12 Shot, 5 Fatally As Baltimore Murder Crisis Erupts In New Year

Baltimore City Police (BCP) responded to multiple shooting on Saturday that left five people dead, reported CBS 13 Baltimore. 

In total, 12 people were shot, and five died on Saturday. The shootings were widespread and weren’t concentrated in a single neighborhood. 

All of the shootings and deaths occurred in low-income neighborhoods where wealth inequality is at extreme levels. These communities would be on the brink of social unrest if another Freddie Gray incident occurred. 

Baltimore City broke the murder record of the century in 2019, recorded 347 homicides for the year, breaching 342 seen in 2015 and 2017. 

With about 602,000 residents, the city’s homicide rate hit 57 per 100,000 residents last year, one of the highest rates in the country.

Last year was the 5th year the city recorded murders over 300, due mostly to the Ferguson effect post-2015 riots and socio-economic deterioration in the town. 

Out of control murders, extreme wealth inequality, and an out of control opioid epidemic comes as the total population in the city crashed to a 100-year low, many are fleeing the city for the suburbs as the local economy continues to dive deeper into a depression, never recovered since 2008.

Violent crime in the city has gotten so bad that the murder wave has spread to Baltimore County. 

Homicides in the county recorded 50 for 2019, surpassing the previous high of 42, set during the crack epidemic of the early 1990s, according to FBI statistics. On a yearly change, homicides in the county are up 85%. 

County homicides usually fluctuate in the low 20s. It wasn’t until the 2015 riots that murders started to increase.

Please do yourself a favor this year and avoid traveling to Baltimore.