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Violent Night Involves Shootout Near Coppin State, 300th Homicide

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- It was a violent 24 hours in Baltimore, with a string of shootings across the city, including one at Coppin State University. A campus officer opened fire and killed a gunman.

Police are still searching for others involved in the frightening incident that unfolded near a northwest Baltimore dormitory.

As WJZ investigator Mike Hellgren reports, the violence in the city is unrelenting -- there city is now at 301 murders for the year.

Mayor Catherine Pugh said at a press conference Wednesday "it's out of control" and demanded action.

Officials say the Coppin State campus police officer was in the right place at the right time, patrolling near Warwick and Windsor Avenues after a series of car break-ins when two cars drove up.

The first stopped, a passenger got out, and shot into the car behind him.

The officer watching the scene unfold fired at the gunman, killing him.

Both cars then took off. Police recovered a gun at the scene.

"That's how much he cared about his friend," Baltimore police spokesman T.J. Smith on the scene Tuesday night. "He floored it and got the heck out of the area and left his friend on the side of the road to die, which he did, and that's what we're dealing with right now."

BPD Commissioner Kevin Davis said Wednesday morning that judges give most people charged with carrying guns suspended sentences, and that he'll push for tougher punishments in Annapolis.

His boss, Pugh, says "the shootings have got to stop, the killings have got to stop. I don't seek to run the police department, I just want them to get the crime numbers down."

Pugh added that she's noticed many of the areas where shootings are occurring are very dark. She said it's time to light the city up with as many as 6,000 new street lights.

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