BALTIMORE _ This holiday week brought no peace to Baltimore.
A working mother gunned down in front of her children at an East Side deli. A man who succumbed to the gunshot wounds he suffered two weeks ago. A baby believed to be shaken to death. A man shot to death inside a car.
The four killings this week push the 2019 body count to match the second-most on record: 342 homicides.
Worse yet, the homicide rate for 2019 has already set a grim record of 57 killings per 100,000 people.
Baltimore suffered more homicides only in 1993, when 353 people were killed. Nearly 125,000 more people lived in the city then, so the homicide rate was lower: 48 killings per 100,000 people.
Nearly one-third of killings this year happened in the least populous police districts: eastern and western. Here, neighborhoods have been hit hardest by drugs and poverty.
Citywide, another 766 people have been shot this year and survived. That's a 14% increase over last year. City leaders continue to try to stem the bloodshed.
Police Commissioner Michael Harrison announced support this month for a controversial program to fly surveillance planes over the city to record the streets and aid in the crime fight. The program has drawn concerns about government monitoring of the people.
Harrison announced a trial run of four to six months to begin this spring.
Formerly superintendent of police in New Orleans, Harrison is rounding out his first year on the job. The Police Department continues to suffer from attrition. A consulting company commissioned to study the department found police should hire 300 more sworn officers.
The department has unveiled a new marketing effort to attract recruits next year.
Still, homicide detectives continue to handle high caseloads. Last year, detectives closed 43.4% of cases, a decrease from 51.5% the year before.
