Baltimore Police Make Multiple Attempted Murder Arrests in Southern District

Three people faced attempted first-degree murder charges in Baltimore's Southern District over a six-month stretch in 2024, as the Baltimore Police Department pressed an enforcement push across neighborhoods stretching from Federal Hill to Curtis Bay.

The first arrest came on March 19, 2024, when detectives served a warrant on Shairor Whitaker, 32, for the shooting of a 48-year-old woman in the 800 block of Bethune Road on March 3. Whitaker was transported to the Central Booking Intake Facility following her arrest.

Four months later, on July 16, Warrant Apprehension detectives picked up Christopher Holland, 24, in connection with a shooting six days earlier in the Southern District. Detectives believe Holland shot a 26-year-old male victim multiple times on July 10. Holland was charged with attempted first-degree murder and also booked at Central Booking.

In September, Southern District detectives arrested a 16-year-old on September 13, two days after a warrant was approved, on attempted first-degree murder charges, underscoring that enforcement activity in the district reached across age lines.

The three cases unfolded against a citywide backdrop of sharply declining violence. BPD's 2024 Year-End Crime Report documented a 23% drop in homicides, from 261 in 2023 to 201 in 2024 — the lowest annual total since 2011. Non-fatal shootings fell even more steeply, down 34%, while overall arrests climbed 14%, including a 29% rise in homicide arrests. The department's homicide clearance rate reached 68%, above the national average. BPD credited much of that progress to the consolidation of district detective units under the Criminal Investigation Division, which enabled more coordinated enforcement.

The downward trend extended into 2025. BPD's mid-year report showed homicides down another 22% through mid-2025 compared to the same period in 2024, with non-fatal shootings down 19%.

In July 2025, Mayor Brandon M. Scott extended Baltimore's Group Violence Reduction Strategy into the Southern District, making it the fifth BPD district to receive the program, joining the Western, Southwestern, Eastern, and Central districts. GVRS pairs focused law enforcement and prosecution with community intervention services, targeting individuals identified as being at the highest risk of violent crime involvement.

"Making our city safer isn't just about reducing crime, it's about increasing opportunity, and that's especially important here in South Baltimore," Scott said at the time of the expansion.

The Southern District covers Pigtown, Carroll Park, Cherry Hill, Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, and Federal Hill — a wide geographic and demographic cross-section of South Baltimore now backed by both the targeted detective work behind the Whitaker, Holland, and juvenile arrests and a violence reduction strategy that city hall has steadily scaled across the city's most affected districts.