Inside a Baltimore crime ring takedown: Murder, carjacking charges filed

Tonight we're pressing the leaders involved on how enforcement like this can translate to day-to-day disorder in the city, as we've seen over the last few weekends in Fells Point. That's right. We begin with Fox 45's Cassidy Stevens. She joins us live in studio after attending today's takedown announcement. And Cassidy, we understand there was a big theme to this afternoon's remarks. Kai, that's exactly right. The message from officials is clear. They say there are major The allegations in these cases are deeply disturbing and the severity of the allegations should concern all of us. Particularly troubling is the age of those involved. These are not allegations of youthful misjudgment or isolated misconduct. These are egregious criminal acts that must be punished severely. The five juveniles in this case range from 17 with one teen alone facing charges in 23 separate cases. While investigators say they're making arrests at a rate that outpaces the national average, they argue the juvenile justice system isn't keeping repeat offenders off the streets. I've said it for years and I will continue to say until it happens that we need to build a new system from the ground up. And I'm looking forward to and hopeful that we can work with our state partners to do just that. I would invite members of the legislature, please come to Baltimore City and spend time with us in the juvenile system. And once you spend time in the juvenile system, you clearly will understand the brokenness, unfortunately, of the system. While the mayor says this is not representative of Baltimore's youth overall. But I also want to be very clear that we are still talking about a small minority of young people. Seats attorney Ivan Bates paints a different picture. Running through an extensive list of juvenile crime, the area saw in just the last week. On Friday, we had a 17 year old alleged to have assaulted by a 14 and a 15 year old. We also had a 16 year old who was causing a disturbance at a restaurant and when asked to leave, allegedly pull out a handgun. On Saturday, we had a 17 year old allegedly steal a vehicle from someone they met on social media. And of course, we had the horrific incident for Jordan Bright, who was struck. Further illustrating the broken system while also calling out parents. You have to be a parent, parents, a 24 hour day job, 365 days a year. You need to understand where your children are, who they're with and what they're doing. If you don't know where your child is at one, two, three in the morning, there's a problem. We don't want our young people to get caught up in the criminal justice system, but parents, you've got to do your job to ensure that doesn't happen. And urges the city to invest in programs that give young people alternatives to crime. We were teens too. So Lord knows I, I did my share of things as well, but you got to have that little clock that's inside. You said, no, I can't do this. My dad used to tell me you outside after midnight, only trouble is going to find you eventually. Again, police say the juveniles charged in this case will be prosecuted as adults. Officials say they're hopeful these arrests will prevent more violence, but lasting change requires both reforming the juvenile justice system and parental accountability. In the studio, Cassidy Stevens, Fox 45. I'm Kai Jackson. Thank you for watching. Here's another video to watch. Also, please take a moment to subscribe to our channel.