BALTIMORE — As students at Rosemont Elementary/Middle are dismissed after a half day -- they walk by the accoutrements of trauma; a trash can full of crime tape, the remnants of a paramedic’s life-saving work, a blood-stained side walk.
Police say a 50-year-old man was shot to death on Ashburton Street last night.
"They good people man, it is just crazy," a friend said.
People who knew the victim say he was a good man.
"He was a good guy man. That is all I can say, he was a good guy. He ain’t bother nobody."
But now his life is counted at 291. It is a homicide rate that continues to climb with the addition of yet another murder Tuesday on Clifton Avenue in Gywnn Oak.
Homicide detectives returned to the apartment complex Wednesday to get a second look at the obvious carnage left behind by the shooting.
People in these neighborhoods now saying, it doesn't matter where you live anymore.
"I live around here,” one resident said. “Live around here for years. So, what you see, what I just told you...it is everywhere."
As it was last night.
From Ashburton and Clifton Avenue in the west -- to a shooting on Towanda Avenue in the Northwest and even a double shooting on Eastern Avenue at the city line in the Southeast.
Murders are up 10 percent -- shootings surging at 16 percent.
Mayor Jack Young hopes it slows as the weather gets cold, but he says he believes the police department's plan is working.
"I am committed to reducing crime but one thing I am not gonna do, I am not gonna micromanage the police commissioner because that is his job to reduce crime and I think his plan is working," the mayor said.
