Investigators say a mass shooting outside an Annapolis, Maryland, home began with a parking dispute between neighbors.
At a news briefing on Monday, the Annapolis Police Department said 43-year-old Charles Robert Smith is accused of opening fire on the 1000 block of Paddington Place around 8 p.m. Sunday, claiming three lives and wounding three others.
The three killed were 27-year-old Mario Antonio Mireles Ruiz, his father 55-year-old Nicholas Mireles, and 25-year-old Christian Marlon Segovia. All three men lived in the Annapolis area. Officials said three other people who suffered gunshot wounds were in stable condition Monday and are expected to recover.
Annapolis Police Chief Edward Jackson said Smith was a resident of the same block where the shooting took place and surrendered to law enforcement without incident. A semi-automatic handgun and a long gun were recovered from the scene.
“This was an isolated incident, and it was contained immediately. Annapolis remains a safe city; I can’t underscore that enough,” Jackson said. “Ostensibly, the suspect is white and the three victims are Latino, but we can’t draw any inferences from that.”
Charging documents allege Smith shot Mario Mireles during a dispute over a parking spot. Mario Mireles was hosting a party at the time, with a number of guests parked along the road.
Investigators found that Smith’s mother had called Annapolis parking enforcement to complain that a car was blocking her driveway. Witnesses told detectives that Mario Mireles had walked over to argue with her about the issue, when Smith returned home and confronted him.
Detectives believe a subsequent fight between the two men turned deadly when Smith pulled out a gun, shooting Mario Mireles during a struggle for the weapon. Mireles’ friend Segovia was also fatally wounded.
Smith is said to have kept firing out of his front window at party-goers rushing to help the victims. According to a police affidavit, Mario’s father Nicolas was killed while coming to his son’s aid.
Smith later told officers he opened fire at people who had shot at his house. Investigators said none of the witnesses saw any of the victims with a gun.
Smith was booked Monday by the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s Office on multiple charges, including three counts each of second-degree murder, first-degree assault and attempted murder. He is being held without bond.
Jackson said police were executing search warrants in the area to collect more evidence. Federal agencies including the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, were contributing to the investigation with crime scene analysis.
Denouncing the shooting as a “heinous act,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore expressed his support for the Annapolis community and said his office was moving to support the response effort.
“I know that many people might be feeling numb right now — numb to the violence that we see in our streets and across the country, numb to the news stories about more lives being cut short,” Moore said. “But we cannot allow that numbness to take hold. We will refuse to be apathetic in the face of horror. We refuse to say that these problems are too big or too tough to solve.”
