Wave of street violence shakes Baltimore
About 40 people shot and 16 killed in less than two weeks
By Justin Fenton, Justin George and Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun
10:19 p.m. EDT, June 29, 2013
But a tidal wave of violence — about 40 people shot and 16 killed in the past 10 days — has shaken the city.
"We are at crisis level," said City Councilman Nick Mosby, who represents areas on the city's west side hit particularly hard by recent violence. "It's not going to get better with business-as-usual procedures."
The ongoing violence — three more shootings, one of them fatal, occurred Saturday — is calling attention once again to Baltimore's homicide rate and gun violence problem, which had been in decline in recent years. Last year, however, the number of people killed in Baltimore increased 10 percent. And at the midpoint of 2013 the number of homicides — 117 — is the highest in six years, raising questions about whether the city is backsliding.
Other cities have seen a similar trend, though crime rates have dropped significantly in Washington, New York and Dallas. Last year, violent crime rose in the United States for the first time in six years, with the largest increases occurring in cities like Baltimore with populations between 500,000 and 1 million, where homicides increased 12 percent. Among cities in that population range, Oklahoma City, Louisville, San Francisco and Memphis saw significant percentage increases, though none has a murder rate approaching Baltimore's.
Criminologists, who have been split on the reasons for the years of decline amid an economic slowdown, said it was inevitable that crime would rise.
"We may have hit the bottom and are now on our way up again," said Dennis Kenney, of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. "The fact that crime has bumped up in cities of all sizes and in all regions suggests that it is a real trend and not just a statistical anomaly. Unfortunately, it does appear that Baltimore may be leading the way."
The concerns began over Memorial Day weekend, when 12 shootings left three dead, including a 1-year-old boy in Cherry Hill.
The more recent spate of killings has sparked an outcry by city politicians and large rallies in affected neighborhoods. This week, the Police Department's chief spokesman was reassigned after drawing criticism for saying that the city was generally satisfied with crime reductions. And police said that this weekend there would be up to three times the number of officers typically on the streets, with patrol forces being supplemented by the Maryland State Police, the Maryland Transportation Authority and the city sheriff's office.
On Wednesday, Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts, who took the helm of the department last fall, qualified the progress the Baltimore had made in recent years — in contrast to the mayor's statements regarding the city's strides and the department's own statistics.
"You have to look at crime for a five-year period," he said when asked whether the city's police strategy is working. "We took some really good downturns in 2007, 2008, but the city's basically been flat since 2009. Although we had 197 [homicides] in 2011, if you really look at the stats, we've basically been flat."
John Roman, senior fellow of a Washington, D.C., criminology think tank, said in the short-term Baltimore is doing what it can, putting more officers on the streets.
"It's [just] the past couple of weeks and we're just going to have to monitor it closely. But Baltimore isn't alone," Wexler said.
As Baltimoreans grew more concerned about the violence, Batts moved to reassure them about police efforts, while also noting recent violent weekends in Washington and Chicago. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, in a phone interview from Las Vegas with a television station, said city crime was down and like Batts noted that Washington had experienced a violent weekend.
But a closer look at Washington shows a much different picture. That city, which is similar in size and geography to Baltimore — and had far more homicides at its peak of 482 in 1991 — was down to just 88 killings last year. It is on track for an even lower figure this year. The city's "violent week" in late June consisted of four homicides, about average for Baltimore.
"The fact of the matter is, people still get very upset about crime," said Washington City Councilman Jim Graham, who often uses his Twitter account to notify residents about crime in his district. He said that gentrification contributed to the crime decline, and that the old crime rates don't matter much to the new residents.
Cities such as Washington, New York and Dallas continue to experience precipitous drops in crime rates while others, including Baltimore, have not followed suit.
And it's not just because of job growth in those cities, Roman suggested. Huge surges of immigrants filling those cities have contributed to lowering crime, he said. Immigrants move into blighted areas and create cohesive communities with low crime — contrary to stereotypes that such communities cause societal problems, he said.
"It's about racial and economic segregation," Roman said. "It's about immigration and gentrification."
Chicago, meanwhile, has made national headlines for its gang and youth violence, and last year had the most homicides of any U.S. city. But it also has a population of nearly 2.9 million, and its homicide rate is half that of Baltimore's. Chicago's homicide total this year is down more than 30 percent compared to 2012, and is headed for the lowest point since the 1960s.
Roseanna Ander, executive director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, said Chicago's numbers are high but get extra attention because of the city's ties to the president, its high-profile mayor and the sheer number of victims.
"Certainly, if you live in many of these neighborhoods, they don't feel safe," Ander said. "But I think a lot of people conflated the largest number with the highest rate, and have been trying to untangle what that means. … It is troubling if people are being shot and being killed, but when you look at the same weekends the previous years, the numbers were the same or lower."
In interviews, Batts has given a wide array of reasons for the spike in killings. He has discussed gangs on Kenwood Avenue, where an 18-year-old girl was killed in a quintuple shooting; retaliation related to disputes at nightclubs; and problems spilling over from the city jail.
Batts has regularly mentioned the Black Guerrilla Family gang since arriving here from California in the fall, and has put the group at the center of some of this week's disputes as well. Police have made several arrests in recent crimes, though none of the past week's murders has resulted in arrests yet.
Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League and mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002, said Baltimore's crime is an economic problem that many cities struggle with. One in four residents in Baltimore lives under the poverty line, and the unemployment rate was 10 percent at the end of May.
A major factor is unemployment among youth and young adults, Morial said. "So when you take the illegal narcotics and trafficking in dope, and on top of that you have easy access to guns combined with high unemployment and very difficult economic conditions, it exacerbates the problem."
"Even law-abiding people are going to be against the police because they don't like their kids getting stopped all the time," he said.
At a special meeting of the City Council's public safety committee Wednesday night, several members said they would like to see police more involved with the community.
Baltimore Sun reporters Jean Marbella and Carrie Wells contributed to this article
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[email protected]
[email protected]
Recent homicides
June 29: unidentified victim, 200 S. Haven St.
June 28: unidentified victim, 900 Bennett Place
June 27: Gennie Shird, 3300 Elmora Ave.
June 27: Andre Cox, 2900 W. North Ave.
June 27: Corey Gibson, 2900 W. North Ave.
June 25: Terrell McLaurin, 2900 Gwynns Falls Parkway
June 25: Stanley Capers, 800 Whitmore Ave.
June 23: Maurice Taylor, 900 Bennett Place
June 23: Claude Nelson, 5200 St. Charles Ave.
June 22: Gervontae Burgess, 1400 Pennsylvania Ave.
June 22: Joyce Alston, 1400 Pennsylvania Ave.
June 22: Danquel Darden, 500 E. 26th St.
June 22: Omar Shorter, 5200 Cuthbert Ave.
June 22: Donyae Jones, 700 N. Kenwood Ave.
June 21: Andre Witherspoon, 900 Ducatel St.
June 20: Darrell Banks, 1600 Mountmor Court
Read more: Wave of homicides shakes Baltimore - baltimoresun.com
About 40 people shot and 16 killed in less than two weeks
By Justin Fenton, Justin George and Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun
10:19 p.m. EDT, June 29, 2013
But a tidal wave of violence — about 40 people shot and 16 killed in the past 10 days — has shaken the city.
"We are at crisis level," said City Councilman Nick Mosby, who represents areas on the city's west side hit particularly hard by recent violence. "It's not going to get better with business-as-usual procedures."
The ongoing violence — three more shootings, one of them fatal, occurred Saturday — is calling attention once again to Baltimore's homicide rate and gun violence problem, which had been in decline in recent years. Last year, however, the number of people killed in Baltimore increased 10 percent. And at the midpoint of 2013 the number of homicides — 117 — is the highest in six years, raising questions about whether the city is backsliding.
Other cities have seen a similar trend, though crime rates have dropped significantly in Washington, New York and Dallas. Last year, violent crime rose in the United States for the first time in six years, with the largest increases occurring in cities like Baltimore with populations between 500,000 and 1 million, where homicides increased 12 percent. Among cities in that population range, Oklahoma City, Louisville, San Francisco and Memphis saw significant percentage increases, though none has a murder rate approaching Baltimore's.
Criminologists, who have been split on the reasons for the years of decline amid an economic slowdown, said it was inevitable that crime would rise.
"We may have hit the bottom and are now on our way up again," said Dennis Kenney, of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. "The fact that crime has bumped up in cities of all sizes and in all regions suggests that it is a real trend and not just a statistical anomaly. Unfortunately, it does appear that Baltimore may be leading the way."
The concerns began over Memorial Day weekend, when 12 shootings left three dead, including a 1-year-old boy in Cherry Hill.
The more recent spate of killings has sparked an outcry by city politicians and large rallies in affected neighborhoods. This week, the Police Department's chief spokesman was reassigned after drawing criticism for saying that the city was generally satisfied with crime reductions. And police said that this weekend there would be up to three times the number of officers typically on the streets, with patrol forces being supplemented by the Maryland State Police, the Maryland Transportation Authority and the city sheriff's office.
On Wednesday, Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts, who took the helm of the department last fall, qualified the progress the Baltimore had made in recent years — in contrast to the mayor's statements regarding the city's strides and the department's own statistics.
"You have to look at crime for a five-year period," he said when asked whether the city's police strategy is working. "We took some really good downturns in 2007, 2008, but the city's basically been flat since 2009. Although we had 197 [homicides] in 2011, if you really look at the stats, we've basically been flat."
John Roman, senior fellow of a Washington, D.C., criminology think tank, said in the short-term Baltimore is doing what it can, putting more officers on the streets.
"It's [just] the past couple of weeks and we're just going to have to monitor it closely. But Baltimore isn't alone," Wexler said.
As Baltimoreans grew more concerned about the violence, Batts moved to reassure them about police efforts, while also noting recent violent weekends in Washington and Chicago. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, in a phone interview from Las Vegas with a television station, said city crime was down and like Batts noted that Washington had experienced a violent weekend.
But a closer look at Washington shows a much different picture. That city, which is similar in size and geography to Baltimore — and had far more homicides at its peak of 482 in 1991 — was down to just 88 killings last year. It is on track for an even lower figure this year. The city's "violent week" in late June consisted of four homicides, about average for Baltimore.
"The fact of the matter is, people still get very upset about crime," said Washington City Councilman Jim Graham, who often uses his Twitter account to notify residents about crime in his district. He said that gentrification contributed to the crime decline, and that the old crime rates don't matter much to the new residents.
Cities such as Washington, New York and Dallas continue to experience precipitous drops in crime rates while others, including Baltimore, have not followed suit.
And it's not just because of job growth in those cities, Roman suggested. Huge surges of immigrants filling those cities have contributed to lowering crime, he said. Immigrants move into blighted areas and create cohesive communities with low crime — contrary to stereotypes that such communities cause societal problems, he said.
"It's about racial and economic segregation," Roman said. "It's about immigration and gentrification."
Chicago, meanwhile, has made national headlines for its gang and youth violence, and last year had the most homicides of any U.S. city. But it also has a population of nearly 2.9 million, and its homicide rate is half that of Baltimore's. Chicago's homicide total this year is down more than 30 percent compared to 2012, and is headed for the lowest point since the 1960s.
Roseanna Ander, executive director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, said Chicago's numbers are high but get extra attention because of the city's ties to the president, its high-profile mayor and the sheer number of victims.
"Certainly, if you live in many of these neighborhoods, they don't feel safe," Ander said. "But I think a lot of people conflated the largest number with the highest rate, and have been trying to untangle what that means. … It is troubling if people are being shot and being killed, but when you look at the same weekends the previous years, the numbers were the same or lower."
In interviews, Batts has given a wide array of reasons for the spike in killings. He has discussed gangs on Kenwood Avenue, where an 18-year-old girl was killed in a quintuple shooting; retaliation related to disputes at nightclubs; and problems spilling over from the city jail.
Batts has regularly mentioned the Black Guerrilla Family gang since arriving here from California in the fall, and has put the group at the center of some of this week's disputes as well. Police have made several arrests in recent crimes, though none of the past week's murders has resulted in arrests yet.
Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League and mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002, said Baltimore's crime is an economic problem that many cities struggle with. One in four residents in Baltimore lives under the poverty line, and the unemployment rate was 10 percent at the end of May.
A major factor is unemployment among youth and young adults, Morial said. "So when you take the illegal narcotics and trafficking in dope, and on top of that you have easy access to guns combined with high unemployment and very difficult economic conditions, it exacerbates the problem."
"Even law-abiding people are going to be against the police because they don't like their kids getting stopped all the time," he said.
At a special meeting of the City Council's public safety committee Wednesday night, several members said they would like to see police more involved with the community.
Baltimore Sun reporters Jean Marbella and Carrie Wells contributed to this article
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Recent homicides
June 29: unidentified victim, 200 S. Haven St.
June 28: unidentified victim, 900 Bennett Place
June 27: Gennie Shird, 3300 Elmora Ave.
June 27: Andre Cox, 2900 W. North Ave.
June 27: Corey Gibson, 2900 W. North Ave.
June 25: Terrell McLaurin, 2900 Gwynns Falls Parkway
June 25: Stanley Capers, 800 Whitmore Ave.
June 23: Maurice Taylor, 900 Bennett Place
June 23: Claude Nelson, 5200 St. Charles Ave.
June 22: Gervontae Burgess, 1400 Pennsylvania Ave.
June 22: Joyce Alston, 1400 Pennsylvania Ave.
June 22: Danquel Darden, 500 E. 26th St.
June 22: Omar Shorter, 5200 Cuthbert Ave.
June 22: Donyae Jones, 700 N. Kenwood Ave.
June 21: Andre Witherspoon, 900 Ducatel St.
June 20: Darrell Banks, 1600 Mountmor Court
Read more: Wave of homicides shakes Baltimore - baltimoresun.com
