Opening statements were delivered the afternoon of April 22 in the case of 19-year-old Bishop Chance, one of two men accused in a 2024 double shooting at Westside Shopping Center that left one man dead and another injured.
Chance faces two counts of first-degree murder for the death of 20-year-old Theodore Burrell, who died from seven gunshot wounds. The teenaged defendant is also charged with conspiracy, multiple firearm offenses and the attempted murder of another male victim who sustained injuries but survived the attack.
The shooting occurred early in the evening of July 16, 2024. According to the state, the crime scene was “littered” with shell casings— a total of 17—as well as a .22-caliber firearm left behind by Chance’s co-defendant and alleged co-conspirator, 20-year-old Gregory Whitfield.
A blood trail was found leading from a SNIPES sneaker store to a Wells Fargo, which investigators later determined belonged to Burrell. The state assured jurors they would be shown footage of Burrell “running for his life while two people jump out and gun him down.”
Burrell was pronounced deceased at an area hospital, where medical examiners ruled his manner of death to be a homicide. The two shooters fled the scene in a silver Hyundai. According to the state, the “getaway car” had traces of Chance’s DNA “all over the backseat.”
Chance himself was shot by friendly fire, the state’s attorney told jurors, and was transported to an area hospital by Whitfield. Chance later told investigators he was “somewhere at a Royal Farms” convenience store when he was shot, and that a good Samaritan dropped him off for treatment.
However, the state emphasized, the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) received only two calls for gunfire that day—one at the Westside Shopping Center, where Burrell was fatally shot, and one in East Baltimore, on the other side of town.
Defense attorney Staci Pipkin argued the state’s video evidence lacked the visual clarity to identify her client as one of the shooters. “This is his life,” Pipkin said, urging jurors to consider the allegations carefully in deliberating their verdict.
Pipkin also argued the state’s case was built upon Whitfield’s involvement in the shooting rather than Chance’s, and noted none of Chance’s DNA was recovered from the scene itself.
“The state’s going to talk a lot about Mr. Whitfield,” Pipkin said.
Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Jeannie J. Hong is presiding over the trial, which is set to continue tomorrow, April 23, with witness testimony.
