17 people arrested on gun charges in connection with shooting near Towson University campus

Baltimore County Police arrested 15 men and two teenage boys — three of whom are Towson University students — in connection with a shooting at an apartment complex near the school on Sunday night.

Police previously said the shooting was not connected to the university, and school officials said the 18-year-old victim was not a student. Still, the shooting prompted a campuswide shelter-in-place there for roughly three hours.

In a news release Tuesday, police said they recovered several firearms from a unit at Cardiff Hall Apartments in the 8000 block of York Road and arrested the occupants.

The adults, who range in age from 18 to 31, along with two boys, ages 15 and 17, were arrested and charged with various offenses, including possession of a stolen firearm and a rapid activator and being a minor in possession of a firearm, according to court records.

Jamie Abell, a spokesperson for the university, confirmed that three of the adults are enrolled at the school.

Shortly after 7 p.m. Sunday, police received multiple calls reporting shots fired around the apartment. A man in a car at the intersection of Campus View and Osler drives had been shot, police said a caller told them.

Officers found the 18-year-old man shot in his chest in the vehicle, according to charging documents.

The man remained hospitalized Tuesday with a potentially life-threatening gunshot wound, said Joy Lepola-Stewart, a spokesperson for the Baltimore County Police Department.

Police said in court records that witnesses directed them to a group of men and boys who had entered a unit in the Cardiff Hall Apartments. Inside the apartment building, police found several shell casings, according to court records.

Officers ordered the 17 suspects out of the apartment unit and detained them, charging documents state. The Cardiff Hall Apartments are owned by Continental Realty Corp., a Baltimore-based national commercial real estate agency. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Police executed a search and seizure warrant and said in charging documents that they recovered a rifle that had been reported as stolen from Leesburg, Virginia, in January 2024; four Glocks; rapid-fire trigger activators, or switches, for two of the guns; and three pounds of suspected marijuana.

“Detectives are reviewing the evidence collected at the scene, including ballistic evidence, to determine the circumstances surrounding the gunfire. The number of individuals who discharged a firearm remains under investigation,” Lepola-Stewart said.

University officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.