Maryland ID Card at Center of Liquor Store Attempted Murder Case

By Racquel Bazos - April 3, 2024
Attempted Murder | Court | Daily Stories | Non-Fatal Shooting | Shooting | Suspects |

On April 2, Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Anthony F. Vittoria presided over closing arguments in an attempted murder case which centered the defendant’s identification as the suspect. 

Dionte Johnson is charged with attempted first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault, firearm use in a felony violent crime, reckless endangerment, firearm possession with a felony conviction, possession of firearms in a controlled dangerous substance offense, having a handgun on his person and discharging a firearm in connection to a March 27, 2022, incident. 

The prosecutor said Johnson and the victim were captured on CCTV arguing inside a liquor store on the 2300 block of East Biddle Street. During the course of that altercation, he argued Johnson shot the victim in the neck “at point blank range,” permanently paralyzing him from the neck down.

Surveillance footage also showed the suspect running away after the shooting, dropping some items and picking some up and before continuing to flee. Baltimore Police Department (BPD) investigators later recovered 26-year-old Johnson’s Maryland identification card on the same block as the shooting. 

According to the assistant state’s attorney, two BPD officers identified Johnson as the suspect seen in the videos because they were familiar with Johnson and his Instagram account. The victim testified he was afraid of retaliation when detectives presented him with a photo array in April 2023, but called them back to the hospital a month later to identify Johnson as his alleged shooter. 

Defense attorney Natalie Finegar said investigators had “tunnel vision” after finding Johnson’s identification card and continued to “double down.” She argued that the card was found on the opposite side of the street of the shooting, per body-worn camera footage. 

She also cast doubt on the victim’s credibility, pointing to his testimony that he had been dealing narcotics from the liquor store where the shooting took place and his desire to not be recorded identifying Johnson. 

When detectives returned to the hospital, they did not bring back the photo array they’d given the victim a month before, but the victim said his shooter was the third suspect in the array. Finegar wondered how he could have remembered the number of the photo since he couldn’t remember other details about the shooter. 

“His story is so unreliable,” she said. 

In his rebuttal, the assistant state’s attorney explained the wind likely carried the identification card across the street, as it was windy that day and it started snowing shortly after the incident. 

Defending his star witness’ credibility, the prosecutor told jurors, “[The victim] bore his soul to the 14 of you… He didn’t attempt to hide what he was engaged in.”