WYPR: Shootings in Baltimore Expected to Spike (2008-07-14)

Shootings and homicides are down this year, but experts predict they will spike during these hot summer months. WYPR's Farrah Childs takes you into the lives of people who have experienced gun violence first-hand.

Dante Barksdale works for an inner-city outreach program called Safe Streets. Located in the 2400 block of Baltimore's East Monument street, Safe Streets is surrounded by a pawn shop, liquor store and a bar. Barksdale talked about the pressure he faced from his own brother to shoot someone.

I done had my brother give me 44 magnums and say go blow his brains out. And I said I ain't doing that, mommy going to get me. I'm going to end up in prison somewhere. And he used to call me names you little punk. 13:18

While he talked, sirens blared in the background. Barksdale, a case worker, knows this scene well. He grew up around here. He said that the streets have been unusually quiet lately.

We be walking through these neighborhoods and you be saying to yourself, Is this the same neighborhood from a year ago?' Cause I know in the last five years, personal homeboys of mine, dead, in this area, in these same boundaries that we got: Monument to Baltimore, Paterson Park to Highland. I got 10 personal friends that I grew up with in Lafayette projects that got killed up on these hills.

Despite a rash of recent shootings, Baltimore Police say the number of non-fatal shootings is down significantly. There have been 269shooting incidents this year, as compared to 393 at this time last year. It's much the same for homicides, with 106 have been recorded so far this year, compared to 165 this time a year ago. The impact of violence still remains strong, despite the lower numbers.

Dr. Philip Leaf is the director of the Center For The Prevention of Youth Violence at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He said that in the summer, shootings go up, and that more children see them.

We talk a lot about war zones, and people being killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places, unfortunately, not Baltimore city, but certainly some of the neighborhoods in Baltimore if you look at the frequency of death due to gunfire, or other deaths in those neighborhoods, they're equivalent to war zones. Yet we haven't really mobilized to support the people living there.

Jacquelyn Duval-Harvey serves as the Deputy Commissioner for Youth and Families, at the Baltimore City Health Department. She says homicide is the leading cause of death for African-American males, under the age of 25. Many, she adds, have already internalized the concept of their mortality.

So, it gives a sense of a short term, no planning, immediate gratification, I have a short amount of time, so I'm going to do everything I can now, and that kind of thinking is not the kind of thinking that results in healthy productive citizens in our society.

Ray Cook founded On Our Shoulders Youth Program. The program is a non-profit organization that mentors city youth and renovates units in West Baltimore's Lexington Street projects. Sitting on the steps of an abandoned row house, Cook spoke about the difficulty in changing the mindsets of many of the young men who walk city streets.

So, they try and move to a better area for life. But that better part of life doesn't change inside of them, who they are, they may physically move to something better, but inside they still the same killer. The same killer instinct, the same killer mentality. I know young kids that are 14 and 15 and have already killed five or six people. And how do you deal with that?

Gardnell Carter works as a supervisor with Safe Streets. He said his step-daughter was murdered on his birthday a couple years ago. Teenagers committing acts of violence, he said, is the norm in far too many communities.

For some, what you'll find is that they think that is a notch. For some, you can't live in certain neighborhoods unless you have killed some people.

Community activists say more resources are needed to continue the trend of decreasing violent crime on city streets. To bolster those efforts, the City of Baltimore has donated one-million dollars to fund the two Safe Streets outreach centers in East and West Baltimore. A third location will be identified in about a month.

I'm Farrah Childs, reporting in Baltimore, for 88-1, WYPR.