City hits 300 homicides for the fifth year in a row
Number reached after double fatal shooting in Southwest Baltimore
Several Southwest Baltimore neighbors began their Thursday morning with a visit to the South Monroe Grocery store and more bad news.
The lingering scent of bleach and a police presence outside the corner store signaled to patrons that another homicide had occurred. The officers soon placed a call to the fire department to wash the remaining flecks of blood from the pavement.
Hours earlier, a man and a womanwere fatally shot on the sidewalk there — the 299th and 300th individuals killed in Baltimore in 2019.
Their deaths marked the city’s fifth consecutive year with at least 300 homicides. The staggering total has become an unofficial milestone in Baltimore’s annual struggle to quell the deadly violence.
Police confirmed the double shooting Thursday near the grocery store at the corner of Monroe and McHenry streets in West Baltimore’s Carrollton Ridge neighborhood. Prior to that, 21-year-old Donnell Brockington, of Aberdeen, died at an area hospital after he was found Wednesday night with gunshot wounds in the 2600 block of McElderry St. in East Baltimore’s McElderry Park.
“Every murder is a tragedy. We don’t want any. We strive to clear them all,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said Thursday on WYPR’s Midday show with Tom Hall.
Harrison, who previously served as New Orleans’ chief, said it took years for that city to reverse its crime trends. He said he attributed the reversals there partially to apprehending and holding criminals accountable. By solving more homicides and shootings, he said, they were able to prevent more.
He said a new deployment strategy in
Baltimore placed officers in the area of a shooting Wednesday night, allowing them to catch a fleeing vehicle.
“Our officers were right where they are supposed to be,” he said.
However, Harrison said, to address the “culture of violence” in Baltimore, there must be programs offering young men a path away from a life of crime.
“If you’re not doing that, we are only responding to it,” he said.
Men and women passing through South Monroe Grocery Thursday said they were exhausted — of their neighborhood, the deaths and the endless grief.
Akagg Beard referred to the woman killed earlier in the morning as a lifelong friend and a good person. Beard was stabbed herself three months ago during a robbery.
And, to Joseph Calloway, it seemed that people in Baltimore “get killed for nothing.”
Less than a year ago, Calloway’s brother Edward Calloway also was shot and killed near the mini-market. An aging memorial to Edward still clings to a signpost outside the front door.
“I wish I was rich, I wish I wasn’t in the neighborhood, but I wish a lot of things,” Calloway said. “But it’s the game of life and life is dirty.”