BALTIMORE — Another round of violent shootings rattled Baltimore residents on Friday.
The shootings sent officers and detectives scouring for evidence in various parts of the city during a 16-hour period.
By the end of the day, homicide detectives had investigated four shootings that killed four people and injured another person.
The shootings started early in the morning. A 54-year-old man was shot in Southwest Baltimore around 4:45 a.m. His gunshot injuries were so severe that homicide detectives were asked to assist with the investigation into the shooting, police said.
Several hours later, around 1:15 p.m., someone shot a 33-year-old man in Northeast Baltimore. He died from his injuries at the hospital, according to authorities.
Less than six hours after that, around 6:40 p.m., officers in East Baltimore found a 30-year-old man suffering from gunshot injuries inside a vehicle. He died from those injuries at a local hospital, police said.
Then, around 8:40 p.m., two men were shot dead inside of a vehicle in Northwest Baltimore. Both males were pronounced deceased by Baltimore City Fire Department medics, police said.
One of the shootings on Friday took place in parts of town where police had previously responded to gun violence.
Officers in Northeast Baltimore were sent to the 4200 block of Parkside Drive on Friday afternoon.
It was the second time they had been called to the small neighborhood of Belair-Parkside within a 10-day period.
On Aug. 4, there had been a shooting in that same neighborhood—maybe three blocks away. A 31-year-old man sustained gunshot injuries in the 4100 block of Eierman Road that day, according to police records.
Sarah Seipp-Williams lives in Baltimore’s Belair-Edison neighborhood—not far from where one of the homicides happened.
She says she has seen many shootings in the area and has watched as neighbors have lost their children to gun violence.
“At this point, like, something has to change,” she told WJZ.
Seipp-Williams is frustrated by the way that the Baltimore Police Department has handled crime in her area.
“The police don’t really respond fast enough,” she said. “They haven’t done much for our neighborhood to help us.”
The deadly violence began just before Mayor Brandon Scott announced that the city would be expanding services for victims of gun violence in Baltimore.
The services must be a priority in the city’s public safety strategy, he said.
The services include crisis response, advocacy, therapy, and other services to address trauma and prevent re-victimization.
“A public safety strategy that is centered around the understanding that public health approach to public safety is the only way we can move Baltimore forward and beak the cycle of violence that continues to plague our city,” Scott said.