And they say the particular blend of drug involved is likely still out there. Bill Brooks, CEO of Penn North Recovery Center, which assisted in the medical response, said Friday he suspects the area will see more overdoses before long.

“I don’t want to say that this is anything other than fentanyl … but it’s probably just a much more pure fentanyl,” Brooks said.

In the heydays of the cocaine and heroin epidemics, drugs often traveled south along the I-95 corridor. First, they’d hit New York City. Then, Philadelphia. Next, Wilmington. Finally, they’d land in Baltimore, before moving further south to Washington, D.C., and beyond.

But now, experts say, fentanyl, a cheap, synthetic opiate originally dreamed up to treat pain for people with end-of-life cancer, is either smuggled in across the U.S. southern border by Americans, where it connects with the cartel’s footprint and spreads north and east, or, more rarely, it is something you can make at home from “precursor” components purchased online.

A fentanyl shortage in the U.S., driven by crackdowns abroad

Last year, the U.S. saw a dip in opioid overdoses, which experts in drug markets tied to increased oversight in China and Mexico of the chemicals needed to make fentanyl, leading to a shortage and a resurgence in heroin use.

“There’s been recent talk about major interruptions in that supply and surprisingly effective crackdowns by the Mexican government,” said David Kennedy, a professor at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice and the chair of the National Network for Safe Communities.

“The crooks are scared and going underground and coming up with new formulations,” he said. “The stuff that’s coming across is even more unpredictable.”

Given the decrease in fentanyl imported into the U.S. last year, too, people may be even more sensitive to fentanyl now, said Keith Humphreys, a Stanford-based psychologist and professor who works on the science of addiction and drug markets, and a former Bush, Obama and Biden White House drug policy advisor.

In rarer cases, home chemists mix and cook fentanyl up from chemicals they import from China or Mexico.

Humphreys said he believed China had better monitored its distribution of these chemicals the previous year, further cutting the fentanyl supply in the U.S.

While some of the traditional distribution routes still exist, some simply “have these [chemicals] sent by FedEx to their house,” Brooks said. There, they turn it into powders and pills, he said, and distribute or sell it.

That’s made it harder to track import and production, drug experts say, preventing cities from looking to their neighbor to the north to prepare for new, incoming blends of drugs.

And these can be dangerous — or deadly.

It’s typical for drug dealers across Baltimore to hand out what are called “testers” in the morning, said Brooks. “People are just so well aware of this, they line up and wait an hour or two for the testers to come out.”

They get the information from a runner, head over to the pick-up site, which is often inside an alley, hidden from public view, and pick up a clear capsule with a white powder, he said. That, they can break open in order to sniff the powder contained inside off a piece of paper.

“What they’re trying to do is really give people a flavor for what they’re going to be selling throughout the day, so that they get a lot of repeat customers,” he said, “So they generally give out anywhere between 40 to 50 of these testers.

“Nobody knew that virtually every one of these testers was a lethal dose in and of itself.”

Combating new drugs, improving harm reduction

One drug market expert says the U.S. should invest in wastewater monitoring, like many municipalities did during the coronavirus pandemic, and as Australia and many European countries still do.

“[Currently,] we find out about a new drug from autopsies, and it’s the worst possible way to find out,” Humphreys said.

“The best possible way is in the water,” he said. “People excrete metabolites very quickly and you can know quite quickly when something new is there. It was a real failure of Biden’s [Centers for Disease Control] not to do this.

Kennedy said the Biden administration refused to test the water for drugs for fear of giving police another reason to target Black and brown communities.

A few counties and at least one state already test the water, he said, but “it should really just be national policy. It’s so inexpensive … and you can just look and see what [drugs are] in the water.”

Brooks said while his center doesn’t look to other cities around the U.S. to predict what will hit the streets of Penn North next, they do look to them for intervention or harm reduction strategies, citing drop-in centers, picking up dirty needles from sidewalks, and so on.

“I think the next big thing is going to be the safe injection site, or overdose prevention site,” he said.

Times BCFD administered naloxone by ZIP code, 2022-24

Note: While the boundaries representing some ZIP codes extend into Baltimore County, only Baltimore City data is reflected.
Source: Open Baltimore

Penn North neighborhood ranks highest in overdose responses

Data from Open Baltimore shows that the 21217 ZIP code, which encompasses the Penn North neighborhood where Thursday’s overdoses took place, was by far the leader from 2022 to 2024.

During that time, Baltimore City fire personnel administered naloxone subsequent to an overdose 1,149 times.

In total, the city’s firefighters administered naloxone 7,699 times in response to overdoses across 28 Baltimore ZIP codes, data shows, with administration spiking in the spring and summer months.

The number of opioid-related deaths in Baltimore dropped by more than 25% in 2024 to 703, after four years of annual fatal opioid overdoses in the city hovering around 1,000, according to state health department data.

While the database only shows deaths through the end of May this year, the average monthly opioid overdose deaths in Baltimore decreased by more than 30% from 2024. Nationally, opioid deaths have declined, as well.

Thursday, Penn North “was chaos,” Brooks said. “There was a whole bunch of top city officials and everyone else, standing in the middle of a closed-down, taped-off street with our mouths open, wondering what to do.”

By Friday, he said, the scene in the neighborhood was much calmer, more organized.

The city had sourced more naloxone, a lifesaving drug that reverses the effects of opioid overdoses, there were check-in areas for workers, and his center had organized people to search for any other overdose victims hidden out of sight in vacants or alleyways, turning up “two or three” more people, he said.

Importantly, he added, none of his staff had found anyone who had died from the drug.

Mat Schumer and Steve Early contributed to this article. Kate Cimini is an investigative editor with The Baltimore Sun. Contact her at 443-842-2621 or kcimini@baltsun.com. 

Narcan and its generic counterpart, naloxone, are used only in the event of opioid overdoses.

The crack epidemic that rampaged through Baltimore, beginning in the early to mid-1980s, gave way to heroin in the following decades, which then morphed into a prescription pill market.

Now, fentanyl, a cheap, synthetic opioid, 50-100 times stronger than morphine, is king, experts say.

“It’s very hard to find a pure drug; fentanyl is mixed in with a lot of them [today],” said Bina Ali, a senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, who works out of its Beltsville, Maryland location. Ali has collaborated with Baltimore County on opioid overdoses.

“Supply drives availability, and what’s available is what gets used,” she said.

Where are overdoses happening in Baltimore?

The Baltimore City Police and Fire departments did not respond to requests for information on how often they administer the lifesaving drug naloxone in response to overdoses in Baltimore. However, data from Open Baltimore shows that the 21217 ZIP code, which encompasses the Penn North neighborhood where Thursday’s overdoses took place, was by far the leader from 2022 to 2024.

During that time, Baltimore City fire personnel administered naloxone subsequent to an overdose 1,149 times.

In total, the city’s firefighters administered naloxone 7,699 times in response to overdoses across 28 Baltimore ZIP codes, data shows, with administration spiking in the spring and summer months.

Johns Hopkins University professor Susan Sherman, who focuses on behavior and health, said 90% of overdoses in Baltimore last year involved fentanyl — 921 out of 1043.

“Fentanyl’s been around in Baltimore [and Philadelphia] for a long time because of the I-95 corridor,” Sherman said. “It’s just come to New Mexico and the West Coast. Drug markets are different … but fentanyl’s been around in Baltimore since 2013, ‘14.”

Last year, firefighters administered naloxone less than half as often as they had the year before across the city; down to 1,627 from 3,066. In the 21217 ZIP code, the numbers were down a third, to 284 from 409, per Open Baltimore’s data.

Overdose signs, symptoms, and how to react

According to the Centers for Disease Control, fentanyl or opioid-related overdoses are quick, with symptoms of overdose mimicking death. Slow, shallow breathing — so slow and shallow it mimics not breathing at all — fingers and lips turning purple and a stiffening of the muscles are all signs that someone has overdosed on an opioid.

“It depresses the central nervous system,” Sherman said. “First, you stop breathing; it slows down your breathing so much that people appear dead. Obviously, that impacts the brain. If you’re not getting enough oxygen, if your heart rate slows down, your muscles get rigid. They’re all things that mimic when someone is dying.”

Should those symptoms appear in someone who has recently taken an opioid, naloxone should be administered immediately, as death can occur within one to three hours of overdose, Ali said.

The impact naloxone has had on opioid overdoses has been “huge,” Sherman said.

“People think they’re dead, and they literally come back to life,” she said. “Receptors are being overwhelmed with an overdose. [It’s] super, super effective.”

The Baltimore City Health Department does provide free naloxone training and car kits for people or groups interested in learning how to combat opioid overdoses, spokeswoman Blair Adams said.

Sherman advocated for more naloxone and more training, in general.

“The more it’s available, the better,” she said. “That way, there’s a higher probability of it being at the scene of an overdose.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct a misspoken quote. Ali intended to say that supply is a driving factor behind what drugs are sold to customers. 

Steve Earley contributed to this article. Have a news tip? Contact Kate Cimini at 443-842-2621 or kcimini@baltsun.com.

The happy couple bought a house together. They were caught on camera courtside at a Philadelphia 76ers game, smiling broadly from seats that went for as much as $15,000 apiece.

And he lost $463,989.87 on FanDuel, one of the four sports betting apps where he regularly gambled. It is unclear what he lost — or won — on the others.

Carroll County investigators say the money he used to fund his lifestyle was stolen from people he convinced to hand over thousands of dollars, telling them he would invest it in cryptocurrency and the stock market. Instead, detectives say, he pocketed most of it.

A financial fraud report about Rieger’s activities, issued earlier this week by the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, represents a final chapter in the tragic tale of Rieger’s brief, destructive life. An earlier report had already chronicled how the Union Bridge substitute teacher sexually assaulted more than a half dozen boys over years.

To report this story, The Sun reviewed a copy of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office’s financial fraud report, as well as communications between Rieger and his investor victims, contracts, bank records and banking app transactions recorded between Rieger and his victims on Venmo and PayPal. They combined to tell the story of a young man who conned and preyed on others for years, then ended his life before his crimes became public, denying his victims even the comfort of prosecution.

Rieger lived large — large enough that many in his circle believed he was not just well-off, but rich. When his wife or parents asked him about his finances, they told law enforcement, he would just tell them he was “doing fine.” One witness told detectives that Reiger said he was worth $8 million.

But the truth was very different. By the time Rieger died by suicide on Feb. 4 — amid dual law enforcement investigations into the allegations of sexual abuse and financial fraud — he was all but broke, having frittered away his and others’ money on personal purchases and gambling.

‘It’s not easy to lose money’

His victims may never get their money back, investigators said.

With Rieger dead and no co-conspirators identified in the course of the criminal investigation, there is no recourse for those he defrauded, save civil litigation. Rieger left behind no assets besides the house he and his wife purchased in September, and a Capital One checking account with a balance of $1,830. Other bank accounts show a zero balance remaining or have been closed out.

(The Sun previously identified several cryptocurrency wallets belonging to Rieger containing about $23,000 total. These did not appear in the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office report.)

Joanna Floros, a retired medical researcher, invested about $26,000 with Rieger after her son, another investor, suggested she do so. While Rieger told her that her investment had climbed to about $100,000, now, she said, she doesn’t think that was ever true. She’d like her initial investment back, at least.

“It’s not easy to lose money,” she said.

“Family and close friends that benefited from this illegal largesse, what do they have to say?” she asked. “What were those benefits they got from a 19, 20, 21-year-old kid? What did they think about it? What did they get?”

Neither Rieger’s parents nor their lawyer responded to questions from The Sun.

Rieger’s wife seeks ‘resolution and peace’

Rieger’s wife, Anne Saunders, responded through her lawyer, Frederick-based attorney Nicholas McDaniels.

“Ms. Saunders is extremely grateful for the support of her friends and family, as well as the community at large, during this difficult time,” McDaniels said. “She would like to extend her gratitude to the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office for their thorough investigation, with which she has eagerly assisted.

“As she continues to process the shocking facts uncovered during the course of the investigation, Ms. Saunders prays that each and every person impacted may find resolution and peace.”

One female witness, identified in the report only as someone who lived at the Grant Street home with Rieger, told investigators that Rieger insisted on handling the household bills and would not show them to her, or add her to his bank account. She said she learned after his death that Rieger had taken out a credit card in their names and charged at least $10,000 on it.

The same witness and her family had been early investors with Rieger, but had trouble getting their funds back from him in 2022, she told law enforcement. They only recouped their money after her father spoke with Rieger’s parents, the report said.

Saunders, through her attorney, declined to respond to questions asking if Rieger had taken out any loans or opened any credit cards in her name.

On Jan. 23, the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office received a complaint from a North Carolina man who said he had invested $3,000 with Rieger. He told law enforcement Rieger wouldn’t give the money back, and hadn’t responded to him since October of the previous year.

The man, who connected with Rieger through his daughter, another investor, told detectives he didn’t have a contract with Rieger, but that Rieger had sent him text messages claiming his investment balance had increased to $10,604.

After the man requested Rieger send him $5,000 of his investment, Rieger said he had wired it, then went silent, the man said. The money never arrived.

‘Neither confirms nor denies’

More victims alleging financial fraud came forward to law enforcement, many with similar stories.

Two weeks earlier, Christian youth group Young Life’s Area Director Matt Michael had told detectives that a teen who had been in Rieger’s Young Life group said Rieger had sexually assaulted him. Michael did not respond to a Sun request for comment.

Things began to unravel quickly. By the time the North Carolina man contacted detectives, Rieger had been put on leave from his position with the Carroll County Public School system, where he had been a substitute teacher and a basketball coach, and asked to step down from Young Life.

Rieger posted on Facebook complaining of “an allegation” against him and swearing it was not true, though he did not say what it was.

Weeks later, on Feb. 4, Rieger died by suicide. Hikers found his body seated on a bench in a public park, the report noted. A gun belonging to Rieger was nearby.

Investors began to fear they’d never see their funds again. Many, like the man from North Carolina, did not have contracts with Rieger. Those who did weren’t sure if he was a licensed broker, if he worked for a firm, or if anyone living had access to his accounts. Some began investigating Rieger, but ran into only dead ends.

There are provisions for harmed investors to sue someone impersonating a broker privately, however. In this case, any claims must be made against Rieger’s estate.

When asked if an investigation was underway at the state level, Kelsey Hartman, press secretary at the Maryland Office of the Attorney General said, “unless required by law, the office “neither confirms nor denies the existence of investigations.”

‘His own personal usage’

After Rieger’s death, detectives searched his home and seized his laptops and phone, and submitted subpoenas to banks and gambling apps where he had accounts.

Detective Sean O’Meara of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office began to dig into Rieger’s financials, uncovering half a dozen investors in four states — Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and North Carolina — who had lost money investing with Rieger.

(An earlier Baltimore Sun investigation identified investors in another two states, Ohio and Virginia. In total, investors told The Sun Rieger defrauded them to the tune of at least $400,000. They said other investors account for millions more invested with Rieger.)

O’Meara found Rieger began investing in August of 2020, months after graduating high school, when he opened a Coinbase account; one woman told The Sun she began investing with him around this time. Six months later, in January of 2021, Rieger opened an Acorns investing account, making regular deposits on the platform. He began making much larger mobile deposits in April of that year, the report said.

Around that time, Rieger began soliciting more investors.

“In the following months, deposits into Rieger’s account are by Venmo, PayPal, mobile deposit, wire transfer and large cash deposits,” the report said. “The funds are not distributed into any investment platforms at the same rate as the deposits.

“Reiger is believed to have been using these funds for his own personal usage.”

“He used it for everything from gassing up his vehicles to buying people lunch to paying his mortgage,” O’Meara told The Sun. “A lot of it was personal use, and there’s no assets [left]. It’s hard to believe how much money he spent, and how little there is to show for it.”

‘Addicted’ to sports betting

Account statements show that on at least one bank account, nearly every deposit was from an investor. And nearly every debit was for personal use or a sports betting app.

In January 2023, Rieger began opening accounts with online gambling and sports betting sites or apps; he hopped to a new one every few months, the report showed.

Rieger was “addicted” to sports betting, Carroll County Sheriff’s Office Acting Col. Dave Stem said. It’s not uncommon for people who’ve died by suicide to have secret gambling addictions and be in debt, Stem added.

“This guy lost a lot of money,” said Stem. “He was gambling and lost a lot of people’s money, and gambling to try and win it back. And he just couldn’t win.”

Rieger gambled on Fliff between January and May 2023, then began gambling on DraftKings until January 2024. Next, he opened an account on FanDuel, where he recorded nearly half a million dollars in losses between January and September 2024, an email recovered by investigators showed.

From October 2024 onwards, he began betting on BetMGM.

Rieger bet so much on BetMGM that a witness told investigators that someone affiliated with the app named “Satchel” gifted Rieger the two courtside Lakers game tickets, as well as a hotel for the night.

Fliff, DraftKings and BetMGM did not respond to requests for comment.

FanDuel declined to comment based on customer privacy. However, emails of that nature are routinely sent by FanDuel to bettors who have triggered a responsible gaming review and suspension of their accounts, according to a press release FanDuel shared with The Sun.

When detectives searched Rieger’s phone, they found that around the time he received the FanDuel email suspending his account, he’d searched the words “Ponzi Scheme” and related prison sentences.

Spending to groom teen victims

An earlier law enforcement investigation into accusations that Rieger had sexually assaulted Carroll County teens found that he also spent lavishly on the teens he groomed.

Rieger “always paid” for meals for the teens, the boys and their parents told the detective, adding that it never mattered how much the meal cost, the case report on the sexual assault allegations against Rieger said.

One parent said he believed Rieger was rich because of how much Rieger spent on the boys.

Rieger was known to cover Young Life camp costs out of his own pocket, as well as promise — and sometimes make — generous charitable donations, Michael, the Young Life director, told law enforcement over the course of their investigation.

The investigation into the assault allegations against Rieger revealed that during unsupervised sleepovers with his Young Life group, he had rewarded boys for taking off their clothing in front of him with meals at Sheetz or other fast-food joints. At least one boy told police Rieger offered to pay him $250 to show Rieger his penis. The boy said no.

When a boy approached Michael and said Rieger had assaulted him, per Young Life policy, Michael alerted police and suspended Rieger. The organization declined to elaborate for this story.

“Young Life is focused on caring for those impacted by this tragedy, and out of respect for their privacy will not have further comment,” the group said in a statement.

Lies and untruths

Records and interviews with witnesses and victims show that Rieger’s story changed constantly depending on whom he was talking to.

He was a broker for someone else, he said — no, actually, he ran his own brokerage. (Neither The Sun nor law enforcement found a record of Reiger being a licensed trader or broker in the state of Maryland.)

He had two employees, “kids,” he told one victim — rather, he had a bunch of retired “old men” working for him, he told another, and he was “learning a lot about investing from them.” (No one who spoke with The Sun or law enforcement could say for certain these employees were real.)

He told multiple victims — and a witness — that he owned rental properties in Nashville, Tennessee, and Kissimmee, Florida, and they were available for vacation rentals. (Neither The Sun nor law enforcement could find records of Rieger owning any properties in either state.)

He told one witness a particularly angry investor had sued him, but that the case had been dismissed. (No suit was ever brought against Rieger by this investor, despite multiple emails she provided The Sun that threatened a suit. She did not get her money back.)

While Rieger’s investors had been holding onto hope that the criminal investigation might turn up some missing money, they now know there’s little chance they’ll see any of their investments back.

The sheriff’s office knows more victims are out there, as well, Stem, the acting colonel, said, but detectives stopped searching for them when they found Rieger was acting alone. With Rieger dead, there was no one to charge with a crime.

Law enforcement does not pursue civil matters.

It is not yet certain if those Rieger stole from intend to pursue an injunction against his estate, or a suit against his family.

Floros, who has chronic leukocytic leukemia, said she doesn’t have the energy to lead the charge on a civil suit against Rieger’s estate or his family, but added that she would join in and support any other investment victims who do.

“My heart goes out to those who invested a lot of money and don’t have a lot to lose,” Floros said.

The Attorney General’s securities division accepts complaints at securities@oag.state.md.us. Kate Cimini can be reached at 443-842-2621 or kcimini@baltsun.com.

According to DeWees, the two sides haven’t reconvened to discuss any miscommunications or policy changes since.

“If they amended their policy, then I would certainly send my deputies back,” DeWees said Thursday. “I am a lifelong Orioles fan and I’m disappointed at this.

“I have a wonderful organization of some really smart people that have a ton of pride and wanted to showcase themselves at the stadium.”

The Orioles declined to comment on the matter. Orioles senior vice president of communications Jennifer Grondahl said in a statement Wednesday, “The safety of our fans is of the utmost importance, so we respectfully decline to provide details regarding our security protocols and procedures.”

Citing a change in the team’s ballpark operations policy, the Orioles staff member told the deputy in a message on June 4 that “no loaded weapons will be permitted inside the stadium or on the field at any time.”

The Orioles did update their protocols at Camden Yards this season as part of a larger effort to increase security, including a new stipulation for law enforcement officers participating in the color guard to check in their firearms at the gate — similar to preexisting rules for all off-duty officers who wished to carry in the ballpark.

The new protocols still allowed the color guard to carry a loaded sidearm as long as it was part of their uniform, contradicting the message sent to the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office. However, the rifles used during the presentation can’t be loaded in accordance with standard practice at large sporting events.

The Ravens, for example, require that their color guard use prop or replica firearms during pregame ceremonies at M&T Bank Stadium.

However, the initial email sent by the Orioles staff member didn’t specify particular guns that weren’t permitted, simply saying their deputies could not bring “loaded weapons.” In an ensuing message, the staff member wrote that the unit was allowed to wear their “firearms” but that they “must not be loaded while inside Camden Yards or on the field. This applies to both on-duty and off-duty personnel.”

According to a source with direct knowledge of the situation, the Orioles staff member didn’t have a full understanding of the rules for officers invited to participate in the color guard, but DeWees withdrew from participating before the full policy was provided to his office as part of the Orioles’ registration process.

The Carroll County Sheriff’s Office is still invited to present the colors for a previously scheduled game later this season.

Two police officers were stationed at Gate A for Wednesday’s game, holding a clipboard and checking in off-duty officers who wished to carry their firearms in the ballpark. Wristbands are required to be worn by the officers on their gun hand at all times, and those stationed at the gate take down the seat, row and section listed on their tickets.

The color guard for Wednesday’s game, the Detachment 330 Maryland Honor Guard, used unloaded rifles for the ceremony.

DeWees, a Republican, reviewed the correspondence and made the decision to pull out of the event after his office’s deputies presented the colors in an April game earlier this season, he told The Sun. He sent a department-wide email on Tuesday to inform his staff of the cancellation, calling it a “ridiculous policy” that “puts our deputies at risk,” which The Sun reviewed Wednesday.

Have a news tip? Contact Matt Weyrich at mweyrich@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200, x.com/ByMattWeyrich and instagram.com/bymattweyrich, or Kate Cimini at 443-842-2621 or kcimini@baltsun.com.

But a change in Orioles’ policy on rifles on the field may have led to the confusion, according to a source with direct knowledge of the communications.

Carroll County Sheriff Jim DeWees disputes that and says the Orioles are “backtracking.”

An email from an Orioles staffer to DeWees sent June 4 that The Sun reviewed shows that the Orioles did tell the sheriff that “no loaded weapons” will be allowed in the stadium.

The Orioles updated their ballpark security protocols this season and began requiring the color guard to register their firearms at the gate. Off-duty law enforcement officers are permitted to bring their firearms to Camden Yards if they check them in at one of the front gates. Color guard officials may carry a loaded sidearm on the field if it is part of their uniform, but a rifle or other weapon brought onto the field must be unloaded.

“The safety of our fans is of the utmost importance, so we respectfully decline to provide details regarding our security protocols and procedures,” Orioles senior vice president of communications Jennifer Grondahl said in a statement.

DeWees called the Orioles’ statement inaccurate.

“They never said rifles, they said … we couldn’t carry firearms at all,” he said.

He added that the rifles they planned to carry are always unloaded and for ceremonial purposes only.

In his department-wide email, DeWees said that any policy that led his uniformed officers to be disarmed puts them in danger.

Deputies were set to present the American flag during the national anthem, DeWees said in the email. But the department’s presence was not listed on the Orioles’ weekly schedule sent out to media last Friday.

MLB instituted a weapon-free workplace policy in 2010 that included an exemption for “qualified law enforcement personnel engaged in official duties.” A number of off-duty Baltimore police officers regularly work as security guards for the Orioles.

DeWees said that his deputies participated in the color guard just two months ago, and brought their weapons onto the field, loaded and holstered.

“A few days ago, we got an email that said hey, you can come down but you can’t have guns,” DeWees said. “When I questioned that, they said you could bring the guns but you can’t have bullets in them.”

DeWees said the policy is about accountability for his officers. They’re obligated, regardless of where they are, to respond and react to threats to public safety, he said. Being without their firearms keeps them from doing so safely, he said.

“That firearm is to protect people around [us] and to protect ourselves.”

The Carroll County Fraternal Order of Police did not respond to a request for comment by publication.

Camden Yards is owned by the Maryland Stadium Authority and leased to the Orioles, with the two sides most recently agreeing to a 15-year extension in December 2023.

The NFL banned off-duty officers from carrying firearms in their stadiums, including the Ravens’ M&T Bank Stadium, which is also owned and leased by the MSA, in 2013. That ban faced challenges from the National Fraternal Order of Police and a lawsuit filed in Minnesota but remains in place.

Have a news tip? Contact Kate Cimini at 443-842-2621 or kcimini@baltsun.com, or Matt Weyrich at mweyrich@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/ByMattWeyrich and instagram.com/bymattweyrich.

Over several weeks of investigation, The Baltimore Sun found Pranzo launched multiple restaurants across six states and then abruptly closed them, leaving staff, business partners or landlords behind, along with millions of dollars in unpaid bills. The full story ran in print Sunday (and is online here: baltimoresun.com/2025/05/30/docks-harbor-pranzo-baltimore), but here’s a quick take on what you should know about Pranzo’s business practices.

Celebrity partner: Pranzo has opened and closed restaurants in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, New York and Connecticut over the last decade. He routinely partners with celebrities — including Guy Fieri, Mario Lopez and *NSYNC’s Chris Kirkpatrick — and he has opened multiple franchises of Wahlburgers’ restaurants, the Wahlberg-brother-owned burger chain (Donnie, Mark and their celebrity chef brother Paul). All save two of Pranzo’s restaurants have closed, many racking up debt and health code violations along the way.

Pests in food storage areas: In Baltimore, Docks on the Harbor also earned a closure order from the city’s health department after an August 2024 inspection, that followed a customer’s complaint about “rats in the dining room.” Inspectors found 31 health code violations, including clouds of gnats, evidence of rodents and other pests in food storage areas, and a lack of water that prevented staff from washing their hands. The restaurant re-opened two days later, having satisfied most of the city’s requirements.

Health-related restaurant closure: Pranzo’s Raleigh, North Carolina, Wahlburgers franchise was shut down after the department found his restaurant had lacked hot water for more than three months. The restaurant chose to close instead of immediately fixing the problem, and was evicted for nonpayment of rent before it could reopen.

Multiple lawsuits: In Connecticut, Pranzo was sued by food vendor Sysco Connecticut LLC for an unpaid bill topping $30,000. Records show Pranzo has never responded to the suit and made no payments. In Georgia, Pranzo was sued by his former business partners, Finer Food Services, for more than $2 million. According to the agreement, signed by Pranzo, he admitted “that he withdrew this sum over time from [Finer Food Services] and/or the [Finer Food Services subsidiaries] without the knowledge and/or consent of … majority member and manager, Barry Bierenbaum.”

Unpaid judgments: The court ordered Pranzo to repay his partners, however, their lawyer said he has been unable to enforce the judgments. And in Florida, Pranzo is named in a lawsuit in district court, which alleges that he violated the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a federal law that bans businesses from using phones or fax machines for unsolicited advertisements. In that 2019 suit, Pranzo was accused of spamming fax machines with more than 125,000 unsolicited faxes over two years to advertise the opening of an Atlanta Wahlburgers. The case is ongoing.

Docks on the Harbor property: In Baltimore, a civil suit against Pranzo by Cordish Cos. alleges Pranzo “plundered” hundreds of thousands of dollars in fixtures from his Baltimore restaurant early one morning, walking away with tables and chairs, signage, stoves, refrigerators, decor and more. The lawsuit alleges that Pranzo was caught on security camera footage between the hours of 1 and 7 a.m. on Dec. 9 emptying out the restaurant space he rented from Cordish.

$3.2 million lease allegedly unfulfilled: Pranzo also skipped out on a lease valued at about $3.2 million through 2032, a court document filed by Cordish’s legal team alleges. Past-due charges between October and early December totaled more than $130,000 for rent and trash, water/sewer and HVAC service, per an account statement. Cordish’s lawsuit argues Pranzo emptied out the restaurant with the intent to defraud.

“Pranzo’s bad intent is readily evidenced by the midnight timing,” the suit reads. “Why hide under the cover of night, unless he was following the playbook of Bob Irsay stealing the Colts in a Mayflower truck?”

Lorraine Mirabella contributed reporting to this story. Have a news tip? Contact Kate Cimini at The Baltimore Sun, at (443) 842-2621 or kcimini@baltsun.com. 

On Dec. 8, Makayla Hughes clocked in for a hostess shift at the self-described Inner Harbor’s “most-Instagrammable” restaurant, Docks on the Harbor.

That day, the restaurant ran out of about half the items on the menu; there was no champagne or alcohol, and management refused to take walk-ins or let people sit at the bar. Hughes and her coworkers began speculating that the restaurant would close down.

“I just didn’t know how soon,” she said.

The next morning, Hughes awoke to a flurry of texts from her coworkers’ group chat. “I heard that Docks is closed down permanently,” someone said. “Is that true?”

That morning, a Baltimore City Circuit Court lawsuit alleges, the restaurant owner, Gregory Pranzo, had emptied the eatery between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m., stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth in furniture, appliances, signage and decor, and skipping out on millions in unpaid rent to Baltimore-based developer David Cordish’s Cordish Cos.

This wouldn’t be the first time Pranzo, a 38-year old serial restaurateur, was accused of leaving town without paying his bills, The Baltimore Sun found.

Pranzo’s restaurants routinely launch to great fanfare. However, many soon begin to run out of money, accrue health code violations, and ultimately shutter unexpectedly, regularly leaving bills and staff unpaid, records show. Several of his restaurants had so many health code issues that their city or county agencies shut them down.

Pranzo did not respond to multiple phone calls or emails to him, his existing business entities or his immediate family members in New York, one of his residences. His lawyer said the “ownership group” lamented the closure of Docks on the Harbor, but insisted that earlier restaurant closures, health code violations and the lawsuits he faced in other states were unrelated. The lawyer did not respond to questions on anything other than Docks on the Harbor and did not clarify who else is in the ownership group. Pranzo alone is named in the lawsuit.

To report this story, The Sun reviewed lawsuits filed against Pranzo in four states — and accompanying court documents, exhibits, and security camera stills — along with state business records and complaints, and available county and city health department records. The Sun also interviewed former employees and legal representatives for some of his business associates.

The Sun found Pranzo launched multiple restaurants — some with near-identical names and concepts — across six states and then abruptly closed them, leaving unpaid bills, staff, business partners or landlords behind.

Pranzo owes $3.3 million in judgments to former vendors and business partners in two states, in addition to the Cordish lawsuit, court records show. In at least three cases, he never acknowledged or responded to lawsuits against him, and he has not paid some years-old judgments.

‘Begins to sound like fraud’

He has not responded to the Cordish lawsuit, filed Jan. 6, despite a writ of summons, served Jan. 22 on a woman who identified herself as Pranzo’s mother, requiring a response within 60 days. Cordish declined to comment. In absence of his response, Cordish’s lawyers filed a motion for summary judgment on April 11; they requested a ruling on the judgment as unopposed April 29.

In ignoring judgments against him, Pranzo is exploiting the court system, said University of Baltimore law professor Gregory Dolin. Those he has failed to pay may never see financial relief, even if awarded judgments, Dolin said.

“If … he’s taken out these loans without ever intending to repay them, if he’s buying supplies without ever intending to pay for them, if he’s employing people without ever intending to pay for their labor — that begins to sound like fraud,” Dolin said. “Criminal sanctions could be the ultimate stick.”

A lawyer for Pranzo, Atlanta-based Shadi Jaraysi, said the Docks ownership group was “deeply saddened” by the closure of Baltimore’s Docks on the Harbor. Jaraysi called it unavoidable and declined to answer questions about any previous liens, lawsuits or restaurant closures.

“Despite months of effort and substantial investment by the ownership group, declining sales and rising operating costs made it impossible to continue,” Jaraysi wrote in an email to The Sun. “We had worked diligently to meet all obligations in a timely manner. Any suggestion to the contrary is false and misrepresents the facts.

“As we move forward, we hope that the focus will remain on the positive memories created at the restaurant and not on unfounded claims that tarnish the hard work and dedication of so many.”

A bankruptcy filing and a comeback

There is little public record of Pranzo’s business dealings before November 2013, when he declared bankruptcy in the Eastern District of New York. He owed between 50 and 99 consumer creditors but had less than $50,000 to his name, he told a judge.

Under “personal property” he listed a restaurant: Middle Country Beer Garden. He told the court all physical assets had been stolen from the premises and listed the restaurant’s value as $0.00. He was unemployed and relying on family to pay his bills, he said.

By 2016, however, Pranzo had bounced back. News clips catalogue his restaurants’ openings and closings. That year, he announced the opening of a Wahlburgers in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A year later, he announced another Wahlburgers in Nashville, Tennessee. And in 2018, he promised North Carolina a Wahlburgers in Charlotte, signing a lease for the space.

The Wahlburgers Pranzo told media would open in Nashville and Charlotte never did, but he did launch a Raleigh Wahlburgers in May 2018 — the same year that a 13-month-old venture he opened with celebrity chef Guy Fieri in The Villages, a retirement community near Orlando, Florida, shut down. Fieri did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2018, Pranzo also announced the opening of three bagel shops outside Atlanta, Georgia; a Cali-Mex taco joint in Orlando, Florida, with celebrity partners Mario Lopez and *NSYNC’s Chris Kirkpatrick; as well as an ”Asian-themed” Myrtle Beach eatery. None of these businesses remains open today.

Neither Lopez nor Kirkpatrick responded to The Sun’s request for comment.

“Running a restaurant is generally extremely difficult,” University of Baltimore’s Dolin said. “The mere fact that somebody tries and fails and tries and fails in and of itself may not necessarily show much.

“But, usually, you do things in good faith,” he continued. ‘You’re not going to hide [from the people you owe].”

Despite widespread belief that the majority of independent restaurants fail in their first year of business, a joint study by a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics economist and a statistician out of UC Berkeley survey published in 2014 indicated just 17% fail within that time frame.

Operating without hot water

Katy Anders began working as a bartender at the Raleigh Wahlburgers in summer 2018. Her fiance and now-husband, Luke Anders, got a job as a line cook. She said the money was good at first, but by winter, kitchen staff’s paychecks routinely bounced. And, she said, there was no heat or hot water.

In November 2018, officials investigated the restaurant after receiving a complaint saying the eatery had operated without hot water for three months — the second time in four months someone had complained about the Wahlburgers’ lack of hot water, Wake County Health Department records reviewed by The Sun show.

The department ordered the restaurant to fix its hot water immediately or close until it had done so, and, said Wake County Environmental Health Program Manager Ashley Whittington, the restaurant chose to close.

Anders and her coworkers believed the shutdown was temporary. But days before Christmas, they learned they had lost their jobs when they found a sheriff’s eviction notice posted on the door.

Donnie Wahlberg, a co-owner of Wahlburgers, told reporters the company would cover employee pay owed by the restaurant. Yet, Anders told The Sun that never happened.

Neither Donnie Wahlberg nor Wahlburgers’ corporate office responded to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Pranzo’s original Myrtle Beach Wahlburgers franchise was also in financial turmoil. Employee paychecks bounced and, unable to pay vendors, the restaurant began purchasing supplies at grocery stores, according to news accounts. In January 2019, a month after Pranzo’s Raleigh Wahlburgers franchise shut down, the Wahlburgers corporate office tentatively agreed to buy Pranzo’s failing Myrtle Beach location.

Pranzo went on to launch Doc’s Baja Surf Shack in New Haven, Connecticut, during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic; it closed in or around March 2021, a vendor lawsuit indicated. In November 2022, he signed an agreement with Cordish to open Docks on the Harbor in Baltimore.

The Cordish Cos. lease says that Pranzo would pattern Docks on the Harbor after “first-class restaurant” Doc’s Baja Surf Shack.

‘Rats running through the dining room’

It launched in June 2023. Designed to be Instagrammed, the Pratt Street location boasted velvet banquettes; chandeliers floated above the space while neon signage and floral garlands bedecked the walls.

By year two, though, the restaurant had begun racking up health code violations and running out of supplies, former staff and nearby restaurant workers recalled.

Staff at nearby restaurants said Docks staff were routinely sent over to borrow ice, alcohol, cocktail garnishes, utensils and change for patrons.

“It’s supposed to be once in a while,” Phillips Seafood host Mark Navarro said of the borrowing. “But Docks was here every day.”

At Hard Rock Cafe, Docks employees showed up daily asking for bins of ice because, server Dante Bunch said, Docks had mold in the ice maker.

Baltimore City Health Department inspection records reviewed by The Sun also noted “high severity,” recurring rodent and pest control issues. Inspectors repeatedly found rodent droppings and clouds of gnats in food storage areas, and unsealed cracks and holes where bugs and rodents found their way in.

One complaint to the city said a customer saw “rats running through the dining room.”

The inspector also noted food held at unsafe temperatures, turned-off leaky pipes and faucets, and a resulting lack of water, preventing staff from washing their hands.

The six-page report from an August 2024 inspection found 31 health code violations. The restaurant was ordered to close until it had corrected all violations; two days later, it had satisfied most of the city’s requirements and reopened.

But by the end of the year, Docks on the Harbor had closed for good.

A new venture

In the months leading up to the closure, workers saw hints of trouble. Weekly paychecks bounced; managers repaid workers in cash. At one point, cooks and food runners who worked back of house went on strike until they were paid, Hughes, the hostess, said.

Customer reviews online complained about service and food quality. Other customers took a more official route. The Sun reviewed complaints several diners lodged with the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, requesting a refund on their meals.

Hughes, now a student at Community College of Baltimore County, recalled that after the closure, she and her colleagues worried they wouldn’t be paid. Finally, one assistant manager called them in, she said. Hughes and others — cooks, food runners and servers — went to the closed restaurant, stood at the back door and signed their names in exchange for cash from an envelope, she said. The Sun could not reach the assistant manager.

Pranzo, social media posts indicated, had moved on to a new restaurant venture: Docks Off 5th in New York City.

Affable and charismatic

When one business went south, records show Pranzo usually had another iron in the fire.

The Sun found 18 businesses registered under Pranzo’s name or that Pranzo was affiliated with in five states: Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina and Tennessee. While he was involved with businesses in other states as well, the records were not readily available.

The businesses’ timelines overlapped; he frequently opened one LLC while he was already operating another.

Pranzo, who is from New York state, came across to those who met him as affable and charismatic, deeply knowledgeable about the restaurant business and plugged in to celebrities and industry movers and shakers, said longtime Atlanta attorney Jim Johnston Jr., who represented two clients in suits against Pranzo.

“My clients fell victim to his untruths,” said Johnston, who represented Finer Food Services, owner of subsidiaries such as Everything Bagel, Sweet & Sour, You Taco To Me and Pranzarellis in its suit against Pranzo. He also represented investor Mountain Express Oil Co. in a second case against Pranzo.

In a case filed in Georgia’s Cobb County Superior Court in October 2019, Finer Food Services accused Pranzo of reneging on a settlement agreement in which the restaurateur agreed to repay a more than $2 million debt in $1,000 weekly installments.

The agreement, signed by Pranzo, says he admits “that he withdrew this sum over time from [Finer Food Services] and/or the [Finer Food Services subsidiaries] without the knowledge and/or consent of … majority member and manager, Barry Bierenbaum.”

The court ordered Pranzo to pay Johnston’s clients more than $3 million in 2019 and 2020. However, Johnston said he has been unable to enforce the judgments.

“He’s a very good salesman,” Johnston said. “I have absolutely no expectation that my clients will ever see a nickel.”

Spamming fax machines

In Connecticut, Pranzo closed down Doc’s Baja Surf Shack, leaving behind at least one unpaid bill for roughly $34,000 to restaurant food vendor Sysco Connecticut LLC.

Sysco Connecticut sued Pranzo in Nassau County Supreme Court for the cost of its unpaid bill, records show. Pranzo never responded to the suit, and a default judgment was entered against him by the county clerk for more than $44,000, according to the court. The judgment remains unpaid, according to records.

Attorney Warren Gottleib, who filed the case on behalf of Sysco Connecticut, declined to comment on the case. The business declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.

Pranzo also stands accused of more than nonpayment of bills. One suit filed against Pranzo and Wahlburgers alleges he violated the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a federal law that bans businesses from using phones or fax machines for unsolicited advertisements.

In a March 2019 lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Orlando, Florida, Pranzo was accused of spamming fax machines, sending more than 125,000 unsolicited faxes to advertise the opening of an Atlanta Wahlburgers.

Robert Kahn, a Georgia attorney who received a fax, filed a class action against Pranzo and Wahlburgers. The case is ongoing.

Potential criminal prosecution

Pranzo may also owe hundreds of thousands in tax liens. In the months before he shut down Docks on the Harbor and left town, Maryland filed a state tax lien against Docks. A Circuit Court judge ordered payment of $226,250. It is not clear if Pranzo paid it; that is not public record, according to Maryland state law.

Neither Pranzo nor his lawyer responded to questions from The Sun asking if he had paid or intended to pay said lien.

The University of Baltimore’s Dolin, who teaches contracts, noted that Pranzo’s failure to pay his bills or judgments against him should ultimately make it harder for him to secure loans from financial institutions or even individuals.

“You can just Google him,” Dolin said. “You don’t even need to pull anything from his credit report.

“But if I was going to lend somebody millions of dollars, I would want to have some collateral, and I would want to have done some rudimentary investigation, including pulling up his credit report.”

While Dolin said it’s not illegal to fail to pay a judgment, ultimately, these failures, taken together, he believes, could lead to a compelling fraud case against Pranzo and possible jail time, should a state’s or federal attorney take an interest in the restaurateur’s business practices.

“Now, of course, that will not necessarily make anybody whole either,” said Dolin, adding that sending Pranzo to prison wouldn’t necessarily make those who lost money to him feel better. “But sometimes, as part of the criminal prosecution, there may be an order of restitution.”

“Plundering” Cordish’s building

In the days following the Baltimore Docks’ closure, word spread among staff that the owners had moved out overnight.

Caught on camera in the early hours of Dec. 9, Cordish’s lawsuit alleges, Pranzo was recorded making off with the following: two refrigerators, a prep table, two stoves, flower garlands, signage, tables and chairs and more.

According to the lease Pranzo signed, a copy of which The Sun reviewed, all this belonged to Cordish.

Cordish’s legal team provided the court with time-stamped stills of the security camera recording. They appear to show Pranzo and Docks’ director of operations, Carey Martin, emptying the restaurant into the back of two Penske trucks between 1 and 7 a.m.

Martin could not be reached for comment.

Pranzo also skipped out on a lease valued at about $3.2 million through 2032, a court document filed by Cordish’s legal team alleges. Past-due charges between October and early December totaled more than $130,000 for rent and trash, water/sewer and HVAC service, per an account statement.

Cordish is suing Pranzo for a total of $8.1 million, including $4.8 million in damages, citing more than a million in unpaid back rent, the missing fixtures and furniture, and a lease that allows Cordish to charge interest on unpaid rent.

Cordish’s lawsuit against Pranzo argues that he emptied out the restaurant with the “intent to defraud.

“Pranzo’s bad intent is readily evidenced by the midnight timing,” the suit reads. “Why hide under the cover of night, unless he was following the playbook of Bob Irsay stealing the Colts in a Mayflower truck?”

The lawsuit also claims Pranzo planned his midnight escape at least a week in advance, alerting Cordish’s Power Plant director of facilities, Sal DiGiorgio.

During a conversation the week of Dec. 2,  Pranzo said he planned to close Docks in Baltimore, take the furniture and fixtures and open a business in the Beale Street district of Memphis, Tennessee, an affidavit signed by DiGiorgio shows.

“I advised him not to do so,” DiGiorgio said. However, the next week, Pranzo did just that, the suit says.

The morning after Pranzo emptied out the Pratt Street space, Docks on the Harbor’s Instagram featured a different Docks: Docks Off 5th, in New York City. Its website lists a second location in Memphis.

The site calls Docks “the most Instagrammable restaurant in New York City.”

Have a news tip? Contact Kate Cimini, an investigative editor at The Baltimore Sun, at (443) 842-2621 or kcimini@baltsun.com or Lorraine Mirabella at lmirabella@baltsun.com, (410) 332-6672 and @lmirabella on X.

In Maryland, the small town of 1,900 was the hardest-hit by the floods, surrounded, as it is, by Appalachian hills and split by the Georges Creek. When the creek overflowed its banks Tuesday, swollen by 5 inches of rain dumped down by an atmospheric river, it had nowhere to go but into Westernport. An elementary school was evacuated — with 150 students and their teachers taken to safety by boat — and countless homes, businesses and municipal buildings suffered flood damage.

Upon his arrival Thursday, after the floodwaters had receded in most spots, Moore began his three-hour tour by speaking to the public at the command center at an armory in nearby Lonaconing, about 10 miles north of Westernport.

Sweeping into the Good Will Fire Co. No. 1 of Lonaconing at 5:45 p.m., the governor brought with him much-needed optimism and good cheer. He embraced Republican State Sen. Mike McKay, Westernport Mayor Judy Hamilton, Republican state Del. and House Minority Leader Jason Buckel and others warmly, as though they were close, longtime friends.

He thanked local politicians, firefighters and volunteers who have been hard at work in the flood’s aftermath, cleaning Westernport up and putting it back to rights.

“Thank you for how quick, thank you for [how] responsive, thank you for how helpful you’ve been to our people,” he said, referring to officials from state emergency services who have been traveling Allegany County to assess what could be millions of dollars worth of damages to the Appalachian area. “These moments are never easy and they’re never simple. But I’ve learned, though, that you never learn anything about anybody when times are easy.”

He credited their hard work with the fact that no loss of life has been recorded in the Maryland floods.

“That doesn’t happen by accident,” he said.

While Buckel said earlier in the day that some constituents were frustrated Moore had yet to declare a state of emergency, their fears were relieved Thursday afternoon.

After a 10-minute ride to Westernport, Moore got out, walked down Main Street, stopping to talk with locals and hear their stories, then did what Buckel and everyone else in the county hoped he would.

While walking into the water-damaged Potomac Fire C No. 2 building, in the company of volunteer firefighters, a crowd ringed around him, he announced that he had declared a state of emergency.

“After surveying the damage and receiving updates on the work still ahead in Western Maryland, I’ve declared a state of emergency to accelerate our response,” Moore said in a news statement Thursday. “Today, our thoughts are with the Marylanders who have been directly impacted by this storm, and our gratitude is with all of the first responders, crisis managers, and public servants who raised their hands to support our people in a moment of need.”

Jason Bennett, the Allegany County administrator, smiled at the announcement and heaped praise on Moore and his administration for the resources they began supplying shortly after the heaviest hours of flooding Tuesday.

“They’ve really had our backs through all of this,” Bennett said. “And we’re going to need their help, obviously, with the mess we have here.”

Buckel agreed, saying the governor had already helped immensely by sending his Maryland State Emergency Agency team into the area, where it has been hard at work ever since.

According to Moore’s office, reports confirmed that the affected area suffered a number of damaged structures and utility impacts, including gas line washouts. Transportation routes have experienced washouts and slides, and Lonaconing’s water services have been suspended as a result of a roadway washout and pipe damage.

Declaring a state of emergency allows areas hit by severe weather or other events to apply for millions of dollars in federal relief funds. After a successful application, the federal government releases money if damage assessments are high enough.

“Being here in Western Maryland today with Governor Moore and seeing the aftermath of the flooding firsthand is overwhelming,” said U.S. Rep. April McClain Delaney, who accompanied Moore on his tour of the devastation. “You don’t fully grasp the scale of it until you’re standing here, witnessing it for yourself. We’ve met families who had to evacuate their homes and small-business owners now facing tough choices. The damage is real, but so is the strength of the people here.

“We’re listening, and we’re committed to doing everything in our power to make sure help gets where it’s needed.”

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

The fire was reported in an office on the courthouse’s fourth floor, according to John Marsh, a spokesperson for the city’s fire department. The fire was contained at about 1:30 p.m., he said. There were no injuries associated with the fire and no known cause.

Courthouse staff members led people out of the building, holding large, orange flags to denote who to follow and where to go. At least six Baltimore City Fire Department trucks responded to the blaze.

By mid-afternoon, the courthouse resumed full operations, Maryland Judiciary spokesman Nick Cavey said in an email.

Have a news tip? Contact Kate Cimini at 443-842-2621 or kcimini@baltsun.com. Contact Racquel Bazos at rbazos@baltsun.com, 443-813-0770 or on X as @rzbworks.

By “crowded,” she meant that an open-air drug market developed on the corner of the 3300 block of Greenmount and Venable avenues — right outside the store.

Three other such markets in the region were organized out of existence over the past two decades by community groups, police, neighbors and local leaders.

Together, they remediated vacant buildings and overgrown vegetation to remove places where dealers could conduct business, and they connected the men selling drugs with new employment opportunities.

Yet the market outside Moma’s persists.

In February, a 25-year-old man was shot on the corner in connection to a robbery, according to city leaders. And in March, four people were shot there, including three customers waiting for takeout from area restaurants.

“We’ve had police presence come and go; we’ve had the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement come and go,” said Councilwoman Odette Ramos, whose district encompasses the Waverly and Better Waverly neighborhoods.

“The neighborhood has been working really hard and has gotten rid of three of the four drug areas,” Ramos said. “This one has just been more challenging.”

‘Drug Market Intervention’

Experts in open-air drug markets say the reason behind the persistence of these corner drug markets isn’t the specific drugs or even the dealers — it’s the social knowledge that this is a place where strangers can meet other strangers to exchange money for drugs.

Even when you clear a corner, that social knowledge consistently attracts a stream of customers who often come from neighborhoods, cities or even states away, said David Kennedy, a professor at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice and the chair of the National Network for Safe Communities. That, in turn, attracts new dealers, he said.

Keith Humphreys, a Stanford-based psychologist and professor who works on the science of addiction and drug markets, and former Bush and Obama White House drug policy advisor concurred, adding that it’s not difficult to become a drug dealer, meaning those corners are easy to fill.

Emptying them is more challenging, and the methods are varied.

In some cases, Kennedy said, neighbors will set out to disconcert or discomfort those who come to the neighborhood to purchase drugs, by following them or shouting at them. Alternatively, dealers might suffer social consequences in the neighborhood, get a talking-to from the mothers and grandmothers on the block, or regularly face jail time.

In order to have lasting impacts, however, Kennedy and Humphreys said, a carrot must accompany the stick — such as offers for alternative employment or job training. That, they said, has a chilling effect on the corner, and over time, the social knowledge is lost.

This is a strategy Kennedy calls DMI, or Drug Market Intervention.

Change ‘doesn’t happen overnight’

Merchant-Jones has long worked to provide the carrot for the men who stand on the corners of Waverly, their backpacks full of illicit goods.

The outreach chair of the Better Waverly Neighborhood Organization, Merchant-Jones has spent the better part of two decades forging relationships with the men on the corner and working to connect them to new opportunities.

Merchant-Jones is a longtime Better Waverly resident. She chairs the community engagement efforts on the Police Accountability Board at Johns Hopkins and works for the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office as a victim advocate.

In her nearly 30 years in the neighborhood, she raised three children, and made it her mission to help clear the corners.

Often working with her good friend, the late Baltimore City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, who represented the 14th District from 2004 to 2020, and a handful of others, Merchant-Jones visited corners and people’s homes, and connected with them. Slowly but surely, it began to make a difference.

Merchant-Jones said the advocates developed relationships with the men on the corner, offering them emotional support and food, and learning about their lives and interests. Once they knewthe men better, she said, she’d offer information about job opportunities.

She recalled one young man selling drugs on the corner of 32nd and Greenmount — she connected him with someone who could give him a job opportunity, and now, she said, he works in a bakery.

“When people say they’re missing things, I try to connect the dots,” Merchant-Jones said. “It’s about gaining the trust of the young man on these corners over the years.

While her daughter worries for Merchant-Jones’ safety, she said, she’s never felt in danger from the young men she worked to help.

The point, she said, is to “be of service to others in your own neighborhood.”

Greenmount businesses feel threatened

After the shootings in February and March, Waverly business owners and leaders pushed back.

They held meetings with city stakeholders and brought in private security to patrol that corner. In response, the dealers have moved roughly half a block north to stand outside vacant properties.

“It’s terrible,” said Bhim B K, who owns Indian and Nepalese restaurant Swadi. “People are hesitant to come into the restaurant.”

Swadi, which opened in December, stands just a few doors down from the drug market. The shooting frightened his staff and the drug market’s existence in general has hindered business, he said, and he wants to see city-led change, specifically: more opportunities for the young men on the corner.

The respective owners of eateries Moma’s and I Love Seafood declined to speak with The Baltimore Sun on the topic. However, several who own businesses in the area said they’re glad for the private security, as it has helped create a buffer zone their customers feel safer to walk through.

But the threat of lawlessness is not gone, they said.

Complicating the issue are the vacant properties the dealers have moved in front of, Ramos said.

“These buildings are falling down,” Ramos said. “It makes it look like nobody cares, which is totally not what’s happening.”

‘We need help’

Matt Herman, who owns the buildings, said he would love to rent out or sell the storefronts, but the graffiti and crime on Greenmount has left him in a bind.

“It was my intention to revitalize the neighborhood on a larger scale,” Herman said of his purchase of the vacant storefronts. “It was an investment and I knew it was going to take me revitalizing these buildings. But nobody really wants to buy or rent them.

“It’s not just the guys on the corner. It’s vagrancy and graffiti and all these things that contribute to the problem to begin with,” he said. “It’s uncontrollable for the businesses. We need help.”

Part of Waverly Main Street’s mission is helping to address the prevalence of vacant storefronts, just like all the Main Street branches around the city, said Executive Director Diana Emerson.

But it can be difficult when owners have an inflated price they are looking for, or hold out for tenants who will sink their own money into renovating a storefront that’s been vacant for years or decades, she said.

“They’re now tasked with fixing things that are not their responsibility,” she said. “We need better legislation that holds commercial property owners accountable.”

Locals call for city aid

In a statement issued the day after the shooting, Ramos asked the mayor’s office to implement its Group Violence Reduction Strategy, or GVRS, which officials and researchers credit with lowering homicide and gun violence rates on the west side of the city. The Northern District, where Waverly and Better Waverly are located, has not yet implemented the program.

In 2024, 18 months after the initial implementation of the strategy, the City of Baltimore celebrated a 23% drop in homicides, as well as a 34% drop in non-fatal shootings from the year previous. And 2025 is on track for even lower crime rates; in the first three months of the year, according to data the city’s police force uploaded to OpenBaltimore, reported homicide, rape and aggravated assaults are down a respective 27%, 50%, and 16% compared with the same time period the year before.

While Ramos hoped the program’s implementation could aid her district, the city has not agreed to deploy GVRS early in the area. Still, the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, or MONSE, has been working in recent months to help the men on that corner find new employment, said Community Affairs Manager Rick Fontaine Leandry.

“There’s no slam-dunk approach,” said Leandry. “We’re trying to find opportunities to get these guys off the corner, on the right path, contributing to society, paying taxes. But these are things they’ve never known.”

Leandry said they provide everything from mental health counseling to life-saving naloxone, which can reverse an opioid overdose, to job training. But, he said, like Kennedy’s DMI program, in order for MONSE’s outreach to have lasting impact, enforcement has to work hand-in-hand with them.

“There has to be accountability; we strongly believe that,” he said.

And once a corner is cleared, all parties agreed, they must keep an eye on it to ensure there’s no recurring market popping back up.

While Merchant-Jones is glad that the city has turned its eye to the Waverly and Better Waverly areas, and the problematic corner, she is livid it has taken so long to get there.

“There’s been lots of conversation around that corner but very little action [in the last decade],” Merchant-Jones said, adding that the Greenmount and Venable corner has not been “handled the way it would be handled if it were in Roland Park.”

“If [the city] wanted that corner clear,” she said, “it would’ve been clear a long time ago.”

This story has been updated to correct Merchant-Jones’ title on the Johns Hopkins University Police Accountability Board.

“Got a news tip? Contact Kate Cimini at 443-842-2621 or kcimini@baltsun.com.