The frigid temperatures kept away all but a few families who came to mourn Baltimore City’s individuals lost to violence during the city’s official vigil on Tuesday night.
The city recorded 201 homicides in 2024 — down 40% from 336 from what police tallied in 2022.
Clad in parkas, sweatshirts and wrapped in blankets, mourners listened to the names of every person killed in Baltimore last year — names like William Womack, who was shot and killed on an MTA bus last November. Surrounded by family, his mother Tamika Johnson implored her fellow Baltimoreans to think twice before they make a “permanent” decision.
“A few seconds, you know, can mess up a person's life permanently,” she said. “They don't understand. When they took him from us he was loved, he had family, he had kids.”
Roxanne Spath wore a t-shirt with her daughter’s image emblazoned across the front.
“She was the best friend. She was the heart, the soul, the confidant of my family,” said Spath.
Cameran Holt was killed by stray bullet fire during a shootout in Federal Hill in late October; Holt lived for two weeks on life support before succumbing to her injuries.
Spath said her experiences with services offered by the city in the wake of her daughter’s death has been “positive”, particularly the victim’s advocacy support.
Although not called by name, city laborers killed on the job like sanitation workers Ronald Silver and Timothy Cartwell were remembered. Additionally, the city honored the six construction workers killed last spring when a cargo ship struck the Key Bridge and caused it to collapse into the Patapsco River. Those workers were 35-year-old Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 26-year-old Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 38-year-old Maynor Yasir Suazo-Sandoval, 24-year-old Carlos Hernandez, 49-year-old Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez and 35-year-old Jose Mynor Lopez.
Leaders Plan to Tackle Public Safety
The evening’s vigil followed an afternoon press conference led by Mayor Brandon Scott and Governor Wes Moore where they stood surrounded by nearly 30 various members from various state and city agencies dedicated to reducing violence. They touted the “historic” moment for the city, one in which homicides declined for the two years in a row.
The city has not had two consecutive years of declining homicide since 2010 and 2011.
That doesn’t satisfy Stefanie Mavronis, director of the Mayor’s Office of Public Safety and Neighborhood Engagement (MONSE).
“We want to make sure that these reductions in violence are not just two historic years but that we are sustaining these declines in violence,” said Mavronis. “We will see anything short of that, as not a success.”
One violence-fighting tool that has received much credit is the Group Violence Reduction Strategy, a program restarted under Scott that targets actors most likely to commit a crime or be a victim before it redirects them to services. The program started in the city’s western district in 2022 and has since expanded.
Scott announced that the GVRS should be operational in the southern district by the end of 2025, making it the final district to see the GVRS.
In what was his first visit to Baltimore City Hall since becoming governor, Moore touted the many levels of partnership between federal, state and local agencies, as well as community groups that he says are necessary to achieve these goals.
“We know that success is not singular. Anyone who tries to singularly claim credit for success is either naive, being silly, or truthfully or just plain disingenuous,” said Moore.
Moore pledged his commitment to working alongside Baltimore to stop homicide while revealing some of his own public safety priorities including: $122 million in local aid for police protection, $4.2 million to expand community interventions for the Department of Juvenile Services, funding to reopen the Catoctin Summit Adolescent Program and money for renovations at the Maryland Youth Residence Center. More on those should be released during his budget plan on January 15th, he said.
The state is facing a $2.5 billion budget deficit and state leaders have warned that new taxes and cuts to existing programs will be necessary.
