City sees a spike in shootings
The Rev. Andre Humphrey is used to his phone ringing when someone is shot in the city. The East Baltimore native leads the Trauma Response Team, a group that offers grief counseling to Baltimore families in the aftermath of violence.
Lately, Humphrey said, his work has been taking him — again and again — to where he grew up. “It’s an epidemic,” he said of spiking rates of gun violence. “People are fearful.”
Shootings are up more than 60 percent in the Eastern District through May 21, compared with the same period last year, according to police data. There were 58 shootings there by that date, compared with 36 last year. That’s the biggest increase of any district in the city.
Homicides with firearms also have risen significantly in the Eastern District — 18 by May 21, compared with six by that date last year.
The rising gun violence in East Baltimore is apparent in a map of shootings in Maryland, available at baltimoresun.com. The interactive map depicts every shooting in the state that is recorded in either of two archives: Open Baltimore and the Gun Violence Archive, a national database assembled by a nonprofit organization. The two archives track shootings differently, and the Gun Violence Archive may not be comprehensive. Together they offer a nearly complete portrait of gun violence in Maryland.
Shootings throughout Baltimore have increased from last year. There have been 306 through May 21; there had been 264 at that point last year.
But while the number of shootings has been climbing in East Baltimore, the number has been declining on the other side of the city.
The Western District saw 59 shootings through May 21. That’s a 12 percent
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decrease compared to the same period last year — the largest drop of any district. That includes a slight decline in homicides with firearms.
Sandtown-Winchester, the West Baltimore neighborhood where crime rates spiked after Freddie Gray’s death, actually saw shootings drop through May 21, compared with the same period last year: from 14 to 11.
Meanwhile, East Baltimore-Midway led city neighborhoods through May 21 in shootings and homicides with firearms. The neighborhood saw 12 shootings by then, including four homicides with firearms — both increases over the neighborhood’s numbers from the same period last year.
Data indicates other East Baltimore neighborhoods have seen increases as well. Ten neighborhoods in the Eastern District that saw zero homicides with firearms by May 21 last year have already seen at least one this year, including Barclay, McElderry Park and Orangeville.