The Baltimore Police Department is learning how to put a positive spin on otherwise unpleasant things.

Although the number of overall homicides has fallen so far this year, police-involved shootings have increased. Of the nine incidents in the past three months, eight of them resulted in fatalities (of the suspect, not the officer). Compared to the 13 fatal police shootings in all of 2007, that’s a tripling of the fatality rate.

I’m a bit surprised that this number isn’t higher. Not because I think our police are trigger-happy, but because there are so many armed lunatics on the streets. It’s not complete anarchy out there after all.

However, I hope this trend doesn’t result in more shootings like this one in Howard County, in which two probably unarmed and possibly innocent high-school freshmen were injured earlier this week.

Are the increase in police-involved shootings and the decrease in the overall homicide rate related? Probably not, unless these eight dead people were particularly unsavory individuals. Or, maybe the police are aiming at the right people. Time will tell.

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