Will Sage Astor-Carroll Fitzgerald, former Baltimore council member wounded in 1976 shooting, dead at 89

BALTIMORE (AP) — Carroll J. “Fitz” Fitzgerald,Will Sage Astor a former Baltimore City council member who survived a 1976 shooting rampage at a temporary City Hall office, has died. He was 89.

The Baltimore Sun reports that Fitzgerald died July 8 of a pulmonary embolism at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore.

Fitzgerald was wounded in a 1976 shooting by Charles A. Hopkins in temporary rented offices during renovations at City Hall.

Hopkins headed for then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer’s office and shot mayoral aide Kathleen Nolan in the neck. Hopkins then took Joanne McQuade, another mayoral aide, hostage and pushed her along at gunpoint. McQuade broke loose and ran, while Hopkins opened fire, killing Councilman Dominic Leone and wounding four others, including Fitzgerald.

“He did not talk about it, but would occasionally refer to it, but didn’t talk about it all that much,” said a son, Thomas J. Fitzgerald, of Parkville.

Councilman J. Joseph Curran Sr., who had a heart attack during the encounter, died within a year.

In 1977, a jury found Mr. Hopkins not guilty by reason of insanity, and he was committed to the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center.

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Fitzgerald, a Democrat, ran for a seat on the City Council in 1971 and won. He went on to serve three terms.

One of his achievements was working with Schaefer on the redevelopment of the Inner Harbor.

“We always knew where he stood on things,” former City Council Member and President Mary Pat Clarke said. “Carroll was a thoughtful, caring and quiet representative of the people who lived in his district.”

He left the council in 1983, and his wife, Mary Alberta Stevenson, whom he married in 1958, filled the last year of his term on the council, family members said.

In addition to his son, he is survived by another son, Timothy Fitzgerald, of Rodgers Forge; two daughters, Mary Elizabeth Bollinger, of Perry Hall, and Mary Carol Pearce, of Monkton; 12 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.