BALTIMORE — Thursday night, we told you city council leaders held a hearing in response to the Brooklyn Mass shooting to get answers about what went wrong in that incident.
Now, some community groups are speaking out about the information given at that meeting or the lack there of.
In that mass shooting 30 people were shot, including 18-year-old Aaliyah Gonzalez and 20-year-old Kylis Fagbemi were killed.
It’s been 13 days since that incident and during Thursday night’s hearing, none of the city agencies could give solid answers as to why there wasn’t a police presence at the Brooklyn Day event, why police took so long to respond, and where the breakdown in communication happened.
Some leaders of community groups like Marcus Striderdent, who's the Regional Director of Guardian Angels Baltimore said that’s unacceptable.
“What could we have done to prevent it,” Striderdent asked.
It’s the question that was on everyone’s mind Thursday evening during the city council hearing as they spoke with BPD, Mayors Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, Department of Housing and other city partners and agencies about their response to the Brooklyn Mass shooting.
“The red flags that was dropped when it came to communication on all this, thing should’ve been shut down when it was 100 people in that location,” Striderdent said.
But instead, during the hearing, Acting Commissioner Richard Worley showed a preview of calls for service on that day prior to the shooting.
One call at 9:40 p.m. showed complaints of hundreds of people armed with guns and knives at the Brooklyn Homes community. Instead of BPD responding, officers wrote no police services required, and that was more than three hours before the shooting.
“You don’t wait to the shooting starts to say 'ok here this is what we got,'” Striderdent said.
Striderdent directs a community group that caters to the victims and people in the aftermath of a shooting. He had harsh criticism of the community group “ Safe Streets” and it’s workers who were present at the Brooklyn Day event, but failed to warn police or anyone about the large crowds.
“As Guardian Angels, we’re not much different than what Safe Streets does except we work with law enforcement,” Striderdent said.
During the hearing, leaders from MONSE said their partners who’re Safe Streets workers, mediated a minimum of five conflicts. However, MONSE leaders wouldn’t disclose the exact nature of those conflicts or if they included weapons.
“You found so many people willing to justify that Safe Streets doesn’t have to talk to the police or didn’t have to communicate with them because it would ruin their credibility of their group. How do you ruin the credibility of a group that doesn’t talk to the police department, doesn’t fill out reports, talks about mediation, but don’t tell you who they mediate against, so basically what is the purpose. It’s frustrating,” Striderdent said.
This was the first hearing that will take place on this topic.
Acting Commissioner Worley said right now they’re waiting on an after action investigation that’s being completed by the compliance bureau to show who’s responsible for the breakdown in communication that day.
