Baltimore Man Charged After Teen Escapes Basement With Fire Extinguisher

A 15-year-old girl being stabbed inside a Baltimore basement grabbed a fire extinguisher, hit the man attacking her with it and ran out of the house barefoot and bleeding, according to charging documents filed in District Court.

Abubakarr Barrie, 23, was ordered held without bond Monday afternoon in connection with the kidnapping and stabbing. He faces nine charges, including attempted first-degree murder, which carries the possibility of life in prison if he is convicted. Barrie said nothing during his court appearance. His public defender told the judge he maintains his innocence.

Police said the girl was stabbed at least five times and suffered a collapsed lung. She was taken to Sinai Hospital and is expected to survive her injuries.

The ride she asked for never got there

It started on Oct. 22. The girl was at her sister's home in Druid Heights and was trying to catch a ride to PlattaKing, a carryout restaurant at 5514 Belair Road in Waltherson, according to charging documents.

A man in a white Hyundai pulled up beside her on McCulloh Street and asked if she needed a ride, she told police. She called him a "hack," the local term for an unlicensed cab driver, got in and put her seatbelt on.

The car headed the opposite way from the restaurant. The girl told investigators she questioned the driver about it, and he immediately became violent, putting his arm around her neck and head and holding her so tightly she could not move while she was strapped into the seat. Detectives later identified the driver as Barrie, who gave the teenager his phone number so she could pay for the ride through Cash App.

Inside the basement on Garrison Boulevard

The car stopped at a rental home at 3705 Garrison Blvd. in Northwest Baltimore, near Barrington Road. Police wrote that Barrie got out, grabbed the girl by the arms and forced her toward the rear of the house, then pushed her down a tiny set of steps and into a small room, where he "advised her to put her phone down and not to scream."

What police say happened next is laid out in a single long sentence in the charging documents: "While inside the home, a scuffle ensued and she advised that Mr. Barrie began stabbing her all over her body, so she said she began scratching and clawing at Mr. Barrie's body, in an effort to flee, ultimately finding a fire extinguisher in the room, picked it up and began hitting Mr. Barrie with it, finally able to get away from him stabbing her and fled the home on foot with no shoes or clothes on."

Police also said Barrie pulled off the girl's clothes. The documents describe wounds to her chest, ear, shoulder, back and rib area.

Ten minutes on foot to Belle Avenue

Out of the basement and into the street with no clothes and no shoes, her body covered in blood, the girl went house to house banging on doors.

She made it to the 3800 block of Belle Avenue, roughly 10 minutes away, where an unidentified Good Samaritan let her use a phone to call 911 and her mother. Officers responded to that block around 9:30 p.m. and found her bleeding, with a collapsed lung. Medics rushed her to Sinai Hospital.

Forty-three minutes on the homeowner's camera

The man who owns the Garrison Boulevard property was out of the country that night. His security camera was not. He shared the footage with a Baltimore television station and asked not to be identified because of the nature of the case.

Video timestamped 8:09 p.m. shows a white car pulling into the driveway. The homeowner identified the man getting out as Barrie. A female is also seen getting out and walking toward the basement entrance.

"I saw him come here with the girl. They both got out of the car, walked to the basement door, went inside," the homeowner said.

The next relevant clip is timestamped 8:52 p.m., 43 minutes later. It shows a female running from the home.

"About maybe 30 minutes or an hour later, I just see her bolt, like she just opens the door and runs," he said.

The camera only captures parts of what happened outside. It does not show the inside of the car or the basement. The homeowner said that when he reviewed the footage, he did not see a struggle as the two approached the house, which does not match the account in the charging documents, where the girl said she was pushed toward the rear of the home and down the steps. Asked about the apparent gap between the video and the documents, Baltimore Police did not directly answer. "Detectives have not ruled out any potential motives for this incident. Although an arrest has been made, the investigation remains active and ongoing," the department said.

A phone call about the footage

Barrie contacted the homeowner that same day, the homeowner said, and asked whether the property's cameras were accessible.

"He said he wanted to know if I had access to their camera footage around the house and I was like, 'yes, for what?'" the homeowner said. "Pretty much said that he got his wallet stolen and he wanted to post a picture of the girl that took his wallet."

He did not look at the video right away. After speaking with a friend whose uncle lives at the property, he said, he realized something much deeper had happened than what he had been told. He sent the footage to Baltimore Police.

By his account, Barrie rented a room in the basement and had come back to the property roughly one or two months earlier, after living there before and then moving to New York. An older tenant who was recovering from a stroke was sharing the basement area at the time. In court, it was said that Barrie had lived on Garrison Boulevard for only about a month.

"This cannot be possible, not at my property," the homeowner recalled thinking. Asked whether he could have imagined it, he said: "No. Not at all, not at all. Would have never imagined it."

How detectives found the white Hyundai Elantra

At the hospital, the girl gave officers a description of the car and the Cash App information for the man who had offered her the ride. Investigators traced a phone number connected to that account to Barrie, along with his vehicle information, and matched it to the white Hyundai Elantra he was driving.

Her iPhone 14 was still missing. Police said Barrie had it, and they monitored its location, tracking it to the Garrison Boulevard address and, earlier that day, to a nearby tire shop. The girl then picked Barrie out of a photo lineup, according to investigators. He was arrested Oct. 24.

Nine charges and no bond

The charges filed against Barrie are attempted first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, use of a dangerous weapon with intent to injure, kidnapping, false imprisonment and theft of the girl's phone.

He appeared by video on Oct. 26 and was denied bond. His public defender told the court he works as a driver for Uber Eats and was working toward earning his GED, and that he has no prior criminal history. Court officials said Barrie had prior arrests but no prior convictions. Online records show he was arrested for prostitution in Baltimore County nearly three months ago, in a case marked "stet," meaning it is on hold.

Pretrial services reported that Barrie had a history of suicide attempts, and his attorney asked that he be monitored while in custody. He remains behind bars until a preliminary hearing on Nov. 25.

On the block, nobody saw it coming

Shana Kay lives across the street from the apartment and said she had never seen Barrie before.

"I would have helped. That's scary. She must've been terrified. Oh my God, I can't believe it happened right at my doorstep," Kay said. "My daughter likes to take the cab, but now I'm scared."

A neighbor who lives next door said she had not noticed anything unusual but was wary of the people around her. "That's scary. That's really why I don't like to leave out the house," said the neighbor, who declined to give her name.

Ethan Czebotar, who lives on Garrison Boulevard, said that sort of thing does not happen around there much. Neighbors said there are children living next door and around the home.

Reaction was similar on McCulloh Street, where the girl got into the car. "It's very disgusting," resident Christina Chavis said. Another resident, Ajanae Melvin, said people have to look out for one another.

"We all got to look out for each other because you never know if it's your child, your sister, your aunt, your brother. It could be anybody. It's very sickening and sad," Melvin said.

The girl has not been identified by authorities. Police said the investigation into the Oct. 22 attack is still open.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.