BALTIMORE — Nothing can numb neighbors of the pain they feel learning about the death of 8-year-old Dylan King who was shot in the head on Friday.
Neighbors described King as an active, polite, and thoughtful kid killed. He was killed just a block away from Matthew A. Henson Elementary where he attended school.
That deadly shooting broke the hearts he'd stolen across his Easterwood neighborhood.
The fog sitting over Presbury Street in West Baltimore Wednesday fits the somber mood of neighbors learning the unthinkable.
"I was just coming home that night and I saw who I guess was the mother and I guess she passed out. I felt so heartbroken for her when I found out what happened to the little boy," recalled Princess Rouzer, who recently moved to the Easterwood neighborhood.
She wasn't close to the family, but the emotion flooding her street was enough to impact her and her neighbor Erik.
"It was terrible, just terrible man. Like I'm kind of at a loss for words. You know what I mean? Like I said it's a recurring thing," Erik Smith told WMAR-2 News.
As a father of three himself, he's feeling compassion for Dylan King's family, but concern for the kids who call Presbury Street home.
"I thought they said no women and children. Like that's going against the code," Smith said.
Just after 5:00pm Friday evening, police found King shot in the head upstairs in his home.
While it's a shock for neighbors hiring about Dylan's death, it's heartbreak for his young friend who used to play with him on his street.
"My grandson, we had to actuallty send him away for a couple of days because him and Dylan were friends," Shirell Williams, the grandmother of one of Dylan's friends at school.
Williams was home when it all happened.
"I heard a scream, and I looked out the window and I saw mom screaming and she fell out on the porch, and I called my grandson which is Dylan's friend, and I said, 'Cam something happened at Dylan's house," Williams recalled.
She says that tragedy Friday took away a truly remarkable child, but her special memories of him won't ever go away.
"He was so sweet. He would come over and one spring I think it was last year he came over and when the flowers started blooming, he gave me a flower and said here this is for you. And I said Oh Dylan. He was just so thoughtful and sweet," Shirell expressed.
An 18-year-old was taken into custody in connection with Dylan's death, but so far, it's unclear if he'll face charges since he's undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.
Dylan King was 1 of 21 minors killed in Baltimore representing 6 percent of Baltimore's homicide victims in 2022.
