Despite Baltimore Police Department policies that call for officers to de-escalate in behavioral health emergencies, police forced entry through two different doors and shouted commands at 70-year-old Pytorcarcha Brooks before fatally shooting her on June 25, newly released body-worn camera footage shows.

Police initially sought to leave the scene, stating that Brooks clearly didn’t want to be bothered and it’s not within police policy to remove someone experiencing a mental health crisis from their home when they don’t appear to be a danger to themself or others.

“Mom’s okay,” Officer Stephen Colbert said to a family member on the phone. “She’s okay, well, as far as moving around and being able to open and close the door. She just don’t want to be bothered by nobody, it looks like.”

The footage shows that Baltimore police spent about thirty minutes debating how to approach Brooks, then kicked down her door and confronted her with tasers before shooting her when she approached an officer with a knife in her hand.

The incident is one of three police-involved deaths in the span of eight days in June that appeared to involve people experiencing mental health crises and raised questions about Baltimore’s crisis response system. 

The officers who responded to Brooks’ house did not call for the Baltimore Police Department’s Crisis Response Team, which pairs police with mental health clinicians. The department’s only Crisis Response Team was also handling another call at the time. 

Only one officer at the scene had received Crisis Intervention Team training, Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said at Wednesday’s press conference.

BPD’s crisis intervention policy calls for the officer with CIT training to “take the lead” on the scene of a behavioral health incident, but Rashad Horsey, the officer Worley said had the training, did not lead or even enter Brooks’ house, the videos show. 

The footage shows the officers who responded to the 2700 block of Mosher Street knew Brooks was experiencing a mental health crisis. They spent close to a half hour standing in the alley behind Brooks’ house, debating how to approach the situation, and having emergency personnel from the fire department attempt to speak with Brooks. 

After Brooks first refused them entry, Colbert suggested that they leave.

“We opened the door, she closed the door, looks good to me,” he said. The officers also told Brooks’ family member that he would need to file an emergency petition to have her hospitalized against her will.

A responding EMT indicated during the conversation that the fire department has different policies for dealing with behavioral health crises, but the department did not immediately respond to questions about how their policies differ. 

After knocking on the front door several times, officers attempted to enter through the back door with a key provided by a family member, but Brooks pushed the door shut from the inside. A medic tried to ask Brooks basic questions through the door, like the year and how many quarters make a dollar, to assess her mental state. The responders could not hear answers through the door.

“I’m trying to be nice here,” the medic said through the door. “If you don’t answer my questions I’m going to have to take you out of here.” 

The medic told the officers, “If she’s not answering questions, they have to take her appropriately, per our rules.”

When officers tried to force the back door open, they encountered pushback and then saw Brooks stick her arm out with a knife in her hand. She immediately slammed the door shut again.

The officers then decided to go back to the front of the house and enter that way. Worley said at the July 9 press conference that the officers needed to intervene when Brooks couldn’t answer the medic’s questions, and because there was concern about the extreme heat that day.

“I’m going hot with a taser,” one officer said, just before they forced entry.

An officer kicked down the front door, and then another officer kicked an inner door open and entered the house. Brooks was inside, holding a knife. The officers shouted several commands, including “drop the knife,” “get on the ground,” and “get back,” according to the video.

One officer proceeded forward into the house and tased Brooks when she did not drop the knife, causing her to fall backwards onto a couch. Brooks stood up again and approached the officer, who had moved further into her home. The officer then tripped on a piece of furniture, falling to the ground. Brooks swung the knife in his direction and another officer fired three shots. Brooks can be seen slumping to the ground. She was transported to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office, which investigates fatal police shootings, previously identified two of the officers involved as Colbert, who has worked in the police department for eight years, and Officer Stephen Galewski, who has worked in the department for three years. Colbert appears to have fired the shots, according to the video. Police Commissioner Richard Worley said the involved officer has been placed on administrative leave, per department policy.

Worley said the department has “come a long way” in handling mental health crises, “but this video, clearly, and other videos, not just here but throughout the country, has shown that we’ve got a long way to go dealing with behavioral crisis.”

“Police officers are police officers,” he said. “We give them the training that we can give them to deal with this, but behavioral health is a medical issue that we have to address, and people that aren’t police officers have to help us address this.”

Worley said previously that police had received about 20 calls for behavioral health issues at the house this year. The city launched a Behavioral Health 9-1-1 Diversion Pilot Program in 2021 with the aim of avoiding police involvement in mental health crises and diverting those calls to clinicians.

The police department is auditing the earlier calls it received to see what happened in each incident, Deputy Police Commissioner Brian Nadeau said at the press conference.

On the day of the shooting, police received two calls about the residence: one from a social worker who checked on Brooks and received no answer, and another from a family member who said Brooks attempted to stab him with a knife. Police responded at about 1:35 p.m. and spoke with the family member, who provided the key to the back door. 

Baltimore Beat previously reported that a family member sought to take over Brooks’ medical and financial decisions through guardianship less than a month before the shooting, but was hindered when a judge denied his request to waive the $165 filing fee.

David Jaros, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, said it is important to examine the entire crisis response system, not just the final moments before the fatal shooting.

“These repeated events are a reminder that we have to consider the whole response to the problem if we want to make reforms to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening,” he said.

The post Baltimore police escalated mental health emergency before killing 70-year-old Pytorcarcha Brooks, bodycam footage shows appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Amid calls for the adoption of more ambitious harm reduction initiatives to combat Baltimore’s unprecedented overdose crisis, Councilman Ryan Dorsey says it’s important not to mince words: overdose prevention centers are needed now.

Dorsey’s endorsement of OPCs, which provide people a safe, judgment-free space to use drugs under the supervision of medical professionals, came at the tail end of a two-hour-long public hearing on the city’s overdose crisis. Though his support is not new, his calls at the July 9 hearing provided an unusually explicit and public endorsement of the programs — a stark contrast to Mayor Brandon Scott and his administration.

“One thing I can say that I’ve come to understand as absolutely critical to our path forward is overdose prevention centers,” Dorsey said. “I don’t think we can get this going quickly enough.”

Dorsey, who spoke about his experience in abstinence-based recovery, said he has gained a “very personalized” perspective on drug use and treatment as city officials mull how they will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to address a crisis that has killed thousands of residents, a disproportionate number of which are older Black men, over the past decade.

“It’s absolutely tragic when [drug users] die unnecessarily,” Dorsey said. “That’s the difference overdose prevention makes: that people do not die unnecessarily.”

Dorsey was passionate in his comments, but a lone council member does not have the power required to implement OPCs at the city level, despite harm reductionists in Baltimore calling for them for years.

Any such program would require an inter-agency, coordinated effort approved by the mayor, who has only endorsed state-level legislation that would legalize as many as six OPCs. Despite repeated questioning by media, he’s fallen short of endorsing city-sanctioned programs — something Dorsey previously said he fully supports.

OPCs, also known as safe consumption sites, are scarce in the U.S., only operating in New York City and Providence, Rhode Island, with the New York City sites operating without any explicit approval by state law. 

However, they have been crucial programs in other areas of the world for years, where studies have shown they reduce HIV and hepatitis transmission, prevent overdose deaths, and reduce public use of drugs.

They’re also seen as the golden standard for moving away from a criminalized approach to drug use, which could have major implications in a city where almost all people arrested for drug crimes are Black.

Bills to create OPCs have been introduced in the Maryland General Assembly for the better part of a decade, but they’ve repeatedly died in committee. 

Though Mayor Scott has the authority to unilaterally impose measures such as OPCs, he has repeatedly declined to comment on the matter despite naming them a “legislative priority” this year.

After the city council’s first public hearing — which came after similar hearings over the last year were cancelled in response to pressure from the mayor’s office because of ongoing opioid litigation — a member of his administration seemed to indicate he’s more open to the process after another year of setbacks in the General Assembly.

“Mayor Scott is unequivocal in his support of overdose prevention centers as a tool in the toolbelt to keep people alive,” said J.D. Merrill, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, after the public hearing.

“We are looking for all possible avenues for how to do it in Baltimore. But I want to be really clear: We have to do this the right way. We can’t go the way of Philadelphia. We have to do this right, because if we don’t it’s going to damage the harm reduction movement.”

The allusion to efforts to open OPCs in Philadelphia has been a sour subject for harm reductionists.

In President Donald Trump’s first term in office, the Department of Justice blocked a nonprofit called Safehouse from opening a center in Philadelphia, much to the chagrin of advocates and public health experts. The organization, which offers other harm reduction services, has been in a lengthy legal battle with the federal government ever since.

Candy Kerr, spokesperson for the Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition, said the city can’t afford to wait. During the hearing, she invoked William Miller Sr., a ubiquitous figurename in the harm reduction community who died in 2020.

“If [an OPC] had been opened in the City of Baltimore, we might not have lost him a few years ago. So I come here to stand on that.”

It is clear, however, that the city is paving the way for the sites in Baltimore sometime in the future.

Last week, officials unveiled a sweeping strategic plan to serve as a roadmap for the city’s overdose prevention and substance use treatment initiatives, aiming to cut fatal overdoses 40% by 2040.

Though the two-year, 20-page draft plan makes no mention of OPCs, it explicitly states that one of the city’s priorities is to “increase access to a full array of low barrier harm reduction services (including naloxone distribution, drug checking, syringe service programs, and other evidence-based strategies,” the latter of which indicates OPCs would fall under that criteria.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Sara Whaley, executive director of the city’s overdose response, reiterated the plan could be a way to meet Dorsey’s goal.

“In the strategic plan, you’ll find references to things like ‘low-barrier access’ to services that feasibly could be something like an overdose prevention center,” Whaley said. 

It’s unclear whether there is enough support among council members to steer the city toward city-sanctioned sites. Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, chair of the Public Health and Environment Committee, said she wants to explore the sites but also wants to ensure there is proper “inter-agency coordination” in place to do so.

Councilman Mark Conway, the committee’s vice chair who publicly feuded with the mayor after public hearings he scheduled last July and this February were cancelled, was not present at the meeting.

A lack of full-throated support among council members, on the other hand, was not reflective of the crowd. At the hearing, about half a dozen harm reduction organizers said OPCs were an absolute priority to advance their work, also proclaiming their support for the decriminalization of drug paraphernalia — another potential city-level initiative that the mayor has only supported in the General Assembly.

The Public Health and Environment Committee will hold three more hearings on the overdose crisis and related matters at 10 a.m. in the City Council’s chambers this month:

• July 16: Hearing on legislative oversight of the opioid restitution funds.
• July 23: Hearing on legislative oversight of psychiatric rehabilitation programs.
• July 30: Hearing on oversight of recovery homes and substance use clinics.

In addition, Scott on Wednesday announced four “community listening sessions” to discuss restitution funds at 5:30 p.m. at the following locations and dates:

• July 9: Cherry Hill Elementary and Middle School, 801 Bridgeway Road.
• July 17: Gethsemane Baptist Church, 2520 Francis Street.
• July 23: Pimlico Elementary and Middle School, 4849 Pimlico Road.
• July 31: Henderson Hopkins Elementary and Middle School, 2100 Ashland Avenue.

The post As mayor’s administration tiptoes around overdose prevention centers, Councilman Dorsey says they’re needed now appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

In Baltimore, thousands of families still struggle with unreliable or no internet access, limiting their ability to work, learn, and access healthcare. According to Maryland’s Statewide Broadband Access and Equity phone survey, 38% of low-income Baltimore households either lack a computer or rely on a smartphone to get online.

Greenlight Networks, a fiber internet provider dedicated to expanding affordable, high-speed access, is investing $100 million to bring reliable fiber connectivity to historically marginalized communities across the city. Fiber is a broadband technology that transmits data at about 70% of the speed of light — making it ideal for supporting daily internet use for households and local businesses alike.

Digital access gaps remain stark in Baltimore City’s low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. The Abell Foundations’ May 2020 report found that 73.3% of white households have wired broadband internet, compared to just 50.2% of African American households and 46.4% of Hispanic households. 

Makaila Hyman, a Johns Hopkins University student from East Baltimore, experienced firsthand how unreliable internet access can disrupt education. 

“During an online exam this past semester, my WiFi crashed mid-test, and I had to switch to my phone to finish. It was stressful trying to focus while dealing with connection issues, and I worried it would affect my performance,” she said.

Since its founding in 2011, Greenlight Networks has provided internet access to more than 225,000 homes and nearly 10,000 small businesses across 35 cities in upstate New York. Now, the company is expanding to Baltimore, where competition is limited and the opportunity to close the digital divide is great, Michele Sadwick, Greenlight Networks’ chief revenue officer, said.

Phase 1 of their plan includes neighborhoods such as Mount Washington, Roland Park, Belair-Edison, Frankford, Hamilton Hills, Arcadia, and Hampden, among others. The company also plans to open a permanent office in the city staffed by local residents. 

“There’s a clear demand in Baltimore for better internet, and Greenlight is excited to deliver a choice for broadband internet that this community has long awaited and rightfully deserves,” said CEO Mark Murphy in a press release. 

By September 2025, Greenlight Networks anticipates connecting thousands of Baltimore homes. The company is conducting outreach throughout the city to connect with local leaders in the areas where they plan to expand.

“We are also working with the City of Baltimore’s Digital Equity office to look for broader opportunities where we can partner to try to make an impact on life in the community,” Sadwick said.

Lo Smith, executive director of Baltimore’s Digital Equity Coalition, said despite this investment, there are still challenges at the federal level with expanding internet access. The Digital Equity Act, a $2.75 billion grant program aimed at boosting digital literacy and access for communities like Baltimore, was canceled in May 2025 under the Trump administration. Paired with the loss of the Affordable Connectivity Program, many Baltimoreans continue to face declining internet access.

“With more options for Baltimoreans, hopefully, folks can find the internet service provider, program, plan, or resource that works for them,” Smith said.

The post Greenlight Networks to invest $100 million to expand fiber internet in Baltimore appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Baltimore officials have unveiled a sweeping plan to combat the city’s unprecedented overdose crisis — one largely predicated on acknowledging shortfalls in the city’s harm reduction infrastructure and the need to double down on compassionate care for drug users.

The two-year, 20-page draft plan, which aims to cut fatal overdoses 40% by 2040, was unveiled on July 2 by the new Mayor’s Office of Overdose Response. Mayor Brandon Scott created the agency through an executive order last year as part of a new chapter in the city’s fight against the crisis, during which officials have struggled to balance compassionate drug policy and punitive drug enforcement.

“The harm reduction approach, which is sort of a philosophy, is not consistently adopted in Baltimore City,” said Sadiya Muqueeth, chief health policy officer at the Baltimore City Health Department. “Baltimore City’s insufficient access to harm reduction services and lack of safe spaces increases overdose risk.”

The strategic plan, which was released in tandem with a needs assessment dashboard comprising local overdose data and areas in which the city can improve, focuses on five pillars: social determinants of health, prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery.

Its recommendations provide a holistic view of the crisis, embodying a ground-up approach. For instance, many of its prevention initiatives focus on general quality of life, such as increasing access to transportation, education, food assistance, employment, and housing.

It also calls for services directly pertaining to drug use and harm reduction. The plan recommends bolstering initiatives targeted at those disproportionately affected by the crisis, namely older Black men. Those programs include low-barrier, mobile harm reduction and crisis services in addition to brick-and-mortar locations.

Other recommendations in the plan include increased data transparency, educational campaigns, expanded 988 services, 24/7 stabilization centers, expanded access to treatment, and better oversight of treatment programs.

“Although there is no simple solution to the overdose crisis and we will not overcome it overnight, this strategic plan proposes an innovative approach to meet the present and immediate needs across our community—while laying the groundwork for the long-term changes to help end this crisis,” Scott said in a statement.

Though the strategic plan lists myriad other goals, it also contains some ambiguity, leaving the door open for specific programs that aren’t currently offered by the city. The plan, for example, makes no mention of overdose prevention centers, or OPCs, which allow individuals to use drugs under the supervision of medical professionals. 

The facilities are considered the gold standard in harm reduction, and Scott named them as one of his 21 “legislative priorities” this year. While Scott has supported efforts in the General Assembly to legalize OPCs for years, he has refused to answer questions about city-sanctioned sites like ones New York City has implemented.

The report, however, explicitly states that one of the city’s priorities is to “increase access to a full array of low barrier harm reduction services (including naloxone distribution, drug checking, syringe service programs, and other evidence-based strategies,” the latter of which indicates OPCs would fall under that criteria.

The unveiling of the strategic plan and needs assessment comes less than a month after a Baltimore Beat investigation detailing how city officials have found themselves unable — or unwilling — to let go of punitive drug enforcement and the millions of dollars it takes to bankroll the cops who carry it out.

Baltimore Police Department data obtained by the Beat showed that nearly all individuals charged and arrested on drug crimes in Baltimore are Black — even though studies show that drug use rates among the Black population are similar to those of other races. 

Though investing in diversion programs to prevent incarceration is a key recommendation in the report, officials said that law enforcement would continue to play a role in combating the overdose crisis. Those efforts would mostly focus on removing drugs from the streets, said Sara Whaley, executive director of the city’s overdose response.

Yet Whaley also emphasized that any police enforcement must be met with equally strong harm reduction initiatives, recognizing that drug enforcement can increase fatal overdose rates by disrupting the drug supply and pushing drug users toward riskier sources.

“When this happens, there must be a public health response so that people receive connection to care when the drug supply is interrupted through law enforcement action,” she said. 

Baltimore residents will now have the opportunity to give their input on the strategic plan at four public hearings, all of which are scheduled for this month at 5:30 p.m:

• July 9: Cherry Hill Elementary and Middle School, 801 Bridgeway Road
• July 17: Gethsemane Baptist Church, 2520 Francis Street
• July 23: Pimlico Elementary and Middle School, 4849 Pimlico Road
• July 31: Henderson Hopkins Elementary and Middle School, 2100 Ashland Avenue

Though the plan is intended to leverage multiple funding streams, including grants and restitution funds, it’s unclear how much money the city itself would put toward it. The city’s fiscal priorities may not be conducive to maximizing its harm reduction infrastructure.

Scott’s budget, which he signed on June 23, includes a $9.8 million increase to mental health and substance use disorder services, an 87% increase over the year prior. However, it also served as a stark reminder of the city’s battle between “public safety” and public health.

The fiscal plan also includes a $7 million cut to the health department, marking a 3.5% decrease from the year prior. At $201 million, its budget is less than one-third of the police department’s — and nearly half of that comes from federal funding that could be lost because of President Donald Trump’s barrage of cost-cutting measures.

At the same time, the police department will receive a more than $20 million increase, bringing its total to almost $613 million. At budget hearings, Police Commissioner Richard boasted an 11% increase in felony drug arrests and a 28% increase in misdemeanor arrests to justify the increase. 

Drug enforcement, meanwhile, could violate the same harm reduction principles cited in the city’s strategic plan.

Budgetary measures aside, the strategic plan’s main goals closely resemble those of the city’s $5.2 billion abatement plan, which was rejected by a judge last month in an ongoing lawsuit against two massive opioid distributors.

Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Lawrence P. Fletcher-Hill rejected the city’s request for billions in abatement money and ruled that he would allow for a new trial in the case against two opioid distributors in a landmark opioid trial, reversing a 2024 jury verdict that won the city $266 million in “public nuisance” damages.

Leading up to the judge’s ruling earlier this month, city officials had hoped the judge would leave the jury verdict untouched.

Instead, Fletcher-Hill tore apart the city’s argument and rejected the request, indicating the city likely won’t receive anywhere near the billions of dollars it had asked for — something that could hinder the implementation of the strategic plan.

The city’s initial deadline to decide whether to opt for a new trial or accept a whopping 80% reduction in its award, totaling less than $52 million, was July 7. That has since been delayed until August 8, and Fletcher-Hill is expected to rule on abatement about two weeks before that deadline.

Per the judge’s ruling, the city must either accept the smaller reward or once again go to trial to determine what the companies should pay in public nuisance damages. Abatement is a separate issue, where the judge will determine how much — if any — additional damages the companies must cover for the city to redress the crisis.

The post With a focus on harm reduction, Baltimore’s strategic plan looks to cut fatal overdoses 40% by 2040 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Wednesday, July 2

West Wednesday: Hear about the ongoing fight for police accountability in the Tyrone West case and for all victims of police misconduct. This event happens every Wednesday. For more information, go to westcoalition.com or follow @westwednesday on Instagram and Justice for Tyrone West on Facebook.

Board of Estimates Meeting: 9 a.m. at City Hall in the Board of Estimates Chambers, 100 N. Holliday Street. For more information, go to comptroller.baltimorecity.gov/boe. 

Free Breakfast/Lunch: From now through July 31, all students can get free breakfast and lunch from Baltimore City Schools’ Str/EATS Cafe Food Truck. 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. for breakfast, 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for lunch at Armistead Gardens, 5001 E. Eager Street. For more information and more locations,go to mdsummermeals.org.

Thursday, July 3

1st Thursdays at the Mill on North |July 3rd Community Night | By BVFA: Collaborate with others interested in eliminating poverty and hunger in West Baltimore through the power of urban agriculture.  4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 2636 West North Avenue. For more information, go to baltimoreverticalfarms.org. 

Open Mic: “Black Ocean Storytelling”: Members of the Black African Diaspora are welcome to share their stories about their encounters with the ocean at this open mic night. 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Red Emma’s, 3128 Greenmount Avenue. For more information, go to redemmas.org. 

Friday, July 4

14th Annual Bike Ride to Fort McHenry: Join Catonsville Rails to Trails as they bike from Catonsville to Fort McHenry. 8 a.m. to noon starting at Catonsville Bike Shop, 825 Frederick Road Rear, Catonsville. For more information, go to crtt.org.

Sunday, July 6

rainboWEB: Get artistic with coloring books and art projects, learn about hopeful and empowering hxstory, and hear about mutual aid opportunities in this social gathering for “rainbow baltimoreans n our loved ones.” This is a masked event. Noon to 4 p.m. at Red Emma’s, 3128 Greenmount Avenue. For more information, email rainbowebaltimore@gmail.com, or go to redemmas.org/events. 

Monday, July 7

Mental Mondays in West Baltimore: Learn about various wellness practices, from yoga, to art, to meditation and everything in between. 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at The Factory, 5 N. Calhoun Street. For more information, go to nami.org. 

Tuesday, July 8

Free Self Defense Class in Canton: A self-defense class to learn techniques and boost your confidence. 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at CareFirst Engagement Center, 1501 S. Clinton Street, Suite 100. For more information, go to carefirst.com/cec.

Grief & Hope for People Impacted by Federal Changes: Learn how to manage grief and foster hope through indigenous knowledge and mental health practices. 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Impact Hub Baltimore, 10 E. North Avenue. For more information, go to baltimore.impacthub.net.

2025 BCPS Job Fair: Learn about available job opportunities with Baltimore County Public Schools. Please bring your resume. Interviews available. 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology, 938 York Road, Towson. For more information, go to bcps.org/jobs.

Wednesday, July 9

Lead the Change: A day of action, advocacy, and exchange honoring Baltimore change makers, empowering global leaders, and building a better world. 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Baltimore Unity Hall, 1505 Eutaw Place. For more information, go to civilrights.baltimorecity.gov.

Mayor’s Office of Overdose Response Listening Sessions: The first of four public listening sessions to get feedback on the new citywide Overdose Response Strategic Plan. Residents will learn about the plan and then join small group discussions to share their thoughts and experiences. Feedback will help shape the final version of the plan. Dinner and resources will start at 5:30 p.m.. Event will begin promptly at 6 p.m. Cherry Hill Elementary and Middle School, 801 Bridgeview Road. For more information, find @bcmoor_ on Instagram.

Thursday, July 10

BGE Open House at Sparrows Point Park Community Center: Get help understanding your bill. If you have anything to say to BG&E, this is perfect for doing so. 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at 1900 Wharf Road Edgemere. For more information, find “BGE Open House” on Eventbrite.

A Pathway to Success!!! Transition Fair: Panelists from colleges and vocational schools, giveaways, and light refreshments. 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at The Factory, 5 N. Calhoun Street. For more information, go to namibaltimore.org.

Friday, July 11

Baltimore, The City of Accessible Arts: Public Convening: This event will feature a screening of “Seeing Without Sight,” an exhibition by Make Studio and VisAbility Art Lab, a keynote address, and much more. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Enoch Pratt Central Library, 400 Cathedral Street. For more information, go to calendar.prattlibrary.org. 

Community of Practice: An interactive exhibit for residents, leaders, and stakeholders to explore the current state of police staffing and community relationships with local law enforcement. 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Pennsylvania Main Street Welcome Center, 1829 Pennsylvania Avenue. For more information, go to opi.baltimorecity.gov.

Baltimore Unity Hall Organizing 101 Workshop: Organizing is all about knowing where to apply pressure to systems to get the outcome you want. In Session 2: Power Mapping, you will learn a systematic approach to identifying those pressure points. By the end of this two-hour workshop, you should be able to identify effective strategies to effect change. 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Baltimore Unity Hall, 1505 Eutaw Place. For more information, go to baltimoreunityhall.org. 

“No Sense in Wishing” Book Talk: In conversation with journalist Timmhotep Aku, culture critic Lawrence Burney discusses his debut novel about the connections between himself, Baltimore, the Black diaspora, and music. 7 p.m. at Red Emma’s, 3128 Greenmount Avenue. For more information, go to redemmas.org/events/. 

Saturday, July 12

Justice for Tyrone West Run/Walk: Run or walk a 5k, 12k, or 12 miles for justice and accountability. 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. at Lake Montebello, 33rd street and Hillen Rd. For more information, find @Runners4Justice on Instagram or email runners4justicebalt@gmail.com.

Liberty Road Cleanup with Speaker Adrienne Jones: Everyone is welcome, and all students who participate will receive community service hours. 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. 8419 Liberty Road, Windsor Mill. For more information, call 410-455-5330 or email AAjaz@house.state.md.us.

Book Thing of Baltimore Monthly Giveaway: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at The Book Thing of Baltimore, 3001 Vineyard Lane. For more information, go to bookthing.org/faq, call 410-662-5631, or email info@bookthing.org. 

Sidewalk Repotting: B. Willow’s experts will repot up to three plants for you. The only thing you pay for is the soil. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at B. Willow, 220 W. 27th Street. For more information, go to bwillow.com. 

Baltimore/ Washington One Caribbean Carnival/ Festival 2025: A two day event filled with masqueraders, entertainment, music, arts and craft and food vendors. ($23.18, parade is free) July 12-13 at Druid Hill Park, 900 Druid Park Lake Drive. For more information, go to baltimorecarnival.org. 

Sunday, July 13

Kids Story Time at Greedy Reads: Join Greedy Reads Remington for a kids story time. 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at Greedy Reads Remington, 320 W. 29th Street. For more information, go to greedyreads.com.

Monday, July 14

Black Femme Freedom School Open Classroom Week: A special series of sessions where community, curiosity, and creativity come alive. These workshops are for adults and youth ages 14 and up. July 14-18. Location will be emailed to you upon confirmation of your RSVP. For more information, go to ngsworldwide.com/home.

Tuesday, July 15

Black Folx Book Club: “Freshwater”: Join Greedy Reads’s Leela Chantrelle for a discussion of “Freshwater,” by Akwaeke Emezi. This book is about a woman with separate selves who fights for control after a traumatic event. 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Greedy Reads Remington, 320 West 29th Street. For more information, go to greedyreads.com/events-book-clubs/book-clubs.

Genre Fiction Book Club:  “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel. Please RSVP. 6:30 p.m. at Snug Books, LLC, 4717 Harford Road, Suite 1C. For more information, go to https://www.snugbooks.com/events/event-calendars or call 443-869-4022.

The post Baltimore Government and Community Events 7/2/25-7/16/25 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

It was always going to be just a matter of time before another interaction involving the police and a Black person in Baltimore ended badly. We’ve just seen three happen, all within the span of a few weeks. 

Bilal “BJ” Abdullah died on June 17 in a chaotic incident in Upton community. Police bodyworn cameras show him firing three shots at officers. Officers fired 38 shots back at him. 

On June 25, Dontae Maurice Melton Jr. died in police custody after being restrained by BPD officers. He’d approached them looking for help. 

On June 27, an officer shot and killed 70-year-old Pytorcarcha Brooks. They had been called to her home for a welfare check and police say she advanced with a knife on an officer who slipped and fell.

And in truth, it’s likely that there are other incidents that happened in the years since Freddie Gray’s in 2015. Incidents involving police and the communities they are supposed to serve. 

We document all of these incidents in this issue. 

I say that it was only a matter of time because we haven’t gotten to the root of the problem, and there is very little political will to do that work. 

Freddie Gray’s death happened after a series of public Black deaths happened nationwide, in ways that could no longer be ignored. When communities couldn’t be ignored, politicians got uncomfortable. And when politicians got uncomfortable, they used their power to at least make motions toward the idea that something safer and better than policing as we knew it could exist.

Ten years passed and politicians are no longer uncomfortable. State’s Attorney Ivan Bates addressed the Baltimore City Police Department directly at his swearing in several years ago. He told them that they should feel more free to do their jobs under his reign than they should under former State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who had instituted more progressive measures. “For far too long, the State’s Attorney’s Office has tried to be all things to everybody, and, quite frankly, it hasn’t worked.”

Last week, Mayor Brandon Scott gave police his own sign of approval. “We should not allow anybody to be reduced to the worst moments of their life or circumstances around their death,” media quoted him as saying after Abdullah’s death. “But I’m going to be very clear, we cannot and will not allow individuals to carry and use illegal guns against police officers or anybody else in Baltimore without there being repercussions.”

He made the comments at the opening of a pool. The public death didn’t justify a press conference. There were no words about the safety of others in a community where over 30 shots were fired by police officers. There were no words of sympathy for the people who witnessed the incident.

This paper is free because I feel strongly that healthy communities only exist when everyone is informed. In the same way, healthy communities cannot exist unless the safety and health of everyone is a priority. 

The unrest that followed his death was a bubbling up of years of slights and resentments. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called outraged Baltimoreans thugs and doomed her career in public office. 

Back in 2015, then-councilperson Brandon Scott marched with groups calling for change. In 2025, he went out of his way to side with police. 

“We should not allow anybody to be reduced to the worst moments of their life or circumstances around their death,” he said. “But I’m going to be very clear, we cannot and will not allow individuals to carry and use illegal guns against police officers or anybody else in Baltimore without there being repercussions.”

He made the comments at the opening of a pool. The public death didn’t justify a press conference. 

The post  Letter from the editor – Issue 64 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

On June 11, as the sun bore down on an uncomfortably hot afternoon in Baltimore, four neighbors met under the shade of a tree on Ellerslie Avenue, a quiet road that divides Waverly from Ednor Gardens. Most were meeting for the first time, brought together by outrage over a Mother’s Day ICE raid just a block away and a shared commitment to take action. They were armed with clipboards and “know your rights” flyers tucked under their arms. Their goal: over the next two hours, knock on as many doors as possible to warn neighbors about escalating ICE activity and invite them to join a growing community defense network.

“We’re just part of a network of neighbors,” explained one canvasser, who declined to give their name, citing safety concerns. Those with more experience helped the newcomers run through the script: knock gently but firmly, introduce yourself, ask if the resident has heard about recent ICE activity, and offer ways to get involved. For those interested, there was a Signal group — an encrypted messaging app designed to keep participants secure from surveillance. Residents could choose their level of participation: receive alerts, observe, film, or engage more directly when ICE is spotted. That day’s efforts recruited more than two dozen new members to the group.

This grassroots mutual aid effort in Baltimore is part of a growing national movement: communities taking it upon themselves to defend their own as the Trump administration ramps up deportations and expands ICE’s reach. Driven by a quota of 3,000 arrests a day, ICE is increasingly targeting longtime community members — day laborers, asylum seekers, parents — over 70% of whom have no criminal history or have overstayed visas in a broken immigration system with few viable legal pathways to citizenship.

The neighbors’ work that day followed a march of hundreds through Highlandtown, a neighborhood with one of the city’s biggest immigrant communities. Marchers expressed solidarity with recent mass protests in Los Angeles sparked by a wave of ICE raids and the deployment of armed troops to suppress peaceful demonstrations. They visited grocery stores and other businesses where 16 day laborers were recently detained during ICE raids. 

Organizers from CASA, a leading immigrants’ rights organization, reminded the crowd that many of those being targeted fled violence fueled by decades of U.S. policy in Latin America, including funding death squads and economic sanctions. Now, they’re being met with plainclothes agents dragging fathers from grocery stores in front of their children.

The Trump administration has launched a full-scale campaign to turn its violent rhetoric into reality, increasingly using military tactics and equipment on anyone in its path. Trump has accused migrants of “poisoning the blood of the country” — echoing Nazi propaganda. Cities like Baltimore, which have large immigrant populations and limit cooperation with ICE, are in the crosshairs. 

“Current ICE actions are pushing people further into the shadows,” said Crisaly de los Santos, Baltimore and Central Maryland Director at CASA. “They’re creating a climate of fear where many in our communities no longer trust local law enforcement — largely because they can’t tell ICE apart from other agencies. That lack of clarity and transparency discourages people from reporting crimes or seeking help, which only further harms our communities.”

A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation highlights how immigration enforcement is stoking fear and uncertainty among undocumented immigrants and their families. Many parents report skipping medical appointments, avoiding public spaces, and feeling heightened anxiety — conditions that researchers say directly undermine mental and physical health.

On June 8, masked ICE agents in an unmarked vehicle detained two brothers near the intersection of E. Baltimore and Ellwood Street. Word spread quickly, and neighbors rushed to respond, several witnesses told Baltimore Beat. Some stood in front of the ICE vehicles, chanting and physically blocking their path. Others used their own cars to try and prevent the agents from leaving.The crowd had no training, no coordinated plan — just a shared sense of urgency. 

“Masked men are taking our neighbors. It shakes me up in a way because my maternal uncle was a Holocaust survivor. The idea of sticking up for the people around you—it’s just really important,” one witness who declined to be named due to safety concerns told the Beat.

Buzz Grambo, a local resident and military veteran, saw a post on a private Facebook page that tracks ICE activity, and rushed over. “I arrived after ICE had people in custody. I was yelling at ICE, telling them they were violating their oaths,” he said. “I also ride around the city on my scooter looking for ICE to yell at. I’m retired, so I have lots of free time.” Grambo sees resistance to ICE as a patriotic duty. 

ICE called for backup, and Baltimore police arrived on the scene — though, according to witnesses, BPD officers mostly stood by, conducting crowd control rather than assisting ICE. Ultimately, police cleared the way, and the brothers were taken into custody.

Baltimore is a welcoming city, meaning it limits cooperation with federal authorities seeking to detain immigrants without a signed warrant. Now that the Baltimore Police Department is under local control for the first time since the Civil War, advocates are calling for stronger protections. As Councilmember Mark Parker told the Beat during the march, the incident revealed how unprepared the city is to respond to ICE activity. “We had policies written on paper. Now we need to tighten them up,” he said.

The neighbors’ intervention wasn’t successful, but it wasn’t in vain. It added urgency to local organizing and helped build support for the City Council’s recent two million dollar budget allocation for immigrant services and legal defense. The additional funding for the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs will support case management, legal support, and wraparound services for families torn apart by detentions.

Parker emphasized the importance of legislative action on a local level.

“The biggest impact, given the constraints of the legal governing system we’re sitting in, is to make sure that people who are detained get every single opportunity to access legal services and to make sure that their families, who are left behind in our communities, whose loved ones have been ripped away from them by the federal government, are cared for,” Parker said.

At the canvassing meetup in June, neighbors recounted how ICE often arrives in unmarked SUVs, with agents dressed in plainclothes. “We don’t want our neighbors snatched off the street,” said another canvasser. “We want to be ready.”

And that readiness is growing. The neighborhood Signal group now includes over 86 local residents. Volunteers also collect phone numbers of elderly neighbors who don’t use Signal, and commit to calling them directly if ICE is spotted. The group connects residents with regular trainings through organizations like the Baltimore Rapid Response Network and Sanctuary Streets Baltimore.

They remind neighbors that the city may call itself a sanctuary, but that status won’t protect anyone unless people look out for each other.

Across the country, community members and elected officials have increasingly put their bodies on the line and faced arrest for nonviolently resisting ICE detaining individuals without due process or judicial warrants, or for demanding accountability from notorious ICE facilities. 

“I think we need to use whatever means necessary to stop this from happening, including nonviolent resistance, suing them, and using every legal and legislative tool we have,” said Councilmember Odette Ramos, the first person of Latinx heritage on the City Council. 

And so, neighborhood by neighborhood, door by door, Baltimoreans are offering a blueprint not just for solidarity, but for community defense.

The post Baltimore residents are mobilizing to protect their immigrant neighbors from ICE appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

A third-party investigation into workplace misconduct at the West North Avenue Development Authority has been completed, Baltimore Beat has learned.

The investigation was launched after the Beat in April revealed numerous former employees’ allegations of misconduct against Executive Director Chad Williams dating back to 2023, including stalking and harassment. The article also unearthed that Williams had been hired despite previously being the subject of a federal investigation over his handling of sexual harassment complaints at a Nevada housing authority, accused of sexual harassment at two different workplaces, and convicted of domestic violence while actively leading an agency in Baltimore.

“I was taken aback by some of the allegations that were brought forward,” said State Delegate Marlon Amprey, a non-voting member of WNADA’s board who confirmed the existence of the investigation on June 30. “I take these allegations very seriously.”

Before Amprey confirmed the existence of the investigation to the Beat, all 20 board members ignored requests for comment about the allegations against Williams and remained mum about the allegations in the two months since the Beat’s article was published.

Amprey declined to provide the name of the law firm that conducted the investigation or its contents. He emphasized that it was not a criminal or civil investigation, but rather an investigation into allegations of workplace misconduct and a toxic work environment.

Amprey said he vocally supported the investigation, which was being called for by board members prior to the Beat’s article, he said. The only additional details that he provided were that the law firm was chosen by the state Attorney General’s Office.

The Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Board members will now continue to discuss the report’s findings, which are expected to eventually be made public, Amprey added. From there, decisions will be made about whether its findings constitute criminal or civil investigations.

Governor Wes Moore, who sits on the board, declined to comment. Mayor Brandon Scott did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did any remaining members of the 20-person board.

WNADA’s next board meeting is at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, September 30, at Coppin State University.

Keyonna Penick, a former chief of staff and special assistant at WNADA who was with the organization for about one and a half years, called the investigation “bullshit.”

“I’m sure [Williams will] still find a way to flip this on the staff and taunt them to leave if unhappy,” Penick said. “The board is complicit.”

Penick joined WNADA in 2023 and was fired in March because of alleged performance issues. She was the first former employee to publicly call for Williams’ firing in an April 7 email sent to board members, current employees, and news outlets, recalling experiences she had and witnessed during her tenure at WNADA.

“I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge my own silence in the past. There were times when I saw the writing on the wall but convinced myself it wasn’t my fight. I needed my job. I justified my inaction, just as many of us do when survival takes precedence over principle. I won’t make that mistake again,” Penick wrote in the email.

WNADA is a state agency created in 2021 by bills sponsored by Amprey and Senator Antonio Hayes, both West Baltimore Democrats, to revitalize the West North Avenue corridor, which has seen decades of disinvestment. 

Williams became the authority’s founding executive director in 2022, tasked with building the agency from the ground up, creating a redevelopment plan for West North Avenue, and overseeing millions of dollars in funding. 

In the roughly three years he has helmed the agency, public officials have lauded his work to redevelop an area that has experienced disinvestment for decades.

Williams’ alleged misconduct came to light after Penick and multiple other women spoke to the Beat about how he reportedly harassed, stalked, and retaliated against employees since at least 2023.

Those employees accused Williams of targeting and humiliating women on the job, allegedly stalking one woman, and manipulating the grant process to favor certain entities.

Prior to joining WNADA, he was accused of sexual harassment “while serving as a board member for The Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington in Washington, D.C.,” according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “The accusation cost him his seat, but Williams has said that an investigation launched by the nonprofit coalition eventually discredited the claims,” the outlet reported. 

Six years later in Las Vegas, sexual harassment and age discrimination complaints against Williams, then executive director of the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority, led to more than $125,000 in settlements with two women, the Review-Journal reported. 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also investigated the authority’s handling of sexual misconduct complaints against Theodore Tulle, the chief operating officer, under Williams’ tenure, the outlet reported. In February 2021, six months before the Review-Journal reported the news of the federal investigation, Williams was put on administrative leave until his contract expired that June.

More recently, court records show Williams was charged with misdemeanor and felony battery charges in Las Vegas after being arrested on New Year’s Day 2023 for “punching a sleeping woman, throwing her to the ground and kicking her in the ribs and face,” the Review-Journal reported. The woman was bruised and had dried blood on her face when police arrived after a 911 caller nearby reported hearing a woman crying and yelling “stop” inside the house, according to the article. The woman told police that Williams stopped her from calling 911.

Court records show he pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge in March of this year, after initially pleading not guilty to all the charges. The other charges were later dropped. 

Logan Hullinger can be contacted securely by email at logan.hullinger@protonmail.com or on Signal at loganhullinger.24. Anonymity can be provided upon request.

The post Investigation into WNADA director Chad Williams’ misconduct quietly completed after Baltimore Beat reporting appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Dontae Maurice Melton Jr. died in the custody of Baltimore Police officers June 25 after he was restrained on the night of the 24th during a mental health crisis at the intersection of Franklin Street and Franklintown Road, where he asked a police officer for help.

The 31-year-old father of two suffered from mood disorders and a seizure disorder, his mother, Eleshiea Goode, told Baltimore Beat.

“His decision to start using drugs was his way of self-medicating as he tried to fight the battlefield in his mind that never seem to allow him to rest,” Goode wrote in a text message to the Beat. “He’s been to rehab around seven times in the past 10 years on his own ( he went when he was ‘ready’) because he never gave up on trying to beat the demons in his head.”

After a rehab stint in Crownsville, Melton remained sober for some time and began working at a medical waste plant in Curtis Bay. “He kept that job for almost a year and even bought himself a used truck and was extremely proud of himself as this was the first time he made significant progress managing his condition,” Goode said. 

Melton and Goode were the subjects of a 2005 Baltimore Sun story about access to tutoring that opens with an almost bucolic sense of their family life in Edmondson Village. “It’s a cool spring evening in Edmondson Village, and children are playing outside Dontae Melton’s house in the still-strong daylight,” the story begins.
“The 11-year-old boy, however, is in his family’s darkened living room, working by lamplight on a writing assignment under the supervision of a private tutor paid for by Baltimore’s public schools.”

Goode was in graduate school at the time studying to be a school counselor. “I have spent my life helping young people achieve success as a School Counselor in Baltimore City Public Schools rising to a specialist position leading school counselors in the district,” she says.

According to his mother, Melton graduated from Forest Park High School in 2011 and worked as a busboy at The Prime Rib. He later had trouble with the police as he struggled with his mental health, including an attempted murder charge, stemming, according to Goode, from an incident when he was jumped by three people and fired a gun into the air. The charge was later reduced to reckless endangerment. 

Melton was the father of a 13-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter and remained active in their lives despite his struggles. Sometime around Mother’s Day this year, according to Goode, Melton lost his job at the medical waste plant, “but didn’t want to tell me until after Mother’s Day because he didn’t want to ruin my day. For probably the first time in a very long time, he got me and my mom gifts for Mother’s Day which is something he wasn’t able to do over the years due to his addiction.”

After relapsing, Melton checked himself into a seven-day detox program in early June so he could attend a family function sober. 

On June 12, Melton, his mother, his sister Kaila, and his children went to Main Event, where the family often celebrated special occasions with bowling and air hockey, for his daughter’s fifth grade graduation. “Dontae loved his kids and they loved him. He was also very close to sister and they were super competitive! Dontae did the best he could to show up for those he loved. He has a special relationship with my mom, and he helped to care for her when she was ill. He was certainly her favorite,” Goode says.

A few days later, he began to act erratically and finally left the house, saying he didn’t need anyone. His mother filed a protective order, which she was told would let police know he was suffering from mental health issues. As a licensed clinician, and Melton’s mother, Goode says she was in a position to know the signs of someone in need of assistance and filed an emergency petition the day before Melton died. “I told the court, ‘this time is different, my son is not himself and needs help,’” she recalls. The petition, she says, was denied. 

On June 24, Melton sought assistance from a Baltimore police officer. According to the initial report of the Independent Investigations Division of the Office of the Attorney General of Maryland, “at approximately 9:40 p.m., an adult man, approached a Baltimore Police Department (BPD) officer who was stopped at a traffic light in a marked police cruiser at the intersection of West Franklin Street and North Franklintown Road.”

“I’ve got a gentleman pulling on my doors asking for help,” an officer said on dispatch audio. “But he doesn’t look like he needs help.” 

Later, an officer said he “thinks somebody’s chasing him, but nobody’s chasing him.”

“While the officer was speaking to the man, the man walked into the middle of the roadway several times. The officer attempted to restrain the man for the man’s own safety, and when other BPD officers arrived on scene, officers placed the man in handcuffs and leg restraints,” the preliminary IID report continues. 

The report does not say whether the officers used violence to perform this restraint. At one point an officer radioed that “he’s very irate right now. They have leg shackles on him and handcuffs already.”

Melton was noted as unconscious at 10:15 p.m. but was not transported to the hospital until 10:30 p.m., 50 minutes after Melton first approached an officer seeking help. It is unclear from dispatch audio and the initial investigation what happened during the intervening period, but problems with the Computer Aided Dispatch system that emergency personnel use to communicate with each other seemed to have prevented a medic from arriving.

The IID, which now investigates such incidents, promises to release body camera footage and the names of the involved officers. Neither the officers nor Melton have been officially named. An employee of the Crown gas station at the intersection said police officers came and took the footage from the security cameras. The Attorney General’s Office did not respond to questions involving their investigation by press time but confirmed they are looking into who took the video footage. 

Melton is one of three people to die in encounters with police in less than two weeks. Both Bilal Abdullah, a beloved arabber, and Pytorcarcha Brooks, a 70-year-old woman, were shot and killed by police officers. 

City Council President Zeke Cohen has called for a hearing to examine the city’s crisis response system in response to the deaths. The city has one single crisis response team, and it’s unclear if the officers involved in Melton, Abdullah, or Brooks’ case were trained in crisis intervention. BPD has not responded to questions about whether the crisis response team was called or whether any of the officers in Melton’s case had received crisis response training. 

Melton’s case, where he died while in restraint, bears a resemblance to the case of Tyrone West, who died while being violently restrained by police in 2013. West’s death was ruled “undetermined” for years until an audit of the state medical examiner’s office revealed this May that his death was among three dozen cases involving restraint-related deaths that were incorrectly categorized as undetermined instead of homicides due to pro-police, anti-Black bias within the office.

West’s sister, Tawanda Jones, says that the police promised transparency. But even before the autopsy was performed, on their first visit with the family, police were already laying the groundwork for explanations other than murder. “They said… ‘We want to make sure that there weren’t other contributing factors of Mr. West’s death, that he wasn’t suffering from the heat, you know, because it was really hot yesterday,’” Jones recalls.

Jones had just taken her brother for a physical and didn’t believe the medical examiner’s explanation that ultimately attributed her brother’s death to a heart condition and the heat. Jones has held “West Wednesday” protests for her brother every week since July 18, 2013, when he was killed, and refused a million dollar settlement so she could continue to speak freely about the case. Six hundred and sixteen weeks later, she was finally vindicated by the audit, which began in 2021 after former Maryland Chief Medical Examiner David Fowler testified for the defense during the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and said that the death of George Floyd should have been classified as having an “undetermined” cause.

“As horrible as my brother’s murder was, the cover up was far worse,” Jones says of the lack of transparency and attempts to blame her brother for his own murder.

Goode, Melton’s mother, feels a similar lack of transparency when dealing with officials from the police department and the OAG. “They kept saying they didn’t know if the person deceased was my son, yet they were at my door,” she says. “They said they didn’t know what time he got to the hospital, but said he died ‘a couple hours after arrival.’ They transferred my son to the Medical Examiner’s office as a John Doe yet he told the police officer his name when he asked  for help.”

“This is a nightmare,” Goode says, lamenting “a system that is not set up for people like my son to succeed.”

“I have signed graduation transcripts for literally hundreds of Baltimore City school kids and continued to help them navigate life with many of the same challenges as my son,” she says. “It was hard knowing that I could help everyone else’s child, but not my own.”

The post Mother of Dontae Melton Jr., man who died in police custody, says the system failed her son appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen is calling for a hearing to examine the city’s crisis response systems after three Baltimore residents died or were killed during interactions with police officers “while experiencing behavioral health crises.”

“The City Council has fought for years to increase funding for Baltimore Crisis Response Inc because we know that law enforcement alone can not be expected to solve this problem,” he wrote in a statement.

On June 17, police shot 38 times at Bilal “BJ” Abdullah, killing the well-known arabber, near the Upton Metro station after Abdullah appeared to shoot at officers chasing him. A crowd of several hundred people gathered in West Baltimore to call for justice for Abdullah after his death, while family members and loved ones held a vigil and funeral for him.

The Attorney General’s office, which investigates police-involved fatalities in Maryland, announced on June 26 that it was investigating an incident from the night of June 24 in which a man who appeared to be having a mental health crisis was restrained by officers “for the man’s own safety” after he attempted to walk into the road several times. While in handcuffs and leg restraints, the man became unresponsive. When EMS didn’t arrive within the hour, officers took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead several hours later.

On June 25, police shot and killed Pytorcarcha Brooks, a 70-year-old woman who was allegedly wielding a knife, while responding to calls about a behavioral health crisis on Mosher Street. They had responded to behavioral health calls at that address 20 times this year alone, Commissioner Richard Worley said. 

BPD has a single crisis response team for the entire city, which was in Remington the day of Brooks’ death for more than 16 hours responding to a man experiencing a behavioral crisis and threatening to jump from a 13th-floor balcony, spokesperson Lindsey Eldridge said in an email.

Eldridge said that when the crisis response team receives a call while they’re responding to another one, the team members “would be briefed on both situations and a determination would be made on where they would be most needed.”

A police department spokesperson did not respond to inquiries about whether the officers responding to Mosher Street were trained in crisis response, and it’s unclear whether the officers involved in the other incidents were, either.

“Our community is still dealing with the trauma of witnessing the tragic death of Bilal Abdullah in the Upton community. And now we also have to reckon with the loss of one of our village elders being killed when what she probably needed was help,” Aaron Maybin, chair of the Baltimore City Civilian Review Board, said in a statement. “I understand that police officers have one of the most difficult jobs there is, but they need to find a way to respond to these types of situations that doesn’t end with deadly force. A 70-year-old woman with a knife should be able to be disarmed and apprehended without shots being fired.” 

“The most frustrating thing about both of these situations over the past couple of weeks is that neither one of them had to end with our citizens being killed.”

In a 2019 report about gaps in BPD’s crisis response system after a federal consent decree named it a problem area for the department, the Human Services Research Institute noted the low rates of crisis intervention-trained officers responding to behavioral health calls. 

“It is critical that police officers be better prepared for such contacts, so that the individuals in crisis and the officers, family members, and other individuals responding to it are not at risk of further traumatization from the act of seeking help,” the report reads.

All incoming officers receive 24 hours of behavioral health training at the police academy and an annual eight hours or more of behavioral health work provided during in-service training, but CIT-trained officers become certified by attending a 40-hour specialized training in addition to an annual refresher training.

The report also noted that the city’s failure to adequately track data “hampered” the organization’s ability to thoroughly analyze responses to crises, though it was clear that the city needed to make a shift toward community-based solutions.

A February 2024 consent decree monitoring report recorded that approximately 10% of BPD patrol officers were crisis intervention trained, nowhere near the department’s goal of 30%.

In December 2024, the monitoring team reported that BPD reduced that goal to 20% of patrol officers and was meeting that, but the department was still not ensuring the presence of CIT-trained officers at behavioral crisis events. The report also found that BPD was not doing enough to interview and review potential CIT training candidates.

Police involvement in mental health crises has been heavily debated. The conversation in Baltimore comes as media reports show that, despite a decrease in violent crime nationwide, the number of people fatally shot by cops has increased every year since 2020. 

Though localized data was not immediately available, multiple studies have found that any police involvement in mental health crises can do far more harm than good. 

A  2021 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that “even when officers undergo training in these areas, research demonstrates that it is not effective.”

“In the United States, a police encounter with a civilian is 16 times as likely to result in that person’s death if they have an untreated mental illness as if they do not,” the study states. “Structural racism exacerbates this risk, placing Black men with mental illness at significant risk for dying from U.S. police violence. And each killing reinforces the link between Black racial identity and violent fates, worsening the mental health of Black Americans.”

BPD told the monitoring team ahead of the December report that the “deficiencies” had been addressed. The consent decree monitoring team planned a re-assessment for early 2025, but it’s unclear whether that’s been conducted. The team did not respond to requests for comment.

Because this portion of the consent decree requires collaboration with other entities, the city and the Department of Justice agreed to a set of guidelines in 2023 that outline the city’s specific obligations, which include “Auditing and reviewing significant behavioral health events that resulted or nearly resulted in serious negative outcomes.”

In 2021, Baltimore launched the Behavioral Health 9-1-1 Diversion Pilot Program, which aims to avoid police involvement in behavioral health crises by diverting calls to mental health professionals. 

Under the program, if a 911 operator deems that a caller is in a crisis, they can direct the caller to the 988 help line operated by trained mental health clinicians.

“The central mission of this pilot program is to match individuals to the most appropriate and available resources when they call for assistance and reduce unnecessary police encounters with people in behavioral crises,” according to the program’s website.

Available data shows that, between June 2021 and February 2025, there were 3,968 crisis calls, 18% of which were unable to be diverted. The data shows that police still had a visible presence in behavioral health matters, with police involved in 44% of all calls during this time.

Calls peaked in 2022, when there were more than 1,500 incidents reported. The number has been on the decline since, with 55 calls as of February this year.

The diversion program is ongoing, said Adrienne Breidenstine, the vice president for policy and communications at Behavioral Health System Baltimore, which partnered with the city on the program. Mobile crisis teams, which do not include police, can be deployed through the 988 help line.

Madeleine O’Neill contributed reporting.

The post City’s crisis response system under scrutiny after three police-involved deaths in eight days appeared first on Baltimore Beat.