Last summer, Brooklyn bore the burden of being the site of Baltimore’s worst mass shooting after a block party turned shootout resulted in 28 people shot and two people killed.

After the shooting, Safe Streets, the city’s flagship violence mediation program, went into over-drive in its efforts to build community partnerships and resolve conflicts.

Now, Brooklyn has a new honor: 365 days without a homicide.

The last recorded homicide within the Safe Streets catchment zone, the area staffed by the city’s flagship violence mediation program, was on October 1, 2023.

“This isn’t just a Safe Streets accomplishment. It’s a testament to Brooklyn’s resilience and the power of community,” said Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott during remarks earlier in the day. “This is a community that has been disinvested, neglected and ignored for a long, long time. But together, collectively, we are saying enough is enough.”

Every time Safe Streets hits a year without a homicide, there’s a community celebration. On Tuesday, Brooklyn residents swayed to music while they queued up to grab pizza– all while the sun dipped low in the late autumn afternoon. All of the city officials and most of the media had gone home.

Taivon Pryor couldn’t imagine a scene like this last year.

“I'm starting to see people come outside on their fronts. They come out a little bit more, get the air, enjoy their self. They come spend time with it. And sometimes you see people spending time with their family more now,” said Pryor, who himself was at the Brooklyn Day party when it turned to a mass shooting.

Pryor, and others at the gathering, said the presence of Safe Streets and recent community investment have helped change their attitudes about safety in the area. They know who they can trust for help– any kind of help.

“They've helped me find my son, who was lost out here somewhere,” said James Brown.

The Brooklyn Safe Streets office will join Park Heights, Franklin Square, and the Belvedere sites who have all recently celebrated a similar milestone of being one-year without a homicide. Each Safe Streets location, called a “catchment zone”, covers a few square blocks– totaling just under three miles for the 10 locations across Baltimore.

“It feels good. Just more work that needs to be done. 404 days, it ain't a lot, but it is,” said Weezie, the director of the Brooklyn Safe Streets site. “But we still have a lot more work to do.”

While he tries to stand for an interview, he is constantly interrupted by school kids– they come to him for hugs and tickets to the pizza truck. In this part of town, Weezie is the “mayor” of Brooklyn.

“We partner with businesses in the community, and basically building partnerships with the key individuals in a high risk, being able to have a rapport with them reduces a lot of shooting homicides,” explained Weezie. Hanging from his neck is a chain with a picture of his brother, Nadine– who was murdered in 2015.

“He is my motivation for this work.”

Brooklyn Homes, the site of the Brooklyn Day mass shooting on July 2nd of last year, is part of the Brooklyn catchment zone.

Safe Streets workers were on duty the night of the shooting where staffers mediated five conflicts before they escalated into gun violence, according to an after-action report released by the city last summer. In two of those conflicts, the workers believed the people involved had guns but Safe Streets employees told them to “put them away and be safe.” The shift ended at 11 p.m. at which time workers went home– gunfire erupted over an hour later.

While the workers were following procedure at the time, the incident has prompted changes with the program in how conflicts are escalated through the system. As unarmed, plain-clothes violence-mediators, city officials have repeatedly said that the program’s credibility rests in community trust and the knowledge that a conflict does not automatically get reported to the police.

While the work from city partnerships can’t be discounted, residents like Richard Brooks also said that community members have been doing their part to turn the neighborhood around in the wake of the shooting.

“It probably was a wakeup call for a lot of young guys that thought that this life was a game, and after that realized that it really wasn't,” said Brooks.

Baltimore is on track to hit fewer than 200 homicides for the first time since 2011.