Neighbors in Oliver learn of mass shooting from officials

Earlier this week, a man was killed and seven others were injured in Oliver. Then the motorcycle hangout at the center of the mass shooting caught fire. On Thursday night, in the East Baltimore neighborhood, an ice cream truck rang its bell, basketball hoops echoed next to burned windows and residents gathered at a church to process a harrowing week.

“We have to be able to stand up for ourselves,” said Diane Williams, president of the People's Association of Oliver Community, who lives near the shooting and fire sites. “Sometimes we just have to have that faith.”

The shooting occurred around 8 p.m. Sunday in a garage used by a motorcycle gang and then spread to North Spring Street, said Maj. Jai Etwasoo, commanding officer of the Baltimore Police Department's Eastern District, during a community meeting at Knox Presbyterian Church.

Etwasoo said 36-year-old Anthony Martin was pronounced dead at the scene, while a 41-year-old woman and men aged 21, 23, 39, 40, 45 and 46 were injured. He said police recovered four weapons at the scene before finding ballistics evidence of at least 10 firearms in the shooting.

Etwasoo said officers received a call about a loud vehicle near the corner of Caroline and Preston streets, two blocks from the scene, around 7:15 p.m. An officer responded but found no disturbance.

Police then received two more calls about noise disturbances and mass disturbances before the shooting. Etwasoo said the calls were mistakenly routed to the Central District rather than the Eastern District before the shooting.

“Two other 911 calls came in about disturbances and were routed to the Central District,” said Etwasoo. “In hindsight, that call was so close to an actual explosion that I don't think police intervention could have prevented it.”

Etwasoo said his district received four calls about noise pollution from the motorcycle group earlier this year, but they turned out to be “relatively peaceful” so they were “not on our radar”.

It was pouring with rain the night of the shooting, causing ShotSpotter technology in the neighborhood to malfunction and fail to detect the shooting, leading to a delay in response, Etwasoo said.

On Wednesday night, the garage at 1301 N. Spring Street, across from Caroline & Hoffman Park, caught fire around 10 p.m. According to Baltimore Fire, smoke was visible coming from the garage unit when firefighters arrived and gained entry to extinguish the flames.

Etwasoo said police believe the fire was a retaliatory attack.

“The motorcycle club was burned down last night. We suspect it was an act of retaliation,” said Etwasoo.

During the meeting, residents said the local recreation center closed last summer because of mold and asbestos, and they fear the kids would have no place to hang out. On Thursday night, Caroline & Hoffman Park hosted a back-to-school party for children, who played basketball in the shadow of the burned-out building.

“Our children have nowhere to go,” Williams said.

Housing Commissioner Alice Kennedy said there have been four open city violations against the property since 2017, but investigators have been unable to catch residents engaging in illegal activity. In May, the city found a business called Moon's Motorcycle Transportation operating from the address on social media and attempted to contact the property owner at addresses in Prince George's County and Virginia, Kennedy said at the meeting.

“In December 2020, we issued a regulatory offence notice due to the activities of a social nature that were taking place on the property. We issued the regulatory offence notice as a nightclub regulatory notice,” Kennedy said. “We were unable to move to the next level of enforcement. We were unable to catch them on the premises acting or participating in any social events or anything that would indicate that we can detain them for gathering in a nightclub or unlicensed function space.”

The rental company, the transportation company and two other people associated with the biker group did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Baltimore Sun.

Kennedy said after the fire that the city was inspecting the building to see if it could be classified as vacant, which would give her department “more tools in our toolbox to help the community.”

About an hour into the meeting, as city officials were answering technical questions about zoning laws, a man changed the tone by grabbing the microphone and exclaiming that residents had been “complaining about the bike club for years, and now someone's dead.”

The Mayor's Office of Safety and Neighborhood Safety and Engagement spoke at the meeting about a pop-up neighborhood crisis center that would give residents access to city services. City Council candidate Jermaine Jones, who won a close Democratic primary in May against incumbent Robert Stokes, said more collaboration is the answer in the wake of the tragedy.

“If someone uses a building for other purposes, it can lead to even bigger problems where someone loses their life,” Jones said. “If we work together as community agencies, we can stop this before it even gets to that point and before we even have that meeting.”