By AFRO Staff
Jeremiah Brogden had just finished up the first week of the 2022-2023 school year on Sept. 2. when he lost his life.
He had the entire Labor Day weekend and a life full of promise ahead of him.
Then he became a victim of gun violence.
Like more than 240 Baltimoreans before him this year, Brogden lost his life in a split second to a bullet.
On Sept. 2 the Mervo High School student was dismissed from school at 2:35 p.m.
By 2:54 p.m. he was involved in an altercation and shot. He took his last breath in front of his schoolmates.
The suspect was later identified as another 17-year-old who attended a different high school in the Baltimore City area.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott took to Instagram to say, “As Mayor and more importantly, as a former Mustang, I cannot express how saddened I am by the fatal shooting at Mervo that took place yesterday. My heart goes out to Jeremiah’s loved ones and our entire Mervo Mustangs family as we process this tragedy.”
To support students amidst this tragedy, Mervo High School announced that on Sept. 6, students were given the option to report to the school at 11 a.m. to take therapeutic sessions after lunch. On Sept. 7, ninth and tenth-grade students began classes at 10:00 a.m. while the day started at 9 a.m. for eleventh graders.
Beginning on Sept. 8, all students resumed normal school hours at 7:45 a.m. and were required to go through safety check-ins.
Just hours after the shooting of Brogden, 14-year-old Travis Slaughter was also shot and killed in Milford Mill, along with an unidentified victim who suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
“Baltimore County Police Department homicide detectives are investigating the circumstances surrounding a homicide that occurred Friday night near Liberty Road and Washington Avenue,” said County Police about the Sept. 2 incident. “At approximately 9:30 p.m., officers from the Pikesville Precinct responded to the scene of a reported shooting. When officers arrived, they located two juvenile males with gunshot wounds.”
“Both victims were transported to an area hospital where the 14-year-old was pronounced deceased. The other juvenile victim suffered a non-life threatening injury.”
The names of the suspects have not yet been identified.
On Sept. 7, the Baltimore Police Department reported that yet another Baltimore City Public School student had been shot.
“At approximately 4:02 p.m. Western District patrol officers responded to the 2200 block of Presstman street to investigate a reported shooting,” said police in a public statement from their Facebook account. “Once at the location, officers located a 15-year-old male victim suffering from a graze gunshot wound to the head. Medics transported the victim to an area hospital with non-life threatening injuries.”
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