Ryan E. Little

D.C. health officials have vaccinated people against monkeypox at a rate at least 56 times higher than Maryland, a Baltimore Banner data analysis data found. While D.C.’s per capita infection rate has been about twice as high as Baltimore’s, there are now more new cases per person in Baltimore.

The Baltimore Police Department’s proposed new district boundaries, which officials say are necessary to modernize and streamline police operations, would shift areas of the city that have had more of the most violent crimes into larger, more violent Eastern and Western districts, a Baltimore Banner analysis has found.
The Baltimore Banner’s analysis shows that the city’s attempt to equally distribute workload among its nine districts creates other inequities, disproportionately saddling larger versions of the Western, Eastern, Southwestern and Central districts with areas that have seen even more shootings, homicides and aggravated assaults. The trends were similar when The Banner analyzed pre-pandemic crime trends and those since the beginning of 2020.

In Anne Arundel County, a Baltimore Banner analysis of electronically available failure-to-pay-rent cases found that nearly a fifth of the more than 27,000 renters who had received an eviction filing since 2019 got five or more complaints during that time. Some residents had received as many as 30 eviction notices. The cases make up 57% of all civil cases since 2019.
The analysis also found that fewer than 2,250 of those cases resulted in eviction, revealing Maryland landlords’ widespread use of the court system as a tool for collecting rent — often with extra fees tacked on — rather than for actually removing tenants.

A Baltimore Banner analysis of MDHS data found that hospital stays past the point of medical necessity increased as out-of-state placements, especially of psychiatric patients, dropped. They were far more likely to experience an overstay than medical patients, with stays for psychiatric patients lasting a week longer on average, according to the data compiled in state reports first mandated in 2019.

Orleans Street running through the Dunbar-Broadway and CARE neighborhoods has the highest and third-highest vehicle crash rates in Baltimore. A Baltimore Banner analysis of Maryland Crash Data shows that accident rates per resident in the two neighborhoods exceed even Pratt St. in the Inner Harbor.

Liam Davis, the legislative affairs manager for the department, said the city is committed to implementing some traffic calming measures and conducting a six-month study of the corridor. The study, which will focus on traffic patterns from Washington Street to Ellwood Avenue, is set to start in either late October or early November, according to the department.
Davis said there were a few factors that led to the study, such as the data — which was “highlighted” in a Baltimore Banner story — community interest, and political support from elected officials.
“The data shows that traffic calming is really kind of needed, right?” Davis said.