The mother of an 11-year-old boy struck by a bullet while waiting for a school bus last week in Annapolis wasn’t ready to address a crowded church, but stood by a relative who aired their collective despair.

A dance coach who got a desperate call from one of her pupils last Wednesday morning, moments after the girl’s father was shot to death, brought up the experience as a rallying cry for neighbors to do their part to stem senseless violence.

Yet another woman, whose 8-year-old grandson witnessed the gunfire alongside his Annapolis Elementary School classmates, raised concerns about what she characterized as absentee management of the neighborhood’s residences.

Roughly a dozen residents addressed a packed First Baptist Church during a meeting Tuesday night hosted by Annapolis officials and clergy in response to the Clay Street shooting, describing a close-knit community shaken by what happened here and frustrated by years of neglect about half a mile from City Hall.

If they didn’t witness the shooting or were related to someone impacted by it, those who spoke knew someone who did or was. Some said police failed to get to know the community. Others said property managers neglected resident concerns. And others recalled the city’s broken promises of resources for the neighborhood.

“This is hard. This was a hard night,” Annapolis Alderwoman Karma O’Neill, a Democrat who represents Ward 2, which encompasses the community, said as the two-hour meeting ended. “I appreciate that you all showed up.”

As people filed out of the church, O’Neill said in an interview it was difficult for her and the other public officials who faced the crowd to hear so much criticism, but called the meeting “a good first step and we have to fulfill the promises that we’re making.”

Annapolis Police are still searching for the man they say opened fire at a school bus stop on Clay Street in the morning of March 19, killing 36-year-old John Simms Jr. and striking the 11-year-old boy in the foot.

The department last week obtained a warrant charging Roscoe Jerome Jones, 31, of Oxon Hill, with murder, attempted murder and related offenses in the daylight shooting. Police Chief Ed Jackson described Jones as “armed and dangerous,” urging anyone who sees him to contact authorities.

“I don’t think he’s fled out of the area,” Jackson said before the meeting, adding that he believed somebody was helping Jones evade authorities. “He’ll probably make a mistake soon. They always do.”

Several residents Tuesday night said Annapolis officers had been coming up short on one of the tenets Jackson has preached since he assumed his post in 2019: the importance of community policing.

“Don’t just sit in the car when you come,” said Terry Tanner, 57, adding that the community used to have a better relationship with the officers who patrolled it. “We don’t know y’all. Get out. Come and talk to us. Get to know us.”

Jackson defended his officers, lamenting, however, that he wished “I did have a police for every corner.” Despite enforcement including several recent drug and gun arrests in the area, police can’t prevent all crimes, said Jackson, noting that societal ills contributed to “hopelessness” in certain neighborhoods.

“That young man came down on Clay Street and pulled the trigger in front of kids,” Jackson said. “A [31]-year-old man chose 7:30 in the morning to get involved in a very wanton and reckless manner, didn’t care who was out there, and he sprayed that corner. We have been on Clay Street, but nobody thought that somebody was that evil to disregard children trying to go to school.”

Shawnte Brown’s daughter took her grandson to Clay Street that morning to the bus to school with his classmates.

“He seen everything at that bus stop,” said Brown, 51. “So now my grandson don’t even want to go to school and he just turned nine on Saturday.”

According to charging documents, CCTV cameras captured an altercation between Simms and Jones where both men used pepper spray.

During the fight, Simms tackled Jones “to the ground” and “briefly dragged” him before retreating, charging documents say. That’s when Jones “pulled out a firearm and began shooting in the direction of Mr. Simms. This same subject then stood above Mr. Simms head as he was lying face down in the street and continued shooting him.”

It must have been around then that Ronshaye Clark, who teaches dance to children across Annapolis, received a call from a pupil.

“Coach Shaye, my dad is dead,” Clark recalled the girl screaming.

“It’s time that we make a change!” Clark said.

Doctors declared Simms dead at one hospital, while medics took the 11-year-old to Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The boy was released around 1 p.m. the same day, his mother, Tiesha Contee, said after the meeting. He was in relatively good spirits, she said, buoyed by visitors since returning home.

But he only worked up the confidence to go outside Tuesday, and he’s reluctant about returning to the classroom, Contee said.

“He don’t want to be in school on crutches,” she said.

Contee’s relatives were among several residents expressing frustration about the subsidized housing community at Obery Court, which is owned through a partnership between the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis and Pennrose Management.

After the shooting, a witness told police that the gunman ran into 117 New Vernon St., according to charging documents. After getting a search warrant, investigators swept the residence, finding Jones’ identification in a room. Comparing Jones’ photo ID to footage from the shooting, the charging documents say, detectives identified him as the shooter.

In 2011, Jones pleaded guilty to carjacking in Prince George’s County and was sentenced to eight years in prison. He was accused in a 2019 homicide case in Washington, D.C., that was later dismissed, court records show. In 2021, he pleaded guilty in District of Columbia Superior Court to assault with a dangerous weapon and was sentenced to four years in prison and three years of supervised release. Prison records show he was released in April.

Brown, who was once the vice president of the resident association, said she believed Penrose, the property manager, “stopped the screening, stopped doing background checks.”

“I’m not going to sit here and blame the Police Department because at the end of the day, the rental office also has to take accountability,” Brown said.

In a statement Thursday, Penrose said the individual charged is not a resident of its properties.

“All prospective residents must complete in-depth credit, criminal, and landlord background checks administered through a third-party reporting agency that specializes in tenant screening,” Penrose said in its statement. “The well-being of residents and neighbors is our top priority, and we are actively exploring additional security measures to ensure the safety of our communities.”

Melissa Maddox-Evans, executive director and CEO of the housing authority, said Wednesday that the housing authority owns the land in the Clay Street area and administers housing vouchers for those residences, but Pennrose manages the properties.

Housing vouchers require criminal background checks, and the housing authority completes them on occasion, like when a resident adds a new member to their household, Maddox-Evans said in an email. Because Pennrose, not the housing authority, manages those properties, it is responsible for additionally screening of tenants there.

Bishop Craig Coates, a member of the housing authority’s board of commissioners who attended the meeting, said residents also ought to screen their neighbors.

“But one of the best devices to screening is when you know your neighbors are up to no good, you don’t sit there in your house and wait for the bullet to come through your wall,” Coates said. “We have to have a different attitude that says, ‘You know what, I’m not the one for this.’ And when they know you’re not the one, believe it or not, they stay away from you. We take our own communities back.”

Pastor Isaac Vineyard, of College Creek Church, echoed Brown’s concerns, but also blamed the city “for promise after promise after promise that hasn’t been kept.”

He said Annapolis has so far failed on its pledges to build a park and a basketball court in his community.

“Hopelessness,” Vineyard said, “comes from broken promise after broken promise.”

This article was updated Thursday with a statement from Penrose, which manages properties on Clay Street.