A 34-year-old mother was released on home detention during a March 17 bail hearing after defense counsel brought new evidence before the court regarding her charges.
Sabrea Renee Brooks of Baltimore faces charges of attempted murder, assault and firearm use for allegedly assaulting her friend during an altercation that occurred Feb. 24 outside the victim’s Seton Hill apartment. Charging documents state that around 10 p.m., police were called to the 600 block of W. Franklin Street for a report of an aggravated assault that began in an apartment unit and escalated in the complex’s parking lot.
In the weeks following the initial report, however, the victim reportedly began reaching out to the defendant through family, “expressing regret over the fact that Ms. Brooks is incarcerated.” Defense attorney Staci Pipkin also maintained during the bail review hearing that the incident was “certainly not an attempted murder” despite the state’s contention.
While court documents note Brooks confessed to police that she was the legal owner of a 9mm semi-automatic handgun, Pipkin argued “there’s no corroboration of this,” emphasizing that investigators failed to recover a firearm or shell casings. None of the involved parties sustained any injuries. Pipkin called the victim “an intoxicated, unreliable witness” and argued she likely claimed Brooks used a firearm at the scene because she was well aware of her friend’s status as a legal gun owner.
According to the defense, Brooks and her children had grown aware in recent years of the victim’s “history of severe alcoholism.” At the same time, said Pipkin, the victim had also “began to abuse her younger children, with whom Brooks’ son are friends.”
The defense claimed the altercation stemmed from a phone call Brooks had with her son earlier in the day while the latter was staying over at the victim’s home. Brooks reportedly heard the victim screaming in the background, and her son informed her that the victim had once again begun abusing one of her children.
Brooks then went to the victim’s apartment to pick up her son, Pipkin said, and upon arrival also offered to do the same for the victim’s children.
“That was the extent of why any of this occurred at all,” Pipkin told Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Kendra Y. Ausby.
Pipkin said Brooks, a full-time Maryland Transit Authority bus driver and mother of six children, has remained primarily concerned about her children’s well-being while incarcerated, as they “have never been away from her and have no idea where she is, essentially, at this point.”
She requested that Brooks be released on her own recognizance and allowed to continue working while awaiting trial, arguing her client would have no issue maintaining no contact with the victim or her children.
Both the state and pre-trial evaluation services agreed with Pipkin’s request, finding home detention adequate to protect the community and Brooks posed no flight risk,
Judge Ausby acknowledged the lack of evidence or corroborating witnesses to back up the victim’s claims, as well as Brooks’ clean criminal record, as factors in allowing Brooks to remain on home detention.
