Baltimore County Police Chief Melissa R. Hyatt (left) and Baltimore County Executive John A. Olszewski Jr. speak to the media with County Administrative Officer Stacy L. Rodgers. (Photo courtesy Baltimore County Police Department)

That was a jarring reminder of suburban crime expressed the other day by Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski and Police Chief Melissa Hyatt, when they acknowledged a record-breaking 50 county homicides last year.

The number’s far below Baltimore City’s 348 homicides for 2019, but it’s still upsetting. Didn’t people used to move from the city to the county to avoid such trouble? Where do they go now?

If the homicide figure makes everybody a little nervous, brace yourself, because it’s only a small measure of growing suburban street crime.

The 50 homicides are easy enough to count, which is why we’ve got figures for the whole year. That’s not the case with some other figures, for which we only know the first six months of last year.

The number of aggravated assaults, for example, by gun, by knife, by any kind of weapon, and the total number of violent crimes: They’re so numerous, the police have only listed half the numbers.

And they’re not pretty.

There were 1,634 aggravated assaults from January throughJune, and 2,429 violent crimes in that period.

So double the numbers, and you’ve got some sense of thecounty’s street crime.

When Olszewski and Hyatt released the homicide figure the other day, they weren’t trying to frighten anybody. They were just admitting the obvious, and then telling everybody they’ve got a new plan to combat the troubles.

“Keeping our communities safe is among the most importantresponsibilities of government,” Olszewski said. “Any increase in crime isunacceptable.”

But it doesn’t change the current trends. The 50 homicideswere the highest ever in Baltimore County, and the most since the previoushigh, 43, set more than a quarter-century ago. And it’s an 85 percent jump over2018.

But just for the record, nobody should find such numbers very surprising.

In conversation this week, I said, “I can remember [Rep.] Dutch Ruppersberger, when he was county executive, telling me that the city’s problems were becoming the county’s problems. That’s how far back this goes.”

“It goes further back than that,” replied Ted Venetoulis.“It goes back to my time.”

Ruppersberger was county executive from 1994 to 2002. Venetoulis served county exec from 1974 to 1978.

Why is this happening? Take a look at location. The crime’s gotten the roughest in the county areas where the economy’s the roughest — Dundalk and Essex on the east side, Woodlawn and Wilkens on the west side.

Crime is always highest in areas where people are mostdesperate. For a long time, the only people moving to the suburbs were thosewho were making decent money. The poor were left behind.

The city’s paid the price for this over the past half century. It’s not middle-class city people who are shooting each other or knocking down old ladies to steal their pocketbooks. It’s people who imagine they’ve got no other way to survive.

And those folks are spreading out. They’ve been doing it, bit by bit, for the past several decades. You want to cut crime, you need to cut the desperation that feeds it.

A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” was reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

You May Also Like
A New Era for the O’s
Jackson Holliday

Even the great "Earl of Baltimore," Earl Weaver, never had a lineup with as much raw talent as the 2024 Orioles team, writes Michael Olesker.

Praying for the Hostages in Gaza and the ‘Whole House of Israel’
livestream of the Shema broadcast from the Western Wall

The Acheinu prayer reminds us that the deeper we go into the experience of those suffering, the more fervently we will pray for their speedy redemption, writes Rabbi Dr. Eli Yoggev.

Global Village
Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg talks to the Beth Am audience before playing his guitar. (Photo by Jim Burger)

Despite technological strides, human beings still need to interact and be in close proximity to each other, writes Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg.

How Do We Celebrate Purim in the Post-Oct. 7th Era?
Purim Mask

In the face of tragedy and despair, Jewish tradition calls on us to choose life, writes David I. Bernstein.