BALTIMORE — In the aftermath of Sunday’s mass shooting in South Baltimore, police continue to search for suspects as city leaders and community members are asking whether authorities properly responded to calls about hundreds of people gathered, including reports about some with guns.
Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley said Monday that the department was “too late” in having conversations Saturday evening about whether more police resources were needed in the area before the shooting. His comments followed criticism from neighborhood residents and community leaders about the Police Department’s lack of presence at the annual “Brooklyn Day” block party.
“Unfortunately we didn’t get there in time to prevent what happened,” Worley said at a news conference.
Residents of the Brooklyn Homes public housing complex and surrounding communities were gathered Saturday evening into Sunday for the annual neighborhood block party when at least two people opened fire in a crowd of hundreds shortly after midnight, Sunday, authorities said.
Two people were killed and more than two dozen others, mostly young people, were injured.
Baltimore City Council’s Public Safety Committee announced it would hold an oversight hearing July 13 to examine responses from the police and other agencies to the event, including what agencies knew about the event and when they knew it.
Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, who represents the Brooklyn neighborhood, issued a statement in the immediate aftermath of the shooting that said there were “multiple levels of system failure from various agencies.”
On Monday, Porter said “those responsible for the breakdown in our security and safety protocols must be held accountable for the lack of focus on sufficient precautionary measures.”
“We cannot allow such a tragic event to go unresolved or forgotten,” Porter said.
On Monday, authorities asked the public for any information about the shooters — police have said there were at least two. Detectives are continuing to interview victims, and police officials said Monday that more than two guns were used. A $28,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest or charges.
Brooklyn Homes resident Iris Henry, who visited a resource fair at the housing complex’s community center Monday, said the presence of one or two police cars might have prevented the violence.
”They should’ve been there, just to have that presence,” she said. “It should have been a curfew. 12 (a.m.) should’ve been the end of the party.”
Earlean Alston’s children were at the Brooklyn Day party earlier in the evening, celebrating the birthday of one of her daughter’s friends. Alston said Monday that her son heard the gunshots and ran.
”The police should have been here,” said Alston, who lives near Bay Brook Elementary/Middle School in Brooklyn. “They have a curfew for the kids.”
The city has a youth curfew of 11 p.m. in effect. Officials have not answered whether outreach workers connected to curfew enforcement were informed by the police department of the crowd.
Ashley Johnson, a mother of four and a Brooklyn resident, said Monday that the youth curfew “isn’t doing anything.”
“If they were enforcing any rule, that party wouldn’t have gone on unnoticed,” Johnson said.
Worley said the department didn’t know Brooklyn Day was happening Saturday until the day of the event, and that organizers hadn’t gotten a permit for it. Last year, Worley said, the department knew about the event three days in advance and was able to create a staffing plan for it.
However, the department was aware hundreds of people were at the party at least 2 1/2 hours before the fatal shooting happened, according to police dispatch audio from the Southern police district. Just before 10 p.m., dispatchers said an anonymous person had called about “hundreds of males and females armed with guns and knives” at the Brooklyn Homes.
Someone, it’s not clear who, responded jokingly that dispatch would “probably have to redirect that call to the National Guard,” according to the audio.
Officers received additional calls about armed people, fighting, noise complaints and a potential shooting, all before 11 p.m., according to the audio. The police helicopter flew over the party and someone on board said there were approximately 700 people in attendance, but that they did not see any gunfire, just fireworks.
“As far as the group inside Brooklyn Homes, everything appears to be normal,” the person on the helicopter said, according to the 911 dispatch audio. “(People) just walking around, hanging out.”
Even if more officers had been present, Worley said, it’s not a guarantee that the shooting would have been prevented, but it’s possible a more substantial police presence could have deterred the trigger-pullers.
The gunfire injured 28 people, the majority of whom were teenagers. Two people — 18-year-old Aaliyah Gonzalez and 20-year-old Kylis Fagbemi — were killed. Gonzalez was a recent graduate of Glen Burnie High School, who made the honor roll each marking period this year and planned to attend South Carolina State University, where she’d earned a scholarship.
At least four other people were in critical condition Monday and a total of seven remained hospitalized, officials said. Hospital officials credited a coordinated response between medical providers and first responders for preventing further deaths.
Worley said departmental staffing was not to blame for the delayed response, despite the police union’s statement Sunday that just seven officers were patrolling the Southern district due to officer shortages.
The department is short hundreds of officers. Officials said last month that there were 338 patrol vacancies citywide, out of 918 total patrol positions that were funded. While one police district alone was not enough to respond to a crowd of that size, Worley said there were resources available citywide.
“We had multiple officers deployed at other locations in the city that we could have moved there,” Worley said.
Worley said the department was doing an after-action report on the incident that also would examine why the situation wasn’t brought more quickly to department leaders’ attention.
“Given the prevalence of guns across the city, minor disagreements or a personal slight can turn into a large-scale shooting like this. This is the concern we all have,” City Council Public Safety Chair Mark Conway said in an interview. “What do we do about it? How do we make sure the department is prepared or event organizers know how to operate safely in the city?”
Mayor Brandon Scott said the city’s focus should be on the perpetrators of violence, not the event’s lack of permit or the city’s response to the large crowds. He pledged at Monday’s news conference to support the Brooklyn neighborhood however the city can and promised to use whatever resources are needed to catch those responsible.
“When folks have events, we want them to have permits,” Scott said. “We want to do that so that everything can be in decency and order. But we cannot allow those details to outweigh the fact that we have people who recklessly were shooting into crowds of 100 people who were peacefully celebrating in that neighborhood.”
Worley, who has been in his role for less than a month, said the department is committed to a “thorough investigation.”
Worley said Monday that police recovered guns from the scene but declined to share specifics. Videos of young people at the block party toting guns were posted on social media, and both Worley and Scott said police were investigating those videos for possible leads on the shooters.
While gun violence as a whole is down in Baltimore this year compared with the corresponding period last year, Sunday’s shooting continues a troubling increase in the number of young people shot and killed. Not including Sunday’s mass shooting, at least 64 people age 19 and younger have been shot in Baltimore this year, according to publicly available police data. At least 27 young people have been killed.
Brooklyn residents and advocates on Sunday also brought up nonpolice resources that the neighborhood needed — pointing out that the area has no community recreational centers, little access to family and mental health services, and some of the highest rates of unemployment in the city.
Charlene Bowie, a Brooklyn Homes resident for six years, said Monday that she called her granddaughter back inside her Herndon Court home Saturday night before the shooting began.
“This could’ve happened anywhere,” Bowie said. “When you have a lot of kids together, no structure ... this is what happens.”
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(Baltimore Sun reporters Lilly Price, Tony Roberts and Lia Russell contributed to this article.)
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