CATONSVILLE, Md. — She claims she thought armed gunman were jeopardizing her life and that of her unborn baby when she sped away from what turned out to be police, and now, Tiara Baker’s attorney says she’s paid dearly for it.
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“She’s got a bullet in her shoulder let alone she’s got her skin torn off on her arm. Her ear nearly blown off,” said Tony Garcia.
Garcia made a case for bail in a Baltimore County courtroom also claiming it was overkill when police encircled her car to serve a warrant, primarily for a robbery at a wireless telephone store on Liberty Road back in April.
“The amount of force used in this scenario for the commiserate crime, again, taking a cell phone out of someone’s hand at a Cricket store, that you’ve got two vans full of people and guns drawn and firing at this car---to me, that doesn’t balance out,” said Garcia.
But an assistant manager at the store, Arthur Lee, tells WMAR-2 News that baker and a male accomplice did far more than snatch and run while robbing an employee of three I-phones valued at nearly $2,000.
“They got physical, then snatched the phones, then got physical again, then left,” said Lee, who came to the victim’s aid shortly after the robbery.
“And she was pushed to the floor?” I asked.
“Yes, from what I heard, she was pushed to the floor,” he replied.
Baker was on parole at the time of the alleged crimes, and based on her lengthy criminal record, failure to appear for prior court appearances and her bid to escape capture this week, the judge denied her bail.
Baker faces more than a dozen charges notwithstanding those that are still pending after her face off with police.
