A fatal stabbing Thursday morning at a downtown Baltimore McDonald?s just blocks from the city?s Inner Harbor raised concern among people who work in the area.
“I was surprised,” said a construction supervisor named Hugo who worked outside the restaurant when the slaying occurred. “I?m not surprised that it happened in the city, but surprised it happened here.”
Police said that officers responded to a call of a reported stabbing at the McDonald?s on Lombard and Calvert streets at about 10:45 a.m., where they discovered an unidentified male suffering from severe stab wounds.
The victim later died en route to the hospital.
Two “persons of interest” were taken into custody by police. Police also confiscated the restaurant?s videotapes for review, but have yet to charge anyone.
McDonald?s officials released a statement expressing sympathy for the victim.
“Our deepest thoughts and prayers are with the victim?s family,” said Gerry Gimelstob, the owner and operator of the McDonald?s.
Hugo said he witnessed a possible suspect bolt out of the restaurant as they laid bricks for a new sidewalk.
“Someone ran out of the store and across the street,” he said. “But the police caught him.”
Sam Mill, a barber who works next to the McDonald?s, didn?t consider the killing as cause for alarm.
“I don?t think it was a random stabbing,” he said. “Obviously the guy was targeted; it?s not like someone is going to walk up to anyone and stab them.”
But his colleague, James Wiliamson, seemed shaken as he watched a biohazard crew prepare to clean up the aftermath of another deadly city crime.
“This type of thing doesn?t happen downtown,” he said.
