A dozen people braved harsh winter winds to remember the deaths of hundreds of city residents that remain unclassified.
As fierce gusts of cold air buffeted candles lit in remembrance, the mourners standing outside the State Medical Examiner’s Office in downtown Baltimore Wednesday evening expressed hope that elected officials and police would do more to investigate deaths ruled ‘undetermined.’ ”
“We need to ask all our elected officials to call for hearings to examine why we have so many undetermined deaths in the city,” said activist Darren Muhammad, who organized the vigil. “Some of these cases could have been murders; some of the perpetrators could still be out there.”
The mother of a homicide victim also expressed empathy for families of people whose deaths have yet to be classified.
“We need to support the families of people who have died but who don’t know why. We need to shine a light on them and to let them know that we care about their loved ones,” said Darice Claude-Bondels, whose son David Byrd was stabbed to death in 2007. That case is still open.
“We need to keep the light burning for the victims and for all the people who are suffering.”
A death remains unclassified, or “undetermined,” if a medical examiner — based on the available evidence — cannot rule out the four manners of death: accident, suicide, homicide or natural causes.
Baltimore has averaged 300 undetermined deaths per year in the past decade — far exceeding the numbers of comparable jurisdictions. Washington, D.C., for example, had just 76 undetermined cases in 2004, while Maryland’s chief medical examiner ruled 341 deaths as undetermined in Baltimore that year.
The medical examiner’s office attributes the large numbers of undetermined deaths in Baltimore to drug addicts who die from heroin or cocaine intoxication, often in circumstances that leave it unclear if the overdose was intentional or the work of another person, or simply an accident.
Participants at Wednesday’s vigil said many of the undetermined cases include people who are poor, and urged that more resources be directed to investigate undetermined deaths to provide closure to families of people whose deaths remain shrouded in mystery.
“Every death is important,” said Daniel Yates, 19. “We to need account for these deaths and investigate them thoroughly.”
