In his eight years on the City Council, Kenneth N. Harris Sr. worked diligently to make parts of North and Northeast Baltimore safer from crime, including the Northwood Plaza, an aging strip mall that some say had its heyday in the 1960s.
But Harris, who lost his bid for City Council president last year and left public life, died after falling victim to crime at that shopping center early yesterday.
Harris, 45, was shot outside the New Haven Lounge, a well-known venue for live jazz at the center, by men who then entered the club, and robbed owner Keith Covington and other employees. The gunmen fled out the back door as Covington shot at them.
Covington said Harris, who was a friend, had stopped by about 1:15 a.m. to use the restroom and borrow a corkscrew when both of them were ambushed by the masked gunmen. Covington counted four robbers, but police said there were only three.
Soon after being shot in the chest, Harris died at Johns Hopkins Hospital. His slaying shocked residents in the northern and northeastern Baltimore communities where he served as an outspoken councilman who often called for more police resources for his constituents. His death also left many of his former City Council colleagues and others struggling to explain an apparently random act of violence that took his life, even as the city this year has experienced a significant reduction in homicides.
"He [was] out front as a council person in wanting our city to be safe, challenging all of us, the Police Department, in doing the best job that we can do," Mayor Sheila Dixon said at a news conference yesterday morning. "He was a great young man who did so many great things."
Covington said the robbers had the "same build" as the people who held up his club July 8. If they are the same, the assailants have contributed to a 74 percent increase in robberies in the Northeastern District since mid-August, police statistics show.
News of Harris' killing "just totally devastated me," said Paula Purviance, who lives behind Northwood Plaza and is a past president of both the Hillen Road Improvement Association and the Northeast Community Organization. She said Harris used to work on community issues pertaining to the shopping center.
"There's no explanation of how hard it's hit me, because Ken has always been a tireless leader for our community," Purviance said. "Any time we've asked him to look into something for us, he's always come through."
