The Baltimore City Council planned to review after-action reports from the police, housing authority, and the mayor’s public safety office but two hours into the hearing, the emotional testimony of Krystal Gonzalez brought city officials to a tearful stop.
Gonzalez is the mother of Aaliyah, an 18 year-old who was killed when gunfire erupted at the Brooklyn Day block party in the early hours of July 2nd. Another young man, Kylis Fagbemi, 20, was also killed that night and 28 others, mostly teenagers, were injured.
“She wanted to celebrate her accomplishments. She wanted to go out and kick off the summer and have fun. Those kids wanted to have fun,” Gonzalez said through her tears. Her daughter was a recent graduate and honor roll student; before her eighteenth birthday she always had a strict curfew.
When they got the call that Aaliyah had been shot, the Gonzlez family was in shock. Aaliyah’s father ran to Harbor Hospital said Gonzalez but was told his daughter wasn’t there. She was still at Gretna Court. She was dead.
And then Gonzalez learned about all of the times police chose not to respond to Brooklyn Homes in the hours before gunfire erupted.
“Knowing that there were endless calls for help and no one shows,” she said, choking on her sobs. “Knowing that Foxtrot, I now know the name of the helicopter… will tell you as they look down from hundreds of feet in the air that everything looks normal.”
“I challenge you: what is your normal?” she asked. “Let them take each other out? Is that your normal? That's what happened.”
Councilmember Mark Conway oversees the committee that held the hearing. He called for a five-minute recess. When the committee returned, he decided that they would not continue.
“In the everyday conversation that we have here, it’s not often that we get to see first-hand the impact it has on families, on people, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers. Literally every single person in this room is moved. I don’t feel comfortable continuing to have this conversation. Not right now.”
The rest of the hearing will presumably be rescheduled at a later date.
Before Gonzalez spoke, the council grilled the Baltimore Police Department about the findings of their nearly 100-page long after action report that was released in late August.
Council Presses on Police
Before Gonzalez spoke, the council grilled the Baltimore Police Department about the findings of their nearly 100-page long after action report that was released in late August.
In that report, police detailed multiple times that they failed to deploy resources to the crowd growing at the block party in Brooklyn Homes, a housing project in South Baltimore. The report said that acting sergeants and lieutenants gave “very little consideration” of potential public safety problems that could occur with crowds reaching to nearly 1,000 people.
During Wednesday’s hearing, the council pressed acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley and Deputy Commissioner Eric Melancon, who oversees the Compliance Bureau, about the disciplinary actions taken against some of the involved officers.
Neither would confirm or say how many officers have been referred to internal affairs to face discipline out of concerns that the investigations could be compromised; Worley reiterated that the only staff reassignment made so far is that of the Southern District Commander. That position was held by Sam Hood and is now held by Major Jason I. Bennett.
Melancon did confirm at least one officer who could be facing discipline: on the night of the Brooklyn day block party one officer responded to a call for service by saying “we may need to call in the National Guard.” That person has been referred to discipline for an “inappropriate comment.”
