Baltimore has long remained silent on violence.

Either we accept it, are indifferent to it or we think death is a part of what it means to be Baltimore.

The year 2008 ended with 234 dead, far fewer than the 282 from 2007, and we survived a last minute surge in November and December. Now, shootings are up in January -- a New Year doesn't always mean a fresh start. Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld talked about needing help, about people rising up in anger.

It wasn't the first time such a statement was made. The city police union repeatedly criticized then Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke for his lack of passion when it came to death on the streets. His comemplative and bookish approach to solving crime failed to rally his citizens.

Years later, police commissioner Edward T. Norris stood inside Johns Hopkins Hospital after a police officer had been shot. He said "public outrage should be in order" as he held up the gun used in the shooting -- a 14-inch long ruger Blackhawk used by deer hunters. "It's like what they used in Dirty Harry movies," Norris said.

In the first week of 2007, city police took 87 guns off the streets. And sadly that's not even a record. On New Year's Day 2001, city cops got 120 guns and made 100 arrests.

After a dozen killings in the first 10 days of this year (another 17-year-old was killed Sunday night), the city's NAACP president, Marvin L. 'Doc" Cheatham Sr. told me it's time for a city rally. He wants to hold it downtown on Jan. 31, along with city council members, Bealefeld and residents. The Rev. Willie Ray has held small rallies at killng scenes for years and has even considered giving up because too few people attend and more people keep getting shot.

"Someone needs to take the lead responding," Cheatham told me, hoping some publicity will help get things started. "We need to do it now and not way until we get all the way to the end of January, and not wait until March or April when we get 100 deaths.

"It seems to me that we get lulled to sleep in accepting these numbers," Cheatham continued. He said he held rallies on three consecutive years on Gilmor and Baker streets in West Baltimore, near where he grew up, and watched young people pass on by without stopping. By the third rally, Cheatham said they were mourning some of the same faces who had igorned the group a year or two before.

Reporting death is no longer enough. "In some way we must, for the sake of our fellow citizens, get them outraged about 12 deaths in 10 days," the NAACP head said. "If all we do is report the killings our community will continue doing what we have done - basically little to nothing. Please work with me in putting different approaches together to get us to help ourselves.

"Eventually it's going to hit everybody," he added. "We need to bring different players together, show a unified front. We've got to put some responsibility on ourselves. The community has to get up in arms. It's us killing each other."

Anyone interested in helping out can reach Cheatham by calling 410-669-8683.