A teenager pistol-whips and shoots a light rail passenger in Westport. Young men on a drug corner in Barclay spark a gunfight with police. A motorist involved in a fender bender in Ten Hills tries to run over a patrolman, who opens fire in defense.
In one 48-hour stretch last weekend, gunshots echoed in three Baltimore neighborhoods, illustrating a surge in violence that threatens to reverse years of crime reduction credited with fueling the city's development boom.
Today, halfway through 2007, Baltimore has recorded 155 homicides, about a 15 percent increase over the first six months of 2006. That puts Baltimore on pace for the first time this decade to exceed 300 killings in a year - the macabre benchmark associated with a city besieged by crime in the 1990s.
Nonfatal shootings are up even more, rising 32 percent, to 352 so far this year.
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