‘It’s just crazy,’ father says of child’s brush with death
As Baltimore City firefighters washed bloodstains off the sidewalk Sunday left by a 6-year-old boy shot in the chest the previous day, family and friends said cleansing the streets of their East Baltimore neighborhood did not quell their fears.
“It’s just crazy, it really is,” Dwain Canty, the boy’s 25-year-old father, said as he sat on the porch of the boy’s home Sunday afternoon.
“I just moved here from South Carolina. Kids don’t get shot on the street down there; it just doesn’t happen.”
Relatives said the boy was shot through the chest after a gun battle erupted around 5 p.m. Saturday in Northeast Baltimore at Lyndale and St. Cloud avenues, a corner known as a hangout for drug dealers. Witnesses described utter pandemonium as the child lay bleeding on the sidewalk, his mother performing CPR.
“I just heard shots and ran outside and saw his mom breathing through his mouth,” said a woman who lives on the corner where the boy was shot but did not want to be identified. “She was trying to save him.”
Canty said he was visiting a friend who lived a few blocks away when someone told him there had been a shooting down the street. Rushing to the scene, Canty said he was horrified to see his son being loaded into a waiting ambulance. “I was like, ‘Let me in, I want to ride with him.’ ”
Though the boy was hit in the chest, the bullet exited through his left arm, relatives said. He was in critical condition late Sunday afternoon at Johns Hopkins Hospital. But an uncle said the boy was in good spirits despite the brush with death.
“It’s amazing, really. He’s still in critical, but he’s awake and talking. He’s very brave,” said his uncle Clifford Purdy.
“In the hospital, he just held his arm up to show he’s OK and smiled,” the boy’s father added.
Police said the shooting was under investigation, but there was no indication yet as to what prompted the gunfire or who was responsible.
“It was two people shooting at each other at this point,” said police spokesman Donny Moses. “Right now we are searching for suspects and pursuing leads.”
Meanwhile, City Councilman Warren Branch, D-13, who represents the neighborhood, was on hand to comfort the family.
“This concerns me greatly,” he said. “Our children have to be safe for our city to be safe.”
[email protected]
