58-Year-Old Man Accepts Plea for Shooting, After Claiming He Was Defending His Home

By Andrew Michaels - January 11, 2024
Court | Daily Stories | Non-Fatal Shooting | Shooting | Suspects |

A 58-year-old man’s defense counsel said her client believed someone was trying to break into his house when he fired a single warning shot from his living room window in Baltimore City’s Belair-Edison neighborhood last spring.

Following the incident on May 14, 2023, Fredrick Belton was charged with discharging a firearm, illegal possession of ammunition, firearm possession with a drug conviction and two counts of firearm possession with a felony conviction. Belton and his attorney, Amanda Savage, appeared before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Sylvester B. Cox on Jan. 11 when he accepted a plea agreement from the prosecution.

The prosecutor offered Belton a plea of 15 years, suspending all but five years without parole, and two years of supervised probation as well as gun offender registration for firearm possession with a felony conviction. Judge Cox agreed to move forward with the plea offer, but ultimately, sentenced the defendant to four years incarceration and gun offender registration.

During Thursday’s proceeding, Savage explained to the court that Belton was sitting on his living room couch inside his home on the 3600 block of Kenyon Avenue when he saw someone peering through his window. Although Belton called 911, Baltimore Police Department (BPD) officers did not initially respond to his residence, she said.

The defendant later told officers that he fired one warning shot from his window. No one was injured in the shooting.

Savage noted this was the first and only time her client ever fired his weapon and that he was unaware he could not own a firearm due to a prior conviction.

Belton’s sentence will date back to the day of the incident.