Suspect In Brooklyn Homes Mass Shooting Held Without Bond
Charged with 7 Counts of Attempted Murder, Assault, Weapons Possession, Reckless Endangerment
By Gary Gately
journalistgarygately@gmail.com
The first suspect charged with firing shots during the Brooklyn Homes mass shooting has been ordered held without bond.
Tristan Brian Jackson, 18, faces seven counts of first-degree attempted murder, seven counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and 41 related charges, including assault, weapons possession and reckless endangerment.
Judge Catherine Chen ordered him held without bond at a brief District Court hearing Monday.
Chen based her decision on a review of Baltimore Police Department charging documents. They alleged that surveillance camera and private video footage showed Jackson spraying five rounds “in the direction of” seven people as they attempted to flee the gunfire that erupted around 12:30 a.m. July 2 at the public housing community in South Baltimore.
Police say Jackson, who lives in a rowhouse in Northwood, had been on house arrest with GPS monitoring for an unspecified offense at the time of the Brooklyn Homes mass shooting. It left an 18-year-old girl and a 20-year-old man dead and 28 others wounded, 23 of them teens.
The BPD announced in a news release Thursday evening that Jackson had been taken into custody while being held at the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center on Gay Street.
Police have refused further comment, making this case extremely unusual in that arrests in major crimes almost always prompt authorities to hold press conferences. Thus, reporters have been able to get no questions answered about the first arrest of a suspect charged with firing shots at Brooklyn Homes when an annual community celebration ended in death, screaming, sobbing and hundreds of revelers running for their lives.
Acting Police Commissioner Richard J. Worley Jr. has admitted to monumental failings in policing at Brooklyn Homes on July 1 and July 2.
"I am saddened we weren't able to protect and serve. I didn't want to be on world news for something negative. I’m angry, sad and very disappointed,” Worley said at a July 13 City Council hearing on the BPD’s role in the Brooklyn Homes tragedy.
Three days later, Mayor Brandon M. Scott nominated the 59-year-old Worley as the city’s next top cop, and the rubber-stamp Baltimore City Council appears almost certain to confirm him.
The BPD never dispatched officers to Brooklyn Homes on July 1 and July 2 despite 911 calls reporting hundreds of people wielding guns and knives and shots being fired hours before all hell broke loose.
The department had promised a report on what went wrong at Brooklyn Homes would be made public last week, but now says it won’t be until next month.
The BPD has refused to answer repeated questions from The Baltimore Observer on whether Worley, who collects a $207,000 salary from Baltimore City, has moved to Baltimore.
Mayor Bandon M. Scott’s office told The Baltimore Sun on June 15 that Worley is “actively looking” for a home in the city. The Sun reported that Worley’s latest financial disclosure statements, filed in April, showed that he lived in Edgewater, outside Annapolis and more than 30 miles from Baltimore City, and owned or co-owned homes in Glen Burnie, Pasadena and Dundalk. Worley said in the disclosure that he is an Anne Arundel County taxpayer.
Police have arrested only one other suspect in the Brooklyn Homes mass shooting, the city’s worst in modern history, when measured by the number of those shot.
The 17-year-old suspect is being held without bond in the mass shooting.
The youth’s attorney, Michael S. Clinkscale, told The Baltimore Observer on August 1 that BPD detectives urged the cousin of teen to falsely claim that the youth fired shots during the public housing community’s annual Brooklyn Day celebration.
Clinkscale said the BPD detectives told the youth’s cousin that if he falsely stated that the teen had fired a weapon, he would be eligible for $28,000 in reward money for information about suspects in the July 2 mass shooting.
The BPD refuses to answer questions about Clinkscale’s allegations
The teen has been held without bond on misdemeanor charges since July 10, when Baltimore District Court Judge Kent J. Boles Jr. cited “clear and convincing evidence the defendant would pose a risk to public safety.”
Boles pointed charging documents, in which police said six rounds recovered at the scene could have been fired by a “rifle-caliber pistol” the teenage suspect pulled from his bag. Police drew that conclusion from a viral video showing a teen pulling what appeared to be a gun from his backpack, according to charging documents.
But Clinkscale countered that the youth had only a toy gun that fires water gel beads and noted that while the charges against the teen include three possession of weapons counts, police have recovered no weapon.
Boles acknowledged that the case against the teen includes no weapons as evidence, and neither the BPD nor the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office have alleged or charged the teen with firing shots during the annual Brooklyn Day celebration.
Clinkscale confirmed that the teen suspect now faces two criminal charges of inciting a riot. But he added that in the case against the youth, now in Circuit Court, after the attorney requested a jury trial, he no longer faces two of the allegations prosecutors made against him in District Court: possession of an assault weapon and reckless endangerment.
The Baltimore Sun has reported, and not retracted, false statements that the youth still faces the charges of possession of an assault weapon and reckless endangerment.
Presumably, the “rifle-caliber pistol” cited in the original District Court charging documents led to the assault weapons possession charge.
In a city where homicides have topped 300 each of the past eight years, many first-degree murder suspects are freed on bond as they await trial.
Yet the teenage defendant, charged as an adult remains jailed without bond when the evidence against him includes no weapon in this criminal case against this high school senior whose lawyer says has no criminal past whatsoever.
The absentee BPD, nowhere in sight at Brooklyn Homes the entire Brooklyn Day and into the first half-hour of that dreadful Sunday, recovered no weapon and has not alleged that the suspect fired any shots.
That makes this case extraordinary in the annals of Baltimore criminal justice history.
The suspect is to appear at a Circuit Court hearing on August 29.
Clinkscale has filed a motion seeking to have his client tried in juvenile instead of adult court.
But Brandon Jones, an assistant state’s attorney, warned against doing so, telling the judge: “This is an extremely serious case and the defendant poses an extreme threat to public safety.”
That seems a stretch, but maybe there’s some evidence we don’t know about.
Gotta wonder whether the cops and the State’s Attorney will be facing a major lawsuit before long.
Related Stories:
Shooting Suspect's Cousin to Falsely State He Fired Shots at Brooklyn Homes On July 2 (August 2, 2023)
Attorney: BPD Detectives Urged 17-Year-Old Mass Shooting Suspect's Cousin to Falsely State that the Teen Fired Shots At Brooklyn Homes (August 1, 2023)
LIFE IN PIECES. Sun editorial asks: "Is Worley the right top cop?" The Sun does not mention the BPD's colossal failure to "protect and serve." (July 26, 2023)
Mayor Brandon Scott Nominates Richard Worley As Baltimore's Next Police Commissioner (July 13, 2023)
Judge Denies Bond to 17-Year-Old Held In Connection with Brooklyn Homes Mass Shooting That Left Two Dead and 28 Wounded (July 10, 2023)
If you spot any errors, want to share news tips, pitch story ideas or submit a first-person piece, please get in touch. I’d love to hear from you. Thanks again for reading. — Gary Gately, Editor, The Baltimore Observer, garymichaelgately@gmail.com, 410-382-4364.