Arrest made in connection with fatal Baltimore block party shooting
Residents watch as Baltimore Police investigate the site of a mass shooting in the Brooklyn Homes neighborhood on July 2.
By Kristina Sgueglia, CNN
(CNN) — A 17-year-old has been arrested in connection with the Baltimore block party shooting over the weekend that claimed two lives.
Detectives believe the male teen “was involved in the mass shooting,” a news release from the Baltimore Police Department stated without elaborating.
He has been charged with possession of a firearm by a minor, assault weapon possession, reckless endangerment, and handgun in a vehicle, police said.
The shooting occurred early Sunday in the south Baltimore neighborhood of Brooklyn during a yearly celebration known as Brooklyn Day.
Aaliyah Gonzalez, 18, and Kylis Fagbemi, 20, were fatally shot.
Three of the 28 people who were injured, most of them teenagers, remain hospitalized in fair condition, police said.
Police said earlier this week they were searching for multiple suspects.
“We will not rest until we find those who cowardly decided to shoot up this block party,” Mayor Brandon Scott said then, adding these were possibly acts of violence carried out with illegal guns.
One in a growing, long line of mass shootings
The shooting is one of about 340 mass shootings in the US this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The archive, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter.
It was also one of several shootings marring the week’s festivities.
Nine people were injured – including a 9-year-old and a 17-year-old – in a shooting early Wednesday that happened as the victims were celebrating the Fourth of July in the nation’s capital, police said.
In Philadelphia, a shooting Monday night left five people dead and two boys wounded. On the same night in Fort Worth, Texas, a shooting killed three people and wounded eight others.
Scott called on the public to think of the shooting as if it happened in a rural community. “When it happens in Baltimore, Chicago or DC, it doesn’t get that same attention,” he said.
“These Black American lives, children’s lives, matter just as anyone else,” he said.
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CNN’s Danny Freeman contributed to this report.
