Posted on 04/30/23
| News Source: FOX45
It’s the latest incident as the city struggles to find solutions to its juvenile crime crisis.
Earlier this month, there were two youth gathering instances at the Inner Harbor. At one of those, a crowd of more than 200 youths - several of them seen running in all directions after the gunfire.
Jason Johnson, a former deputy commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department. said without consequence youth violence will continue.
“There has to be some accountability. There has to be a correction in behavior. If the kid is not getting it at home it has to come from somewhere. We’ll just see a continued increase in youth violence,” he said.
Dr. Tyrone Powers, Former FBI Agent joined Fox45 News to discuss if juveniles that incite large gatherings should be held accountable.
Powers said there needs to be a multi-faceted approach involving parents, schools, and churches monitoring youth.
“Once you have that information, you almost have to have a rapid response team, a team that can go to those areas relatively quickly and sends out notifications to other interceptors that the city is working with get involved.”
These social media posts are almost weekly, is there another way we should be looking at this?
“Young people want to be involved in something they’re looking at it as a party, they get there, it becomes an event, it becomes violent, it becomes something else. Not all young people who are listening to this on social media about gathering there don’t think this is going to turn into a violent event but the integrators, the people who send out these communications can be identified, tracked, intercepted, and intervened, I’m not saying jail, but some engagement must take place, there has to be consequences.” Powers said.