers or corrupt law enforcement officers (as is alleged in another indictment that federal prosecutors announced Tuesday against a violent gang). Rather it represents the everyday cases that escape attention but tend to tie together seemingly disparate acts of violence across the city.
The case against Smith was made by William J. Nickoles, an 18-year Baltimore police veteran who has been assigned to a federal DEA task force for nearly a decade.
According to Nickoles, a confidential informant concocted a story that he was interested in robbing other drug dealers and met with Smith to discuss a hit. "During the course of these meetings, Smith openly discussed this willingness to commit such a robbery," the court documents state. "Smith advised that he had two weapons available and would bring an associate to help."
On June 22, authorities said they watched Smith leave his house on Furley Way in Northeast Baltimore, get picked up by a man driving a Nissan Altima and head to a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on Pulaski Highway for a meeting.
They left, then returned to the restaurant, where the informant gave Smith a pair of red plastic handcuffs to be used in the robbery, the court documents state. One of the other men had a handgun stuffed into his waistband, authorities said.
Police tried to stop the car, occupied by three people, as its driver sped off to rob the drug dealer, according to the indictment, and a pursuit began at Pulaski Highway and Highland Avenue.
After throwing the gun out onto East Pratt Street, authorities said, the driver stopped on Grundy Street and Smith and two occupants were arrested a few blocks away. Someone driving by the chase reported finding the broken Hi Point handgun lying on Pratt Street, called 911 and stayed with the gun until police arrived. Federal authorities say Smith has been convicted five times in state court of drug offenses and once of escape. At the time of his arrest by the DEA, Smith was out on bail in a pending drug case in Baltimore Circuit Court, which is scheduled for trial July 26. Court records show 18 months as his longest prison sentence.
No charges have been filed in the Belnord Avenue killing, but based on the filings in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, detectives now have a potential suspect, one who is already in custody, and a possible motive behind what seemed at the time another random shooting on a city street.
Vandiver was one of eight people shot on one of those violent Baltimore weekends, another death that earned a couple of paragraphs in the newspaper on May 25 and which ended with the familiar sentence: "Police did not know of any motive or suspects."
On June 21, violence once again forced Baltimore's police commissioner in front of the television cameras. This time, nine people had been shot in the previous 24 hours, leaving three dead, and Frederick H. Bealefeld III reminded citizens that crime was still dropping and not to "dwell on the negative."
The very next day, the feds busted Smith and his two alleged associates. Most of the violence that weekend had been on the east side and was linked to minor disputes, rival gangs, drug stashes and an argument over a damaged car, and this DEA take-down occurred in the same neighborhoods about which the commissioner had expressed concern.
If the feds are correct, the arrests may have prevented another robbery, another shooting and possibly even another killing.