Staff report
Authorities were investigating a fatal shooting early this morning on East Cemetery Street.
Police were called to a report of shots fired and a man down at a house at 520 E. Cemetery St. around 12:30 a.m., Lt. Mike Dummett said.
They found Rico Amos Baker, 23, of 111 E. Horah St., lying in the front yard with a gunshot wound. Paramedics tried to save the man, but he died there.
Salisbury Police detectives and other agencies were still looking for the shooter and were following leads, Dummett, commander of the Criminal Investigation Division, said early this morning.
Dummett said Baker had no relatives at the East Cemetery Street home and it was unclear why he was there.
After 1 a.m., crowds of people stood on the sidewalk in front of the house and across the street from it. Most declined to speak to a Post reporter, but one neighbor said she heard the fatal gunshot.
“You couldn’t tell it was a gunshot,” said the neighbor, who didn’t want to give her name. “It sounded like somebody threw a baseball real hard against something.”
The neighbor said it sounded like the shot happened right outside her house. She waited a couple of minutes, then went outside and saw people running across the street to the home and yelling, and she saw others trying to revive the man.
She went over to see if she could help, but the man appeared to be dead, she said. She asked if anyone had called 911 and nobody answered, so she called.
Check www.salisburypost.com for updates and see Thursday’s paper for a full account.