Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Surge in Baltimore Crime Has Some Neighbors Worried

A recent rash of crime in the Northern Park Heights area of Baltimore has some citizens concerned.

“I don’t remember for quite some time a crime wave of this magnitude, nor the brazenness of it,” said Avrahom Sauer, president of the Cross Country Improvement Association. “It reminds me of the times almost back in 1979, 1980. There was terrible crime [then], and you couldn’t walk on Park Heights Avenue at nighttime.”

Frank Storch
Not everyone is alarmed, although they are concerned.

“I think we probably are a lot better off than a lot of parts of Baltimore City,” Sandy Johnson, president of the Fallstaff Improvement Association said. “I like this area because there’s less crime than in other parts of Baltimore City.”

Frank Storch, an area resident, said he has not witnessed a comparable uptick in crime since 1981, when he was involved in forming the Northwest Citizens Patrol.

“It was important that the community would know that there is a group that’s going to be proactive and try to make sure that we stop the amount of incidents that were happening,” he said, “and work with the police department on trying to make the entire neighborhood safer.”

Storch asserted that the neighborhood had a “major decrease in crime” as a result of the founding of NWCP.