Baltimore Police: Man arrested in death of 36-year-old in Oliver mass shooting

Baltimore Police arrested a Hagerstown man Tuesday in connection with the August mass shooting that left one dead and seven injured in the Oliver neighborhood of East Baltimore.

According to court records, Eric Kibler, 43, was charged with first- and second-degree murder, assault and firearms offenses in the killing of 36-year-old Anthony Martin, who was among eight people shot Aug. 18 on the 1300 block of North Spring Street, where the Thunderguard motorcycle club was holding a memorial for a separate member who was killed.

According to charging documents, a verbal dispute broke out between the victim and unknown members of the motorcycle club over a residential parking space around 7:19 p.m.

Police identified Kibler in video surveillance footage armed with a handgun standing in front of Martin and shooting him, according to charging documents. Multiple shooters were captured by video surveillance, the documents said.

Less than an hour before the first reports of a shooting, police responded to a noise complaint about a motorcycle group blocking North Caroline Street at the intersection of North Spring Street, according to archived dispatch audio. The responding officer didn’t hear any loud music or find anything blocking the road, a police spokesperson said in August. Officers were then called to the scene for the reports of gunfire around 8 p.m.

Six men in addition to Martin, ages 21 to 46, and a 41-year-old-woman were injured in the shooting, which took place along North Spring Street by Calvin B. Scruggs Sr. Park and behind Dr. Bernard Harris Sr. Elementary School.

Maj. Jai Etwaroo, commanding officer of Baltimore Police’s Eastern District, said at a town hall the week after the shooting that ballistic evidence for at least 10 firearms was found at the scene.

The shooting happened on a Sunday, and that Wednesday night the motorcycle club hangout at 1301 North Spring St. caught fire in a suspected retaliatory arson, police said. Baltimore City Housing Commissioner Alice Kennedy said at the same meeting that the city had been aware of potential illegal gatherings at the building but were unable to catch anyone in the act.

“The Department of Housing and Community Development has known about these violations, and the whole block should have been shut down,” Diane Williams, a 20-year resident of the neighborhood and president of the People’s Association of Oliver Community, said Tuesday. “They knew all these violations were going on, and they should have stopped it.”

The park and basketball court adjacent to the shooting scene is the main play area for youth in a neighborhood without a recreation center. The Oliver Multi-Purpose Center, down the street from the shooting scene, closed in August 2023. The Dawson Safe Haven Center, another after-school space, shut down in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic and never reopened, Williams said.

“People are using that area, but things have happened there, so it has changed in the atmosphere and the spirit of the space in itself,” Audrey Carter, secretary of the people’s association, said Tuesday. “It’s used because what else is there? Nothing.”

In the weeks following the shooting, the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement spoke at the meeting about a pop-up crisis center in the neighborhood with limited hours. Residents said Tuesday that they don’t think the city has seriously engaged about their biggest concern.

“We have consistently asked the department of housing to provide space so that we can continue our youth programming,” Carter said.

2024: A memorial is at the site of the Oliver mass shooting in Aug.. (Dillon Mullan/Staff)