Concerned about the continual reports of violent deaths in Baltimore - and residents' apparent apathy - the city branch of the NAACP is calling for the current number of homicides to be posted in windows of homes and businesses.
"The whole idea is to get the community outraged about these homicides. We're getting immune to getting upset about it," Marvin "Doc" Cheatham Sr., president of the city's branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said last night.
"Our concept is to keep that information out there with the public, to keep this issue in the forefront," he said.
Already, "178" - each digit printed on a sheet of letter-sized paper - had been posted in windows on the first and second floors of the city's NAACP headquarters, 8 W. 26th St. in Charles Village, Cheatham said.
Some fear the 2007 toll could reach 300, if homicides continue at the current rate.
The "Outrage at the Homicides" initiative was announced yesterday at the beginning of a general membership meeting at Union Baptist Church in Upton.
Ronnie Flood, a retired city police officer who lives in Green Spring Valley, said he attended the meeting to hear about the branch's efforts. "There's not an outcry, when you consider the amount of deaths that are taking place," he said.
Cheatham described seven ways city residents can help stem the bloodshed. The first, "making certain, 1st, our homes are free of crime and violence," puts the onus on Baltimoreans themselves.
"We're saying very clearly that the violence that is taking place in Baltimore City is not done by aliens, is not being done by people outside of the state," Cheatham said. "It's being done by our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers."
Cheatham said the branch borrowed the tally idea from NAACP history.
Nearly 70 years ago, the organization began displaying a banner outside its New York City headquarters that read "A Man was Lynched Yesterday" to alert people that such an atrocious crime had taken place, Cheatham said.
He considered purchasing a sign - a very expensive option - but then realized "we need to get the community to do this thing," he said.
"Our concept is to keep that information out there with the public, to keep the issue in the forefront," Cheatham said.
People can pick up the digits from the NAACP's offices as long as the group has the ability to photocopy them, he said.
The branch's other suggestions to stem the violence include joining local community organizations, police relations committees and parent organizations at schools - and encouraging other residents and religious congregations to do so as well.
The NAACP has been in talks with the city police's community relations sections for several months.
Many politicians and others have been discussing their crime plans, Cheatham said at the meeting.
"We don't think we can police ourselves out of this problem," he said. "We're telling the community, 'We've got to try to turn this thing around.'"
Additional police officers are not the solution, Cheatham said.
"We do not want a police state. We do not want to bring armed guards into the city," he said.
"We're hoping this will keep the community discussing the fact that we as a community must do something to end this senseless killing," Cheatham said.
He said the branch will post the number reported by The Sun each day on the front of its Maryland section, although the branch contends the actual tally is six more when you include the people killed by city police officers this year.
The NAACP branch tried to confront apathy within neighborhoods in January after the shooting death of 34-year-old Ronald Lewis, just after an NAACP meeting was ending at Union Baptist. The group marched down Dolphin Street and through the McCulloh Homes.
"We literally walked around the community and asked the community to get outraged," Cheatham said.
NAACP branch Treasurer Joe Aston said he wanted the numbers campaign to draw attention to the crimes. "Some people know about this, but there's not enough outrage in the community," the Howard Park resident said.
Annette Cheatham, the president's wife, said publicizing the homicide tally might cut through the fatigue people experience. "You get to a point where you kind of get immune to it," she said. But "if the numbers are there, and it's in your face every day, all day, it might make you want to do something about it," she said.
"Don't wait to lose someone that you love to get outraged by the homicides," Marvin Cheatham said. "Let's get outraged now and start doing something about it."
liz.kay@baltsun.com
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