Carjacking crew ‘terrorizing’ Baltimore charged in crime spree and killing

After a 37-year-old man was fatally shot last month in Northwest Baltimore in an apparent carjacking attempt, a police dispatcher warned officers around the city to remain vigilant.

“The potential suspects are the carjacking crew that has been terrorizing the city,” the dispatcher said in the early morning of May 7, according to an archived radio broadcast.

It didn’t take officials long to recognize it was part of a broader pattern threatening much of the city under the cover of darkness.

Baltimore Police investigators eventually linked the suspects in the homicide to a crew of young people they say are responsible for a brazen string of carjackings, robberies and auto thefts that stretched for nearly two months, according to police officials and court documents. Deputy State’s Attorney Jesse Halvorsen told The Banner they were known to rob repeatedly in quick succession.

Members of the nine-person crew usually struck in the early morning hours between 2 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., said Baltimore Police Capt. Adam Lattanzi and Lt. Melvin Jones in an interview with The Banner.

The young men and women, dressed in all black, wore ski masks and carried guns, including one with a red laser sight, according to court documents. Their actions, Lattanzi said, put “communities and victims in fear.”

As of Wednesday, eight had been arrested and one remained free.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, Police Commissioner Richard Worley and State’s Attorney Ivan Bates on Thursday detailed more about the case that included a homicide, 21 robberies, six carjackings, two aggravated assaults and nine auto thefts. The crime spree, they said, spanned the city and extended into Baltimore and Howard counties.

“We’re talking about 39 different violent incidents and the victims and the trauma behind each one of those cases,” Bates said at a joint press conference. “A victim lost his life... We had entire neighborhoods who knew what was going on but were afraid to walk their dogs. They were afraid to sit on their porches. They were afraid to go out early in the morning.”

Scott, Worley and Bates lamented serious criminal allegations that again involve young people, though they cautioned that those responsible for such conduct represent only a small fraction of the city’s youth. They also demanded that parents take responsibility for their teens, saying city officials can only do so much.

The identities of minors charged with nearly 40 crimes, even those initially charged as adults, are shielded in Maryland until it is determined that their cases will remain in adult court. Officials said the five minors charged ranged in age from 15 to 17.

The adults arrested — Dash Hayne, 22, Colekela Hamilton, 18, and Mekhi Clark, 21 — face dozens of charges each, according to officials. Their cases do not yet appear in online court records, and it is unclear whether they are being represented by attorneys.

While homicides have plummeted to record lows in Baltimore, the city is still plagued by high levels of violence. Carjackings and robberies are both down in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year.

On April 23, a man was walking to his car in Federal Hill around 4:45 a.m. when four assailants approached him while a fifth remained in a vehicle, charging documents say. All were wearing black face masks; four had guns.

The man told officers that they pointed guns at him and told him to “kick it out,” detectives wrote. When he gave up his keys, they rummaged through his car. One suspect smashed his phone. Then, they all fled in a white sedan.

In the next 20 minutes, police responded to two more reports of robberies within a tenth of a mile from each other. The allegations bore striking similarities.

According to charging documents, one man reported noticing a laser being pointed at his face before a group of assailants climbed out of a white sedan. They allegedly took his phone and wallet and fled.

Another man, the documents say, told authorities about suspects getting out of a white sedan, with one of them saying, “I will shoot you.”

Their violence allegedly escalated in the early hours of May 7 in Northwest Baltimore.

Around 3 a.m., the group approached 38-year-old Jamal Ferguson’s car in the 4400 block of Fairview Avenue in Baltimore’s West Forest Park neighborhood, officials said. The suspects allegedly opened the door and demanded at gunpoint that he get out. When he drove away instead, the assailants fatally shot him, police said.

A 17-year-old is charged as an adult with murder in Ferguson’s death and faces 23 other cases as an adult, according to officials. Because the case is shielded, it’s unclear whether the teen has an attorney.

Investigators soon connected the killing to the crew allegedly behind earlier violence across the city.

Officially, the Police Department didn’t disclose information to the entire city about the violent crew until this week. But last month, several department majors warned their local communities about the threat that hit seven police districts.

Maj. Kurt Yourkovik, commander of the Northwestern District, warned residents to “pay special attention” between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m. to vehicles that pulled up near them. He told residents not to stop their cars or get out if they saw a suspicious vehicle.

“Just drive away,” he said at a monthly community meeting in May.

Yourkovik expressed dismay that some members of the carjacking crew were minors who “we know really well in the department” and who had been charged with other crimes but had been released “back on the street.”

Halvorsen, the prosecutor overseeing the case, said reining in such crime sprees takes time, painstaking investigative work and attention to detail.

He, Lattanzi and Jones said police were constantly in touch with prosecutors as the investigation progressed, working together to secure at least 100 search warrants. They said they seized seven handguns and that members of the crew were arrested throughout the case as investigators collected enough evidence for probable cause against each of them.

On June 10, police responded to the Greenmount West neighborhood of East Baltimore around 1 a.m. for an alleged auto theft, according to charging documents.

Using camera footage, citywide robbery detectives investigated the incidents and learned that the same stolen SUV was used in a separate shooting and armed robbery within hours of each other. Court records show that there was also an hourlong car chase that led to two suspects’ arrests. Investigators also used DNA and cellphone location data to secure arrests.

“It is connecting the dots. That takes as long as it takes,” Halvorsen said.