The year 2007 had barely begun when Baltimore police Officer Troy Chesley was gunned down on his West Baltimore doorstep in an attempted robbery. The killing of a cop on the streets of America?s most murderous city provided a portent of a bleak and bloody year. Gunshot after gunshot. Funeral after funeral. Heartbroken family after heartbroken family.
In 2007, 282 people were slain in Baltimore, the most the since 1999.
Some of the killings illustrate how random urban violence can be: The longtime correctional officer killed in a botched robbery, the 72-year-old woman fatally stabbed in her apartment, the teenager killed over $20.
The almost-daily killings can weigh heavily on a cop.
“We?ve had 2-year-olds and grandmothers killed this year,” said Baltimore Police Union President Paul Blair. “We?ve had too many innocent people killed. As an officer, you deal with these grieving families. You have to rap on the door and tell them, ?I?m sorry, ma?am, your son?s not coming home.?”
No one knows that pain like the family members who lived through it.
“I still see my brother in my mind every day,” said Lavar Williams, 25, whose older brother, Lorado Williams, 27, a popular area boxer, was killed during a botched street robbery Aug. 6. “They took my brother away. It makes me feel angry. Real angry.”
Slayings down elsewhere
At the same time as Baltimore?s homicide rate increased, other major cities ? such as Boston, New York and Chicago ? all tracked lower homicide rates.
For Anna Sowers, whose husband, Zach, 27, was beaten into a coma while walking home from the Canton bars in June, her emotion isn?t anger. It?s disbelief.
Beside herself over her husband?s injuries, Anna Sowers felt victimized again when prosecutors in the case cut a plea deal with three suspects, who had admitted their guilt, for prison terms of eight years. The other suspect got 40 years.
Under Maryland law, they could be free in half that time if they behave in prison.
“Baltimore City jurors are not finding the guilty guilty,” Anna Sowers says. “If you want the city to be safer, you need to put the criminals away. Criminals need to be fearful of the State?s Attorney?s Office. But it?s the other way around. Oftentimes, it?s the State?s Attorney?s Office that?s fearful of an acquittal.”
Baltimore police say they?re doing their best to lock away the killers to keep them from striking again.
They?ve arrested 158 people on homicide charges and posted a year-end 55 percent clearance rate for slayings, an improvement over last year?s 54 percent but still behind the national average of 62 percent.
What?s disturbing about the suspects is this: With few exceptions, they?ve all been arrested before. Police had already locked up 97 percent of this year?s alleged killers, 80 percent for drug crimes and 70 percent for violent crimes. One out of two suspected killers has previous arrests for gun crimes.
“It?s a breakdown of the whole system,” Blair says. “Some of these people have had eight, 12, 15 bites of the criminal justice system and they?re out there walking the street. We have people out on triple probation. How can you be out on triple probation? No other jurisdiction in the country has ever heard of triple probation. We have the most liberal judges in the city. They have no problem giving people 10 years with time suspended for murder.”
Signs of progress
Amid the bleakness, there have been signs of hope. December?s 14 homicides were the fewest of 2007. The city went eight consecutive days this month without a killing, five in a row without a shooting.
In fact, homicides and shootings have been trending downward since July, when Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld took the reins from a fired Leonard Hamm.
“Early in the year, when the shootings and homicides were going up, everyone was predicting over 300 murders for Baltimore,” Bealefeld says. “We?re making incredibly good progress. We?re going in the right direction. We have a long-term plan to make Baltimore safer, and it?s working.”
Police department statistics show total city crime finished the year down 9 percent compared with last year, with violent crime down 5 percent.
There were about 3,000 fewer robberies, 2,000 less aggravated assaults, and 2,000 less burglaries.
“That robbery reduction might not seem like a lot,” says Baltimore police spokesman Sterling Clifford, “but that?s 3,000 fewer people who had reason to call the police in 2007 than 2006. Ithink that?s a big deal to those 3,000 people.”
Still, he acknowledges there?s much to be done.
“I don?t think anyone is excited about the end-of-the-year homicide numbers. It?s still too big a number,” he says.
And January ? a month particularly bad for killings the past two years ? is just beginning.
“Last year, it was only nine days in and we lost an officer,” Blair says. “My biggest hope is I don?t have to get one of those phone calls in the middle of the night.”
December slaying victims
» Dec. 2: Eugenio Harrison, 19, 2000 block of North Forest Park Avenue
» Dec. 10: Artavius Tubman, 24, 6100 block of Boston Street
» Dec. 14: Richard Lawson, 24, 2900 block of Chelsea Terrace
» Dec. 15: Jamal Rowlett, 20, 2500 block of North Calvert Street
» Dec. 16: Jabari Stocks, 3, 900 block of East Patapsco Avenue
» Dec. 16: Jamal Rowlett, 20, 2500 block of North Calvert Street
» Dec. 17: Monea Gorham, 24, 1500 block of Madison Avenue
» Dec. 18: Lezli Dukes, 22, 3200 block of Walbrook Avenue
» Dec. 20: Michael Weathers, 19, 2300 block of Atlantic Avenue
» Dec. 21: Jason Milton Allen, 25, 2300 block of Druid Hill Avenue
» Dec. 24: Toby MacCombie, 30, 6600 block of Vincent Lane
» Dec. 24: William Harper, 36, 2400 block of Reisterstown Road
» Dec. 26: Kevin Bacon, 46, 1700 block of North Dallas Street
» Dec. 28: Todd Dargan, 25, 900 block of North Caroline Street
