Police Say Attack on 'Sun' Reporter May Have Been a Setup

By: Police investigating an assault and attempted robbery that critically injured a feature writer for The Sun of Baltimore on Saturday, have not ruled out the possibility that the respected journalist was the victim of a set-up.

Police said Carl Schoettler, 73, was involved in a minor traffic accident not far from City Hall and on the border of the city's once-notorious Red Light district known as The Block. As Schoettler exchanged information with the driver of a van, a pedestrian standing at a nearby bus stop ran forward and attacked Schoettler from behind, knocking him from behind, kicking him in the head and tugging at his pants' pocket in an apparent attempt to get his wallet.

Witnesses told police the assailant then rode off with the driver of the van.

Using detailed descriptions from witnesses and aided by surveillance cameras posted at intersections throughout that part of downtown, police that night eventually located the driver of a shuttle service for a strip club called Night Shift.

The driver at first denied involvement, but eventually conceded that his was the van in the accident. Police said the driver also admitted inexplicably giving the assailant a lift after the attempted robbery.

The driver "could not explain why he would give this suspect any type of ride or assistance," Col. Fred Bealefeld, chief of detectives, told The Sun. Bealefeld said investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the two men were working together and the accident and attack were coordinated. Police charged Gregory George Kulia, of Westminister with making a false statement to police and released him.

The driver told police he dropped the suspect off several blocks away in west Baltimore and then continued on his shuttle rounds.

Surveillance cameras captured much of the van's journey but failed to provide a clear picture of the suspect.

Meanwhile, Schoettler's condition at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center was upgraded from critical to serious but stable condition, police said Tuesday.

The newspaper offered $3,000 on Monday for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the attacker. "All of us at The Sun are deeply saddened and outraged by this vicious attack on our colleague, Carl Schoettler," editor Tim Franklin said Monday in a statement.

The reporter joined The (Baltimore) Evening Sun in 1959, covered the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and was a metro and features reporter during the mid-1980s. He served as The Sun's European correspondent based in Berlin and the paper's London correspondent in the early 1990s, the paper said.

The attack recalled the fatal attack on New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum, 63, who was beaten and robbed Jan. 6 in his normally quiet Northwest Washington neighborhood.