WASHINGTON — An arrest has been made in the death of the brother of the spokesman for the Baltimore police.
Dionay Smith, the brother of spokesman T.J. Smith, was killed Sunday night in his West Baltimore home. He was 24.
Terrell Gibson, 21, was arrested Thursday at his home on Lafayette Avenue “relatively without incident,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said Thursday. Someone tried to hide him when the police came, but otherwise the arrest was uneventful.
He said Gibson and Smith had “some kind of dispute,” but had no other information about a motive.
Gibson is charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, first-degree assault, second-degree assault and reckless endangerment. He was previously arrested in a 2015 stabbing on a bus and has faced drug charges. He was on parole until last December.
T.J. Smith held a tearful news conference Wednesday and spoke fondly of his brother, and how the pain of making the kind of announcement he makes all the time was multiplied when he was part of the story.
“To many, he will be #173, but to me and my family, he’s Dion, a brother, a son, a father, a friend, a nephew, and a kind soul,” he wrote on Facebook/
On Thursday, he posted on Facebook, “On behalf of the Smith family, I would like to offer our sincere thanks to the Baltimore Police Department for identifying and arresting the suspect responsible for our loved one’s death. We also offer our thanks to the community for the outpouring of assistance and condolences. We now look forward to the justice system holding this individual accountable for his actions, so that he does not have the opportunity to harm anyone else’s family.”
Baltimore has one of the highest murder rates in the country. Dion Smith was the 173rd person killed in the city this year. That compares to 143 at this time last year.
Davis said there are 500 fewer police officers in Baltimore than in 2012.
