POLICE HIT THE STREETS TO CUT HOMICIDE RATE

BALTIMORE - Police officers are being pulled from their desk jobs to flood
the streets in a last-ditch blitz to prevent Baltimore's homicide rate from
reaching 300 for the ninth straight year. "Here's why you are here," Lt.
Don Healy recently told 80 extra duty officers packed into a roll-call
room. "We do not want another homicide in Baltimore city. Shut those (drug)
corners down."

While crime has dropped in nearly every other category, Baltimore is still
among the leaders nationwide in homicide.

"At a certain point, I think we have an obligation to do everything we
can," Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier said. "We can't stop the
administrative side of the force permanently, but we can do it for 30 days."

Officers are being taken from desk jobs and placed on patrol to slow the
homicide rate, which stood at 294 on Monday. The last time Baltimore had
less than 300 killings was 1989. Last year, 312 people were killed in the
city.

This year's rate works out to about 43 killings per 100,000 residents,
ranking the city behind only Gary, Ind., New Orleans and Detroit.

New York, meanwhile, has seen killings drop from 2,245 in 1990 to 770 last
year. As of Dec. 5, 571 people had been slain in New York, which translates
to less than 8 per 100,000 residents.

Cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and Washington are also showing
declines.

The president of the police union, Officer Gary McLhinney, said basing
tactics on statistics can have unintended effects, noting a recent scandal
in Philadelphia where officers were accused of recording crimes as lesser
offenses to make the city appear safer.

Nevertheless, falling numbers of robberies and murders nationwide helped
lower the number of violent crimes in the United States during the first
six months of this year, extending a downward trend that began in 1992.

The FBI said robberies nationwide decreased 11 percent, while murders
declined 8 percent from January through June, compared with the same period
in 1997. Rapes and aggravated assaults showed a 5 percent drop.

While violent crimes went down by a total of 7 percent in the first half of
the year, the number of so-called property crimes fell by 5 percent.

Of the property crimes, arson dropped 12 percent, motor vehicle theft by 8
percent, larcenies and thefts by 5 percent and burglaries by 3 percent.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski