Opinion: UMB Center for Violence Prevention seeks to save our cities

Our cities are in peril. We can and must save them. Here in Baltimore, police report more than 665 shootings so far in 2022. That’s an average of 88 shootings a month, up 12% from last year at the same time. Across the country, the story is the same, and we fear the public has become numb to the vast number of shootings and homicides. Each victim of violence is a person with a family. Gun violence often alters a person’s life forever as well as that of their families. Our clinical staff at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore fight to keep people alive, while the violence only intensifies. Imagine having to tell a family they’ve lost a loved one.