Baltimore has a reputation for violence

Dan Rodricks, Tribune News Service

Just throwing this out there: City leaders who expressed disappointment that Baltimore lost its bid to be a host of the 2026 World Cup might want to consider our international reputation for violence as a reason.

Baltimore remains, per capita, one of the most violent cities in a violent country, and if you don’t think there’s an awareness of that elsewhere on the planet, then you haven’t spoken to any international travelers lately.

Since January 2015, the year Freddie Gray was fatally injured while in Baltimore police custody, and city violence ramped up to a new level and stayed there, there have been at least 2,493 homicides in the city.

And that was before another five people were killed in separate shootings over the weekend.

A shooting Thursday morning on Redwood Street, now a hotel district, left a 25-year-old US Army Reserve soldier and the father of two boys dead.

A lot of city dwellers and city visitors live with the unsettling realization that, even as life goes on, shootings occur in places where, just a few years ago, shootings almost never took place.

When Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby campaigned to be the city’s top prosecutor in 2014, she criticised the incumbent state’s attorney, Gregg Bernstein, for not doing enough to stem modest increases in murders during his one term of office. So she must accept some responsibility for the last seven years.

But this is not just about Mosby. This is not about the police. This is not about Gov. Larry Hogan, who took office in Annapolis the same year Mosby became state’s attorney. The Republican governor has been plenty critical of city officials for not doing enough to stem crime, so much so that, if the presidential bid doesn’t work out, maybe he should run for mayor to see what he can do about it.

Being Baltimore’s mayor is the toughest job in Maryland, and the hardest part is dealing with a wholly exasperating phenomenon — the incessant and maddening gun violence — while trying to boost the city as a good place to live, work and play.

In the latter regard, the administration of Mayor Brandon Scott has had some successes. But, because of expectations, losing the World Cup was a big letdown.

When city leaders said they were at a loss to explain why the combined Baltimore-Washington bid had failed, at least one Sun reader cringed at the official reactions  “Could it possibly be Baltimore’s No. 2 ranking on the highest-homicide-rate-in-the-US list?” wrote Jan Trammell-Savin, a psychotherapist and a retired minister. “Or maybe that a couple of weeks ago, two people were shot at the heart of the Inner Harbor promenade? Are those leaders so obtuse that they really don’t get how destructive the threat and actuality of violence is to Baltimore’s reputation and to people’s sense of safety?”

I’m sure they do, in fact, get that. But what to do about it? Four mayors and five police commissioners have tried to figure that out since 2014, the last year Baltimore recorded under 300 homicides. (There were 211 that year.)

“The church I attend,” Trammell-Savin wrote, “First and Franklin Presbyterian in Mount Vernon, is still acknowledging every week, as we have for several years now, Baltimore’s victims of homicide by gun violence, by praying for them and hanging purple ribbons for each person on the outside of the church.

“My concern about the seriousness of Baltimore’s violence comes not only from reading the stories and remembering the dead, but my awareness that folks overseas read headlines specifically about Baltimore. I know of some cases where international friends and family had reached out to people here to express concerns for their safety. Baltimore is on the international radar, for sad reasons.”

And so it’s easy to see Baltimore’s seven straight years of 300-plus homicides as the main reason that certain things do not happen. This time, it was World Cup soccer.

But I find this whole subject frustrating.

At one moment I hear someone say, “People are afraid to come downtown,” and the next moment Paul McCartney draws a sellout crowd to Oriole Park.

I look at the list of 11 cities selected for World Cup matches in 2026, and some of them also have serious problems with violent crime.

Atlanta, for instance, was third among US cities for the biggest increase in homicide rate during the pandemic, according to a study published by WalletHub, the personal finance website.

Philadelphia, another city selected for the World Cup, had 562 homicides in 2021, a 13% increase over 2020.