By Stacey Coles & Dante Barboy
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writers
Responding to a dramatic increase in the city’s homicide rate this year, City Council President Bernard C. Young gave an emotional appeal Monday to stop the killings – and he compared those who murder their fellow citizens to the terrorist group ISIS.
“It saddens me when I see ISIS on the news, when we have ISIS right here in Baltimore,” Young said at the end of the council’s legislative meeting last night. “We have terrorists right here in Baltimore that are killing our young men.”
To turn the community around, Young said, everyone must make an effort, even if that means turning in those closest to them to the police.
“If we really want to get control of our city and we really want to stop the murders, that means we all have to do our part,” Young said. “If that means turning in our relatives then that’s what you gotta do.”
With the city recently reaching its 300th homicide for the year, many of Young’s fellow council members agreed.
“It’s unfortunate that there’s such a disrespect for life itself,” said Council member Robert Curran. “Why are people just shooting people to just shoot people?”
The meeting ended with a moment of silence for those murdered in Baltimore, particularly 24-year-old Kendal Fenwick , a father of three children who was fatally shot outside of his home in Park Heights earlier this month.
“We all want somebody to tell when it’s our family (being harmed), but when it’s somebody else’s family, nobody wants to tell,” Young said. “This ‘stop snitching’ mentality has to stop.”
Council member Brandon M. Scott said he was particularly concerned about the number of murders reported in Baltimore.
“The only way our city is going to change the way we need it to is if everyone is uncomfortable,” Scott said. “We are all going to have to do more if we all want our city to become and be more.”
Scott said the lack of a male figure in the lives of many children in Baltimore is a key problem in the crisis that the city faces. Above all, he believes that citizens must all ask themselves what they can do as individuals and be present all the time to better the city.
“My family members know that if you do something wrong around me, you’re going to jail,” Scott said. “These people don’t truly love their loved ones. They think they do because they’re protecting them, but they’re not actually protecting them. If you know someone out there that’s harming someone, say something, because when it’s you, you’re gonna want someone to say something.”