BALTIMORE _ Baltimore police have charged a 33-year-old man with the shooting of a toddler early Saturday morning.
Javon Johnson is charged with attempted murder, assault and various handgun related charges, according to police. He is being held at Baltimore's central booking facility. State court records did not immediately reflect the arrest Monday morning.
Police say Johnson is allegedly the man behind what Police Commissioner Michael Harrison called "an act of road rage," in which a 2-year-old boy was shot in the stomach. The boy is expected to survive and undergoing treatment at an area hospital.
The city's ShotSpotter system, which captures the sound of gunfire, brought officers to the 600 block of W. Franklin St., in the Seton Hill neighborhood, at about 12:34 a.m. Saturday, though they found no victims there. Police were later called to the hospital where the boy was being treated.
Harrison said police believe the driver of the vehicle the boy was riding in had been stopped behind other vehicles at a red light. When the light turned green and the cars didn't move, the driver "blew the horn several times," and then drove around the other cars at the light.
Police believe that at that point, the driver of the first car at the light "followed and caught up to the victim's vehicle, and then fired from his vehicle into the victim's vehicle, striking the child," Harrison said.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which investigates serious gun crimes in the city, offered a $15,000 cash reward for information about the case.
