By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Political Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com
Mayor Brandon M. Scott, alongside legislators and public safety officials, reflected on the city’s public safety strategies, accomplishments and shortcomings from 2023 and shared the city’s plans for 2024.
“When I took office, Baltimore was grappling with high rates of violence that have crippled our city for nearly a decade,” Scott said to the press at a conference this month. “I set the goal of achieving a 15 percent reduction in homicides. While it took us more than a year to achieve that initial goal, we are finally seeing those efforts paying off and saving lives.”
Scott said there was a 20 percent reduction in homicides and a 6.8 percent decrease in non-fatal shootings in 2023. This is the first time Baltimore City has ended the year with less than 300 homicides since 2014, but still, he acknowledged that one death is too many.
“None of us that you see here today are ready to celebrate. We are ready to push this work even further,” said Scott. “We still lost 263 Baltimoreans to violence and that is unacceptable.’’
There have been five homicides in the new year, according to the Baltimore Police Department (BPD).
Scott acknowledged the collaborative work of community organizations and local, state and federal agencies that helped decrease the number of homicides and non-fatal shootings in 2023.
Scott highlighted youth violence and illegal guns as significant issues the city must continue to address in the new year.
“Guns continue to flow from outside of Baltimore into the hands of young people and other individuals who are using them to deal death and destruction on our streets and in our neighborhoods,” said Scott. “We must continue on the path of progress and build on the groundwork we laid. Continue to remove illegal guns from our streets by going after straw purchases and gun trafficking in addition to going after locations that continue to sell guns to people that they know are going to end up on the streets of Baltimore.”
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), straw purchasing is when a person buys a gun for someone who is prohibited from owning one or for someone who does not want their name affiliated with the firearm. Straw purchasing is a federal crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Baltimore City recently filed a lawsuit against ATF for denying their Freedom of Information Act request, which would have allowed them information on the top ten “crime gun” sources in Baltimore City from 2018 to 2022.
Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said BPD took over 2,900 guns off the streets of Baltimore in 2023.
“We continue to work with many of our law enforcement partners and target those perpetuating violence in our city while focusing on limited resources to reach a greater epidemic of gun violence in our city,” said Worley.
Worley spoke on the limited number of BPD officers, approximately 2,000, and how they will persevere despite the challenge.
“Even if we hired 500 cops a day, we’re not going to see any residual effect of it for all of 2024,” said Worley. “We’re going to continue to do what we did in 2023 with the people we have now. I’d like to have the cops, but they’re not coming anytime soon, and we will continue to adjust and do the best job we can with what we have.”
Stefanie Mavronis, interim director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE), said MONSE plans to expand the Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS) to the Central District.
Mavronis said GVRS is in year three of its five-year plan.
“We will scale the promising outcomes of the Group Violence Reduction Strategy beyond the Western and Southwestern Districts,” said Mavronis. “It’s directly playing a role in driving down overall violence. We engage the individuals we know are the most at risk of gun violence and offer them another way.”
Tashi McQueen is a Report For America Corps member.
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