With Saturday's fatal stabbing of a 27-year-old man in West Baltimore and fatal shooting of a 22-year-old in Westport, the city's annual homicide count passed 300 for the first time since 1999, pushing the city across a deadly threshold once considered a relic of the past.
The latest killings continued a surge of violence — more than a killing per day — that began in late April after Freddie Gray's death and the accompanying unrest.
The spate of violence, along with the city's population decline over time, now has Baltimore poised to hit another sobering milestone: the deadliest year on a per-capita basis. That is an abrupt turnaround from 2011, when city leaders were encouraged by the first drop below 200 homicides since the 1970s.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment