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A 19-year-old man was shot in the face as a crowd left a basketball game at Frederick Douglass High School, turning the school and nearby Mondawmin Mall into a crime scene Tuesday evening and shutting down public transportation out of the busy mall.

Police said the victim, who was not a student, was shot about 7 p.m. on a median strip in the 2300 block of Gwynns Falls Parkway, between the school and the mall. He ran into the mall, leaving a trail of blood on the white tile floors through the upper level and along the sidewalk outside, where he collapsed at the Mondawmin Station Metro stop.

He was taken by city Fire Department ambulance to Sinai Hospital in serious condition. His identity was unavailable.

Anthony Guglielmi, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said a suspect was seen boarding a Metro train at the mall and remained at large. Several witnesses to the shooting were interviewed at the Western District station. Two handguns were found in the mall and were being examined to determine if they were used in the shooting.

The incident took place as people were leaving Douglass High after a basketball game in which the home team upset No. 9 Patterson, 71-68.

Guglielmi said the victim was with two friends when an argument broke out.

Rodney Coffield, basketball coach for Douglass, said his team was in the locker room when they received word of the shooting. He said the team remained in the locker room until police told them they could leave through an entrance on the other side of the campus.

“The game was intense, and very well-attended, but we don’t think it had anything to do with the basketball game,” Coffield said. “The game was a meeting place where the two young men met up.”

Tina Queen, Douglass’ athletic director, said: “We had a really good game on the inside, and whatever transpired outside is a different thing.”

Queen said the school has metal detectors but that they are not used at athletic events “unless it’s a game where we’re suspecting something to happen” and they were not used at Tuesday’s game. Douglass and Patterson are not considered rivals.

“It was a medium-sized crowd, mostly students,” she said.

Mondawmin Mall, the city’s first enclosed shopping center, recently went through a $70 million face-lift and has welcomed national retailers such as Target, whose decision to open there was hailed as a sign that commercial redevelopment was spreading from the Inner Harbor.

But crime remains a concern. In September 2008, Target donated $300,000 to the Police Department to help police and store officials coordinate crime-fighting efforts at the mall and around the community.

Officials from General Growth Properties, the Chicago-based company that owns Mondawmin Mall, could not be reached for comment.

Buses and vehicular traffic were detoured from the area.

Source: Baltimore Sun