Facing an angry Baltimore City Council demanding answers about how an annual community festival devolved into one of the city’s largest mass shootings, Baltimore Police leaders acknowledged their failure Thursday to learn of the event in advance and further admitted responsibility for failing to mobilize additional resources once the party was discovered.

The admission came from Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley during a meeting of the council’s Public Safety and Government Operations committee to probe the July 2 shooting, which left two dead and 28 injured. The shooting marred the annual Brooklyn Day festival, a homecoming tradition in South Baltimore for nearly three decades.

“We should have been actively working to find out when Brooklyn Day was,” Worley told the committee amid a pledge to further investigate the incident. “It was going to happen this year. It’s happened 27 years in a row.”

“We could have and should have done more,” he said.

The council’s questions Thursday were probing, particularly for city police leaders, who have been heavily scrutinized in the aftermath of the shooting, which was likely the largest in Baltimore history. Officers said in the immediate aftermath that the event, which was on Housing Authority of Baltimore City property, didn’t have a permit and not on the radar of police intelligence.

But in the days and weeks since the shooting, city leaders and residents have questioned why additional resources weren’t deployed after police learned that the annual gathering was underway.

Hours before it devolved into a melee of gunfire just after midnight, the event began as a family-friendly festival featuring a DJ and pony rides for children. But as the evening progressed, the crowd swelled and became more unruly, witnesses said. Numerous 911 calls ensued, including one as early as 6:57 p.m. July 1 in which a resident informed police that Brooklyn Day was being celebrated.

Worley said Thursday that information was never relayed to officers who were responding.

Recordings of police dispatchers show officials received a 911 call around 9:45 p.m. reporting hundreds of people in the area of Gretna Court armed with guns and knives. Someone over the police radio responded, seemingly joking: “You might have to redirect that call to the National Guard.”

By about 10:30 p.m., police requested a flyover from the city’s police helicopter, Foxtrot. The helicopter’s operator reported that everything appeared to be “normal.” Shortly after 12:30 a.m., however, shooting began. Aaliyah Gonzalez, 18, and Kylis Fagbemi, 20, were killed.

Dozens of injured people were taken to a nearby hospital.

Worley said an investigation is still underway that is reviewing officer body cameras, dispatch recordings and even officer GPS locations to determine where officers were that night, what was observed and why officers who arrived at the scene did not engage the crowd.

In the interim, a new policy has been implemented requiring officers to escalate events of 50 or more people to a sergeant or lieutenant. In some cases, smaller events that have the potential to grow will also be flagged, he said.

“We have to see what happened here and make corrections so this never happens again,” Worley said.

Council President Nick Mosby said he finds it difficult to believe that the police response to the growing crowd in Brooklyn Homes was the same as it would have been if a similar-sized crowd gathered in Fells Point, Canton or Federal Hill, areas of the city with more affluent, white populations.

“It’s hard for me to grapple with that if this was in Fells Point, it would happen the same exact way,” he said. “It gets to the culture. I just don’t understand how we get past that. I don’t understand how we get past Baltimore Police Department saying this is not about Brooklyn Park.”

Worley said Baltimore Police have increased their presence in Fells Point because the community has called for it and escalated complaints to Councilman Zeke Cohen who represents the area.

“That doesn’t alleviate us from the fact that we knew that day, and we should have utilized our resources,” he said.

Mosby said there needs to be a more equitable distribution of assets in all of the city’s neighborhoods, not just those that are organized enough to contact their council people.

“I totally agree, sir, and it’s my job to do that,” Worley said.

Council members questioned how a department under a federal consent decree mandating community policing could have missed an event as well-attended as Brooklyn Day. Community policing requires officers to spend more time in the neighborhoods they patrol, getting to know the residents and the goings-on there.

The party was advertised widely on social media and flyers were printed and distributed throughout Brooklyn Homes.

Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, whose district includes Brooklyn, pulled up a social media post about the event during the hearing. She remarked on how easy it was to find.

“You’re telling me your entire social media unit didn’t pick that up?” she asked.

“Yes,” officials replied.

City officials reiterated Thursday that the event was “unpermitted” and “unsanctioned.” Department of Transportation officials who issue permits for events said they do not issue permits for events on the property of the housing authority.

Janet Abrahams, CEO of the housing authority, said officials have repeatedly asked themselves in the aftermath of the shooting whether they should have known. Abrahams said the date for the event varies widely, sometimes in June, sometimes in August. Had staff seen flyers circulating in the neighborhood, they would have alerted police, she said.

Abrahams said the authority will be expanding a contracted security force to additional properties including Brooklyn Homes following the incident.

Police believe the Brooklyn Homes shooting started with initial gunshots from one weapon that sparked others in the area crowd to open fire as well, according to court documents filed for the only arrest made in connection with the shooting.

A 17-year-old was charged withpossession of a firearm by a minor, assault weapon possession, reckless endangerment and having a handgun in a vehicle. The minor, who The Baltimore Sun is not naming because he is a minor, was not charged with committing any violence.

Detectives have tried to connect casings recovered from a pool of “suspected blood” in an alleyway near the center of the shootings and a social media video from earlier that evening that shows the teen holding what appears to be a gun, according to court documents. Police have not recovered the gun they say he had, according to his attorney and a judge.

Charging documents for the 17-year-old facing handgun charges describe that police initially sought charges for inciting a riot. The department’s policy on demonstrations and civil disturbances said a protest or assembly can be terminated or dispersed only when it has become a civil disturbance or imminently threatens to become one.