SO FAR this year, homicides in Baltimore's Southwestern police district have fallen by 33 percent from last year's record levels.
The key reason: Resumption of a strategy under which police may let low-level drug suspects go free if they identify violent fellow criminals whose illegal guns are seized right away. Hundreds of unlicensed handguns linked to a variety of crimes have been recovered, making mean streets in some of the city's worst neighborhoods a bit safer.
Is this a model other districts should copy in an effort to reduce Baltimore's horrifying number of homicides, which exceeded 300 in 1998 for the ninth consecutive year?
It could. Each year, hundreds of guns in Baltimore end up in the hands of criminals because of straw purchases or because addicts trade them for drugs. But strict safeguards must be observed so that this aggressive policing strategy does not lead to abuses.
Concerns with fairness
When the strategy was first introduced more than three years ago by Maj. Gary Lembach, killings declined by almost 24 percent.
Not everyone was happy, though.
Some lawyers questioned the legality of the handgun crackdown, arguing that suspects were treated unequally. Some were taken to Central Booking and Intake Center to be charged while others were given a chance to tell what they knew at Southwestern lockup. If their information led to the quick arrest of a suspect, they were released.
In 1997, 535 guns were seized in Southwestern, about 200 of them as a result of information from other suspects. However, lawyers' complaints so alarmed the Police Department's top brass that the district's program was suspended after two years. During a 10-month review of the program by the State's Attorney's Office last year, killings surged to a record high.
Of 51 people killed within Southwestern's borders in 1998, 39 were shot -- a ratio comparable to the other eight districts. Thirty-three were younger than 25. Forty-two were male, nine female. All but one were African-American.
Most of those homicides occurred near open-air drug markets and had some link to narcotics: fights over turf, disputes over drugs or a stick-up gone bad.
Since the snitch program was reactived in October, Southwestern has deployed most of its patrol resources in those high-violence areas, including the vicinity of Baltimore, Monroe and Poplar Grove streets, as well as Edmondson and North avenues. As a result, the homicides in the district are down by 33 percent so far this year, while the city overall has registered an 18 percent drop.
"Everything we do here is directed toward violence," says Southwestern's commander, Maj. John L. Bergbower. "We target corners where the open-air drug markets are. We hit them continuously."
Recovering system
In an editorial last month, "Getting away with murder," The Sun argued that the disintegration of the city's criminal-justice system had removed the deterrent of certain punishment -- one reason Baltimore's murder rate continued at a record level last year while homicides declined nationally nearly 40 percent.
Because of court backlogs, even heinous crimes have sometimes gone unpunished. Homicide and armed robbery suspects, for example, have had charges dropped because their cases were postponed so long that they violated Maryland's speedy-trial laws.
Rivalries between the Police Department and the State's Attorney's Office also contributed to this crisis. Those agencies blame one another for the high number of unsuccessful homicide prosecutions. Meanwhile, solving killings has been made difficult by a policy that rotates experienced homicide detectives out of the unit.
Unforeseen ripple effect
There is yet another factor: Sociologists and law enforcement officials speculate that well-meaning government policy shifts have helped to intensify violence in some parts of the city.
Since August 1995, the city has torn down 11 crime-ridden public housing high-rises, scattering nearly 1,500 families. Another four towers, housing 758 families, have been emptied and will be demolished July 3.
All of these complexes -- Lafayette, Lexington Terrace and Murphy -- were hotbeds of gang activity and drug trafficking. After the gangs lost those safe havens, they dispersed and gravitated to new neighborhoods.
"That's why the violence hasn't decreased," says Maj. Paul R. Benson Sr., of the housing authority police. "You are just moving them to a new corner."
Criminals once active at the Lafayette public housing development moved their operations to O'Donnell Heights in Southeastern district, causing such a flare-up in violence that city police had to organize an inter-agency sweep. Several loosely organized gangs carved out territory in the Southwestern district, where they engaged in lethal turf fights or shootings over drugs, girls or perceived lack of respect.
Gov. Parris N. Glendening's HotSpot initiative, started in 1997, may have had a similar effect. It noticeably reduced drug activity in its six city target areas. But in most cases, dealers relocated their open-air drug markets to other corners nearby.
This does not mean that demolishing the high-rises and introducing HotSpots were mistakes. Those policy shifts just had unintended consequences and did not address the core problem: As long as one of 11 Baltimoreans is addicted to cocaine or heroin, the violence surrounding the drug trade will persist.
Southwestern's handgun recovery program has been a success. It has identified violence-prone criminals, taken away their illegal guns and reduced the number of homicides. The strategy adopted by some units of neighboring Southern district may soon be employed citywide.
This kind of crackdown is likely to lessen crime overall because research shows the bulk of crimes are committed by 10 percent of adult troublemakers. The same is true among juveniles.
If those chronic offenders are apprehended and punished, crime goes down. It's that simple.
Pub Date: 3/28/99