A shooting in Baltimore early July 29 left a 12-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man injured amid the focus on the city propelled by President Donald Trump.
The Baltimore Police Department was called to N. Luzerne Avenue around 3:30 a.m. regarding shots fired but officers couldn’t locate any victims or suspects, the department said in a statement.
Two victims—the younger was shot in the hand while the teen had a gunshot wound to his foot—walked into a nearby hospital a short time later.
“Both victims are currently being treated at the hospital for their injuries. Investigators believe the victims were in the 1200 block of N. Luzerne Avenue when they were shot,” police stated.
The shooting came after a double shooting late Saturday, just before 11 p.m., killed a 19-year-old man and left a 17-year-old boy injured, the department said in a statement.
That shooting took place near the West Cold Spring Metro Station, near where Nathaniel Greene, 26, was killed seven days prior, reported the Baltimore Sun.
“We have increased patrols in the area,” Baltimore police spokesman Jeremy Silbert told the Sun on Sunday. “Detectives are continuing to investigate both incidents. No arrests have been made in the incident from last night.”
Another double shooting happened about 15 minutes prior on Tivoly Avenue, the department said in a statement. Officers found a 26-year-old man with gunshot wounds to his body; he later died. A second person who was shot went to a nearby hospital a short time later with a gunshot wound to his leg.
At 8:40 p.m., a 29-year-old man was shot in his back on Frankford Avenue, the department said in a statement. Also, around 5:30 p.m., a 20-year-old man was shot in his leg on Harford Road.
Earlier Saturday, at 3:35 p.m., an adult man was found near Laurens and Pennsylvania Avenue with gunshot wounds and was rushed to a hospital, police said in a statement. In addition, at 1:13 p.m., officers responded to an alert and found a male with gunshot wounds to his body; he later died from the shots.
Homicides and Shootings in Baltimore
According to the Baltimore Police Department, there have been 165 homicides in the city and 374 non-fatal shootings this year as of July 6. There have also been 2,353 robberies and 7,734 larcenies.
The city saw a record-high number of murders of 342 murders in 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in its annual Crime in the United States report, which was released in September 2018.
With roughly 615,000 inhabitants in Baltimore, the murder rate was 56 per 100,000 people, the highest in the nation among major cities. The next highest was Detroit, which recorded a homicide rate of 40 per 100,000 people, followed by Memphis, Tennessee, with 28 homicides per 100,000 people, and Chicago, with a rate of 24 per 100,000.
Nationwide, there were 5.3 murders per 100,000 people, a decline of 1.4 percent from 2016 but an increase of 17.3 percent from 2013.
David Kennedy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, told the Associated Press last year that officials have not been able to formulate an effective plan in dealing with the violence in Baltimore, regardless of the root cause.
“The underlying conditions that produce violence always matter. But on the other side, what matters is whether a city is able to frame up and implement a response to the violence. And one of the fundamental facts about Baltimore is that it’s really never been able to do that,” Kennedy said.
“There’s been persistent political and law enforcement dysfunction in Baltimore going back pretty much as far as anybody can look.”
