Baltimore will end 2008 tonight with its fewest homicides in two decades, fighting through a late-year spike to mark one of its biggest year-to-year drops.
The decline - a drop of almost 50 killings, from 282 to 234 as of midnight - continues a trend that began in late 2007 when Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III took command of the Police Department. It restores the city's homicide total to levels not seen since the late 1980s, before an infusion of crack cocaine routinely drove the annual body count above 300.
But the improvement has been tempered by several confounding factors. While homicides and nonfatal shootings are down, violent crime overall is largely unchanged and Baltimore remains one of the most violent large cities in the country. The killing of a former city councilman also served as a sobering reminder that while the majority of the victims are involved in the drug trade, the city's crime problem touches all corners.
Officials say that too much emphasis is placed on the city's homicide tally, yet they hope that this year's reductions can help convince an apathetic populace that change is possible.
"So much has been built around the homicide number that I think [a significant drop] can help galvanize people in the city around the possibilities of what can be accomplished here," Bealefeld said.
City leaders hope that a sustained decline might help shake Baltimore's violent reputation, a key to reversing decades of population decline and disinvestment in the inner city.
Relations among state and federal agencies - marked in the past by bickering and finger-pointing - are the strongest in recent memory, officials say. And the centerpiece of the city's crime prevention strategy - targeting the most violent offenders and those with prior handgun violations - appears to be paying off. A new unit, called the Violent Crimes Impact Division, sent hundreds of officers to West and East Baltimore, where some of the more notable homicide reductions have been achieved.
The city's Western District, for example, where nearly 90 people were killed in 1992, recorded 23 homicides in 2008. It has not recorded fewer than 32 homicides in a year since at least 1970.
But the Western District is also emblematic of the past year's uneven results: While it recorded the largest drop in homicides of any district, shootings rose and robberies increased by 37 percent.
