Baltimore’s homicide uptick: City, 5 federal agencies launch 60-day

Baltimore’s police and civic leaders launched a two-month partnership Monday that will see ten federal agents embed with the city’s homicide detectives in the latest bid to curb a surge in violent crime that has not been seen in decades.

The latest incident occurred early Sunday in northwest Baltimore, acting Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said at a news conference held to announce the creation of a multiagency task for to deal with the upswing in homicides plaguing the city.

The violence this year is in some ways unprecedented: No previous year has had two months with more than 40 killings, and the 116 killed from May to July is a three-month high in data kept since 1970. Forty-two people were killed in May after the unrest over the death of Freddie Gray, 25, from a spinal cord injury in police custody. There was a brief dip in June, with 29 killings, but the number shot up again in July, breaking a 43-year record.

Davis had said Sunday that more people are arming themselves on the streets, and that the department has seized 20 percent more guns than it had by this time past year.

Adding to the urgency of Baltimore’s violence is the relatively low “clearance rate” of closed homicide cases.

The move to put federal agents into place in Baltimore also comes on the heels of a March President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing report touted by President Obama.

Davis calls the violence in Baltimore unacceptable and is asking the public to come forward with any information they may have. So we can’t be looking too far down the road because we’re in a moment we need to fight our way out of. “And we will continue to punch back as collaboratively and creatively as we can until we can break through this”. “There are a number of different circumstances that are contributing to where we are now”.

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, in his remarks Monday, appealed to those considering committing acts of violence in Baltimore.

“The only people making good now are the morticians”, the Maryland Democrat said. It’s not just the murders and the shootings. Black Lives Matter declared the chaos was the start of an “uprising” they termed Black Spring.