A violent Baltimore neighborhood passed a year with no homicides. How did they do it?

A Baltimore neighborhood reported no homicides in over a year. Officials credit the Baltimore anti-violence program Safe Streets, which employs mediators rather than police to de-escalate conflicts.

|
Stephanie Scarbrough/AP
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (right) embraces Adanus Sprillium during a press conference to celebrate achieving more than 365 days without a homicide within the Brooklyn neighborhood Safe Streets catchment zone, on Nov. 12, 2024, in Baltimore.

As Baltimore gun violence continues trending downward after years of rampant bloodshed, a historically troubled neighborhood in the city’s southwest corner is celebrating a long-awaited victory: zero homicides in over a year.

The numbers are especially meaningful for the Brooklyn community, where a mass shooting in July 2023 tore through an annual summer block party, leaving two people dead and 28 others injured in the courtyard of an aging public housing development. Most of the victims were teens and young adults.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, the city’s flagship anti-violence program Safe Streets ramped up its work in the area, and officials say the efforts have paid off. On the afternoon of Nov. 12, residents and city leaders gathered near the scene of the mass shooting to mark a year’s worth of progress.

“This isn’t just a Safe Streets accomplishment. It’s a testament to Brooklyn’s resilience and the power of community,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said. “This is a community that has been disinvested, neglected, and ignored for a long, long time. But together, collectively, we are saying enough is enough.”

Across the city, homicides are down about 24% compared to this time last year. That’s on top of a roughly 20% decline in 2023, when Baltimore recorded less than 300 homicides for the first time in nearly a decade, ending a surge that began in 2015 following the death of Freddie Gray and widespread civil unrest.

Violent crime has also decreased nationally after spiking during the pandemic.

Baltimore’s Safe Streets program has 10 offices based in some of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. It was launched in 2007 and expanded in recent years under Mr. Scott’s administration, which has often pledged to treat violence as a public health crisis and address its root causes.

Safe Streets focuses on de-escalating conflicts by employing mediators with credibility and knowledge of the streets. It’s inherently dangerous work as they form close relationships with individuals most at risk of becoming either perpetrators or victims of gun violence. Officials said reaching out to young people is key.

Adanus Sprillium said he recently enrolled in a residential job readiness program that was recommended by Safe Streets workers in Brooklyn. He had his first GED class last week. Mr. Sprillium said he was previously struggling with drug addiction and homelessness.

“I probably would’ve ended up being dead or in jail,” he said.

A community survey conducted in the weeks after the Brooklyn mass shooting showed that many neighborhood residents placed more trust in Safe Streets than Baltimore police, local schools, nonprofits, and other institutions, according to city officials. Only neighborhood churches ranked higher.

Even still, having Safe Streets workers present during the block party wasn’t enough to prevent it from ultimately devolving into chaos and bloodshed.

Baltimore police received sharp criticism for their response to the event. A report pointed to potential officer bias after finding police ignored multiple warning signs and failed to take proactive measures in the hours before gunfire broke out. Critics questioned whether police would have responded differently if the shooting occurred in a more affluent area.

The department announced discipline charges against a dozen officers earlier this year.

Five teenagers were arrested in connection with the shooting. Four of them have since pleaded guilty to various charges.

Sean Wees, the director of Safe Streets’ Brooklyn site, said many staff members have deep roots in the community. The team doubled down on promoting safety and connecting residents with services in response to the shooting. But Mr. Wees said there’s still more work to do.

“We work to promote peace and progress here in Brooklyn,” he said during the Nov. 12 gathering. “We can’t stop until this kind of ceremony is no longer necessary – until peace is the standard and not a streak measured in days or months.”

This story was reported by The Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Give us your feedback

We want to hear, did we miss an angle we should have covered? Should we come back to this topic? Or just give us a rating for this story. We want to hear from you.

 

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to A violent Baltimore neighborhood passed a year with no homicides. How did they do it?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2024/1113/Brooklyn-Baltimore-no-homicides-Safe-Streets
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe