2023 Annapolis shooting

Last updated

On June 11, 2023, six people were shot, three fatally, outside a condominium complex in southeast Annapolis, Maryland.

Contents

Charles Robert Smith, 43, was arrested and charged with the shooting, which prosecutors said was racially motivated; the shooter was White, and the victims were Latino American. Hate crime enhancements have been filed against the alleged perpetrator.

Shooting

According to the police charging documents, the six people who were shot were attending a large party when a dispute broke out over a parking issue. Mireles went to Smith's home to talk about it and was arguing with Shirley Smith when her son Charles Smith returned home and confronted him. The altercation started at 1000 block of Paddington Place. Police said that the violence started after the white luxury vehicle was parked in front of the house that Charles Robert Smith shares with his mother, sparking the aforementioned argument. According to charging documents, Shirley Smith called in a complaint to the city, saying her driveway was blocked. The verbal argument became physical.

Smith pulled out a gun and Mireles tried to grab it before Smith shot Mireles and Segovia. Smith “then stood over Mario Mireles and shot him several more times,” the document says. Smith then went into his house, got a rifle and began firing through a window at people who had come trying to help the mortally wounded men. Smith fatally shot Nicolas Mireles, and wounded Rosalina Segovia, Paul Johnnson and Enner Canales-Hernandez, police said. [1]

Twelve minutes later, Charles Smith, 43, was standing at the front door, hands in the air, as he surrendered to police. His neighbor, Mario Alfredo Mireles was laid out on the lawn. Christian Segovia, a friend, had fallen in the space between two Paddington homes. And Nicholas Mireles, Mario's father, was down in front of a neighbor's house. They died at the scene. Rosalina Segovia, 29, Paul Johnson, 28, and Enner Canales-Hernandez, 26, were taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore and are in stable condition, officials said. Neighbors have said that the man made comments that were perceived as disparaging towards Hispanic individuals. [2] [3]

An indictment against Smith was returned by a grand jury on July 21, 2023; a 42-count indictment also includes six charges of attempted first-degree murder. Smith's initial court appearance was scheduled for next Monday. His initial lawyer is no longer representing him.

Maryland's hate crime law applies to crimes that are motivated either in whole or in substantial part to another person's race, color, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, disability or national origin. It enables prosecutors to add years to a sentence, and financial penalties. Smith faces up to life in prison without possibility of parole if convicted of first-degree murder. [1]

The case's trial was delayed by a judge until 2025. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

During the weekend of July 4, 1999, white supremacist Benjamin Smith targeted Orthodox Jews and members of racial and ethnic minorities in a three-day drive-by shooting rampage in Illinois and Indiana, after which he committed suicide. Smith was member of the neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1986 FBI Miami shootout</span> Deadly gun battle between FBI agents and criminals

The 1986 FBI Miami shootout occurred on April 11, 1986, in Miami-Dade County, Florida, U.S., when a small group of field agents for the FBI attempted to apprehend William Russell Matix and Michael Lee Platt, who were suspected of committing a series of violent crimes in and around the Miami metropolitan area.

In early 2009, a series of gang-related shootings occurred due to what police describe as a gang war in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Alleged participants include the Independent Soldiers, the Sanghera Crime Family, the Buttar Crime Family, the United Nations Gang, the Red Scorpions, and the Vancouver chapters of the Hells Angels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting</span> 2009 terrorist attack in Washington, D.C.

At approximately 12:50 p.m. on June 10, 2009, 88-year-old James Wenneker von Brunn entered the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., with a slide-action rifle and fatally shot Museum Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns. Other special police officers returned fire, wounding von Brunn, who was apprehended.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of violence against LGBT people in the United States</span>

The history of violence against LGBT people in the United States is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals (LGBT), legal responses to such violence, and hate crime statistics in the United States of America. The people who are the targets of such violence are believed to violate heteronormative rules and they are also believed to contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles. People who are perceived to be LGBT may also be targeted for violence. Violence can also occur between couples who are of the same sex, with statistics showing that violence among female same-sex couples is more common than it is among couples of the opposite sex, but male same-sex violence is less common.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2015 Chapel Hill shooting</span> 2015 triple-murder in North Carolina

On February 10, 2015, Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha were killed in their home in Finley Forest Condominiums on Summerwalk Circle in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Barakat was a second-year student in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Dentistry, his wife Yusor was a North Carolina State University (NCSU) graduate planning to enter UNC Dentistry School in the fall, and her sister Razan was a student at NCSU majoring in architecture and environmental design.

The killing of William L. Chapman II, a black 18-year-old, occurred on April 22, 2015, in Portsmouth, Virginia, when Chapman was shot and killed in a Wal-Mart parking lot by Portsmouth Police Officer Stephen D. Rankin. Rankin had been responding to a report of suspected shoplifting and engaged in a physical struggle with Chapman, who instigated the altercation while trying to arrest him. The shooting occurred approximately four years after the killing of Kirill Denyakin, who died after being shot by Rankin in 2011.

The Byrd Gang also known as the Piff Gang, is a criminal organization located in New Orleans, Louisiana. Detectives with New Orleans Police Department's Multi-Agency Gang unit previously described the Byrd Gang as "one of the most murderous gangs in town." The gang has a long history of violence which has made them gain notoriety among other gangs in the city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Botham Jean</span> 2018 murder case in Texas

On the night of September 6, 2018, 26-year-old accountant Botham Jean was murdered in Dallas, Texas by off-duty Dallas Police Department patrol officer Amber Guyger, who entered Jean's apartment and fatally shot him. Guyger, who said that she had entered Jean's apartment believing it was her own and believed Jean to be a burglar, was initially charged with manslaughter. The absence of a murder charge led to protests and accusations of racial bias because Jean—an unarmed black man—was killed in his own home by a white off-duty officer who had apparently disregarded police protocols. On November 30, 2018, Guyger was indicted on a charge of murder. On October 1, 2019, she was found guilty of murder, and was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment the following day. The ruling was upheld on appeal in 2021.

On October 24, 2018, a man and woman were shot and killed by a gunman at a Kroger grocery store in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, a suburb of Louisville.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of Atatiana Jefferson</span> 2019 police manslaughter of a woman in Fort Worth, Texas

Atatiana Koquice Jefferson, a 28-year-old woman, was fatally shot inside her home by a police officer in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, in the early morning of October 12, 2019. Police arrived at her home after a neighbor called a non-emergency number, stating that Jefferson's front door was open. Police body camera footage showed officers walking outside the home with flashlights for a few minutes then one officer yells, "Put your hands up! Show me your hands!", while discharging his weapon through a window. Police found a handgun near Jefferson's body, which according to her eight-year-old nephew, she was pointing toward the window before being shot. On October 14, 2019, Officer Aaron Dean, the shooter, resigned from the Fort Worth Police Department and was arrested on a murder charge. On December 20, 2019, Dean was indicted for murder. Jefferson was black and the officer who shot her is white, prompting news outlets to compare Jefferson's shooting to the September 2018 murder of Botham Jean in nearby Dallas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Ahmaud Arbery</span> 2020 murder in Georgia, United States

On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was murdered during a racially motivated hate crime while jogging in Satilla Shores, a neighborhood near Brunswick in Glynn County, Georgia. Three white men, who later claimed to police that they assumed he was a burglar, pursued Arbery in their trucks for several minutes, using the vehicles to block his path as he tried to run away. Two of the men, Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory McMichael, were armed in one vehicle. Their neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, was in another vehicle. After overtaking Arbery, Travis McMichael exited his truck, pointing his weapon at Arbery. Arbery approached McMichael and a physical altercation ensued, resulting in McMichael fatally shooting Arbery. Bryan recorded this confrontation and Arbery's murder on his cell phone.

On May 13, 2019, an African American woman, Pamela Turner, was shot and killed by a police officer from Baytown, Texas.

On February 2, 2021, a shootout occurred between David Lee Huber and several agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at an apartment complex in Sunrise, Florida, United States. At the time, the agents were serving a warrant on Huber related to a child pornography case. Two FBI agents were fatally shot and three others were injured. Huber was later found dead after barricading himself inside the apartment. The incident was one of the deadliest in the FBI's history.

On June 27, 2022, at approximately 12:30 a.m., Akron, Ohio, police officers shot Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old American from Akron. Following a traffic stop and car chase, footage showed an officer saying that Walker’s car is slowing down, having reached speeds of more than 50 miles per hour (80 km/h) in residential neighborhoods. Seconds later, Walker, wearing a ski mask, exited the vehicle and began to flee on foot. Officers pursued on foot and fired more than 90 times at Walker. Autopsy results showed that Walker's body was hit by more than 46 bullets.

References

  1. 1 2 "Maryland man charged with hate crimes in parking dispute that left 3 Latinos dead". NBC News. Associated Press. July 24, 2023.
  2. Parker, Luke (June 15, 2023). "'This was a hate crime': Family of slain Annapolis shooting victims say killings underscore history with suspect". The Capital .
  3. White, Brian (June 12, 2023). "Police: 3 dead, 3 wounded in shooting at Maryland home stemming from dispute". Associated Press .
  4. Parker, Luke (April 5, 2024). "Trial in Annapolis triple homicide to be delayed to 2025" . The Baltimore Sun . Archived from the original on April 5, 2024.