A 12-year-old girl was shot and killed Saturday evening at a youth football game in West Baltimore after two men got into an argument over a parking spot and opened fire on each other. Four adults were also hurt.
Police haven’t released the girl’s name. As of midday Sunday, nobody had been arrested, and detectives were looking for both gunmen.
What happened at Leon Day Park?
Officers were called to Leon Day Park, in the 1200 block of North Franklintown Road, around 6:15 p.m. Saturday. A youth football game was going on. Police say two men were arguing in the parking area, and both pulled guns and fired. Investigators found two different kinds of shell casings, which fits two shooters.
The girl was caught in the crossfire. Officers found her and a 25-year-old woman with gunshot wounds, and the girl died. Two men, 23 and 28, walked into area hospitals with gunshot wounds later that night. Just after 10 p.m., a 35-year-old woman showed up at a hospital with a bullet graze on her back. All four adults are in stable condition.
What are city leaders saying?
Commissioner Richard Worley didn’t soften it.
What we know is that there was some type of argument between two cowards. And of course they both opened fire on each other. In the crossfire, a 12-year-old little girl, who was probably down there watching football, was shot and killed.
Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley
Mayor Brandon Scott called it “one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen in my life.” “Two grown men got into an argument and now a 12-year-old is gone,” he said. “We should never have to say something like that.”
Mark Brown, a coach with the Charm City Buccaneers youth program, told NBC News the shooters weren’t part of the league. “Some miscellaneous outsiders caused this situation. It wasn’t us,” he said. “This happened over a parking spot. It was avoidable.” NBC reported the league has run for 29 years without anything like this.
Is Baltimore’s violence going up again?
No, and that’s part of what makes this hard to take. Baltimore has been one of the country’s big crime turnaround stories. The city reported 50 homicides in the first six months of 2026, the fewest it’s ever recorded in that stretch and down 23% from the year before. Carjackings were down 43%.
But nonfatal shootings only fell 2.5% over the same period, and this shooting is the kind that numbers don’t prevent: two armed adults, a petty argument, and kids nearby. Weeks earlier, seven people, including a 3-year-old and a 16-year-old, were wounded in a shooting on East Fayette Street, according to WMAR.
The park is named for Leon Day, the Negro Leagues pitcher who grew up in Baltimore and is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. On Saturday it was full of families doing what families there do every fall weekend.
The BeezLoop Take
There’s no policy debate hiding in this one. Two grown men brought guns to a children’s football game, argued about where to park, and decided that was worth shooting over. Worley’s word, cowards, is the right one.
It’s the same story we keep writing in different cities. Friday night, two kids were shot in a parking lot after a high school game in Indianapolis. The same night, a teenager was killed at a Las Vegas street festival. Small arguments, crowds, and a gun close at hand. Baltimore’s falling homicide count is real, and Scott deserves credit for it, but it doesn’t help much when the trigger is a parking spot.
The open question is whether anyone at that field saw the argument start and can say who those two men are. Somebody parked those cars. If you know anything, Baltimore homicide detectives are at 410-396-2100, and Metro Crime Stoppers takes anonymous tips at 1-866-7LOCKUP.
Related on BeezLoop: Why road rage shootings are rising as gun violence falls.
Sources: CBS Baltimore · NBC News · Fox Baltimore · WMAR-2 · WBAL-TV · City of Baltimore
