Mayor Scott pledges ‘full wrath’ over failures that left 6 young kids alone in unsafe home

Mayor Brandon Scott has ordered immediate inspections of city-contracted homes for families in crisis following Monday’s discovery of six children living in deplorable conditions in an East Baltimore rowhouse, he announced in a press conference Wednesday.

Teonna Brown and her six children, ages 1 to 9, were placed in the home in the 2900 block of East Monument Street last April through a city program for families in crisis.

When police were called to the home on Monday, they found the children malnourished and unsupervised. The home was without readily available food or drinking water, as well as no working electricity, beds, air conditioning or even a stove. The children showed signs of insect bites, and dog feces were on the floor, officers wrote in a police report. The house has been condemned.

“It’s unacceptable that those children were living in a condition like that,” Scott said Wednesday. “Everybody that had an opportunity to do something that did not will feel the full wrath of me and city government.”

The mayor said that the crisis placement for Brown and her children should have come with a level of oversight from the Department of Housing and Community Development that didn’t happen. He directed firefighters and housing officials to immediately inspect the other placement homes — about a dozen around Baltimore.

City officials are also investigating the landlord of the home where Brown’s children were found to determine how knowledgeable they were about the condition of the property, the mayor said. The house is owned by a rental company in Silver Spring, according to property records. The company did not immediately respond to a call from The Banner.

“We’re going to take every criminal action that we can,” Scott said.

Police have charged Brown with six counts of child neglect, alleging that she left her children alone, malnourished and either partially clothed or naked. A worker from a neighborhood cleanup crew noticed the children outside and unsupervised on Monday and called police. When officers arrived, they found the children walking around the house without shoes and with shards of glass on the ground.

During Brown’s initial court appearance Wednesday afternoon, District Judge Otis Freeman ordered that she be held without bond and have no contact with her children. The judge cited an assault conviction against Brown in 2011 and a more recent charge for failing to appear in court to stand trial for allegedly stealing $15 worth of merchandise from JCPenney. She was also accused in that case of throwing a cup of unknown liquid on a store employee who tried to stop her. Brown did not address the judge at the Wednesday hearing.

Court records show that the 34-year-old mother has struggled to keep stable housing. She has been sued for falling behind in her rent and for eviction. She told officers on Monday that she had left the children under the supervision of a friend named Charles while she went to her appointment at a methadone treatment clinic, police wrote in their report.

In Maryland, it is a crime to leave a child younger than 8 years old unattended or without the supervision of a reliable person who is at least 13. Brown’s children are 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9.

City services, including a building inspector, firefighters, Animal Control, Child Protective Services and housing department officials were called to the scene. Because of concerns about the gas line, the building inspector condemned the rowhouse.

Reporters Alissa Zhu and Sara Ruberg contributed to this article.

This story may be updated.