Police have charged a man seen in a July 1 surveillance video fatally shooting Cody Young, stepson to well-known Baltimore defense attorney Warren Brown.
Young (full name Louis Cody-Dorsey Young), 22, was murdered at the beginning of this month at a BP gas station on Garrison Avenue in Forest Park. The below video shows two men hopping out of a silver Volkswagen and both firing shots at Young. He was hit multiple times, and pronounced dead at an area hospital, police said.
Detectives received tips and worked with the Baltimore County Police Department over the last two weeks, eventually compiling enough information to charge one of the suspects in his murder: 25-year-old Samuel Cooper.
As it turns out, Cooper was already in custody. Smith said he’d been charged in a separate auto theft and burglary case from July 11. The Volkswagen seen in the above video had been used in other crimes, Smith noted.
Cooper now faces first- and second-degree murder, assault, gun possession and other charges in Young’s killing, in addition to charges of fourth-degree burglary, malicious destruction to property, theft, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle and unauthorized removal of property from the July 11 case.
Sadly, Young may not have been the intended target in the shooting. Smith said it was definitely a targeted incident, but that Cooper and his accomplice (or accomplices) were looking for the car, rather than Young, specifically.
“This is not a random crime, per se…they were intending on firing upon someone in that vehicle, and unfortunately, Mr. Cody-Dorsey [Young] became the homicide victim in this case,” Smith said.
“The suspects are bad guys, period,” he added.
Young’s stepfather, Warren Brown, has been a practicing private defense attorney in Baltimore for about three decades. Local media outlets frequently relied on him for analysis during the trials for the police officers tied to Freddie Gray’s April 2015 death.
Right after announcing Cooper’s arrest, police also addressed a separate stabbing that occurred last night. Local rapper and anti-violence activist Tyree Colion was stabbed in the neck in the 1700 block of E. 29th Street in Coldstream Homestead Montebello. Detectives believe one of his relatives pulled out a knife and stabbed him after a dispute.
In the aftermath, a severely wounded Colion took to Facebook Live to broadcast the news of his injury and impart more of his anti-gun message, for fear that he might not live. “I’m losing too much blood,” he repeats in the video as a woman cries and applies pressure to his stab wound.
“Yo, if I die, it’s all good,” he adds. “Keep pushing them zones” – a reference to the so-called No Shoot Zones he’s promoted around the city.
Colion re-entered the public eye after being released from prison in 2012. He previously served time for a second-degree murder conviction from 1992, and was jailed again for violating his probation, according to the Baltimore Sun.
His songs “Projects” and “Soldierz Story” were used in “The Wire,” and the former made it onto two of the show’s soundtracks. Since rejoining society, he’s redirected his attention as an artist to advocating against street violence. (Smith noted he now works as an activist with Safe Streets, though he said that wasn’t tied to this incident.)
Colion is now in critical, but stable condition, according to Smith. Police have identified the family member who they think stabbed him, but haven’t yet arrested him.
