"When you have a spike like that, then you've got some guys loose," said Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, who represents neighborhoods in Northeast Baltimore. "The only way to take care of it is to catch them and arrest them and make it stick."
Police Maj. Delmar Dickson said the biggest increases have been in the Belvedere and Loch Raven neighborhoods, with many occurring in the early morning and when schools let out. Sterling Clifford, a spokesman for the Police Department and Mayor Sheila Dixon, said the increases appear large in contrast to "unusually low" figures recorded last year.
Dickson said officers were able to close nearly two dozen cases when a group of men believed to be carjacking vehicles and using them to commit robberies were apprehended in the Western District last week. He said officers are being asked to delve deeper into cases to find repeat offenders.
"The guy who goes out with the handgun and commits a robbery isn't doing it for the first time," Dickson said.
Since November 2007, the Northeastern District has been experimenting with a new schedule in which officers work four 10-hour shifts every week, resulting in extra police coverage from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.
The program has been popular with officers, who usually work six days straight in eight-hour shifts, and the police union has been lobbying to expand it.
A committee of city police commanders and union representatives issued a report in May crediting the program with reducing crime in the area, though police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III has expressed reservations about it.
Arnold M. Jolivet, a well-known minority business advocate, stopped at a Jamaican carryout restaurant at a shopping center on Cold Spring Lane yesterday. He said he has frequented the area since he was a student at Morgan State University in the 1970s and that it remains one of the best parts of the city.
"There's no way to explain it, and you can't anticipate it," Jolivet said of Harris' death. "It's a tragedy of the utmost proportion, but the police have done a tremendous job in the past year."
But standing outside a laundromat, 67-year-old James Blue said he doesn't feel as safe as he once did in the neighborhood. "I usually walk most places," he said, "but I won't be doing that no damn more."
Baltimore Sun reporter Annie Linskey contributed to this article.
