Twenty bucks. It?s not even enough money to fill up a gas tank, but in Baltimore, police say, it?s enough reason to kill someone.
On May 29, Christopher Ford, 17, picked up a .38 revolver and shot to death fellow teenager Neil Rather on Clifton Avenue, police said.
In a taped statement, Ford admitted to Baltimore Police Homicide Detective Joon Kim that he “shot Neil Rather during an argument over a $20 debt,” Kim wrote.
Rather?s slaying was one of 30 in 31 days in Baltimore, making May the deadliest month of the year.
With 129 homicides on the books so far, the city is on pace to hit 300 homicides this year for the first time since 1999.
Among the victims was Lt. Perry Brooks, 49, a veteran correctional officer described as “well-liked and professional” whose grandson found him on May 25 shot to death in his car outside his northeast Baltimore home.
Brooks? slaying, like the large majority of this month?s homicides, remains unsolved.
Police have closed six of May?s 30 homicides and 38 ? or 30 percent ? of this year?s 129 killings.
Detectives have also closed almost an equal amount of last year?s cases, for a total of 61 cases cleared this year, police said.
“InBaltimore City, what we?re seeing is young people with guns shooting each other,” says Baltimore Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm. “They?re gang members. They?re fighting over turf. They?re fighting over perceived insults and that?s what?s fueling it.”
Homicides are up about from 114 this time last year and, in a number just as disturbing to police, shootings have increased by 40 percent.
The shootings and homicides have caused city leaders to put forth several new proposals aimed at combating the violence.
Baltimore City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has asked Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon to make an emergency disbursement of $2 million from the rainy-day fund to begin a recruitment campaign aimed attracting officers to 142 open positions.
“They are faced with the equivalent of an entire district worth of officers missing from the streets,” Rawlings-Blake said. “? When those positions remain vacant, we are less safe. ? When we speak to the officers out on the street, they say that they can?t, with the manpower they have now, get the job done. We owe it to them and the citizens to make sure we have a full force.”
At the same time, Dixon and Hamm have asked nine law enforcement agencies ? including Maryland State Police, Maryland State Transportation Authority Police and the Maryland Transit Administration Police ? to increase their efforts in the city
Dixon says she knows the police are doing their jobs, but worries that other aspects of the criminal justice system are faltering.
“The police are arresting,” she said, “but people are getting out again.”
Baltimore Circuit Court Judge John Glynn said judges have since March implemented a new system for handling cases that appears to be expediting the criminal justice system.
“We?re really pushing the most serious cases to trial. The trials move faster and it?s easier on thejuror. I?m hoping a happier juror is a more rational juror,” he said. “But this system is never going to resemble a low pressure courthouse with a low level of violent crime.
“In a high pressure situation, you are going to see some strange things. We do the best we can under difficult circumstances.”
MAY HOMICIDE VICTIMS
May 1: Abdul Rahim Azzie, 18, of Baltimore, blunt force trauma *
May 2: Larry Brockington, 31, of Baltimore, shooting
May 2: Derius Harmon, 18, of Baltimore, shooting
May 3: Mathew Davis, 23, of Baltimore, shooting
May 5: Adrian Beasley, 23, of Baltimore, shooting
May 6: Rocky Bottoms Jr., 24, of Pittsburgh, Pa., shooting *
May 7: Thomas Mouzon Jr., 23, of Baltimore, shooting
May 7: John Graves, 26, of Baltimore, shooting
May 8: Michael Davis, 25, of Baltimore, shooting
May 8: William Curtis, 23, of Baltimore, shooting
May 10: Deandre Hatcher, 17, of Baltimore, shooting *
May 11: Gerald Wilson, 22, of Baltimore, shooting
May 12: Antwoine Hawkings, 29, of Baltimore, shooting
May 12: Todd Little, 29, of Baltimore, shooting
May 14: Nathaniel Hicks, 30, of Baltimore, shooting
May 16: Earl Cornish, 21, of Baltimore, shooting
May 17: Robert Perlie, 16, of Baltimore, shooting
May 22: Alvin Parson, 22, of Baltimore, blunt force trauma *
May 22: Alexander Rose, 23, of Baltimore, shooting
May 22: Adrian Smith, 19, of Baltimore, shooting
May 23: Jasman Elmore, 18, of Baltimore, shooting
May 25: Perry Brooks, 49, of Baltimore, shooting
May 25: Renard Maith, 52, of Baltimore, stabbing
May 26: Brian Johnson, 31, of Baltimore, shooting
May 26: Amin Reed, 30, no last known address, shooting
May 26: Davon Williams, 32, of Baltimore, shooting
May 27: David Bishop, 32, of Baltimore, stabbing *
May 29: Laron Henderson, 27, of Baltimore, shooting
May 29: Neil Rather, 18, of Baltimore, shooting *
May 30: John Drew, 26, of Baltimore, shooting
* Suspect arrested and charged in the case
BY THE NUMBERS
» May homicides: 30
» May homicides closed: 6
» 2007 homicides: 129
» 2007 homicides cleared: 38
» Homicide comparisons: Washington reported 68 though June 1; Philadelphia reported 164 through May 29; New York reported 176 through May 27.
