Tragedy struck downtown Baltimore City on Sunday, when a man suffocated and killed his three young children in a hotel room. A man staying at the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor at Camden Yards called the front desk at 1:15 p.m. and said he had just killed his three children and was about to harm himself, Baltimore City police said.
Hotel security found three children ? two boys and a girl, all under the age of 7 ? dead in a 10th-floor room, allegedly killed by their father, a Montgomery County resident.
Police said the children were in their father?s custody for the weekend.
The man was treated at an area hospital with self-inflicted wounds that did not appear life-threatening and was taken into police custody, said Officer Troy Harris and Sterling Clifford, city police spokesmen.
Investigators withheld the names of the father and the children, pending notification of the family.
The sight of the dead children was so traumatic for the first responders to the scene that the Fire Department?s certified stress unit had to counsel them, city firefighters said.
Investigators interviewed the other hotel guests, who are all considered witnesses, Harris said.
En route to a community meeting to discuss the relocation of a city homeless shelter Sunday afternoon, Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon seemed visibly shaken by the news.
“It?s incomprehensible to me; it?s extremely sad,” she said.
“I think it points out that we don?t pay enough attention to mental health problems.”
Police officers guarded the front door of the hotel Sunday afternoon, and several police cruisers lined the block around the hotel at 110 S. Eutaw St.
Hotel workers said they weren?t briefed by their bosses on what happened and had heard only rumors.
