Darrell Brooks was once a fixture in City Hall. An affable young City Council clerk in a tie and jacket, he passed out agendas before the meetings, played practical jokes on the council members and boasted that he, too, would someday become a big-shot politician.

Now, his former employers on the City Council -- some who even served as his mentors -- are horrified to find that the young man who until January 2001 fixed their microphones and filled their water glasses is accused of one of the most heinous crimes in city history, the arson deaths of Angela Dawson and her five children in East Baltimore last week.

It is a crime made even more terrible by the alleged motive -- that the East Preston Street home was torched because Angela and Carnell Dawson Jr. had been a thorn in the side of local drug dealers, often complaining to police.

The City Council members who befriended Brooks, now 21, were unaware of his full story. The son of a former cocaine addict who whipped him with a belt, Brooks had a history of personal problems -- including depression after his brother was murdered in 1993 -- and humiliating struggles in his special education classes, according to court records and friends. He also had a long record of criminal charges, including robbery, assault and theft.

Friends of Brooks' worry that he might have drifted into a world of violent drug criminals after he lost contact with his friends on the City Council.

"It's very hard for me because I keep on wondering if I had stayed in contact with him, maybe we wouldn't be talking about this tragedy today," said City Councilman Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr., who helped mentor Brooks. "When I found out he was charged with these murders, I just broke down and cried. I was just floored. How could this happen?"

The council on Monday offered a moment of silence for the Dawsons. But there was no mention of the man who had sat among them in the council chambers and now is accused as a murderer six times over.

"I saw him heading for trouble, but we tried to show him some love and support," said City Councilman Bernard C. "Jack" Young. "The problem was, when he was back out on the street, he'd say, 'To hell with that.' The boys on the street had too much influence on him."

Growing up in a struggling section of East Baltimore, Brooks suffered from physical abuse by a cocaine-addicted mother, abandonment by his father and the murder of his only brother, court records state.

When Brooks was 5 years old, his mother beat him with a belt because he refused to stop playing and finish his homework, records show.

His mother, a private-duty nurse named Tondalear Alston, was charged with child abuse and placed on probation for two years. Brooks was removed from the home and sent to live with his father, Alvin Nicholas, for three years. But his father did not take care of him, and he returned to his mother 11 months later, records indicate.

The youngest of four children, Brooks "felt pressure to be the 'man' of the house and went out and got a job" when his only brother was murdered in 1993, according to court records. He was 12 years old.

Brooks suffered from "depressive episodes" after his brother's death and took an anti-depressant and an anti-psychotic drug for four months, records state.

He bounced from school to school every few years, attending several programs for children with psychological or emotional problems. He spent the fourth through seventh grades at Villa Maria in Timonium and was suspended a few times for fighting and acting the "class clown," court records state.

Next came the Forbush School of the Sheppard Pratt Health System, the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore and the Hannah More School in Reisterstown.

He worked as a fast-food cook at a Fuddruckers restaurant years before he had reached legal working age, because he was trying to help support his family, according to court records.

Former City Council President Lawrence A. Bell III hired Brooks because he was a friend of a political ally of Bell's, Robert Stokes.

Stokes said he met Brooks when Brooks was about 15 years old and Stokes was directing a city social services program at 1400 E. Federal St.

Brooks would hang around the social services center, asking if he could help. Stokes said he would let Brooks pass out fliers about community events, and in exchange give him a little money and pool passes.

Brooks seemed like a good-hearted but psychologically troubled kid who struggled in school, Stokes said.

"I used to sit with him as he did homework, and he'd get very frustrated, as special education kids sometimes become with their work," said Stokes, 44. "And then street life became a drug in itself for him."

Worked for Dixon

Brooks volunteered to help Stokes campaign for the City Council in 1999 and helped Bell's failed run for mayor the same year. Bell hired him as a part-time City Council clerk in June 1999, paying him $76.93 every two weeks as a part-time council clerk until Dec. 8, 1999, when Bell's term in office ended.

Sheila Dixon replaced Bell as City Council president that month. She said she re-hired Brooks for the same job from Oct. 16, 2000, to Jan. 19, 2001, after her legislative director, who also served under Bell, had recommended Brooks.

Dixon said she never ran a criminal record check on Brooks. If she had checked, she would have found that Brooks had several criminal charges against him, including armed robbery, assault and theft in Sept. 1998.

Brooks was known as a respectful and chatty clerk who had a comical streak. He would hand Mitchell pens to sign bills that had the ink cartridges removed. Dixon said she had to fire Brooks in January last year because he started missing meetings.

Friends said he talked about joining the Coast Guard but took it hard when the Guard rejected him. City Council staff members helped get Brooks a scholarship to Baltimore City Community College, but he dropped out.

Brooks was the victim of an attempted murder April 14, according to court records. He was standing in the 1600 block of N. Broadway about 1 a.m. when a man pulled up in a black Cadillac, demanded, "Where's the money at?" and pointed a handgun at Brooks' head, witnesses told police. Brooks said that he did not have the money, and the man shot him in the left foot.

Kept trying to help

Despite Brooks' troubles, City Council members kept trying to help him until the end.

The last time Dixon saw Brooks was Aug. 25, when she was walking to a community meeting. She saw Brooks hanging out on a street corner near where both he and the Dawsons lived.

"I asked him, 'What are you doing out on the corner? Are you working?'" Dixon recalled. "He said, 'I'm out on probation.' And I said, 'Probation? What for?' And he said, 'A gun charge.' I said, 'Look, if you get your act together, I'll try to help you get another job. But you have to get your act together.'"

Brooks never took up her offer for assistance. Less than two months later, he was charged with the fatal arson.

Dixon wasn't the only one who tried to help Brooks.

Two blocks north of his home in the 1200 block of N. Eden St., Sylvia Martin, 57, and her granddaughter, Octavia Briscoe, were greatly troubled by his arrest. Brooks regularly visited their home, dined with them, prayed with them.

Brooks took Octavia, now 20, to his prom four years ago.

Octavia, who had many long conversations with Brooks about their lives, said in many ways he was no different from most of the other young men in the neighborhood.

"All Darrell ever wanted was somebody to sit down and listen," she said. "Just like they have love for the people that died in that fire, people have love for Darrell. He had a good heart and he had a troubled childhood just like a lot of people out here."

Sun staff writers John B. O'Donnell, Laurie Willis, Liz Bowie and Tanika White also contributed to this article.