Md. High On List In The Rate Of Black Homicides
Jan 30, 2007 4:46 pm US/Eastern
WJZ) Baltimore, MD The victims of homicide in Maryland are disproportionately young black men or teenagers. WJZ's Suzanne Collins reports on a nationwide study and gets reaction from the mayor of Baltimore.
A young black man was gunned down Saturday in Pimlico in what police say was a robbery. A new study says he's a typical homicide victim, and the murder of blacks is disproportionate, disturbing and undeniable.
"He worked hard, worked hard all the time. He wasn't a street guy at all. By no means was he a street guy," said Demetrius Whited.
The Violence Policy Center finds the rate of blacks murdered is more than six times that of whites in the US. In Maryland, there were 407 black homicide victims in 2004, meaning 25 of every 100,000 African-Americans were murdered. Maryland ranks seventh when it comes to this problem.
The NAACP rallied this weekend to bring attention to black victims and black on black crime. The mayor says most of those victims come from Baltimore, and so do most of those doing the killing.
"A lot of those young people out there, they are crying for someone to come and help them get out of that drug and crime market that they're in," said Mayor Sheila Dixon.
In next week's State of the City speech, we can expect to hear some of Mayor Dixon's plans to address the problem.













