A 31-year-old Baltimore man accused of shooting into a fellow driver’s pickup truck during a road rage incident last November is set to be held without bail after Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Kendra Y. Ausby ruled that his release would pose a significant “risk to public safety.”
According to the defense, defendant Robert Johnson’s sparse criminal history consists of one 2014 conviction for possessing less than 10 grams of marijuana, for which he was sentenced to serve probation before judgment.
Johnson is currently charged with attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, reckless endangerment and two gun violations for allegedly shooting into an unnamed man’s Ford F-150 pickup truck at the intersection of Wilkens Avenue and South Catherine Street during the early evening hours of Nov. 7, 2025.
Charging documents state Johnson was driving aggressively that evening, and that he attempted, at one point, to pass the victim’s pickup truck with his own. When heavy traffic and the victim’s own unawareness prevented Johnson from speeding up, he allegedly discharged a gun into the victim’s rear windshield, missing the victim but embedding fragments in one of the vehicle’s armrests.
At the Jan. 13 bail hearing, defense counsel emphasized how detectives failed to recover a weapon from Johnson’s vehicle or home, and requested that the defendant be released on his own recognizance pending outstanding warrants. Johnson had been preapproved for home detention and monitoring, they added.
They went on to criticize investigators’ methods in identifying Johnson as the shooter, calling their process “unreasonably suggestive” and raising doubts about the validity of their findings. Following the shooting, investigators had driven the victim to Johnson’s home on the 700 block of N. Carey Street to conduct a physical showup identification that ultimately led to Johnson’s arrest.
Judge Ausby rejected the defense’s criticisms, noting “a showup identification is still a positive identification.”
Despite the defense’s portrayal of Johnson as a “gentleman with no convictions” who works two jobs to support his partner and two sons, the court ultimately sided with the prosecution’s concerns that Johnson posed both a threat and an active flight risk.
“This case has been represented as a road rage case that resulted in the defendant shooting the victim for no other reason than just fighting over rights to the road,” Judge Ausby concluded.
