Baltimore Man

Hours after getting a 911 call reporting gunshots, police say, they found a man fatally shot in Northeast Baltimore's Lauraville neighborhood Tuesday morning. The call notifying police of gunshots came in about 2:30 a.m. near the 4900 block of Morello Road, police said. A man whom police have not yet identified was found later about three blocks away, in the 2600 block of Southern Avenue. He was pronounced dead at Johns Hopkins Hospital about 8:30 a.m., police said. Another man was shot in the face in Northwest Baltimore on Monday night and drove himself to the hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, police said.

Baltimore police on Monday charged a 37-year-old man in connection to a police-involved shooting over the weekend that left two wounded. Police said Theodore Smith, who lives on the 500 block of Rossiter Ave. in the Wiinston-Govans neighborhood, fought with an officer who was trying to clear a crowd outside a Homeland neighborhood take-out business early Sunday. The officer moved to disperse the crowd that had gathered in the 5400 block of York Road when he got into a physical struggle with Smith, who refused to show identification, police Det. Jeremy Silbert said.

A Baltimore jury convicted a man Monday in the first-degree murder of a bystander who witnessed him hitting his wife, the Office of the State's Attorney announced. Anthony Cole, 30, was also found guilty of attempted first-degree murder for shooting at his wife, who escaped unharmed, and several weapons charges. According to prosecutors, Cole rode his bicycle to the 1900 block of Etting Street in the Druid Heights neighborhood on the evening of April 14, 2012, and confronted his estranged wife, hitting her in the face.

After pushing a female companion out of harm's way, a 19-year-old Essex man was hit by a truck Friday night and hospitalized for his injuries, Baltimore County police said. Kwante Betters and Lauren Bielanski, both 19, were trying to find jumper cables after their van stalled on Southeast Boulevard near Turkey Point Road in Essex about 10 p.m. Friday, according to police. Betters saw a red Ford F-150 pickup truck approaching and pushed Bielanski out of its path. The truck struck the disabled van and Betters, throwing him into the road.

Bonnie Lane stands in front of Baltimore's City Hall, arms crossed, lips pursed, on a mission. Her stance is memorialized in a photo and article on the pages of Word on the Street, the fledgling newspaper she helped launch nearly a year ago. The "street paper" — one of 23 in the United States — is produced by homeless people, their advocates, and those who were once homeless, such as Lane. "You need to give people hope," Lane, 39, said. "Once they lose hope, they're not motivated to make things better for themselves.

Activists, public officials and residents gathered Saturday outside an east Baltimore liquor store — where a man was severely beaten on Christmas Day — to protest violent attacks on gay people Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts told the crowd of about 40 people that his department plans to set up an advisory group to meet monthly to work with gay, lesbian and transgender people. "I want to come together as a community and make sure we connect and do the right things for every part of our community," said Batts, who became commissioner late last year.

A 19-year-old Baltimore man, who three years ago accused three city police officers of abducting him and leaving him in a Howard County park, was cleared of an attempted murder charge Wednesday and given a suspended sentence on drug charges.  In May 2009, when he was 15 years old, Michael B. Johnson  Jr. was picked up by the officers and left in the rain without shoes or a cell phone at Patapsco Valley State Park. The officers were charged a year later with kidnapping and related charges.

As the punches kept coming, landing across his face and head, Kenni Shaw tried to talk to his five attackers but couldn't get the words out. "I was pinned down by punches," Shaw said of the beating he received Christmas night, outside the East Baltimore liquor store he frequents near his home. "It was so hard that I felt my lip and side face swell up immediately. I was trying to talk to these guys, but they weren't letting me talk. " Instead, they were intent on beating him - simply out of hate, said Shaw, a 30-year-old gay man. "I was just beaten in my face.

A 31-year-old Baltimore man has been charged in the killing of one man and the wounding of another in a hail of gunfire at a city intersection early Saturday morning, following a dispute at a night club, according to Baltimore police. Tion Bolden, of the 5200 block of Reisterstown Road in the city's Woodmere neighborhood, faces 10 charges in the case and remains in police custody. Police announced his arrest Sunday, after saying Saturday that they were questioning a person of interest.

A 48-year-old Baltimore man was sentenced to five years in prison for fraudulently claiming hundreds of thousands of dollars in unemployment benefits from the state using false identities, a scheme he conducted in part while already behind bars on unrelated charges, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office. Kevin Bernard Smith, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit access device fraud and aggravated identity theft, will also have to serve three years of supervised release, prosecutors said.