A 9-year-old girl was critically injured in what Baltimore Police are calling an accidental, self-inflicted shooting. Police responded to a reported shooting around 3:16 p.m. Saturday afternoon in the 3500 block of Ingleside Avenue in the Pimlico Good Neighbors neighborhood, near Pimlico Race Course.

Officers found the child with an apparent gunshot wound. She was taken to an area hospital and listed in critical condition. Baltimore Police did not have an update on her condition Sunday morning. The neighborhood was quiet Sunday morning with few people passing through. Ricky Dalton, a 55-year-old resident who formerly tended to horses at the racetrack, said he was surprised to hear of the shooting. “There is no drug dealers on this block or nothing,” Dalton said, pushing a shopping cart full of groceries through the block. “It is mainly old people who have been living on this block longer than me.”

Dalton said he heard about the shooting from the Citizen safety app while he was watching sports Saturday afternoon. As a lifelong resident of the neighborhood, Dalton explained that numerous blocks surrounding the area witness violent crime often. But he said as the neighborhood has changed throughout the years, the 3500 block of Ingleside Avenue has managed to remain peaceful and full of “homeowners with nice homes.”

“I have never seen nobody fight — I don’t even hear the neighbors arguing — because they are all older,” Dalton said. “I am very surprised this happened here, but that’s why its important to lock up guns and keep them away from kids.” Homicide detectives responded to the shooting because of the severity of the victim’s condition.

Police urge anyone with information to contact detectives at 410-396-2100 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7Lockup.

Other accidental shootings of children have drawn attention in the past year in Maryland. In July, a 3-year-old boy was shot and killed in Howard County after accessing an unsecured handgun. Months later in November, a child in Prince George’s County accidentally shot herself after an 18-year-old allegedly left a handgun unattended in a living room. A Baltimore father pleaded guilty in August to two charges in the December 2023 accidental shooting death of his 2-year-old daughter after leaving a handgun unsecured in the child’s presence.

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