Maryland mass shooting: Suspect identified in shooting that killed three

The Annapolis Police Department announced on Monday that a suspect has been taken into custody and charged in connection to a mass shooting in Maryland on Sunday night.

Charles Robert Smith, 45, has been arrested and charged with shooting six people, three of them fatally, at a residence on Paddington Place while a graduation block party was taking place. Close to 200 people were in attendance.

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Three Hispanic males, Nicholas Mireles, 55, Mario Antonio Mireles Ruiz, 27, and Christian Marlon Segovia, 25, were shot and killed, Annapolis Police Chief Ed Jackson said in a press conference on Monday. The Mireles’s were father and son, Jackson said.

The three injured victims, who have not been named, were taken to a hospital and are in stable condition as of Monday.

Jackson said Smith, who is white and lived in the same neighborhood where the shooting took place, is charged with three counts of second-degree murder, three counts of first-degree assault, three counts of attempted murder, and the use of a handgun in commission of a crime.

Smith surrendered peacefully to law enforcement, Jackson said. He is being held without bond at the Jennifer Road Detention Center.

Police recovered a long handgun and a semi-automatic handgun in connection to the shooting, but Jackson did not specify the make and model of the guns, saying police are still undergoing federal analysis.

It is not known at this time if the weapons were used to exchange gunfire, if they both belonged to Smith, or if they were legally owned. Police have not had any encounters with Smith since Jackson joined the Annapolis Police Department, he said.

“This is still a very fluid and ongoing investigation. There’s still a lot of questions that we have that have not been answered yet,” Jackson said.

Jackson confirmed that there was a dispute between party attendees and Smith over parking but did not specify a motive for the shooting. Smith lived in close proximity to the victims, but Jackson said investigators were still working to determine what relationship the suspect had with them.

If the motive is determined to be a hate crime, Jackson said it will fall on federal prosecutors to pursue action against the suspect. However, Jackson said it is too early to determine if the shooting was racially motivated.

“We’re not ruling anything out, in other words,” Jackson said. “Our suspect is a white male, and the three victims are Latina, but we can’t draw any inferences from that. We have to look at every possible angle.”

Brian Witte/AP

Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley condemned the act of violence against the victims who were celebrating.

“On a day that parents — their proudest moment is their kid’s graduation from high school — and on a graduation day on a block party when you’re around family and you should feel safe, this kind of violence happened,” Buckley said.

“But so quickly we turn to violence, and when you turn violent and you have access to guns, this is the kind of thing that happens. So we have to address this as a nation. Maryland is going to lead the way,” Buckley added.

Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) spoke at the conference and thanked law enforcement and officials for their response to the shooting. He highlighted the string of gun violence and mass shootings across the United States.

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Since the beginning of 2023, there have been 290 mass shootings, with 23 recorded as mass murders by the Gun Violence Archive.

“For all Marylanders, I know many people might be feeling numb right now, numb to the violence that we see in our streets and across the country,” Moore said. “But we cannot allow this numbness to take hold. We will refuse to be apathetic in the face of horror.”