Each year, the officers at Baltimore City?s Central Booking facility spend a week remembering the victims of the city?s violent streets.
This year the sorrow struck closer to home as they gathered Friday to mourn the loss of one of their own.
“We will always remember him,” Commissioner Howard Ray said of veteran prison guard Lt. Perry Brooks, 48, who was murdered May 25 in the driveway of his Northeast Baltimore residence during what police describe as a botched robbery.
“We?re all one family.”
Speaking in front of a packed room at the city jail, Brooks? colleague Correctional Officer Barbara Martin said Brooks loved football and sports ? and guided the younger guards, showing them how to do the job with dignity.
“He was a good person who always had a smile on his face,” Martin said.
“He was a mentor of the young generation. He is truly missed.”
Police said Brooks was killed by a man who told officers he only meant to “slap” at the murder weapon during a robbery when the gun accidentally went off.
Brandon Wall, 21, told police he and an accomplice named Justin Russell saw Brooks parked in his driveway in the 1900 block of Hillenwood Road and approached the vehicle from the driver?s side.
Russell pointed a handgun at Brooks and announced a robbery, causing Brooks to grab the handgun and struggle with Russell, Wall said.
Wall told police he tried to “slap the gun free” from Brooks? grasp, during which time the gun discharged, killing Brooks.
Brooks was found by his 12-year-old grandson dead from a “defensive” gunshot wound, police said.
The veteran officer most recently worked as a supervisor at the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center.
He began his career in the Pre-Release System of the Maryland Division of Correction in 1984.
He worked at Brock Bridge Correctional Facility in Jessup and Central Laundry Facility in Sykesville.
The staff at Central Booking has dedicated a tree in his honor outside the facility, which Brooks? widow, Marguerite, helped plant.
As his fellow co-workers remembered Brooks on Friday, Capt. Danny Flanagan read a poem about Brooks written by Sgt. Ralph Johnson.
“A devoted husband, decades of public service, your life definitely had a plan,” Flanagan said, his voice somber.
“For your son and many fatherless young men, you demonstrated the meaning of man.”
