16 shot in Baltimore, including 12 at cookout

[July 27, 2009]  BALTIMORE (AP) -- Sixteen people were shot, two of them fatally, in three separate incidents in a two-mile radius in east Baltimore Sunday night, police said.

Detectives were searching Monday morning for a gunman who opened fire at a backyard cookout, wounding 12 people, police department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

None of the dozen victims suffered life-threatening injuries. The victims were hit in the legs, arms, shoulders and backs, and the wounded included a 2-year-old girl and a pregnant 23-year-old woman, police said.

Detectives were interviewing witnesses and working to develop a description of the gunman, who walked into the small backyard of a rowhouse on Ashland Avenue and opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon around 9 p.m., according to police.

Two 19-year-old men were shot and killed in a separate incident less than a mile away, Guglielmi said. The victims were identified as Gary Martin and Darien Jones. Police had no immediate suspects.

A third shooting incident left two men with non-life-threatening injuries, Guglielmi said.

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III was on the scene of both the cookout shooting and the double homicide, Guglielmi said. The incidents highlight the need to rid Baltimore's streets of illegal guns, the spokesman said.

"We can only do so much without help from the community and others," Guglielmi said. "We can put a police car in every driveway, but unless people step up, we can only get so far."

[Associated Press]

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