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A young man washes his windshield as drivers wait at a red light in Baltimore, Oct. 23, 2018. Brutal workers have long vexed business owners in the city, and last week’s fatal collision heightened that concern. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
After a confrontation between young squeegee workers and an angry motorist ended in a deadly shooting, Baltimore’s business community is once again looking for ways to stop people from offering money or, in some cases, to clean drivers’ windshields. Funds sent through Venmo or Cashapp.
Squeegee kids, or squeegee workers, are seen as a problem by many business owners, who believe their presence makes downtown Baltimore more unattractive to tourists, workers and customers.
To find a solution to that problem, Mayor Brandon Scott has assembled a group of business, government and community leaders, the first of which was held Thursday.
The names of individuals participating in the meeting have not been made public, but the group, known as the Squeegee Collaborative, is co-chaired by T. Rowe Price Foundation president and Joseph Jones, president and CEO. According to a letter sent by Vice Mayor Faith Leach prior to the meeting, the Center for Urban Families.
According to the letter, the association will spend the next four to six weeks “developing a comprehensive strategy, resource allocation, and policy and system changes to pursue options related to siltation.”
Squeegee workers aren’t a new issue in Baltimore — they’ve been around since the 1980s, and the city has tried several initiatives to keep them off the streets, from opening job training programs to beefing up security around the downtown area. .
“This is something that’s been going on in Baltimore for decades, and while it’s not a new problem, it’s going to require some new and different strategies if we’re going to solve what’s a long-standing challenge for all of us.” Scott said at a press conference Thursday.
Late last year, the mayor and administration came up with a 90-day plan to address abusive workers. Among other things, the plan recommended that the city improve its relationship with roughneck workers, hire youth and driver safety officers, and offer youth stipends to work other day jobs in the city.
Sharon Schreiber, chief operating officer of the city-based Greater Baltimore Committee of Commerce, said evaluating the success of that plan should be a key step as stakeholders begin to develop solutions.
“As part of a wider dialogue with business and other leaders, we need to assess the success of the plan. By working together, we can come up with new action steps to solve the problem in a sustainable way,” she told the Daily Record in an email.
While Schreiber can’t quantify the impact of violent crime in downtown Baltimore, she noted that crime in general remains a major concern for the city’s businesses. Crime has been cited as the reason many businesses are leaving the Central Business District or moving out of Baltimore.
“The primary impact we can address is GBC’s and the Board’s continued deep concern about widespread access to guns in the city, the rise in gun-related crime, and rightly or wrongly the perception among some employers. The city is not safe for workers. GBC believes public safety is fundamental to a stable and welcoming business environment. It continues to be promoted and promoted to public officials,” she said.
Scott promised to update the community on the city’s strategy to address squeegee workers.
“We look forward to providing updates on this work in the coming weeks and letting the people of Baltimore know how we are working to bring our city a solution to this decades-old problem,” Scott said.
A 15-year-old boy was arrested Thursday and charged as an adult in connection with last week’s fatal shooting of a motorist linked to roughnecks at the intersection of Light and Conway streets downtown, police said.
In a news release, Baltimore police detectives arrested the teenager at 6:35 a.m. at a home in Essex, Baltimore County.
According to police, detectives took the suspect and his father to the homicide unit for questioning before being taken in to be charged with first-degree murder.
The Baltimore Sun reported Wednesday that dashboard camera video from Thursday’s shooting shows what appears to be five shots fired at Timothy Reynolds by the teenager. The content of the video was first reported by The Baltimore Banner, but the video has not been released.
Reynolds, 48, of Baltimore, was driving through an intersection near the city’s Inner Harbor when he had a heated encounter with Squeegee workers, stopped his car and returned with a baseball bat, Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said earlier this week.
He “swinged the bat at one or more of the brute staff. In response, one of the rough workers pulled out a gun and fired,” Harrison said, hitting Reynolds.
“I hope today’s arrest brings some closure and peace to the family, friends and loved ones of Timothy Reynolds,” Harrison said in a statement.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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