A 26-year-old East Baltimore woman was shot to death and her friend and teen-age niece were wounded early yesterday as the three were walking on East Monument Street, police said.
In a separate incident early yesterday morning, a 22-year-old West Baltimore man was shot and killed near his home as he talked with friends, police said.
Police said they have no suspects or motives in either case. The two shootings brought the city's number of homicides this year to 292, police said.
The two women and teen-ager were shot as they walked in the 2400 block of E. Monument St.about 4: 20 a.m., police said. A preliminary investigation indicated the victims were not the intended targets, said Sgt. Scott Rowe, a police spokesman.
Detectives released few details about the shooting and Rowe said investigators do not believe it was related to the killings of six people -- including four members of the same family -- Dec. 5 in Northeast Baltimore.
Tisha Ford, 26, of the 600 block of N. Collington Ave., was shot multiple times and taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 4: 50 a.m., Rowe said.
Ford's 14-year-old niece, Shanita Tre'ee Walls, was shot in the leg. Walls, who lived with Ford, was taken to Hopkins, treated and released, Rowe said.
Blanche Brooks, 44, of the 100 block of North Broadway, was also taken to Hopkins after being shot in the leg, he said. Brooks was in fair condition last night, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The earlier shooting yesterday occurred in the 3300 block of W.Caton Ave. near Southwestern High School.
Police said Joseph Brown Jr. was standing outside a house talking with friends about 12: 45 a.m. yesterday when a man approached and began shooting. Brown was shot several times in the upper torso and pronounced dead at the scene, said Detective Homer Pennington of the homicide unit. Brown's friends ran away and were apparently uninjured, he said.
Brown lived with his parents, down the block from the scene of the shooting. His father, Joseph Brown Sr., was in his bedroom when he heard the shots.
"I looked out the window, but couldn't see anything. Then, I went outside, and I heard people calling his name, and there he was, face down on the ground," he said. "I can't understand why anyone would do anything like this."
Brown said his son had been in trouble in the past, but "nothing like this." He declined to comment further.
