Baltimore police officers face disciplinary action for inadequate response to mass shooting

BALTIMORE (AP) — Two Baltimore police officers could lose their jobs and 10 others face lesser disciplinary action over their response to a mass shooting at a neighborhood street festival in July 2023.

Two people died and 28 others were injured when gunfire ripped through a large crowd in the courtyard of the Brooklyn Homes public housing complex in south Baltimore as the annual Brooklyn Day summer celebration continued after dark. Most of the victims were teenagers and young adults.

Nearly a year later, Baltimore police announced Thursday that they plan to take disciplinary action against 12 department employees.

A report released last year found that Baltimore police ignored several warning signs and failed to take proactive action in the hours before the shooting.

“Officers’ indifference may have compromised attention, planning, and response to Brooklyn Day before the large crowds arrived,” department leaders wrote in the report. “Community members may view such indifference (whether real or imagined) as a form of bias.”

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, city leaders and residents sharply criticized the police department’s response. The conversations reopened old wounds and called into question ongoing efforts to reform the city’s embattled police force, which was thrust into the national spotlight years ago following the prison death of Freddie Gray in 2015.

The employees facing disciplinary action include eight sworn officers and four civilian employees, officials said in a news release Thursday. One officer and one civilian employee face termination. The others face suspension without pay, loss of vacation time and counseling.

Officers stated they violated the following department policies: making false statements, neglect of duty, conduct unbecoming an officer, and violation of body cam regulations.

Officials said the disciplinary action was recommended by two separate review boards, one department-internal and the other established as part of a package of statewide police accountability measures passed in 2021.

According to department spokeswoman Lindsey Eldridge, the disciplinary proceedings are still pending as an appeal could be filed.

“From day one, it has been important that we not only thoroughly investigate everything that happened before, during and after this tragic incident, but also hold accountable those who violated our policies and, most importantly, the public’s trust,” Police Chief Richard Worley said in a statement. “Our department is committed to learning from this incident and restoring the trust of the communities we serve.”

The report, released last year, blamed police superiors for repeatedly failing to intervene, even after Brooklyn Homes residents reported several hundred partygoers who may have been armed and disrupting order.

Police should have known about the incident in advance and stationed officers there to ensure security, as they have done in years past, but this time officers were caught off guard, the report says. This is partly because they did not properly communicate with Brooklyn Homes residents in the weeks and months prior, the report says.

The majority-black community in southwest Baltimore has long been subjected to a destructive cycle of poverty and neglect. Critics questioned whether police would have responded differently had the shooting occurred in a more affluent area.

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