Three weeks ago today, people began gathering for "Brooklyn Day" celebration, which turned from a little bit of heaven to a hellish scene
Three weeks ago today, people began gathering for "Brooklyn Day" celebration, which suddenly turned from a little bit of heaven into a hellish scene
By Gary Gately/The Baltimore Observer
Three weeks after Brooklyn Day began, Baltimore Police have exactly one suspect in the mass shooting — a 17-year-old held without bond on misdemeanor weapons charges and two counts of incting a riot.
The BPD never claimed the youth fired a weapon, and neither police nor prosectuors have produced a weapon as evidence to justify holding the him without bond in a city where murder suspects are routinely released on bond while awaiting trial. The evidence against the youth: Video showing him with what his attorney calls a toy gun that shoots water pellets.
It perhaps should come as no suprise that police have no other suspects and no solid leads because they simply ignored hours of ominous warnings of serious violence erupting.
What went wrong?
Everthing that could possibly go wrong, if measured by standards of policing drilled into every beat cop’s head.
I have covered four mass shootings, including reporting on two for The New York Times (at a one-room schoolhouse in Amish Country and the other at The Annapolis Capital ) ANnapoliand one for The Washinton Post on an Aberdeen Rite Aid warehouse rampage.
Other than losing in the Capital massacre my long-ago friend and mentor who taught me to write a news lead in college, no mass shooting I’ve covered has ever hit me as hard or hurt me as much as the one at Brooklyn Homes.
Indeed, in maybe 10 hours of reporting there, I sobbed more than a few times, but then got right back to work because you can’t give in to emotions on deadline.
Real reporters do cry, after all.
And tragic blunders like that leave 800 people without a cop in sight when bullets find 30 of them, killing two -- they made me cry more than a few times at Brooklyn Homes over the past three weeks.
How about you, Acting Commisioner Richard W. Worley Jr.
Did the Brooklyn Homes tragedy make you cry too?
Keep you up nights?
How about you, Mayor Brandon Scott?
Did the Brooklyn Homes tragedy make you cry?
Keep you up nights?
Make you gush about your friend the commissioner, homeground, beloved "Son of Baltimore," your choice to lead the BPD?
That would be Richard Worley -- of Pasadena.
In Anne Arundel County.
Was there some kind of celebration that weekend in Pasadena, Richard Worley, that perhaps distracted your attention for 12 hours when BPD should have been at the annual celebration in full force when it started?
And how about all those ominous warnings for hours: repeated 911 calls reporting gunshots and hundreds of mostly young people wielding guns and knives?
Worley finally delivered a mea culpa on behalf of himself and the police department he leads on July 13, blaming the absentee police force for an “absolutely unacceptable breakdown in communication and judgment.”
"We had multiple opportunities to intervene, and we did not take them,” Worley said at the Council’s Public Safety Committee hearing. “More importantly, we saw that the event was happening. When we saw the crowd gathering, when we got reports there were people with weapons, we could have and should have done more.”
Yeah, you sure as hell should have, Chief
Stating with doing your most basic duty to the citizens you’re charged with protecting.
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You and your department failed utterly to do so, by any and every measure.
I’m thinking The Baltimore Sun I delivered as a kid and which employed me in reporting and editing jobs would have called for Worley’s resignation within days of the mass shooting.
But the eviscerated newspaper, now run by a former business editor (who serves as editor AND publisher) and a former sports writer and editor gave the commissioner a pass, just as the City Council has, as usual, the rubber-stamp Baltimore City Council, even more impotent than most in strong-mayor forms of government.
Worley, who had lived in Brooklyn for 12 years, said in the jammed City Council chambers: "I am saddened we weren't able to protect and serve. I didn't want to be on world news for something negative. I’m angry, sad and very disappointed.”
Sorry you’re sad, Chief, and if I were you, I don’t think I could sleep at night.
We’re sad too, and you want really sad, think of this teen’s mother, then take a look at the photo and Facebook post her mother shared about her “Angel,” aa gifted, 18-year-old storyteller with a college scholarship, lay dead on the ground on Gretna Court in Brooklyn Homes.?
?“MY BABY!!! Worst day of my life! I cannot do life without her. I NEED HER!! Why would they do this to a perfect angel? I love you so much, baby. I didn’t get there fast enough. God this is a mistake!!! Please!!.” Krystal Gonzalez, mother of slain Aaliyah Gonzalez, 18, Facebook post (Photo: Facebook)
The Angel died without a cop in sight, Commissioner.
Her fellow resident of the community, a 20-year-old man, died of gunshot wounds in the hospital shortly after.
“Two children are dead!” someone shouted from the balcony of the City Council chambers during the hearing.?
The 28 wounded included 23 teens, two of them 13-year-olds (though most victims have been released from hospitals).
Of course, the number of wounded alone, the ones whose bodies the bullets found, cannot begin to capture the depths of grief among so many of those who carry on, leaving holes in their lives, in their hearts and souls, that time will never fully heal.
Shame on you, Commissioner Worley.
Shame on you, BPD.
Shame on your, Mayor Scott.
Shame on you, rubber-stamp City Council.
This is my hometown, and your failings — and the 30 people shot with nary a cop in sight at Brooklyn Homes — make this reporter cry.
Enough.
Richard Worley has no right to be police comissioner.
He and his department betrayed the public trust, and he’s right: We can never let this happen again, and we can start on a path to redemption, recovery and getting it right next time by ridding the department of Richard W. Worley Jr.
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