It has been a bloody year in Baltimore, that much everyone knows, but as The Economist shows, [3] something changed dramatically after Freddie Gray's death in April...
On November 14th the police department reported the city’s 300th homicide in 2015, a total not seen since 1999.
[4]
The surge in killings in the majority-black city of roughly 623,000 began after the death on April 19th of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who was fatally injured while in police custody. Since Mr Gray’s death the city has recorded 244 homicides, a 78% increase over the same period in 2014, representing more than 100 additional deaths.
[5]
Criminologists and city officials disagree as to the causes:
- Some say police have deliberately pulled back from poor, black neighbourhoods, a theory that the police disputes.
- Others blame an influx of drugs from pharmacies looted during the April riots.
- A third theory is that a decline in trust between the police and the policed has had deadly consequences: fewer residents talk to the police, which leads to fewer murders being solved, which - by lowering the odds of being caught - results in more murders.
Whatever the reason, the killing continues. Just hours after the 300th murder, police reported a shooting in the city’s Westport neighbourhood, the fourth homicide of the day. The total for the year now stands at 305.
