Baltimore's homicides for 2015 topped 300 over the weekend with a fatal stabbing and shooting, with murders now surging at a rate of more than one per day since Freddie Gray died in police custody in late April.
Murders had been on the decline in the city since 2011, perhaps mirroring a decline in
Baltimore's population, the Baltimore Sun reported. Now, the city's 2015 murder rate is on path to becoming the deadliest year on a per-capita basis.
WJZ-TV noted that the last time Baltimore's murder rate soared over 300 was in 1999 when the city recorded 305 homicides.
"Unless we come together as an entire community we are just going to continue to watch this happen," Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake told the Sun. "It weighs on my mind every waking minute and it weighs on my mind when I'm asleep."
In Baltimore's latest round of murders, police found a 27-year-old man collapsed on West Baltimore Street after he was stabbed multiple times in an attack on
North Abington Avenue just after 4:45 p.m. Saturday, police told WBAL-TV. He died at the R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, making him the 300th murder victim in the city.
About 9:15 p.m., a 22-year-old man was shot in the chest on Annapolis Road and died a short time later — the city's 301st homicide.
"The poverty, employment, education, drug addiction, health, housing, and police-community relation variables that all demand a new normal begin and end with our capacity to stand united," Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said in a statement Saturday, according to WBAL-TV.
"Public safety in Baltimore requires sustainable partnerships founded in mutual trust and respect. This challenging moment shall pass if we reject blame and embrace the hope, dreams, and promise of a great American city. Baltimore will win again, 2015 will not define us, and the nation will once again see our city for the determination that has long defined us," he continued.
The Saturday deaths came shortly after a community march called "300 Men March" against violence in Baltimore.
"We've got to stop killing each other and I want them to see how we get involved in the community instead of just staying behind the TV and watching or behind the computer and watching," Dee Smith, who attended the march with his three daughters, told WJZ-TV.
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