‘Heartbroken and Angered’: Safe Streets Worker Dies in Quadruple Shooting in East Baltimore

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BALTIMORE — A quadruple shooting in East Baltimore on Wednesday night left three people dead, including a Safe Streets worker, and one person injured, police said. Three others were injured in separate shootings in West and South Baltimore.

At about 7:25 p.m., Eastern District patrol officers responded to a ShotSpotter alert in the 2400 block of E. Monument St. Once there, officers located four men suffering from apparent gunshot wounds.

A 28-year-old man was pronounced dead on the scene. Medics transported three other victims to area hospitals, where a 24-year-old man and another  man were also pronounced dead.

The fourth victim, a 27-year-old man, is expected to survive.

One of the victims pronounced dead was a Safe Streets East worker, police said. Safe Streets is a city-backed organization made up of staff members who have had their own scrapes with the law, are respected on the streets and step in to try to mediate and end conflicts between people or groups before they turn violent.

City officials said they were heartbroken and angered by the death of the Safe Streets worker. They asked for residents to keep the victims and their families in their thoughts.

“We are heartbroken and angered by the news that another one of our own, a member of the Safe Streets family, was tragically taken from us during tonight’s quadruple shooting in East Baltimore,” Shantay Jackson, director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, which helps oversee Safe Streets, said in a statement. “We lost a brother, a villager, who was doing his job and nothing more. We must do better.”

The Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement will provide grief counseling and familial supports, Jackson said.

Mayor Brandon Scott called the incident a horrific tragedy.

“Our Safe Streets workers put their lives on the line day in and day out because they believe in a better future for our city — a future we all should believe in,” Scott said in a statement.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison added:  “We are dedicating every available resource to finding and apprehending the cowardly perpetrators of this act.”

Last year, two Safe Streets workers were fatally shot in the communities they served: Kenyell Wilson in Cherry Hill in South Baltimore in July and Dante Barksdale outside Douglass Homes in East Baltimore in January.



On Wednesday night, family members wailed and embraced one another and they stood on a nearby corner outside the crime scene tape. They declined to comment.

The Milton-Montford neighborhood shooting scene was quiet, except for a few onlookers who all declined to speak with a reporter.

“All I know is that this community is hurting and families are crying tonight,” Baltimore City Councilman Antonio Glover said at the scene.

He urged anybody with information to come forward, saying that Baltimore’s violence can  be solved only with unity.

”If you see something, you need to say something,” he said. “This is the only way we’re going to cure the violence.”

Homicide detectives are asking anyone with information to contact them at 410-396-2100 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7Lockup.

Earlier in the evening, Southern District patrol officers located two 25-year-old men suffering from gunshot wounds, both non-life-threatening,  at an area hospital.

A crime scene was located in Baltimore’s Brooklyn neighborhood in the 3600 block of Hanover St.

Southern District detectives are asking anyone with information to contact them at 410-396-2499 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7Lockup.

At about 9:46 p.m., Western District patrol officers responded to an area hospital for a report of a walk-in shooting victim. Once there, officers located a 29-year-old man  suffering from apparent graze wounds to the body. The victim stated that the incident occurred in the 2100 block of Baker St. in the Easterwood neighborhood.

Western District detectives are asking anyone with information to contact them at 410-396-2477 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7Lockup.