The city of Annapolis recorded its seventh homicide this week, making 2006 the deadliest year on record in Maryland?s capital, city police said.
Sheku Magba Komora, 23, died of gunshot wounds to the chest and upper torso that he suffered two weeks ago when he was shot on the 900 block of Royal Street in Annapolis. Komora?s death increased the city?s murder total to seven, compared with five recorded homicides in 2005 and three in 2004. Annapolis had recorded as few as one murder in prior years.
An eighth person was killed in the city in 2006, but police spokesman Officer Hal Dalton said that death is not counted as a crime because the person was killed in a justified shooting by a city police officer.
Roger Trott was shot and killed May 5 by a city police officer as Trott was struggling with a Maryland State Police trooper.
Annapolis Police Chief Joseph Johnson said drugs were the common denominator among the majority of homicides in the city this year. Most of the victims and suspects knew each other, he said. But he couldn?t explain why the number of homicides has climbed.
“I?m at a loss to explain,” he said. “I?m not able to say that there?s an increase in drug usage in the city. More arrests are being made, but I don?t see that as a factor in the increase [in the homicide rate].”
Police arrested Gary Ellis Brown, 36, of the 300 block of Oak Manor Drive in Glen Burnie, on Dec. 15 in connection with the Komora shooting. Annapolis police said Wednesday that Brown could face additional or amended charges in light of Komora?s death.
Johnson said the city?s overall crime rate for 2006, projected to be about 2,400 reported crimes, will match the crime rate recorded in 2001, 2002 and 2003. In 2005, there were about 2,100 reported crimes, a historic low, according to police statistics.
Johnson said he plans to crack down on robberies and burglaries in 2007 that have been blamed for the overall increase in crime and the increase in violent crimes this year.
