Baltimore ended April with just five homicides, the lowest monthly total in over a decade, as federal funding cuts threaten the city’s violence prevention efforts.
According to a Baltimore Banner analysis of public crime data from Open Baltimore, April marked the fewest homicides in any month since at least 2012. Mayor Brandon Scott claimed it was the lowest monthly figure in the city’s recorded history.
This milestone continues a downward trend that began in 2023, reversing the surge in violence that followed the COVID-19 lockdowns. In 2024, Baltimore saw a more than 20 percent year-over-year drop in homicides, the sharpest decline since the 1970s. The decrease in early 2025 has been even more dramatic, breaking decades-long patterns of violence concentrated in the city’s most underserved neighborhoods…