Six people were shot to death on Baltimore streets in a two-day period that began Friday morning, bringing the number of homicides in the first two weeks of 2005 to 19, police said.
The last killing occurred shortly after police called a news conference to discuss the wave of slayings that is close to matching the 23 deaths recorded in all of January 2003.
In 2000, police recorded 14 homicides in the first 17 days of the new year.
Acting Police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm said pressure from police to cut down on drug trafficking has dealers trying to collect debts and resorting to violence in the process.
"We are keeping with the same game plan [of] . . . putting pressure on drug dealers," Hamm said Saturday at a news conference.
Police spokesman Matt Jablow said the department is prepared if the anti-drug strategy might cause more killings.
"We hope each month we will have fewer homicides than the previous month," Jablow said. "We have a good plan."
Although the homicide rate dropped nationwide last year, according to the FBI, the rate rose in Baltimore.
Last year, there were 278 homicides in Baltimore, the highest number since 1999.
In addition to police work, experts said other factors, including an aging adult population with a lower rate of violence, caused the decrease nationwide.
In the 1990s, more than 300 people were killed each year in Baltimore.
In 2000, the number dropped to 261 and by 2002, it was 253. In 2003, it rose to 271.
Mayor Martin O'Malley (D), who was elected five years ago, has made reducing the city's homicides a goal of his administration. O'Malley had hoped to reduce homicides to 175 a year by 2002.
