[Baltimore Sun] Teen to stand trial in fatal shooting of Deanta Dorsey at Edmondson Village Shopping Center
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The trial of a teen accused in the January 2023 fatal shooting of 16-year-old Deanta Dorsey at the Edmondson Village Shopping Center is slated to begin Thursday.
Daaon Spears is one of two people charged with murder in Dorsey’s killing. He and Bryan Damari Johnson, both 18, also face four counts each of conspiracy to commit murder and attempted first-degree murder, with authorities alleging that the bullets they fired wounded four other people in addition to Dorsey.
Attorneys finished selecting a jury Tuesday to decide the case of Spears, who was arrested in February 2023. Johnson, who was charged in July, is next due in court in December. The defendants were both 16 years old at the time of the shooting, which shook students and faculty at nearby Edmondson-Westside High School, where Dorsey was a student, but they are being tried as adults.
Dorsey’s relatives have endured almost two grueling years waiting for one of the alleged shooters to stand trial after learning “that their beloved son and nephew was killed during lunch hour,” Thiru Vignarajah, an attorney for Dorsey’s family, told reporters Tuesday.
“He was beloved not just by this family, but by everyone, in his school and his community,” Vignarajah said. “He was smart. He was thoughtful. He was a great son. He was a great sibling. He was a great friend. This family is enduring the unimaginable. … The idea that he could go to lunch at the Edmondson Village Shopping Center across the street and not come home is unimaginable.”
Spears’ attorney, Brandon T. Taylor, urged observers to pay attention to the evidence in the case.
“Convicting an innocent man is not justice for anybody,” Taylor said before trial.
Johnson does not have an attorney listed in online court records.
Police officers summoned homicide detectives to the area outside the Popeyes at the shopping center around noon Jan. 4, 2023, after finding a chaotic scene where as many as five people were on the ground, “suffering from apparent gunshot wounds,” investigators wrote in charging documents for Spears.
Dorsey was unresponsive, the documents say. Medics took him to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he died the same day.
According to charging documents, one of the other victims was shot in the right thigh. Another suffered gunshot wounds to his back and leg. One was shot in the ankle. A bullet grazed a fourth in the back. All were either taken to Shock Trauma or Sinai Hospital.
While they received treatment, police processed the crime scene, with crime lab technicians picking up 9 mm cartridge casings and detectives canvassing for video.
Footage police recovered showed Spears entering his residence on Edmondson Avenue before the shooting, “meeting up with the second shooter,” and walking to the scene, where “both used handguns to shoot” Dorsey and the other victims, according to charging documents. Spears allegedly fled on foot on Colborne Road.
Baltimore Police Department
Baltimore Police homicide detectives distributed this photo in an attempt to identify the individuals shown in relation to the January 2023 shooting that killed one and injured four in the Edmondson Village Shopping Center.
Witnesses “viewed video and/or stills of the video and identified one of the shooters as Daaon Spears,” detectives wrote.
Investigators armed with a warrant searched Spears’ home more than a month after the shooting and found “clothing matching the clothing seen on video” from his room along with a Taurus Millennium PT-111 Pro 9mm handgun loaded with one round in the chamber and 28 in the attached magazine, according to charging documents.
Magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds are considered “high capacity” magazines in Maryland, and state law says it’s illegal to buy and sell them or to use them in a felony or crime of violence, but not to be in possession of one. Spears faces several firearms offenses but is not charged with using an extended magazine.
Charging documents say Spears was prohibited by law from having a gun, not only because he was under 21, but also because he’d been convicted of a disqualifying crime in juvenile court. Juvenile court records are confidential in Maryland and it’s unclear what Spears had been convicted of as a minor.
Detectives wrote in charging documents for Johnson that they identified him as a “person of interest” in the shootings after reviewing “a considerable amount of video footage.” On June 24, investigators swabbed Johnson for DNA at the Washington County Detention Center.
They compared his sample to that taken from “one item of evidentiary value” that was “dropped by one of the unidentified suspects,” according to charging documents. Detectives said the DNA analysis revealed a match.
Have a news tip? Contact Alex Mann at amann@baltsun.com and @alex_mann10 on X.
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