"Baltimore City Becomes Graveyard" Amid Dangerous Murder Wave

It has been two years since Baltimore welcomed Mayor Brandon Scott with an ambitious new crime-fighting plan. So far, progress has been horrible. 

"I will reduce homicides by 15% each year of my term and get us below 300 homicides my first year," vowed the new Mayor.

As of Thursday, homicides in the Democrat-controlled city have hit 322, not too far from record highs after a murderous summer. 

Baltimore City's 2022 cumulative homicide trend is on par with the deadly years before Scott entered office. 

The city had one of the deadliest summers in years. 

With a population of around 600,000, the metro area is one of the most dangerous places in the country on a per capita basis. The murder rate stands at about 58.27 per 100,000.

Mayor Scott's plan to fix the city has been a nightmare with no real progress: 

"Baltimore City done become a graveyard — memorials on every corner," resident Karl McDonald, who joined a recent anti-violence march in the neighborhood, told AP News. 

Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby's policies of not prosecuting low-level crimes since 2020 have accelerated the city's demise. 

Meanwhile, Baltimore City Police Department is hemorrhaging officers as a shortage inhibits the ability to conduct meaningful patrols in high-crime areas -- allowing gangs to completely control neighbors where black markets thrive and gunfire is rampant. 

Violence in the city is so bad that a local chapter of the NAACP urged Gov. Larry Hogan to declare a "public emergency" and deploy the National Guard to prevent further collapse.