Baltimore killings ...
On a rainy, raw New Year's Eve, I found myself in front of a bar at Monument and Luzerne, the site of 2009's first killing. Mario Williams had been gunned down here, allegedly by a relative, during a dispute at a party on Jan. 1. Pictures by Sun photographer Karl Merton Ferron.
Nearly a year later, his friends and relatives had returned for a vigil; they put out 237 candles (they didn't know that at that very moment police were adding a 238th victim to the list) and mourned not only for Mario but for all the others this year.
As Justin Fenton pointed out on Sunday, Baltimore remains at an historic low for murder but we couldn't beat out last year's 234 killings, nor could we show historic drops seen elsewhere in New York and Washington. I met two people at the vigil -- Mario's brother, Michael, who had just gotten out of prison in November for selling drugs, and another man named Thomas Brown, who recited a poem he had written and also had just gotten out of jail, a week earlier, and also for selling drugs.
Michael (left) told me it was the death of his brother that helped turned him around. Thomas told me he saw too many men like him in jail and decided enough was enough. The vigil was his first attempt at going straight.
I wish both men luck. Baltimore has already seen it's first murder of the year, near Druid Hill Park, and the city's police commissioner, Frederick H. Bealefeld III, was scheduled to be on WJZ and WBAL TV stations between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. this morning to discuss plans to fight crime this year.
Mario's cousin Tierra Smith wrote a poem about the killing and she gave me a copy. Here it is:
Losing a love one causes some type pain
Pain that surface in different ways
I don't know about yours but mine is unbearable type pain
I walk around hating your killer type pain
Mmm, when I see your picture I have the same type pain from when we were writing ya obituary
The type of pain that causes constant anxiety and repetitve tear
Or the fact that this pain is drying my tears up into balls of anger
The type of pain that I just may share with some of you
The pain of knowing my family will never be complete
Going to sleep peacefully to wake up to some type of pain
Or the fact that I keep asking you to come to me in my dreams but you won't type of pain
Your voice is withering away type of pain
Wish I could put this type pain on the person who didn't check ya killers pockets
But if your'e here don't take it personal because Im quite sure you have ya own type pain
I fall to my knees and keep asking Him why type pain
I never get an answer cause mommy keep telling me no to Question God
But can I ask Him why I have this type pain or
Did he think of the type pain it would cause to lose my cousin
But I realize Mario is free from pain
I'll come close that I, we will always have this type pain
So I look to the sky and throw up my I Owe U and Smile
Stop the violence and maybe this can stop the pain for others!
