Fatal Shooting

Four men were shot - one of them fatally - at a basketball court Saturday morning in Southeast Baltimore. Damon Coleman, 35, of the 2700 block of E. Hoffman St. was shot in the chin area and was later pronounced dead at Johns Hopkins Hospital, said Officer Nicole Monroe, a Baltimore police spokeswoman. The three other men suffered minor injuries, police said. One was shot in the lower back, another in the shoulder and both legs and the third was shot in the mouth. Police found three of the victims, including the man who died, about 6 a.m. lying on the east side of the basketball court in a public housing project in the 1400 block of May Court, Monroe said.

In Baltimore CityMan fatally shot while sitting in van in North BaltimorePolice were investigating the death of an unidentified man who was fatally shot last night while seated in a van in North Baltimore, police said.Detective Bobby Patton said residents of the 4800 block of Old York Road near Richwood Avenue in Govans heard gunshots about 11 p.m. and called police. Patton said officers found the victim seated behind the wheel of a white, late-model Ford Econovan, his upper body lying across the passenger seat.

An article in yesterday's editions of The Sun reported that Sgt. Stephen R. Pagotto was the only city police officer convicted of a fatal shooting in the line of duty. The article did not note that Pagotto's conviction was overturned by the Court of Special Appeals, the state's second-highest court. The state is appealing that ruling to the Court of Appeals, which has not heard arguments.

A Howard County grand jury indicted a Columbia man Thursday on murder and attempted murder charges in the fatal shooting of his estranged wife and the wounding of her daughter.Tuse S. Liu, 49, is accused of killing So Shan Chan, 52, in the parking lot of the Howard County Circuit Court on March 11.Chan's daughter, Wing Sau Wu, 26, was released from Maryland Shock Trauma Center on March 26.Liu is being held without bail at a state psychiatric hospital in Jessup. Officials are awaiting the results of a psychiatric exam.

In Baltimore CityHopkins to offer students inoculations for flu, meningitisThe Johns Hopkins University is offering students at the school's Homewood campus inoculations today against meningococcal meningitis and influenza. No outbreak of meningitis has been reported at Hopkins and the shots are preventive.Shots will be given in the Clipper Room of Shriver Hall and the reading room of Alumni Memorial Residence One between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. The cost is $75 for the meningitis vaccine and $10 for the flu shot.

Police said yesterday they had no suspect and knew of no motive in the fatal shooting of a Northeast Baltimore man late Friday.Jerard Swann, 28, was shot by an unknown assailant about 11: 30 p.m. in the 2000 block of E. Oliver St., police said. Swann, of the 5900 block of Daywalt Ave. in the Frankford area, was pronounced dead at 12: 06 a.m. Saturday at Johns Hopkins Hospital.Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the Baltimore City homicide squad at 410-396-2100.

A first-degree murder warrant was issued yesterday for the arrest of a suspect in the fatal shooting of another man in Southeast Baltimore early Saturday, police said.Responding to a report of shots fired in the 100 block of N. Port St. about 1 a.m. Saturday, police found the body of Bobby Raymond Hurt, 37, lying in front of his home. He had been shot at least once in the head and was pronounced dead at the scene.Witnesses told police that Hurt and another man were arguing shortly before the shooting.

Harford County State's Attorney Joseph I. Cassilly ruled yesterday that the fatal shooting of a teen-ager by his 14-year-old brother Jan. 11 was accidental and that no charges would be filed.James Ashby, 13, was killed when a rifle held by his brother, Jerry Ashby Jr., discharged in the bedroom of their home in the 700 block of Craigs Corner Road.Cassilly said the boys were home with an 18-year-old sister and her infant when they took one of the family's rifles from a gun cabinet. He said the older brother believed he had unloaded the rifle at the time it discharged, fatally striking the younger teen-ager.

No charge has been lodged in the fatal shooting of a 23-year-old man by a private security guard at an Essex apartment complex late Friday, but the incident will be reviewed by the Baltimore County state's attorney's office, police said yesterday.Killed in the 10: 30 p.m. incident was William Simmons, who lived nearby in the 1600 block of Rickenbacker Road.According to accounts given to police, Simmons approached two guards working for Flagship Security at the Tall Trees complex just after they had stepped out of their vehicles, and asked for a ride.

A man who was paralyzed when he was shot in 1990 was shot to death Saturday night as he and two friends were talking on a West Baltimore street, police said yesterday.Reginald Roane, 29, of the 3600 block of Garrison Blvd., who used a wheelchair, and two male friends were talking in the 1900 block of W. Lanvale St. about 11: 30 p.m. when a masked gunman came out of an alley and shot Roane several times in the chest, police said.A friend, Raymond Faidley, 18, of the 1700 block of N. Washington St., was shot in the left calf, police said.

Police have charged a 20-year-old man in connection with a fatal shooting that might have ties to Sunday's shooting of 12 people at an East Baltimore cookout, according to law enforcement sources. Brandon K. Brown was arrested Friday and charged in a double shooting July 19 that killed 16-year-old Jerrod Reed, police confirmed. Reed, who had no criminal record, was hit in the head by a bullet while standing on an East Baltimore corner, Kenwood Avenue and Madison Street, a few blocks from where he lived with relatives.

Two men shot, one fatally, in Northwest Baltimore A man was fatally shot in the head Wednesday afternoon in Northwest Baltimore, according to city police. The man was pronounced dead about 1:20 p.m. at the scene of the shooting in the 3900 block of Fairfax Road, police said. About an hour earlier, a 42-year-old man was shot in the upper torso and knee in the 3800 block of Ayrdale Ave., police said. He was taken to an area hospital after staggering to a Walgreens drugstore in the 3800 block of Liberty Heights Ave., according to police.

Murder charges against a 15-year-old boy have been dropped by city prosecutors, citing insufficient evidence. Christopher Briggs had turned himself in this month after learning there was a warrant for his arrest in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Keon Cameron. Briggs was charged with first-degree murder, assault and related handgun charges. According to police, Cameron got into a fight with Briggs in the 1800 block of E. 28th St in Northeast Baltimore's Coldstream Homestead Montebello neighborhood.

A man in his 30s died after he was shot several times early Thursday two blocks from Oriole Park at Camden Yards, police said, one of two fatal overnight shootings in the city as violence continues to surge in Baltimore after a recent lull. Police also made two homicide arrests in separate cases, including a 15-year-old who turned himself in, as detectives continue to close cases at a higher clip than last year. The victim of the downtown shooting, Milton Stepney Sr., 32, was shot about 2:40 a.m. at Eutaw and Lombard streets after he got into an argument with a man at a carryout restaurant and came at the man with a tire iron, said Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman.

Jury notes ruled not disclosed 2 A judge has found that six jury notes were not disclosed to lawyers during the trial of two men who were ultimately convicted in 2006 of the near-beheadings of their three young relatives. The findings make it more likely that Policarpio Espinoza and Adan Canela will get a new trial, which would be their third. The two illegal Mexican immigrants were sentenced to life in prison for the deaths in 2004 of a 9-year-old boy, his 8-year-old sister and their 10-year-old cousin in a Falstaff apartment.

Verdict due today in Exxon suit A Baltimore County jury will announce at 9 a.m. today a verdict in a civil suit brought against Exxon Mobil Corp. by some 300 Jacksonville residents after 26,000 gallons of gasoline seeped into the groundwater from a leaking pipe in 2006, Baltimore County Circuit Court officials said yesterday. The residents had sought compensatory and punitive damages worth "several billion dollars," said plaintiffs' attorney Stephen L. Snyder. The jury began deliberating the case Feb. 27 after a 19-week trial.

A Baltimore police officer charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a civilian last year said in court filings that the Police Department's new policy of not releasing names of officers involved in shootings has "reignited" residents' distrust of police and hurts his ability to receive a fair trial. Officer Thomas Sanders, who is alleged to have shot an unarmed man in the back on Jan. 30, 2008, said in court filings that there "currently exists an extremely volatile climate in Baltimore City in which citizens of Baltimore do not trust the Baltimore Police Department."

Tuesday's fatal shooting of a 61-year-old man by Baltimore police was the second time in four years that the same city officer had been overpowered by a suspect who attempted to steal her weapon. Records from the earlier incident show that serious questions were raised about that case. All charges against the suspect were dropped, with prosecutors citing "insufficient evidence" despite the fact that the two victims and key eyewitnesses were city officers. The man's defense attorney also charged that documents related to the case had been "materially changed and rewritten by officers in significant authority in the Eastern District," a claim that is not addressed in the records.

Man, 28, is charged in fatal shooting of teen Police said they have arrested and charged a 28-year-old man in the fatal shooting Jan. 28 of a teenager in Northwest Baltimore. Dewayne Lawrence, 17, was sitting in the front passenger seat of a vehicle as it pulled out of the Cedonia Inn in the 5900 block of Moravia Road when a gunman fired numerous rounds into the vehicle, police said. Lawrence was struck at least once in the head. Although police did not provide a motive, a spokesman said it appeared that Lawrence was not the intended target.

Glen Burnie man charged in fatal shooting at bar A Glen Burnie man has been arrested in the fatal shooting of a man outside a bar during the weekend, Anne Arundel County police said. Ricco Clifton Gough, 28, was arrested in Baltimore on Monday and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Nathaniel Benjamin Wallace, 37, of Baltimore, police said yesterday. Two men were fighting in Dietrich's Tavern in the 7300 block of Furnace Branch Road East about midnight Saturday when bouncers forced them to leave, police said.