Baltimore City’s Brooklyn Day Groundhog Day – What to Do?

As you no doubt have been following to the extent that there is any new information, Baltimore City experienced a mass shooting on July 2 at Brooklyn Homes in a South Baltimore block party amid its continuing killing fields.  So far, as of August 11, two have perished and 28 were wounded.

It may be the largest shooting event in Baltimore history.

The police were not told ahead of time about the annual event, an event with a history decades old – it was “unpermitted” (police uninformed about it), said Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley, and, unlike previous years, the cops had no presence at the scene of the party.  Worley confessed at a meeting of the Baltimore City Council’s Public Safety and Government Operations Committee that given the 27-year tradition of the Brooklyn Day celebration that “[The police] could have and should have done more.”

Officers who did eventually respond to calls did not interact with the crowd.  To some it seemed reminiscent of the Uvalde school mass shooting in Texas a couple of months ago wherein the police seemed clueless as to what their obligations were.

In addition, the shootings may have led to additional shootings at nearby locations.

An unnamed 17 year-old, suspected of major involvement in the shootings, is being held without bail and his unfound gun was described by his defense attorney as a “toy gun.”  He was seen in videos proximate to the shootings with “at least four other males,” according to court documents.

Mayor Brandon Scott said almost immediately that he was appalled at the “cowardly act.”  Happy Warrior Governor Wes Moore had reassured WBFF Television the day before the mass shooting that he was “passing policies that keep our people safe.”  He announced that a legislative session to examine gun violence was unnecessary.  All phatic responses, not what one expects from serious leadership, and the Governor has seemed uninterested since, but nonetheless joyous as he emails Marylanders how much money legislators have spent on their behalf.

Mayor Scott, as he had done before, blamed too many available guns without any reference to the violence that inheres in Baltimore teenagers: this mass shooting, he said, “highlights the impacts and the need to deal with the over-proliferation of illegal guns on our streets and the ability for those who should not have them to get their hands on them.”

At an early impromptu press conference, the Mayor said again that this was a “reckless, cowardly act of violence,” and that he and “we” shall hold accountable a variety of bad actors, and then he beseeched Baltimoreans for aid in getting all of the perpetrators.

Then he turned the press conference to the interim director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement who promised help to all sufferers through that old empty standby “mental health” counseling, followed by an aide who said, of course, that this type of violence is “not sustainable.”

The result of all of this pseudo-activity and palliating for placate residents?  They feel unpersuaded – 98% of those South Baltimoreans polled feel unsafe, and Brooklyn Homes Tenant Council President said that potential witnesses in her community were reluctant to speak to investigators because they feared retaliation and didn’t trust police.

What effectively has been done?  Almost nothing…the Baltimore City Housing Authority has made it easier to evict their tenants who have large gatherings without explicit permission.  Cannot hurt…

What should the largely requisite-clichéd mayor and inert governor do?

First, the self-admitted irresponsibility of the police must be addressed, but continued echoes of police defunding and reducing their numbers must stop.  The Mayor and Governor must forthrightly state their intention to beef up the police to pre-pandemic numbers as well as emphasize their support for the men and women in blue.

Second, the mayor and other political principals’ begging for help in identifying the miscreants who perpetrated these crimes may help, even though the help may be slow in coming due to the credible fears of perpetrators’ retaliation (see above).  There have never been consistent serious legal consequences for those who threaten retaliation for reporting criminals, only arrangements for some witnesses to be removed to safer locations.

Third, city leaders and pundits must correct their dereliction: neglecting changing over time the large criminal element in Baltimore.  The ignoring of fatherlessness has led to 80% or more of families in Baltimore being single-parent, the breeding ground for a lawless, criminally socialized society and school violence replete with constant bullying and children’s seeking of – and finding readily available —substitute parents in gangs.  The city leaders must disincentivize single-parent homes and incentivize two-parent homes and reduce the legal subsidization of father-absent children: the thousands of welfare dollars of taxpayer money that perpetuate the miseries of such broken families and the miseries and fear and bullying they visit upon the rest of the city and nation, as well as themselves.

Fourth, political leaders, yes, and the public, must get some guts…take positions as the ruling Democratic Party that will effect (sic) better police and better intact-family citizens and serious punishment for miscreants that could in ten years transform the population of Baltimore and Maryland and make the city and state great places to live and learn and thrive again – and just be able to transverse the streets safely.

You have one major leader in the city who will follow these ideas: the new States Attorney, Ivan Bates.  Consult him, and you will get good, responsible advice.

And finally, Governor Moore, reverse yourself and convene a special committee of lawmakers, as many have suggested, conservative and liberal, lawmakers unafraid of rejecting old clichés of defeat, who will produce a report in 6 months to reduce violence – short-term and long-term — on our streets and in our schools.

A changed population and police force in Baltimore and Maryland will in time fix our streets, fix our education system and produce transformation all around – taking but ten years or so to see significant change.

This plan takes too long, but successful journeys begin with a single step, and had it been taken at the beginning of the century, we would already have seen material results.