Baltimore Not as Bloody in '08 With Fewer Killings

On the streets of one of the nation's most violent cities, Detective Danny Danzy is known as a "bodysnatcher."

Baltimore police Detectives Danny Danzy, right, and Warren Smith, left, with the Warrant...

Baltimore police Detectives Danny Danzy, right, and Warren Smith, left, with the Warrant Apprehension Task Force, peer into an apartment while attempting to serve a warrant, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008, in Baltimore. The task force is part of a strategy that's getting credit for reducing the homicide rate in one of the nation's most violent cities.

(Rob Carr/AP Photo)

He's on the front lines of Baltimore's battle to reduce homicides, but he's not looking for dead bodies. Instead, he knocks on doors, taps on windows and shines his flashlight into desolate row homes, searching for violent suspects who should be in jail; people who, according to research, are more likely to become killers or homicide victims.

When it's obvious a suspect is holed up inside, he uses a battering ram. Danzy is part of the city's Warrant Apprehension Task Force, a group getting part of the credit for decreasing homicides in Baltimore to their lowest total in 20 years.

Police in the city once nicknamed "Bodymore, Murdaland," are going after the most entrenched criminals and are starting to see success. As of midnight Thursday, there were 234 homicides in 2008, down from 282 killings a year ago.

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"It's an encouraging start," Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said. "We're posting some real results."

But for a city that inspired the television crime dramas "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "The Wire," officials don't dwell on the decrease. "We have a long way to go," Mayor Sheila Dixon said.

Despite the reduction, the city, with about 624,000 residents, has a rate of 37.5 slayings per 100,000 residents. Based on 2007 FBI data, that would make Baltimore the third-bloodiest city in the nation with a population of at least 250,000 people, behind Detroit and St. Louis.

Baltimore's 2008 numbers would have been lower if not for a grim finish: 52 people were slain in November and December. The city hasn't had fewer than 200 slayings since the 1970s.

During the 1980s, the city averaged 226 slayings per year. Homicides topped 300 every year the next decade, when the scourges of crack and heroin led to turf wars.

City leaders should be proud of their accomplishments, said Daniel Webster, co-director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University. He believes the decrease could become a trend if police continue targeting people who carry illegal guns.