Pennsylvania man charged after shooting two teens in Southeast Baltimore

Two teenagers were shot in Southeast Baltimore within five days, and Baltimore Police say the same 21-year-old suspect was quickly tied to both incidents through witness statements, surveillance video and charging documents. Donnell Thomas, of Pennsylvania, was arrested June 11 by members of the Warrant Apprehension Task Force at a residence in the 400 block of North Port Street in McElderry Park.

The first shooting came in the late afternoon of June 6, when Southeast District patrol officers were sent to the 700 block of North Collington Avenue at about 4:46 p.m. Police said the victim was a 15-year-old boy suffering from an apparent non-life-threatening gunshot wound, and he was taken to a hospital for treatment. Investigators later determined the shooting happened in the 600 block of North Patterson Park Avenue, outside Tench Tilghman Elementary/Middle School. Charging documents say a witness saw the teen standing outside the school when three males approached him aggressively, an argument started and a loud pop was heard, after which the suspects ran east. Police said video footage supported that account and helped identify Thomas as the shooter.

Five days later, police responded to another shooting in the 400 block of Milton Avenue and found a 17-year-old boy who had been shot in the lower abdomen. WBAL and Fox Baltimore reported that both victims survived. Charging documents say the teen told police he had been standing in front of a church with friends, heard what he thought was a gunshot, ran home and only then realized he had been hit.

Taken together, the two shootings showed how quickly gun violence can move through the same part of the city, reaching a school block and a church block in the span of a week. In a neighborhood like Southeast Baltimore, where families move past the schoolhouse doors on North Patterson Park Avenue and the church steps on Milton Avenue every day, the danger was not abstract. It was immediate, visible and close to where children gather.

The arrests also came as Baltimore continued to wrestle with a long-running gun violence problem. WMAR reported that Baltimore City ended 2025 with 133 homicides, down 61 from 2024, and that May 2026 brought 8 recorded homicides and 32 non-fatal shootings. WMAR has tracked daily murders and shootings in the city since September 2020, a tally that keeps showing how often violence returns before neighborhoods have time to recover.