Although the city's 1994 homicide rate trails last year's record-setting pace, Baltimore has ushered in the month of December with a quickening onslaught of bloodshed, pushing the total slayings close to the 300 mark.
Between Friday and Sunday, nine people -- including a 12-year-old girl -- were killed in what is being described as one of the deadliest spurts of violence this year.
And during the past three months, the city has averaged more than one slaying a day, including 74 killings recorded in the past 64 days. So far, 298 people have been killed in Baltimore this year, compared with 329 over the same period last year. The city set a record with 353 homicides last year.
Police officials, meanwhile, blamed much of the violence on drug dealers and their enforcers, who use high-powered weapons.
"There are 50,000 addicts in this city," Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier said. "There is such a tremendous demand that the amount of money that transacts each day to keep up with that demand is astronomical."
Many of last weekend's killings were particularly gripping. One man was killed while sitting in a BMW parked on North Charles Street -- the car was riddled with 17 bullets fired from a Tech-9 semiautomatic machine pistol. Another man, trying to run from a robber on Monterey Street in Southwest Baltimore, was gunned down in front of his home.
At one point this summer, the city was 46 slayings behind last year's pace. That gap has narrowed to 31. Still, police hope that a series of raids targeting violent drug dealers has helped bring the number down.
"Picture 31 dead bodies," Mr. Frazier said. "That's a lot of people. . . .
"There is no law enforcement explanation why we have nine murders on a weekend. It's seasonal. It's cyclical."
Police officials pledged more raids to combat violent drug gangs. Over the weekend, police seized an AK-47 and two semiautomatic machine pistols during two raids. One raid, police said, broke up a heroin ring supplying the George B. Murphy Homes public housing high-rise, the site of several shootings and homicides in the past six months.
"Drug dealers need to know that when they employ violence, they will go to the top of the list," said Col. Ronald L. Daniel, chief of Criminal Investigation Bureau. "Those are the people we are going to go after first."
The recent spate of killings is not unusual. In July, 10 people were slain over a four-day period. That total included five on one day -- including two young men shot in the head on a crowded East Baltimore playground.
In the most recent killing spree, police are trying to identify Sunday's first victim, a man found dead about 2 a.m. in the 2200 block of E. Lanvale St.
Later in the day, 19-year-olds Sean Brown and Donnell Solomon were found dead about 5:30 p.m. in a second-floor bedroom of a house in the 200 block of N. Streeper St. Police said the motive was an apparent robbery.
That evening, police said, two armed men forced their way into a house owned by Allen Hasselberger, 43, of the 1700 block of Monterey St., and rounded up several residents. He broke away, but was fatally shot twice outside his house as he tried to flee.
About 9:45 p.m., Myra Stewart, 33, of the 3000 block of Matthews St. was found shot in the head at her boyfriend's house in the 400 block of E. 25th St. Police said she got into an argument with her boyfriend, who allegedly shot her in the head with a .38-caliber handgun. Alexander Moore, 67, was charged with first-degree murder.
On Saturday, Melvin Wright, 34, of the 2500 block of McHenry St., was fatally shot while sitting inside his gold BMW parked in the 1800 block of N. Charles St. about 8:10 p.m. Police said his assailant gunned him down with an assault weapon, shooting through the windows and the roof.
Three people were slain on Friday, including Kenya Rogers, a 12-year-old girl who was shot moments after she stepped outside the front door of her cousin's house in the 1900 block of N. Collington Ave.
Also killed that day was Kenda Green, 19, of Brooklyn, N.Y., whose body was found about 12:30 a.m. in a gutter in the 1000 block of Radnor Ave., with a gunshot wound to the head.
The body of Donavan Parker, 33, of the 2500 block of Frederick Ave. was found in a vacant lot in the 400 block of Addison St. Police said he had been stabbed in the back of the head.