May Brings Madness; Shootings and Homicides Across the Nation

SpotCrime Crime Listing of Baltimore May homicides.
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Our hometown of Baltimore saw absolute madness in May. We've put together a SpotCrime Crime Listing map of the homicides and shootings that we've been able to find, address, and map which occurred in May in Baltimore city. To view the entire list, click here.

There are 39 incidents on this crime list. One incident is a quintuple shooting, multiple incidents list victims being shot multiple times. Most of the victims appear to be men, but there are a few women involved. The main weapon used is a gun, however there are a few stabbings listed.

The Baltimore Sun reports 43 homicides, one of the deadliest months the city has seen since the 42 homicides that occurred in August of 1990, with 115 homicides to date in 2015. The Baltimore Sun also has a homicide map compiling homicide data from May. Check out their map here.

NPR notes a 76% increase in shootings in Charm City compared to last year, while Baltimore Brew notes a 82.5% increase in shootings. We’re not sure why a difference in reporting, however, both sources agree that it’s an increase to be concerned about.

It’s not just Baltimore where there has seen a recent uptick in gun violence. New York City, Chicago, and St. Louis also saw a rise in gun violence in recent months. In NYC, the overall crime rate is down, however shootings are up 20% compared to the same period in 2013, making shootings on the rise for two years straight in NYC since the 1990’s. Chicago shootings are up 25% and St. Louis shootings are up 39%.

Chicago Shootings on SpotCrime since May 1, 2015

SpotCrime is the only crime mapping website that breaks shootings out from assaults, assigning shootings with a separate icon. It’s fairly easy to see the gun violence in cities this way and we do this whenever possible. However, most cities send shootings simply as 'aggravated assaults' with no identifiable description, so in some cities it's harder than others to identify shootings. They're still getting mapped, but as assaults. In Chicago and Baltimore we can break out the shootings easily, however, in St. Louis and NYC it's only a shooting when we can identify it from a press release or trusted media outlet.

Warmer weather does typically bring in higher crime rates which is leaving a lot of agencies nervous for the months ahead. There are no real conclusions that can be drawn, yet. Speculation is a correlation between the timing of the uptick in violence and protests against police. All that can be currently concluded is there is a definite increase in violent crimes in major cities across the US, something to be concerned about.