Jerome McDougald, 24, a man from Baltimore, was out on North Smallwood Street near West Fayette Street late on Thursday night, June 9, 2016, when the quiet of the block broke into violence. Police reports described him walking along Smallwood Street when another person confronted him, pulled out a gun, and opened fire.
Officers were dispatched to the 100 block of North Smallwood Street at about 11:30 p.m. and found him suffering from what were described as apparent life-threatening gunshot wounds. He was rushed to a hospital, but he did not survive. In the days that followed, his name was included among several people Baltimore police identified as victims in a surge of homicides that swept through different parts of the city.
The earliest public accounts did not name a suspect, describing the shooter only as an unidentified person who confronted McDougald before firing. Homicide detectives took over the investigation, and the public was urged to come forward with information directly to detectives and, for those who wanted anonymity, through Metro Crime Stoppers. In the coverage reviewed, no arrests, charges, or court proceedings were reported in connection with McDougald’s killing at the time those accounts were published, leaving the case framed publicly as a search for the person who stepped out of the night, raised a weapon, and vanished again into West Baltimore.
