Paul Bertonazzi was 63 years old when he died on Thursday, January 12, 2023, at Johns Hopkins Hospital, five days after police and medics encountered him at a restaurant in the 1200 block of Orleans Street. Doctors determined that he died of trauma to the body, and the Baltimore Sun's homicide database lists the cause as blunt force. The Baltimore Police Department investigated, and the Sun's database lists the death as a homicide.
Police said that at about 5:44 p.m.
on Saturday, January 7, 2023, Eastern District officers responded to the restaurant "for a report of a male experiencing a behavioral crisis." They found Bertonazzi threatening harm to himself and others. Medics tried to treat him, but police said he "became combative and refused treatment." Officers trained in crisis intervention then took him to Johns Hopkins Hospital for evaluation, where, police said, he "was handed off to hospital staff for treatment."
Homicide detectives were notified of his death on January 13. The case stayed quiet for almost ten months, until the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled on November 1, 2023, that his death was a homicide. Police said, "The manner in which the victim's injury occurred is still under investigation." The Baltimore Banner reported that his spine had been severed, and the Washington Post reported that he "was paralyzed within hours" of arriving at the hospital and that his family was "distraught."
The department's Special Investigation Response Team, which examines officers' use of force, also looked into the death. The Maryland Attorney General's Independent Investigations Division said a review of body-worn camera and surveillance footage showed that Bertonazzi was not in police custody when he was fatally injured, so it did not treat the case as a police-involved death. Johns Hopkins said it "cannot discuss any individual patient's care due to patient privacy laws" and would "cooperate fully with the authorities."
His full name was Paul Kenneth Bertonazzi, and he was born on March 14, 1959. His obituary described him as a devoted father, a brother to three sisters and a loving grandfather, and said he was "survived by other loving family and friends." Services were private.
Orleans Street is a major east-west road that carries U.S. Route 40 through East Baltimore, and the large Johns Hopkins Hospital campus lies a short distance east of the block where police first met him.
Homicides in Baltimore began falling steeply in 2023 and 2024, reaching the lowest totals in decades, yet many killings from those years remain unsolved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Paul Bertonazzi could be found in news archives or public records. More than three years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was at the restaurant on Orleans Street on January 7, 2023, or who was at the hospital in the days that followed and saw how he was hurt, may know something that would help explain what happened to him in January 2023. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call Baltimore Police homicide detectives at 410-396-2100, or leave an anonymous tip with Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland at 1-866-7LOCKUP (1-866-756-2587).
