East Baltimore

Leroy R. Cofield, a retired heavy equipment operator and longtime West Baltimore resident, died March 9 of pancreatitis at St. Agnes Hospital. He was 70. Mr. Cofield was born and raised in Edgecombe County, Va., and later moved to East Baltimore. He served in the Air Force as a mechanic from 1955 to 1957. He spent the last 12 years of his career with the city Bureau of Water and Waste Water. He retired in 1998. Mr. Cofield enjoyed working on old automobiles and traveling. He was a member of Simmons Memorial Baptist Church, where services were held Thursday.

A man was fatally shot in East Baltimore last night - hours after another man was stabbed to the death in the same section of the city, police said. About 7:30 p.m. yesterday, an unidentified man was shot in the 400 block of N. Bouldin St., police said. Officer Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman, said police found the victim suffering from a gunshot wound to the head and lying in the street. Monroe said the man was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. No arrest had been made and a motive was unknown, she said.

Antonio Johnson turned back toward the burning rowhouse yesterday morning, but the flames were too big. He saw people hanging out windows, but most unforgettably, he heard their cries: Help me, help me. And later, someone told him that children who lived in the East Baltimore home didn't make it. "I hope it's not true," he said, voicing what almost anyone would have wished as Baltimore firefighters finished their grim work and reported their tragic findings....

THE COUNT People murdered since Jan. 1: 157 THE VICTIMS Paul Cornish, 28, address unknown, died at Johns Hopkins Hospital at 10:30 p.m. Saturday after he was shot at 9 p.m. in the 1000 block of Granby St. in East Baltimore. An unidentified man was fatally shot at 2:30 a.m. yesterday as he stood with a group of people in the 800 block of N. Patterson Park Ave. in East Baltimore. The body of an unidentified man was found slouched over the steering wheel of an idling car at 7:20 a.m. yesterday in the 4800 block of Herring Run Drive in Northeast Baltimore.

Leon Montrose Lyles Sr., who for more than 60 years was the cowboy hat-wearing owner of Leon's Produce, died of stroke complications Saturday at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. He was 95. Mr. Lyles was born in Irmo, S.C., and moved with his family to East Baltimore. He attended Carver Vocational Technical High School and went to work in his father's coal business in 1932. After his father's death in 1945, Mr. Lyles continued delivering coal in the fall and winter, and added produce during the summer.

A Baltimore soldier who was detained this week on an Army base in Oklahoma and charged with shooting five people in East Baltimore last month was cleared as a suspect by police yesterday, a day after city prosecutors dropped charges against him because of insufficient evidence. But Jerrell Hill, 18, remained jailed yesterday evening at the Comanche County Detention Center in Oklahoma, apparently because the paperwork required for his release had not been processed. A corrections officer confirmed by phone yesterday that Hill was being held at the Lawton, Okla.

There were no relatives in the hospital when the young man died, so Millie Brown and her co-workers in the operating room reached for a wallet in his pants to find some identification. The pants were wet, and so were the wallet and the thick stack of cash inside - blood money from the streets of Baltimore. Another young, African-American male lay on an operating table at Johns Hopkins Hospital, dead from five, maybe six bullets to the upper body. Many young men come, bleeding or unconscious, by ambulance to one of the greatest hospitals in the world, direct from the streets of East Baltimore - sometimes from only a few blocks away, where the paramedics and homicide detectives find them.

Three plead guilty to invoice scheme Three people pleaded guilty yesterday to what officials described as a "false invoice scheme" at the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development that resulted in the loss of thousands of dollars. Stephen Ross, 38, of the 400 block of Edgewood St.; Diana O'Connor, 43, of the 700 block of Deacon Hill Court; and Tinikia Rice, 23, of the 2700 block of Fisk Road were each fined and given three-year suspended sentences by Baltimore Circuit Judge John M. Glynn.

Thwarted last year by community opposition and the city zoning board from opening a multipurpose services center across the street from its East Baltimore sanctuary, Southern Baptist Church is ready to try again at a new location down the street - this time with the help of a powerful state senator who is also a member of its congregation. State Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden, president pro tem of the General Assembly's upper chamber and a member of the church for more than three decades, is the sponsor of a state bond bill to help Southern Baptist create the Mary Harvin Transformation Center, which would provide counseling to AIDS patients and their families as well as other services.

City police detectives are investigating two homicides that occurred within eight hours early yesterday and Wednesday night - the most recent one the fatal shooting of a teenage boy at the Douglass Homes public housing apartments in East Baltimore. About 2:10 a.m. yesterday, Southeastern District officers and Fire Department paramedics were dispatched to the 200 block of N. Dallas Court in East Baltimore's Dunbar-Broadway neighborhood for a report of a "sick person," said Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman.

On Saturday morning, thousands of people running the marathon will turn northwest onto McCulloh Street. About the time they hit the first water station, they will run right over the spot where Israeli Mason was shot and killed Sept. 13. At that point, they will be within three blocks of where three other killings occurred this year. As they continue on the route, they will pass within a block of 13 other spots where people have been fatally shot, stabbed or beaten since January, including eight on the city's east side.

Baltimore County police identify man fatally struck by car 3 Baltimore County police have identified a pedestrian who was killed early Monday when a car struck him on Eastern Avenue near North Point Boulevard. Paul Andrew Thompson, 63, of the 7100 block of Gough St., near the city-county line, was walking east about 3:20 a.m. when he was struck, police said. Thompson was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver, William Ramsey, 31, was not charged because police determined that pedestrian error caused the accident.

Edward and Lorraine Williams had always wanted a front door with a screen instead of a side entrance and a roomier basement at their house in East Baltimore. But more than anything else, they just wanted to return to their home, severely damaged by fire a year and a half ago. And early Monday morning, the couple, who were displaced by an electrical fire in March 2008 that injured Lorraine Williams and their year-old grandson, Khalil Butler, were able to move back into their fully rehabilitated two-story rowhouse.

Two teens injured in East Baltimore shooting Two teenagers were wounded early Thursday in East Baltimore when a gunman fired a single shot that struck them both, police said. Officers responded to a report of a shooting in the 400 block of N. East Ave. about 1:10 a.m. and found a 16-year-old female victim and a 17-year-old male victim inside a home in the Ellwood Park neighborhood, said Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman. Witnesses said five or six people were sitting on a porch when an unknown man wearing a red T-shirt and baggy jeans appeared and fired one shot, Moses said.

FTI Consulting reports 6.9% profit increase in Q2 FTI Consulting Inc., a Baltimore firm that finds financial fraud, helps companies restructure and provides other business-advisory services, said Tuesday that its second-quarter profit was $37.2 million, up 6.9 percent from a year earlier. Revenue for the three months ending June 30 was $360.5 million, an increase of 6.8 percent from a year earlier. Per-share earnings were 69 cents, up 6.2 percent from a year earlier. FTI also said it now employs more than 3,400 worldwide.

The 55 souls gathered at Faith Tabernacle Apostolic Church kept worshiping Sunday evening when a flash of light danced across the stained-glass windows. Just a police car responding to a call, they figured, a common enough sight in this part of East Baltimore. Probably nothing too serious. But a parishioner standing on the sidewalk knew something was very wrong. On the far side of Ashland Avenue, a crowd rushed from an alley screaming, "You shot? You shot?" The panic was understandable.

It has sometimes been referred to as a biotech center or "biopark," as if it's only for scientists. Its largest building is filled with laboratory space. But it's more accurate to describe the 88-acre redevelopment area north of the Johns Hopkins Hospital as a full-fledged, mixed-use neighborhood. Besides laboratory space for life sciences companies and others that want to be near Hopkins, this East Baltimore community, informally called the New Eastside, has been designed to contain townhouses, condominiums, rental apartments, stores, a school, churches, professional services, parking and open space - everything found in older urban neighborhoods.

The scene was horrific - in the middle of an East Baltimore cookout, an event to commemorate the death of a young man killed in the drug trade, gunmen opened fire indiscriminately into the crowd, mowing down men, women, children, anyone who got in the way. A dozen people were hit by bullets before the attackers fled. That was Memorial Day, 2001. But move the scene to a backyard perhaps a mile away and change a few details, and you've got exactly what happened Sunday night on Ashland Avenue.

Police believe a long-running dispute between drug organizations contributed to an unprecedented eruption of violence on Baltimore's east side Sunday night that left at least 18 people shot, including two who died. Twelve of the victims were struck at a backyard cookout that left a pregnant woman and a 2-year-old child injured, an incident that police say prompted a running gun battle between two vehicles three hours later. Mayor Sheila Dixon called the shootings a "cowardly act" and implored the community to come forward with tips, as police directed dozens of additional officers into the eastern and southeastern districts.

Teenager slain, 2nd wounded in East Baltimore shootings Police said two 16-year-old boys were shot Sunday night, one of them fatally, at an intersection in the Madison East End neighborhood in East Baltimore, police said. Eastern District officers on patrol heard gunshots about 9:30 p.m. and responded to the intersection of North Kenwood Avenue and East Madison Street, where they found Jerrod Reed of the 200 block of N. Milton Ave. suffering from an apparent gunshot wound to the head, said Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman.