A Baltimore judge on Thursday ordered a 19-year-old charged in connection with a fatal Harbor East shooting last month held without bail, calling him “a severe danger to the community.”
Baltimore Police said that Quontay Spinks, a Washington, D.C., high school student, fatally shot 36-year-old Antonio Peoples on the 700 block of Aliceanna Street outside the Ruxton steakhouse on Sept. 14.
Two days before the shooting, on Sept. 12, Spinks participated in an armed robbery on Light Street in which a man was shot and was part of a carjacking at a Royal Farms on Russell Street, police wrote in charging documents for those two cases. He was also involved in another armed carjacking on Oct. 4, court records said. Spinks told detectives he was involved in the two carjackings and the Light Street shooting.
“I find Mr. Spinks creates — poses — a severe danger to the community, to everyone in Baltimore City,” District Court Judge Jennifer Etheridge said Thursday. “This is a spree.”
Spinks, who has no prior convictions, now faces a total of 48 counts in four separate Baltimore cases, including charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder and armed carjacking.
He is a senior at Garnet-Patterson STAY High School in Washington, according to a report from pretrial services read in court.
Two assistant public defenders representing Spinks did not challenge the recommendation from pretrial services staff and the state that he be denied bail. Spinks, wearing yellow jail scrubs and appearing on a video call, answered “yes, ma’am,” in response to Etheridge’s questions.
Police identified Spinks in surveillance footage of the Sept. 14 shooting and used cell phone data to show he was in the area of the shooting at the time, charging documents said.
Peoples and his girlfriend were standing outside on Aliceanna Street when multiple people emerged from a “dark-colored vehicle” and pointed guns at him. Charging documents did not identify how many people were involved, and a police spokesperson did not confirm Wednesday that authorities were looking for other suspects.
Peoples resisted as the suspects tried to rob him, charging documents said, and then they shot him before fleeing. A Johns Hopkins Hospital doctor pronounced him dead shortly after midnight, according to charging documents, and an autopsy showed he died of multiple gunshot wounds.
The shooting took place near the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront and a strip of restaurants, including The Ruxton, an Atlas Restaurant Group steakhouse. David Smith, the co-owner of The Baltimore Sun, is a partner in some Atlas restaurants.
Spinks told police of his involvement in both an armed carjacking and a separate shooting on Sept. 12 after investigators found fingerprints matching him, according to charging documents.
The Sept. 12 carjacking happened at a Royal Farms gas pump on Russell Street, police wrote in charging documents, when “several males” and “at least one female,” including someone armed with a black handgun, approached a man and his cousin. The group demanded their belongings, and the man’s cousin gave them the keys to a Toyota Camry parked at the pump, charging documents said.
Some of the suspects got into a silver Toyota Corolla, a vehicle where investigators later found Spinks’ fingerprint on the rearview mirror, police wrote.
On the same day, a 42-year-old man was shot in the leg in the 600 block of Light Street. The man, who was armed with his own four handguns, told police that four people got out of a silver Corolla and tried to rob him as he was walking. He told police he used his own guns to defend himself and exchanged fire with the group but was shot in the leg. He was treated at Shock Trauma.
Spinks is charged with attempted murder in connection with that shooting, according to court records. Police also used a fingerprint from the rearview mirror to link Spinks to that shooting, although it’s unclear if the same Corolla was involved in both incidents. .
Spinks also told detectives he was involved in the armed carjacking of a BMW on Oct. 4 on South Paca Street, according to charging documents. The BMW’s driver said four people got out of a white Acura sedan and approached his car, armed with guns. Investigators later found the Acura with a receipt inside with the name “Quontay.”
Spinks is due back in court on Dec. 5.
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