Evidence markers line a sidewalk on Sunday at the scene of a deadly shooting overnight in Baltimore. Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post
Thirty people were shot, two fatally, overnight Sunday at an annual block party in South Baltimore, police said, marking yet another deadly night in a city struggling with violent crime.
The shooting – the city’s largest in recent memory – drew swift condemnation from Baltimore leaders and a plea from the city’s police union for increased staffing to address endemic gun violence amid a homicide rate that eclipses many other major cities.
Elected leaders from the governor’s mansion in Annapolis to the neighborhood’s City Council representative on Sunday stressed the urgency of a moment that asks what people are willing to accept as normal in a country where large-scale gun violence has become common.
“We want this mass shooting to be treated just as [if] it happened in rural America,” Mayor Brandon Scott said during the second news conference of the day in which he promised accountability for the bloodshed.
The calls for help came just after 12:30 a.m. Sunday for a shooting on Gretna Court in the city’s Brooklyn neighborhood, where people had gathered earlier for a yearly celebration known as Brooklyn Day. What had begun as a low-key community event erupted when police say at least two people opened fire, striking victims who ranged in age from 13 to 32 – nearly half of whom were under 18.
Aaliyah Gonzalez, 18, who had just graduated high school and received a college scholarship, died at the scene, her mother confirmed Sunday. A 20-year-old man was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later, according to the Baltimore Police Department.
Twenty-eight other victims were taken to or walked into hospitals, police said, adding that three victims were in critical condition early Sunday. University of Maryland Medical System spokesman Michael Schwartzberg said in an email Sunday afternoon that seven patients remained at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center.
Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement that his “heart breaks for these victims, their families, and the Baltimore community.”
“Maryland has had enough of watching gun violence continue to ravage our state and our nation,” Moore said. “The fact that these horrific shootings continue to take place is abominable. We as a state will continue to do everything we can to prevent senseless acts of violence like the one we saw last night.”
Witnesses to the shooting and its aftermath described a chaotic scene. Danny Gonzalez, 57, who is not related to the victim, heard the shots from his home and saw young adults running in terror – a scene captured on his security camera.
“Oh, God, it was at least 40 or 50 rounds,” he said, adding that the neighborhood is used to gunfire. “It’s just another killing weekend. This is Baltimore, Murderland.”
At the nearby Harbor Hospital emergency room, Suzanne Parker said she was in the waiting room when victims began streaming in, beginning with a man shot in the leg.
Authorities search for evidence at the scene of a deadly shooting early on Sunday in Baltimore. Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post
“They just kept coming. Various gunshot wounds. We saw a pregnant woman come in with a gunshot wound to the leg. We saw another young woman carried in, I believe she was shot in the head,” Parker wrote in a message to The Washington Post. “Then came the parents, desperately wanting to know if their kid was in the back.”
As the day wore on, Gonzalez’s mother shared her grief on Facebook, along with photos of Aaliyah, on the brink of everything: radiant in a senior portrait, beaming in a red cap and gown, surrounded by her family.
“Why would they do this to a perfect angel,” Krystal Gonzalez wrote. “I love you so much, baby. I didn’t get there fast enough.”
Marie Talios, who taught Aaliyah creative writing at Brooklyn Park Middle School, remembered her as an impressive student who could command a room.
“She was extremely bright,” Talios, 39, said. “She had a very sneaky sense of humor and would get this twinkle in her eye.”
Scott called the shooting “a reckless, cowardly act” that “did not have to happen.” Speaking to those responsible Sunday, he said: “We will not stop until we find you, and we will find you. Until then, I hope with every single breath that you take that you think about the lives that you took.”
Elected in 2020 with a pledge to reduce gun violence, Scott wrote in an editorial for The Post in January that authorities must work harder and more holistically to tackle the problem.
“Violence does not exist in a vacuum, and elected officials, advocates, law enforcement leaders, and policymakers owe it to our residents to look toward comprehensive, coordinated solutions,” he wrote.
This year, 140 homicides have been reported in Baltimore, according to Baltimore police data. The city of about 570,000 people routinely records more than 300 killings annually – though 290 people have been killed in the past 365 days, data show a year-over-year decline.
Despite that decline, Baltimore’s homicide rate is among the highest in the country, according to AH Datalytics, a firm frequently cited in stories about crime trends. By comparison, Washington, with a population of about 700,000, has seen around 200 homicides per year in recent years.
Scott has championed violence reduction programs that remove guns from the street and connect victims to support services but said more needs to be done.
“I can stand here today and tell you that homicides in Baltimore are down 20%,” he said at a news conference Sunday. “But who cares because 30 people were shot and two are dead.”
The violence comes as police departments around the country struggle to hire officers amid hostility to law enforcement that began rising after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.
On Sunday, the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police tweeted that, at the time of the shooting, the Southern District patrol shift was “working short-handed.”
Michael Mancuso, the FOP’s president, said in an email that there were no officers assigned to the gathering where the shooting took place and only three assigned to the Brooklyn area.
“This is a large area and to police it safely and effectively you need about 7-8 officers per shift,” he said.
A police spokesperson said information on the response time to the shooting was not available.
A police officer stands in the area of a mass shooting incident in the Southern District of Baltimore on Sunday. Police say a number of people were killed and dozens were wounded in a mass shooting that took place during a block party just after midnight. Julio Cortez/Associated Press
Members of the community – including its City Council representative – voiced concerns about a lack of police officers at the event, which acting Baltimore police commissioner Richard Worley said was unpermitted and therefore not on his radar.
“Where was the police presence?” a woman asked at a news conference after he had finished taking questions from reporters. “There was not one officer out here and my child was out here.”
“My job is to investigate, to see what our officers did once we figured out there was a large party,” he replied. “If we made mistakes, we will fix them. . . . But again, we did not know that this event was occurring.”
In a statement, Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, who represents Brooklyn, said that the shooting and the apparent lack of preparation for the event were “completely unacceptable.”
“It is evident that there were multiple levels of system failure from various agencies,” the statement 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.”
Former Baltimore police commissioner Michael S. Harrison, who stepped down last month, said in an interview Sunday that he is assisting with the department’s transition.
“I am not aware of any mass shooting in Baltimore to this degree,” he said. “This could be one of the most significant mass shootings with more people injured than any we can remember in recent times.”
Harrison said that the city’s police force is understaffed partly because of anti-police sentiment. However, he said, a lack of officers may not be to blame for the shooting or the response to it.
“When events are not just planned but permitted, the agency can have some awareness where it’s going to happen and how it’s going to happen,” he said. “Police need some level of staffing to have high visibility to prevent and deter these types of incidents.”
FOP President Mancuso blamed Harrison for the loss of police personnel. The force is down to 2,100 officers, he said, while 2,800 are needed.
“This is due to poor pay and working conditions to include a hostile work environment for our officers, both internally and externally,” Mancuso said.
Moore, the governor, said his administration would provide whatever resources were needed to assist local officials and vowed to the victims’ loved ones: “You deserve better and we will work together to bring you just that. You have my word.”
In a statement, Maryland State Senate President Bill Ferguson, D-Baltimore, said Baltimore and state authorities must work together “to help solve the underlying root causes of the gun violence epidemic in our community.”
“This is well beyond gut-wrenching, it’s a worst-case nightmare,” the statement said.
The Washington Post’s Ovetta Wiggins contributed to this report.
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