Baltimore County Police have said that the 10 people in one minivan who were wounded, one fatally, during the mass shooting and ensuing crash in the Towson area Tuesday, may have known Andrew Blessing, a 19-year-old father of one who was killed earlier this month less than two miles away.

Blessing’s funeral was held hours before the mass shooting Tuesday evening on White Oak Avenue, just a few blocks away from a residence owned by Blessing’s family, according to property records.

Police have not said if there was a connection between the mass shooting and Blessing’s death orfuneral, which was held at Parkview Funeral Home and Cremation Service, less than two miles from the shooting. But they do suspect that the people riding in the minivan knew Blessing or the teen’s family.

Nine of the 10 people in the minivan were shot during the mass shooting; they ranged in age from 14 to 27, Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough said in a news conference last week. He identified the individual killed as 26-year-old Charles Graham Jr.

The chief said police hadn’t confirmed if the shooting was related to gang activity, but noted that there appeared “to be at least some rival individuals in this space,” and that investigators were working “to determine what’s actually going on.”

Members of Blessing’s and Graham’s family did not immediately return requests for comment Friday, and there was no public information on when Graham’s funeral services would be held.

The formal end to Blessing’s well-attended funeral was 4 p.m., said Brent Francis, Parkview’s owner. Francis said the teen’s family left around then, though there were quite a few people who stayed later. He said he did not know if Graham or the other people shot had attended, and that detectives had not spoken to him about the shooting.

It’s not clear where Blessing lived, though his last address listed in court records was across the city line in Northeast Baltimore. McCullough said the shooting scene encompassed a “five- to six-block area” in the county’s Ridgeleigh neighborhood — where Blessing’s family owns another home — and the shooting had started “several blocks down” White Oak Avenue, away from its intersection with Loch Raven.

Graham and Blessing both faced investigations by Baltimore Police in recent years that resulted in their being charged with firearms offenses. A Baltimore Police District Action Team arrested Graham in 2020 after serving a “no-knock” warrant at his home in Belair-Edison and finding cannabis and a handgun. Graham entered an Alford plea to a felony charge related to possessing a firearm and controlled substances, and received a time-served sentence, court records show. An Alford plea acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence to secure a conviction but allows the person to maintain their innocence.

Blessing was listed in court records as the target of an investigation in August of last year, when Baltimore City SWAT teams entered his family’s home and seized multiple firearms in an early morning raid. Charging documents do not say why Baltimore Police’s Group Violence Unit had targeted Blessing and searched his family’s home in the city’s Loch Raven neighborhood. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for underage firearm possession.

He was still on probation for that conviction when he was killed this month. His home detention sentence ended in August, according to his defense attorney, Staci Pipkin, who said her client, who had a job at Royal Farms, was a “quiet and kind kid” who was “completely compliant” with his supervision requirements and simply followed the rules. He was also a new father to a young daughter, was dedicated to his family, and loved his job at Royal Farms, she said in an email.

“We are so sorry that he is no longer there for them all,” she wrote.

Have a news tip? Contact Dan Belson at dbelson@baltsun.com, on X as @DanBelson_ or on Signal as @danbels.62.