Two women from the Brooklyn area of South Baltimore were sentenced Wednesday to time served for second-degree assault in a triple stabbing last year in Federal Hill that sent one victim to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center with seven stab wounds.
Prosecutors said that the alcohol-fueled melee involved so many people that the victims, some of whom had blood alcohol levels more than double the legal limit, couldn't be sure who stabbed them.
"No one can really say with any level of certainty who started what, who was with whom, who had any weapons, and which fight - of several that were occurring around the street - was which," according to Joseph Sviatko, a spokesman for the Baltimore state's attorney's office. "There's obviously no doubt it happened, and it was serious. The question was who started it and who escalated it with a weapon."
Prosecutors dropped attempted-murder charges against at least two men accused of participating in the attack and were only able to secure guilty pleas against the two women - Ashley Zion, 22, and Brittany Meekins, 19 - because victims were able to pick them from photo arrays and video taken of them at a hospital.
Police first identified Zion as a possible suspect after tracing a victim's missing BlackBerry, which was later used to call Zion's cell phone.
According to charging documents, Meekins and Zion were in a car that hit a bus at about 2 a.m. May 18, 2008, at West and Light streets. As the car attempted to flee the accident, Owen Jordan and John Hinder began screaming at the driver. A woman then got out of the car and attacked Jordan's sister, Katie.
The fight escalated, with the occupants emptying from the car and the pedestrians seeking cover at a friend's home.
Zion and Meekins will be on probation for three years.
