A 12-year-old boy has died after he was shot in Westport on Saturday night, Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said.

The gun used in the crime appears to have been an AR-style rifle based on the casings found at the scene, he said.

“Weapons that are used in war, and weapons that should only be used in war, are being used on American streets, the streets of Baltimore,” Harrison said.

Police received a call reporting a shooting around 8:57 p.m. and found a minor shot multiple times in the chest in the 2400 block of Hollins Ferry Road. The preteen was transported to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center to receive surgery, and was pronounced dead from his injuries around 10:30 p.m.

The commissioner said the boy was shot on Maisel Court but ran a block to Hollins Ferry Road, where he was found by police.

Harrison and Mayor Brandon Scott arrived at the scene around 10 p.m. and held a news conference. Scott decried the killing and the perpetrator’s access to such powerful firearms.

”We have to continue to focus on every single aspect of this gun violence,” he said. “We will not accept this.”

The mayor had a message to the person who ended the preteen’s life: “We are not going to stop until we find you.”

Harrison said during the news conference that it is unknown if the boy was the intended target of the shooting. “We believe that he could have been, but it is uncertain,” he said.

After the media briefing, BPD spokeswoman Lindsey Eldridge told The Baltimore Banner that investigators have preliminary information suggesting the shooter was targeting the 12-year-old. She declined to provide additional details.

Last month a 26-year-old man was fatally shot in an area next to Saturday night’s shooting. Officers responded to the 2400 block of Maisel Court on March 22 around 5 p.m. and found De’Angelo Carter with “a life-threatening gunshot wound to his head,” police said at the time. Carter was taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Police could not yet say if the two are related.

“This shooting happened less than an hour ago, we’re still putting the pieces together,” Eldridge said.

Saturday’s fatal shooting is the latest in a devastating trend of youth violence that has gripped Baltimore this year: Nearly one in three people shot in 2023 were 18 or younger, even as nonfatal shootings and homicides in the city have receded.

Since the start of the 2022 school year, two dozen high school-age teens have been shot within approximately two blocks of 16 different schools, according to a Baltimore Banner analysis.

“It is extremely frustrating, disheartening and angering that we keep having to have these conversations about anyone being shot, more especially, children,” Harrison said.

emily.sullivan@thebaltimorebanner.com