Attempted Murder Investigation ‘Clearly Tainted,’ Defense Counsel Argues

By Andrew Michaels - August 23, 2022
Attempted Murder | Court | Daily Stories | Non-Fatal Shooting | Suspects |

A tainted police investigation was behind the defense counsel’s argument for his client’s release on Aug. 23 after the defendant was charged with attempted murder earlier this year.

The Baltimore Police Department previously released information on the shooting that occurred on July 11 just before 3 a.m. on the 2900 block of O’Donnell Street, where a man was found with a gunshot graze wound on his arm.

Rooney Poudyel, 38, was later arrested and charged with attempted murder in addition to several assault and weapons charges.

During Monday’s proceedings, defense attorney Patrick Seidel told Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Jeannie Hong that what he found “particularly alarming” was how police conducted their investigation.

Seidel said his client’s picture was pulled from Facebook, showing the defendant with long hair—a feature excluded from the original description of the shooter.

Seidel alleged that the victim told police that he wasn’t sure if the man in the photo was the shooter but that his friends told him it was the suspect. The victim was also “heavily intoxicated” at the time of the incident, the defense attorney argued, so much so that police did not interview him at the scene.

Video surveillance footage also captured the suspect, but the individual’s face was blurry.

The prosecutor countered that Poudyel’s face was visible in the video footage and that one of the witnesses found the suspect’s photo on Facebook, identifying him as the shooter. The victim and several other witnesses also identified Poudyel, whose case is expected to be indicted today.

Poudyel and the victim are clearly identified in the video, which the prosecutor said showed the defendant chasing the victim with his hands gripping a gun as he fired several shots, one of which struck the victim.

Despite no prior convictions, Judge Hong concluded that the seriousness of the charges deemed Poudyel a threat to public safety and denied his bail.