Baltimore Residents Fearful Amid Rash Of Homicides, Street Anarchy

Baltimore.cbslocal.com reports: A 31-year-old woman and a young boy were shot in the head Thursday, becoming Baltimore’s 37th and 38th homicide victims so far this month, the city’s deadliest in 15 years. Meanwhile, arrests have plunged: Police are booking fewer than half the number of people they pulled off the streets last year... “I’m afraid to go outside,” said Antoinette Perrine, whose brother was shot down three weeks ago... Ever since, she has barricaded her door and added metal slabs inside her windows to deflect gunfire. “It’s so bad, people are afraid to let their kids outside,” Perrine said. “People wake up with shots through their windows. Police used to sit on every corner, on the top of the block. These days? They’re nowhere.” West Baltimore residents worry they’ve been abandoned by the officers they once accused of harassing them... “Before it was over-policing. Now there’s no police,” said Donnail “Dreads” Lee, 34, who lives in the Gilmor Homes, the public housing complex where Gray, 25, was chased down. “People feel as though they can do things and get away with it. I see people walking with guns almost every single day, because they know the police aren’t pulling them up like they used to.” Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said his officers “are not holding back,” despite encountering dangerous hostility in the Western District. “Our officers tell me that when officers pull up, they have 30 to 50 people surrounding them at any time,” Batts said...