Homicides in Baltimore are occurring this year at an accelerated pace -- even as the number of slayings plummets in other major cities around the nation.
The troubling statistics again leave city police to explain the paradox of a decline in violent crime and shootings while the number of slayings continues to rise.
This year, 105 people have been slain in the city, 24 more than had been killed at the same time in 1997. It puts the city on a pace for 333 slayings -- just under the second-highest number recorded, 335, in 1992, but still below the record, 353, set a year later.
"We are not going to sit still and let the murders increase," said Col. Elbert E. Shirey, one of two chiefs of the patrol bureau. "We are going to do something and get these numbers down."
Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier and his three top commanders have developed a new strategy to combat the problem. It includes putting dozens more officers and detectives in the high-crime areas of East and West Baltimore.
In addition, the department wants to pay up to 60 officers overtime to stand on drug corners. "Their main mission in life will be to disrupt the drug markets," Shirey said.
Also, traffic officers will be driving the length of North Avenue to stop cars and make it more difficult for criminals to use the road as a quick and easy access route to the two prime drug areas of East and West Baltimore.
Police have been baffled by the reported drop in shootings and the concurrent rise in homicides. A study two years ago by the city Health Department blamed it on a high mortality rate, repeated head shots with large-caliber weapons and execution-style slayings from 2 feet away.
Frazier released statistics last week showing that more homicide victims were shot in the head or shot multiple times than last year. As a result, he said, about 20 percent of shooting victims die before reaching a hospital, up from 11 percent in 1993.
Nineteen victims have died from single-shot head wounds this year, as opposed to three at the same time last year. An additional 15 died after being hit several times, compared with six last year.
Dr. Edward E. Cornwell III, the chief of adult trauma surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital -- one of two hospitals that treat most of the city's gunshot cases -- said in a letter to Frazier this month that he has seen a 12 percent decrease in shooting victims from 1994 to 1996 but a 10 percent increase in head wounds.
Also, the commissioner said other cities have experienced the same oddity as Baltimore: fewer shootings, yet more homicides.
He said a survey found that the Miami-Dade Police Department in Florida reported a 22 percent decrease in shootings last year ++ but a 9 percent rise in homicides. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., department had a 7 percent decrease in shootings and a 1 percent increase in slayings.
Other cities where slayings have dropped over the past five to six years include Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles and Boston. Frazier notes that slayings have increased elsewhere, such as in Indianapolis, Miami and Philadelphia.
But Baltimore police agree that they must do more to combat the problem here. "It is a serious issue," Frazier said. "It is at the absolute top of our agenda."
The commissioner noted that New York added 6,000 police officers to its 32,000-member agency last year, while the Baltimore City Council cut funds that would have enabled him to hire 40 officers to bolster his force of 3,200.
Frazier was hired in 1994, right after the city experienced its worst-ever year for slayings, with 353 people killed. The number made Baltimore the fifth-deadliest city in the nation and was a factor in the departure of Frazier's predecessor, Eddie V. Woods.
A social phenomenon
Some criminologists say murders are a social phenomenon of which police are only part of the solution. The numbers fluctuate, they say, and it is difficult to establish causes.
Henry Brownstein, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Baltimore, who has written a book called "The Rise and Fall of a Violent Crime Wave," said too much can be made of policing strategies.
"Nobody wants to take responsibility, and everybody has to share some of the blame," he said.
Brownstein said one factor in decreasing crime could be that drug dealers have established their market areas, so there are fewer battles over turf.
"You can do all the best things in the world to keep a homicide rate down, and then someone comes in and shoots up a school," he said. "They've been very lucky in New York."
A high murder count is a distinction most cities can live without, and the fact that other jurisdictions are seeing their numbers fall while Baltimore's increase gives Frazier's critics ammunition.
