Standing on a corner near Cross Street Market in early January, Willie Darden’s watchful eye scanned a group of Baltimore high school students walking toward the public bus stop.
Darden mentors students through the Movement Team, one of five community-based organizations involved in the city’s “Safe Passage Baltimore” program. The program helps kids commute safely to and from school and prevents “student-involved incidents.”
“A lot of kids — they won’t listen to their parents, but they’ll listen to us,” Darden said.
The mayor’s office provided data showing violence near schools has decreased during the program’s implementation. But local businesses near two of the targeted schools described the students as violent and disruptive and suggested more could be done to bring order to the surrounding area when kids get out of school.
The Safe Passage program launched in 2023 and is city-funded through the Family League of Baltimore, which provided $525,000 for it this year.
Safe Passage organizations engaged with over 8,000 students from September to December 2024 and have “significantly enhanced students’ sense of personal safety,” the mayor’s office said.
Violence decreased by 10.8% within around two miles of Digital Harbor High School and 10.9% within two miles of the Academy for College and Career Exploration (ACCE), which serves middle and high school students, the mayor’s office said Friday. Both schools joined the Safe Passage program at the beginning of the current school year.
But at a Federal Hill Starbucks a couple blocks from Darden’s post, employees described frequent problems last week.
‘I feel like there’s not a lot of help’
Two supervisors, Mia Sanchez and Ben Krause, described how kids earlier that day had knocked down and broken some of the store’s merchandise and also “threw stuff” at Krause. While Krause was speaking with The Baltimore Sun that afternoon, Sanchez directed a group of students to exit the store after one began vaping inside.
“It feels like there’s not a lot of help,” Sanchez said.
Krause and Sanchez didn’t know about Darden’s job with the Movement Team, but they said Darden sometimes comes in to order a tea and asks them how the kids are behaving.
On a street corner in Hampden, just down the road from ACCE, two employees at Bella Roma shared similar concerns. They declined to provide their names due to concerns they would face retaliation and damage their relationship with the school.
Last fall, a kid broke a window while trying to kill a bee inside the store with their foot, one of the employees said. Another time last year, three kids got in a fight that ended in a “bloody mess” and a broken table inside the restaurant. Some kids have grabbed bags of food they didn’t order and run out of the store.
Large groups also have congregated outside the door, deterring customers from coming in, the other employee said. But that doesn’t happen now as much as it used to.
“It’s gotten better, but I still think there should be better order when they’re let out of school,” the employee said.
Standing just across the street from Bella Roma near Roosevelt Park on Friday afternoon are two community engagement specialists with We Our Us, another organization involved in the Safe Passage program. They stand outside by the bus stop an hour before and after school and said they’ve seen a positive impact from the program so far.
One, Jordan Ragin, said he used to see “shady characters” standing around outside, but not so much anymore.
“We’re just here to make sure no bad actions are taking place and everybody’s safe. That’s what we’re here for,” he said. They said employees from the school also keep watch over the area.
The employees at Bella Roma said representatives from the mayor’s office have come in to speak with them. They said police sometimes show up after an incident, but not always.
‘More work remains’
A police department spokesperson said the department “has collaborated with Bella Roma and will continue to work with them, as well as with Starbucks, to address ongoing concerns.”
“While we are encouraged by the decrease in crimes around these schools, we recognize that more work remains in addressing such incidents,” the spokesperson said in an email. “These occurrences underscore the critical importance of Safe Passage and the collaborative efforts of all our partners in reducing and preventing student-involved incidents.”
The spokesperson also noted that juvenile victims of homicides and non-fatal shootings decreased by 74% in 2024, compared to 2023.
Last year, Safe Passage program leaders laid out a measure of success for the program, saying they’d look for a decrease in violence within a 2-mile radius of schools, a decrease in calls about students from businesses and residents, and an increase in students’ school attendance. Aggravated assaults and robberies were among the data points being tracked by Baltimore police, city schools, the mayor’s office, and city schools police.
‘Something good’
Councilman Mark Conway, who chairs the public safety committee, said he and his council colleagues have received complaints about kids “causing trouble” and “safety concerns for kids.” Their activities sometimes include bullying or looting or “hanging out” in stores, he said.
Most kids aren’t causing problems, Conway said, but there are some who get into trouble. Many times, the presence of an adult nearby can dissipate issues like theft or fighting among peers, he said.
“The idea of the program is to make sure that kids are moving along and that there are additional eyes on the street, especially during those critical times right before school and right after school,” he said.
Conway said there’s a need for “additional support” at other schools besides the handful that are currently involved in the program. “We want to figure out if this is the approach that we want to expand to other parts of the city, and I think that data will be an important piece,” he said.
Darden said the merchants near the intersection of Cross and Light streets used to have problems with kids being in their stores. His goal is to build relationships with the kids and keep them out of trouble.
In addition to spending two hours near the bus stop at the beginning and end of school each day, he also mentors kids during the day in the school building.
Sometimes, kids call him and tell him they don’t have any food or that their mom’s boyfriend is mistreating them, he said. He’ll pick them up in his car and try to talk to them and calm them down, and maybe get something to eat.
“Basically, try to make them understand how life goes; everything is not going to go your way,” Darden said.
One student he mentored was “getting into a lot of trouble” and was looking for guidance and “a man in his life,” Darden said.
“He didn’t want to listen to anyone. And then gradually, we got him,” he said.
Darden said he was a “DJS kid” himself decades ago. As an adult, he’s now helping kids struggling with similar challenges.
“If I could stand out here for all the wrong things I was doing,” he said, “I could stand out here for something good.”
Have a news tip? Contact Brooke Conrad at bconrad@baltsun.com, 443-682-2356 or @conrad_brooke on X.
