Multiple shots were fired and a bystander was grazed in the chest in an apparent homicide attempt Friday afternoon in the Charles Village area, according to residents and police at the scene.

The shooting occurred about 4:15 p.m. when at least one person ran up the 400 block of West 28th Street in the Remington neighborhood and fired multiple shots, hitting a parked car and grazing the resident of a neighboring house, witnesses said.

The man’s injury was non-life threatening, and he was treated at the scene.

One resident, who declined to be named out of fear for his safety, said he was inside his house across the street when he heard multiple gun shots being fired. He immediately went outside and saw an individual run down an adjacent block and jump into a four-door, gold metallic Lexus, which sped off heading north.

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Another resident, who was with her children in a nearby playground at the time, said she heard “at least six or seven shots” fired.

Officer Kenneth Richard of the Northern District police, who was supervising the area, said the shots were fired “indiscriminately” and that the crime was most likely drug-related.

“In Baltimore, it usually is,” he said.

Several residents said the stoop where the shots were fired was a common staging ground for drug-related activity, and that the shooting was almost certainly motivated by it.

“Twenty-eighth Street is a major drug trade corridor, no question,” said Joan Floyd, president of the Remington Neighborhood Alliance. “It’s happening in broad daylight.”

“At night this place is flooded with drug dealers,” said another longtime Remington resident, who would identify herself only by her maiden name, Germaine Agostin.

At one point as police canvassed the crime scene, three officers sprinted down an adjacent block in pursuit of a group of teenagers. The officers had information that the suspects were “friends” of the intended targets. No arrests were made, and the teenagers said they were not involved.

Many of the residents at the scene lamented what they say is a lack of police activity in the area, which they said had become increasingly crime-ridden in recent days.

A cab driver was fatally shot in the head two weeks ago on the 100 block of West 29th Street, just six blocks away from Friday afternoon's shooting. Another man was shot and killed on Thursday while driving on Ellerslie Avenue in the nearby Better Waverly neighborhood.

Floyd, like many of her neighbors at the scene, was concerned that the area would remain unsafe into the night.

“What is the Northern District going to do to make people feel safe?” she asked.

Richard said the area would receive “special attention,” and that officers assigned to the neighborhood would patrol the especially “troubled areas.”

sgentile@baltimoreexaminer.com