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Triple fatal shooting in Baltimore linked to BGF gang

Posted at 6:28 PM, Dec 05, 2016
and last updated 2016-12-05 18:28:34-05

A triple shooting that left three men dead in West Baltimore Sunday night has ties to the Black Guerilla Family gang, Baltimore Police said Monday.

911 calls reported gunfire in the 900 block of Bennett Place in West Baltimore Sunday night, and later, the calls led to a welfare check by the fire department, which discovered one body.

Police found the other two.

"All three are adult males,” Baltimore Police Chief T.J. Smith said. “This is a targeted incident, a targeted hit and these three were basically killed by someone inside of this house."

The names have yet to be released, but police say their affiliation is clear.

These men were associated with the Black Guerilla Family, police said. Evidence shows even the house where they were targeted is known to be associated with the gang.

The block is also associated with violence.

Three years ago, and after a spate of shootings citywide capped by two killings on this very same block, Baltimore Police gated Bennett Place.

Police were posted here 24/7, including the department's mobile crime unit.

It was an effort to slow rival gang violence that summer. Police believed an east-west war was helping to push a homicide count on its way to a high of 235 in 2013.

But it's three years later, and police are battling a total of 300 murders in 2016. And here again is Bennett Place contributing a crooked number.

These are numbers the commissioner is looking to straighten out as Baltimore moves into a New Year, and a new era.

"We have to come up with uniquely Baltimore ways to get a handle on it so I am optimistic with the new administration coming on board. I think that their values, their vision is consistent with where we want to go...so we are not satisfied," Commissioner Kevin Davis said.

Baltimore stands at 296 homicides so far in 2016.

The number, while grim, is still well below last year’s tally of 344.

But last year gets an asterisk because of the riots, which police then said set off months of reciprocal violence.

One would have to go back to 1999 to find a year where Baltimore routinely logged more than 300 killings a year.

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