Details about this story

• Source: Baltimore Sun
• Date: July 01, 2007
• URL: Read the story
• Bylines: Doug Donovan , Sumathi Reddy
• Topics: Crime , Death
• Data Types: Local Data
• Description/Excerpt: Today, halfway through 2007, Baltimore has recorded 155 homicides, about a 15 percent increase over the first six months of 2006. That puts Baltimore on pace for the first time this decade to exceed 300 killings in a year - the macabre benchmark associated with a city besieged by crime in the 1990s. Nonfatal shootings are up even more, rising 32 percent, to 352 so far this year. But even as the killings remain concentrated in pockets of East and West Baltimore, far from the glittering waterfront neighborhoods and the city's upscale and middle-class locales, fear is beginning to filter into the psyche of virtually all residents. "There is a sense of unease in many of the city's pre-eminent neighborhoods," said Anirban Basu, an economist and city school board member. "When people in these neighborhoods are affected by crime, violent or otherwise, it often leads to the disappearance of tax base, and that's something the city can ill afford.
• Database or Graphic: Go to site (com/micro_sun/homicides/)