BPD: Victims in Thursday shooting were 'targeted'

BALTIMORE, Md. (WMAR) - In the 4200 block of Hamilton Avenue in Northeast Baltimore, neighbors tell us at around midnight last night they heard one shot, a pause, then a barrage of five.

The two victims, a 54 year old woman and a 33 year old man were related, they were ambushed; shot in the head outside their home.

"The victims arrived home from a location, they were walking up to their house, their attackers were waiting for them, hiding.  When the victims arrived home, they were killed," said Baltimore Police Spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi.

They were intensely personal killings city police sources believe may be connected to a triple shooting in Southwest Baltimore earlier this week where two other people were killed.

Four bodies and the fear of even more that has city police using a brand new task force just created by the acting commissioner Anthony Barksdale.

"What the deputy commissioner has done is take the very best detectives in the homicide unit that have the highest clearance rate and when there are cases like this that fall outside of our typical pattern, we will put these detectives on those cases so we can quell the violence swiftly," Guglielmi said.

And that also includes the double shooting of two well-known residents in Mount Vernon last week.

Alex Ulrich was killed that night; Larry Peterson is still struggling to survive at an area hospital.

The two men seemingly random targets and now the third such unusual case falling under this new special homicide unit; a distinction giving their friends and loved ones hope they'll one day be able to answer the question why.

"The police seem to be doing their best and conducting a good investigation and so we have high hopes for them at least to get this but of lightning out of the sky," said Peterson’s friend Paul Warren in an interview earlier this week.

So far there are few leads in the Mount Vernon shooting but police are following one that led them to ask DC metro police for help as well as the LGBT community in the district.

As far as the other two multiple homicides in the past two days, detectives say they believe they are very close to solving that case.