The families of two people killed in 2023 during a mass shooting at Brooklyn Homes are suing the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, alleging the public agency had a duty to provide security that could have prevented their deaths.
The parents of Aaliyah Gonzalez and the mother of Kylis Fagbemi assert in their lawsuits filed in Baltimore Circuit Court that the housing authority was negligent because security could have stopped an annual event called Brooklyn Day from taking place, staffed the block party or summoned law enforcement as the crowd grew out of control.
Four additional people who were wounded in the shooting have also filed lawsuits.
“The Brooklyn Day Shooting was the largest mass shooting in Baltimore’s history, with as many as 30 people shot, two young people killed, and most victims still in their teens,” Cary Hansel and Kristen Mack, civil rights attorneys in Baltimore, wrote in the complaints filed June 30.
Despite plenty of prior notice, they said, the housing authority and its leadership failed to keep the event from happening or to ensure that it was held in a safe manner.
“These negligent failures directly and proximately caused the mass shooting and resulting deaths, physical harm, and mental anguish,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys said.
The president and CEO of the housing authority, Janet Abrahams, who is also named as a defendant in the lawsuits, could not immediately be reached Wednesday for comment. In a statement sent to The Banner, the agency wrote that it had not been served with the lawsuits and would not comment on the allegations.
Between 800 to 1,000 people gathered on July 2, 2023, at Brooklyn Homes for the block party, which featured dancing, pony rides and snowballs. Gunfire erupted at about 12:30 a.m., causing terror and prompting attendees to run for their safety.
Gonzalez, 18, was a recent graduate of Glen Burnie High School. Fagbemi, 20, was a forklift operator who dreamed of becoming a traveling ultrasound technician.
Baltimore Police later released a 173-page report that detailed the department’s ill-fated and hands-off approach to the event, which found that officer indifference might have played a role.
Police arrested five people in the shooting. No one has been charged with murder.
The lawsuits allege that Brooklyn Homes as well as the surrounding neighborhood are known as “one of the most violent areas in Baltimore City.”
Several days before the shooting, Baltimore City Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, who represents Brooklyn and South Baltimore, warned the housing authority about escalating crime and urged it to come up with a plan for the summer, according to the complaints.
The housing authority in 2022 implemented a pilot program to contract security guards. But that was limited to four affordable housing communities: Poe, Douglass, Westport and Latrobe Homes, the lawsuits assert.
Brooklyn Day was held every year from 2018 to 2023, according to the complaints. But it had been a tradition dating to the 1970s. Before the 2023 event, the lawsuits allege, the housing authority circulated emails seeking volunteers to help staff the block party.
The complaints also assert that the housing authority had a duty to monitor its properties in real time.
“Had the Defendants been monitoring Brooklyn Homes, they would have seen crowds growing and trouble brewing on the day of the event in time to act on their duty to intervene,” the lawsuits read.
No court date has been scheduled yet in the cases.
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