Homicides surge, arrests drop after Baltimore protests

Residents say no police to be found; officers cite hostility, fear of arrest

A Baltimore Police officer follows a man, who screamed "Let me in! I'm going in!" before crossing the yellow tape and walking into the crime scene on the 100 block of Upmanor Road, in Baltimore, where a young boy and a 31-year-old woman were shot and killed, Thursday, May 28, 2015. In the month since Freddie Gray died and the city erupted in civil unrest, Baltimore has seen its murder rate skyrocket. There have been 36 murders in May alone.
A Baltimore Police officer follows a man, who screamed "Let me in! I'm going in!" before crossing the yellow tape and walking into the crime scene on the 100 block of Upmanor Road, in Baltimore, where a young boy and a 31-year-old woman were shot and killed, Thursday, May 28, 2015. In the month since Freddie Gray died and the city erupted in civil unrest, Baltimore has seen its murder rate skyrocket. There have been 36 murders in May alone.

BALTIMORE -- A 31-year-old woman and a young boy were shot in the head Thursday, becoming Baltimore's 37th and 38th homicide victims so far this month, the city's deadliest in 15 years.

The most recent killings claimed the lives of Jennifer Jeffrey and her 7-year-old son, Kester Anthony Browne. They were identified by Jeffrey's sister, Danielle Wilder.

Jeffrey and her son were found dead early Thursday, each from gunshot wounds in the head.

Wilder said police told her there were no signs of forced entry and that whoever killed Jeffrey and Kester was let into the house sometime Wednesday.

Thursday's deaths continue a grisly and dramatic uptick in slayings across Baltimore that has so far claimed the lives of 38 people. Meanwhile, arrests have plunged: Police are booking fewer than half the number of people they pulled off the streets last year.

Arrests rates already were declining before Freddie Gray died April 19 of injuries he suffered in police custody, but they dropped sharply thereafter, as his death unleashed protests, riots, the criminal indictment of six officers and a civil-rights investigation by the U.S. Justice Department that has officers working under close scrutiny.

"I'm afraid to go outside," said Antoinette Perrine, whose brother was shot down three weeks ago on a basketball court near her home in the Harlem Park neighborhood of West Baltimore. Ever since, she has barricaded her door and added metal slabs inside her windows to deflect gunfire.

"It's so bad, people are afraid to let their kids outside," Perrine said. "People wake up with shots through their windows. Police used to sit on every corner, on the top of the block. These days? They're nowhere."

West Baltimore residents worry they've been abandoned by the officers they once accused of harassing them.

"Before it was over-policing. Now there's no police," said Donnail Lee, 34, who lives in the Gilmor Homes, the public housing complex where Gray, 25, was chased down. "People feel as though they can do things and get away with it. I see people walking with guns almost every single day, because they know the police aren't pulling them up like they used to."

Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said his officers "are not holding back," despite encountering dangerous hostility in the Western District.

"Our officers tell me that when officers pull up, they have 30 to 50 people surrounding them at any time," Batts said.

Batts provided more details at a City Council meeting Wednesday night, saying officers now fear getting arrested for making mistakes.

"What is happening, there is a lot of levels of confusion in the police organization. There are people who have pain, there are people who are hurt, there are people who are frustrated, there are people who are angry," Batts said.

The Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3 on Thursday posted a statement from President Gene Ryan on social media saying that the police are "under siege."

"The criminals are taking advantage of the situation in Baltimore since the unrest," Ryan wrote. "[Police] are more afraid of going to jail for doing their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty."

Protesters said Gray's death is emblematic of a pattern of police violence and brutality against impoverished black people in Baltimore. In October, Batts and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake invited the Justice Department to participate in a collaborative review of police policies. The fallout from Gray's death prompted the mayor to ramp that up, and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch agreed to a more intensive probe into whether the department employs discriminatory policing, excessive force and unconstitutional searches and arrests.

Baltimore was seeing a slight rise in homicides this year even before Gray's death. But the 38 homicides so far in May is a major spike, after 22 in April, 15 in March, 13 in February and 23 in January.

With one weekend still to go, May 2015 is already the deadliest month in 15 years, surpassing the November 1999 total of 36.

The mayor said her office is examining the relationship between the homicide spike and the dwindling arrest rate.

Even before Gray's death, police were making between 25 percent and 28 percent fewer arrests each month than they made in the same month last year. But so far in May, arrests are down roughly 56 percent.

At a news conference Wednesday, Rawlings-Blake said there are "a lot of reasons why we're having a surge in violence."

"Other cities that have experienced police officers accused or indicted of crimes, there's a lot of distrust and a community breakdown," Rawlings-Blake said. "The result is routinely increased violence."

Veronica Edmonds, a 26-year-old mother of seven in the Gilmor Homes, said she wishes the police would return and focus on violent crime rather than minor drug offenses.

A Section on 05/29/2015

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