Sun coverage: Confronting crime

Young life taken on a troubled block in the city

This week, Antonio Stokes attended a vigil a block from his home for a young man gunned down at a city bus stop in a robbery attempt in Northeast Baltimore. Yesterday, Stokes was mourning the loss of his half-brother, fatally shot in an alley a half-mile from his house.

Grandmother's love, family anguish

The more strongly Jasmin Borum rebelled, the more family members urged her grandmother, Pauline Borum, to throw her out.

'Bringing an end to violence'

The names filled two scrolls at the front of John Wesley United Methodist Church yesterday morning.

Killings don't spare young

His family remembered the boy who loved to read Harry Potter and excelled in elementary school. Ty'wonde M. Jones turned 13 this year and seemed to sprout in height overnight.

Confronting Crime

Silence still stifles justice

From his Baltimore jail cell this summer, Ray "Lucky" Williams penned a thank you note to the woman who was supposed to testify against him in a murder trial.

Taking back a community, step by step

As dusk settles, the glittering lights of downtown emerge, just a few miles away -- but a world removed -- from one of the roughest areas in one of the deadliest cities in the country.

All for one

A thickset man called "Earthquake" slips yellow cards into the open windows of passing motorists at 60th Street and Woodland Avenue. A tall man with movie-star good looks wedges a poster into the windshield of a city bus stopped at a traffic light. A man with a radio host voice calls for support over a portable microphone.

Confronting Crime

Reason to worry

The street is mostly empty now, many of the businesses lining Belair Road closed or empty.

Brisk pace of killings resumes

For six weeks, City Hall enjoyed a sense of quiet optimism as the year's rapid pace of shootings and homicides seemed to slow. But yesterday, after Baltimore's deadliest weekend of the year, the mayor and interim police commissioner were once again struggling for answers.

Shootings by police climb

As homicides and shootings have soared in Baltimore this year, so too has the number of people shot by city police officers as the department struggles to curtail a surge in violence on the streets.

Vigil meant to save city

There are times when drug dealers seem to own these city street corners. There are times when the corners are ringed with yellow crime scene tape after a shooting.

City is fighting battle against violence - and hopelessness

Dondrea Ross' backyard is no longer her own. It belongs to the drug dealers who stalk the playground behind her house.

A struggle to survive

The minister stood in the vestibule of his East Baltimore church and told mourners to go home. The funeral was canceled because there wasn't enough money to bury Barbara Griffin.

GunStat shifts officials' targets

In his 23 years, Tyrone Henderson has been arrested eight times in Baltimore on gun charges - twice just this year.

Violence hits too close to home

It was her one free weekend amid a hectic schedule juggling work and graduate school, and Anna Sowers spent it shopping for purses and jewelry with friends in downtown Chicago. But she couldn't reach her husband back in Baltimore, who had been out with friends in Canton the night before.