Baltimore Reaches Double Digit Murders Just 12 Days Into The New Year
BALTIMORE (WJZ) – We already have unsettling murder numbers in Baltimore City. Now mothers who have lost their sons to violence speak out for change.
Rochelle Ritchie explains many of these crimes were never solved.
These women say there is no greater pain than burying your own child. And with the murder numbers already in the double digits, many are expecting the worst.
New Year's Day, the first murders of 2014 claim the life of a father and his 21-year-old son on Edmondson Avenue. Both were shot execution style.
"He was a good brother. He ain't hurt nobody," said a loved one.
Now, 13 days later, Baltimore City has reached 14 murders in 12 days after a man was found shot multiple times inside an overturned car in Mount Vernon Saturday.
The double-digit murders in less than a month are a heartbreaking reminder to mothers who have lost their children to violence.
"That, to me, is a sign that it's going to be even deadlier this year," said Mildred Samy, Mothers Against Murdered Sons and Daughters.
Mothers Against Murdered Sons and Daughters gather to remember the lives of those killed on the streets of Baltimore.
"My problem is now I have PTSD because I saw my son take his last breath in my home. I live there every day," said Marcella Holloman, son killed.
For many of these women, like Shirley Rankin, whose son was found shot in an alley almost six years ago, the hope for justice is dying.
"I think that Baltimore City and the state of Maryland just doesn't care. I think they're just gathering statistics on young black males," she said.
"There has to be an outcry that says, 'OK, that's not just another body on the streets, that's not somebody else shot and a life that's just lost,'" said Baltimore City Police Commissioner Anthony Batts.
Mildred Samy, whose son was killed, says as long as crimes go unsolved and unknown murderers walk the streets:
"They'll think that they got away with it and they can do it again," Samy said.
Just Sunday, two men were shot--one in the back. Another was shot on Reisterstown Road. Their condition is unknown.
The police commissioner says 80 percent of murder victims in Baltimore are young black men.
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