A passerby moarns Stephen Pitcairn
Summer is the drippiest of love-fests in Baltimore. There was Artscape, of course, then came a sweatstorm of art-rock at Whartscape, the monthly baby and dog parade at First Thursdays and weekly dose of sno-balls and popcorn at AVAM’s oldster movies. All: colorful, boozy, laidback, and mostly free.
But lately, my buzz has been way harshed by the sober truth of summer in the other Baltimore. Earlier this year, and it was probably not a coincidence that there were two feet of snow on the ground, The City Paper marveled that murders were way down.
After six days without a murder, there was one homicide this week. As of March 15, there have been 14 fewer murders in 2010 than on the same date in 2009. This is a decrease of 32 percent.
With the mercury, Baltimore’s murder rate shot back up to 8 in one week in May, starting with a fatal shooting of a 16-year old boy near the H.L. Mencken House in west Baltimore. This past week, the 7 murders included Stephen Pitcairn, a promising 23-year old research aid at Hopkins who was stabbed after handing over his wallet to experienced criminals in Charles Village. He died lying on the pavement holding the hand of a stranger, a neighbor who called the police. The frankly random nature of the killing has been stunning.
I also got robbed when I was 23. I was also returning home at night. It was 5am in Harlem, New York City–way stupid and not at all comparable to a young man deciding to walk the short mile home from Penn Station to Charles Village. A man took my wallet, after threatening to kill me. But when I gave him my wallet, that was the end of it (until the police caught him 30 minutes later). Needing cash fast–people can understand that, even if they don’t agree with the tactics (an understatement). We were shocked to learn of the duo that got the cash they wanted, and needless took a young life.
The shock hasn’t ebbed in the past week as daily stories splashing across the Sun’s front page have pointed to the long and horrifically violent criminal record of the killers, who were reportedly “hunting to rob someone.” The record shows that they had most recently robbed and assulted someone in April, but when witnesses refused to testify, they apparently could not be imprisoned. It’s no wonder, considering the serious and deadly threats and intimidation of potential witnesses to Baltimore crimes. Just two days ago, a 21 year-old murder witness to a separate homicide from last weekend was shot dead east of Station North.
A tree on St. Paul and 26th street has become a memorial to Stephen, who met his killers while phoning his mother in Florida to say good night. Friends and neighbors have left photos, cards, notes, even a birthday cake with pink icing–he was to turn 24 on Wednesday. Someone left him Twizzlers and oysters on the half shell in a cooler, with cocktail sauce.
Perhaps drug trade-fueled shootings have become white noise for locals. Why else would the Sun barely mention the bodies that fall nearly every day in neighborhoods west, east and south? The young men have mothers, sisters, girlfriends who mourn, while strangers think, I’m safe, the barrel won’t tilt toward me.
But it might. Walking home at night in groups–never alone–we nosily argue about who is most to blame. The Baltimore Police Department, cries one person — they sit back and watch people break the law, on their cell phones. The justice system, someone points out, is full of cracks and these people slid right through. Who defends these people, anyway? It’s the lawyers! What about the people? How do they put up with these bandits roaming the streets?
A letter writer to the Sun wonders about the spirits of Baltimore, that underlie the development of late.
beneath it all there is a seething monster, an amorphous, angry force which raises its frightening head and claims as its victims the Stephen Pitcairns and Zach Sowers of our city. What would we hear if we could quiet that force, if we could quell that monster? We might hear the cries of all the bereaved mothers, of a bereft mother in Florida who had to endure the most unthinkable of all horrors, the sound of her own son being murdered.
What are we to do but wonder, who are these men? They wander the streets at night, walking slowly in white t-shirts and shorts, like shades, floating back and forth in the summer night: Endless streams, alone, as if they are visions from purgatory wandering forever.
One of them put a rock through my car window yesterday as it sat on Baltimore’s Park Avenue. A squat police officer knocked on my door this afternoon to point this out (I hadn’t driven today so hadn’t yet noticed). “Is that your car?” Yeah, why? “Someone broke in.” Hmm, ok. He looked disappointed, like I’d missed my cue to go nuts about my broken window. I left him for a minute to put a load of clothes in the wash, then came out to check it out. A small rock was on the floor on the passenger side. A couple walked by and expressed their sympathy. The officer explained that windows of three or four cars in a row had been shattered. Nothing was taken from the car — the window was intact, shattered, so the rock-thrower hadn’t meant to rob me (of scratched David Bowie cds, because that’s all they would have gotten). No, it was just anger, or boredom, or what? What possesses someone to slam small rocks through the windows of their neighbors’ cars?
I was on my way somewhere and asked the officer if I could leave my window like that. I really didn’t care about the Bowie CD, or the dog hair-covered blanket in the trunk. He looked at me quizzically. “A homeless person might come in and sleep, or someone might through a cigarette in,” he pointed out, while reluctantly writing up the incident.
My neighbors and my landlord stood outside shaking their heads. Really, it was the least surprising thing. On the crime map for Mt Vernon, there are a constellation of red stars showing “larceny from vehicle” incidents in the past 2 weeks. We are fortunate that the red crosses indicating murder are not visible, at least in the past half-month. I’ll take a rock through the window any day. I don’t want to lose a friend because he crossed the street too late.
