Baltimore needs help to fix its crime problems

AT SEVEN IN the morning on July 15th, David Caldwell, a 52-year-old phlebotomist, was shot and killed in the methadone clinic on Maryland Avenue where he worked. A little more than halfway through the year, he was the 181st person killed in the city of Baltimore—and the 161st killed by a gun. It was a grisly scene. The suspected shooter, a 49-year-old man demanding methadone, was shot dead in the standoff with police. One officer was also shot, though he is expected to survive.

Based on historic patterns, Baltimore is on track to have 358 murders by the end of the year. It could exceed the tally in New York—a city with 14 times as many people. The number has passed 300 every year since 2015. That spring Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, died in police custody, and the city exploded in protest. Rioting and looting tore up the city’s poorest neighbourhoods; Victorian row houses were lit by the glow of flames.