Murders week of Dec. 20: 2
Murders this year: 274
Over the holidays, homicides in Baltimore slowed to a crawl but did not stop. Next week we will learn this year’s final total and begin the process again with the first homicides of 2005.
Tuesday, Dec. 21
10:30 p.m. Baltimore Police officers responded to a serious shooting call at the intersection of Sumter Avenue and Pimlico Road in Central Park Heights. When they arrived they found 28-year-old African-American man Willie Thrash lying on the sidewalk. He had been shot repeatedly in the chest. He was pronounced dead at Sinai Hospital almost an hour later. Thrash had been arrested several times on drug charges and was on probation at the time of his death. Thrash was a state’s witness in the 2001 murder case against Antoine Burton.
Sunday, Dec. 26
12:06 p.m. The day after Christmas, shortly after noon, Nathaniel Smith, a 38-year-old African-American man, got into an argument with another man over a debt Smith supposedly owed him. The men were in the 1100 block of Ward Street in Washington Village not far from Oriole Park and M&T Bank Stadium. During the fight, the man stabbed Smith to death and then fled. Smith had been arrested in the past for drug possession and distribution as well as violating probation.
