263 people in Baltimore died by homicide in 2023. They had names, stories, and loved ones.
The city held its annual Vigil of Remembrance on Wednesday night to speak the names of the dead and honor those lost to homicide, overdose, and suicide. This year was the first time it had been held fully in-person since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They prayed. They cried. They hugged each other as they listened to the names read aloud.
Nicole Williams went looking for closure after her daughter Shawnika Deniton was murdered in May.
“She was only 31, a mother, a daughter, and we love her and miss her so much,” Williams said through deep sobs. Williams is raising Deniton’s two children. The perpetrator has not yet been caught after Deniton was killed in May; Williams said the Baltimore Police Department has been helpful but it’s hard for her to go so long without having that justice. Deniton was killed in her home on Bel-Air Road, her mother believes it was likely someone who knew her daughter.
Tarento Brown came to Wednesday’s vigil in remembrance of her brother Pedie Edwards.
“He didn't have much, but he would make sure that he gave it to you,” said Brown. “He’d always say ‘I got you,’ and he did.”
He was killed in November and his body taken across state lines to Newark, New Jersey before his remains were recovered. Brown says she is waiting for the State’s Attorney’s Office to take further action on her brother’s case.
There were 67 fewer homicide victims than the city had in 2022. City leaders are taking it as a sign that their strategies are working.
On Wednesday morning, just a few hours before the vigil, Mayor Brandon Scott stood alongside Police Commissioner Richard Worley with leaders from the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, the Baltimore City Council, Safe Streets, and other violence prevention programs to announce that the city’s violence prevention efforts are working, slowly but surely. He pledged that the city would keep up its current efforts.
The homicide drop in 2023 was dramatic: 20%. Non-fatal shootings went down by 7%. Baltimore hasn’t seen a number lower than 300 homicides since 2014 and since the unrest inspired by Freddie Gray’s 2015 in-custody police death, city politicians have been pledging to get the homicide rate below 300.
“And we all knew, and I knew deep in my heart, that we needed to do something different. And so we did something different,” said Mayor Scott. He credits that to the efforts of various community-based public safety programs, getting guns off the streets, and cooperation with state and federal agencies.
Then, he also mentioned possible factors that might be somewhat less immediately obvious.
“If you don't think that Baltimore having this lowest unemployment rate last year has anything to do with the violence drop, you should be thinking about that even deeper,” said the mayor.
In 2023, Baltimore, like much of the rest of the country, saw near record low levels of unemployment– the most recently available city data puts it at 3.2% for the first quarter of the year.
In 2021, Mayor Scott pledged to get the homicide rate below 15% but it didn’t happen until 2023.
One of the main ways Scott plans to reduce violence is through the expansion of the Group Violence Reduction Strategy, GVRS.
“The GVRS, has led us to focus on both prevention and enforcement to achieve greater reductions in gun violence this year,” said Scott. A third-party report released last found evidence that the strategy may be working. The city is working on expanding that program, it is currently in parts of south and west Baltimore.
Interim MONSE director Stefanie Mavronis told WYPR that the program will likely be fully rolled out in the city’s central district by next month and in eastern Baltimore sometime this upcoming spring.
Other cities around the country have also seen declines in homicide this year including Philadelphia, Detroit, St. Louis and New Orleans.
Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled interim MONSE director Mavronis's first name as "Stephanie." The error has been fixed.
