Park Heights residents shaken after 2-year-old shot and killed at apartment complex

BALTIMORE - Residents in a Northwest Baltimore neighborhood are trying to wrap their heads around the shooting death of a 2-year-old girl Sunday evening.

Police said Charlee Gamble was shot at an apartment complex on Park Heights Avenue. She was taken to the hospital where she died.

"We have an almost 3-year-old, he's turning three in two weeks, so yeah, it definitely hits home," Park Heights resident Anne Goldfinger said.

As Baltimore Police investigate the child's death as a homicide, a woman reacted to the news as she walked back into the same apartment building where the shooting happened.

"We had someone who was shot a block away," said Park Heights resident Yehoshua Goldfinger. "I think it was just a few nights ago. I mean, every time it happens, we're like, 'OK, it's a one-time thing.' You can just say it was a dispute or something of that sort, but then they keep on happening."

WJZ reached out to the child's family who did not want to speak on camera.

However, on social media, a cousin expressed her heartbreak.

Residents said they don't know what the solution can be to stop the violence in their community.

They say, in general, they feel helpless to protect their children.

"If you're not praying for your kids, there is something wrong, because there is only so much you can do as a parent to help," said Yehoshua Goldfinger. "And only so much you can do with your community to do what you can. You can talk about what the solutions are, and try to do the best solutions we can, but that's an important piece. There is just so little control that we have."

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott was asked about the child's death.

"There is nothing more tragic in the world than the loss of a life of a child especially that young," Scott said. "There is no way on Earth that a 2-year-old baby should be gone from a gunshot wound suffered in a place full of people that love that young person."