Baltimore Logs 300 Homicides for 1st Time Since 1999

But murder motives remain the same, official says
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 15, 2015 4:17 PM CST
Baltimore Logs 300 Homicides for 1st Time Since 1999
In this July 30, 2015 picture, a member of the Baltimore Police Department removes crime scene tape from a corner where a victim of a shooting was discovered in Baltimore.    (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Bad news for Baltimore: The city now has 300 homicides on record for the first time in 16 years, the Baltimore Sun reports. That's thanks to two fresh murders on Saturday—a stabbing and a shooting—which continued a spike in violence that's seen more than one murder victim per day since Freddie Gray's death and ensuing unrest in April. "Baltimore City is just out of control with respect to the murder rate," says Gov. Larry Hogan, who called the homicide surge "atrocious." With the city's population going down, its per-capita murder rate is second to only St. Louis, where gun violence shot up in 2015. "There is no randomness associated with these murders," says Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis. "They're gang-related, they're retaliatory in nature, and they center around drug disputes." (More Baltimore stories.)

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