BALTIMORE (WBFF) — A January 2024 federal plea agreement outlines how gang members used a Safe Streets location as a “clubhouse,” storing weapons and drugs on-site and planning attacks on rival gang members.
Tyrell Jeffries pleaded guilty to federal racketeering conspiracy in January 2024, following a years-long investigation involving several Black Guerilla Family gang members. According to the plea agreement, Jeffries, a member of GDB, knowingly and willfully conspired with others to participate. in extortion, adding conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, as well as property with intent to distribute drugs.
According to court documents, Jeffries admitted to attending GDB meetings at the Safe Streets site on E. Monument Street; the location was once called Safe Streets East, but now the catchment domain is known as McElderry Park; the actual Safe Streets site is no longer located at the site described in court records.
Safe Streets is Baltimore City’s flagship program to save gun violence. The program, which has 10 locations in Baltimore, uses credible messengers in other communities to act as disruptors of violence. The purpose is to save gun violence, but studies have indicated long-lasting, inconclusive reductions. At the time of this federal investigation, which dates back to at least 2015, the Safe Streets site in question operated through Living Classrooms.
In the fall of 2022, Mayor Brandon Scott announced the city would be restructuring management of the 10 Safe Streets sites. Instead of a patchwork of non-profits managing the day-to-day operations, Baltimore City contracted with LifeBridge Health Center for Hope and Catholic Charities to manage the 10 sites; both LifeBridge and Catholic Charities previously managed some Safe Streets sites.
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Two BGF members who attended gang-related meetings at Safe Streets on E. Monument Street were Safe Streets workers, Jeffries explained in his plea agreement.
“[Jeffries] admits that in the spring and summer of 2015, he and other BGF members used Safe Streets as a de facto clubhouse, where they stored drugs and firearms and planned acts of violence on behalf of the gang,” according to court records.
The court also records how a retaliatory attack was planned, while gang members were at the Safe Streets site, against a rival gang member in May 2015. The shooting took place at a vigil for a murder victim just off the Safe Streets. Streets site; The target of the shooting, Steven Robinson, was shot but survived.
In July 2015, three of Jeffries’ accomplices, who were also later charged, stole about 300 grams of heroin from a drug dealer in West Baltimore, according to court records. On July 6, 2015, Jeffries and other GDB members “ambushed” the drug dealer while he was sitting in his vehicle and shot at the car. The drug trafficker was wounded but survived.
FOX45 News questioned Mayor Brandon Scott Wednesday about the possibility of Safe Streets sites being used for other gang-related activity.
“What I can say is that every time we locate someone involved in criminal activity, Mikenzie, we remove the other people and turn them over to the justice system,” he said. “I’ve told you a thousand times, I don’t care if those things happen in the DPW office, if they’re planned in the basement of FOX45 TV, wherever they are, our other people will. Locate them, other people, and deport them while we work with our law enforcement partners, as is the case in this situation.
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