Safe Streets Park Heights marks 387 days without a homicide, highlighting Baltimore’s community violence intervention strategy

A milestone in a defined catchment area

The Safe Streets Park Heights violence-interruption site has reached 387 consecutive days without a homicide within its designated boundaries, city officials announced Wednesday. The last homicide recorded inside the Park Heights site’s coverage area occurred on Jan. 12, 2025, in the 4400 block of Reisterstown Road.

The Park Heights announcement is the latest in a series of neighborhood-level milestones tied to Baltimore’s Safe Streets program, a community violence intervention initiative that operates in specific geographic “catchment zones.” City leaders described the Park Heights streak as the second time in roughly three years the site has surpassed a full year without a homicide.

What Safe Streets does—and what the Park Heights data show

Safe Streets was launched in Baltimore in 2007 as a public-health approach to gun violence, using trained outreach workers and “credible messengers” to identify brewing conflicts and intervene before they escalate. The Park Heights site’s reported activity during the current homicide-free streak has centered on conflict mediation.

City officials said the Park Heights team has conducted more than 230 mediations since the January 2025 homicide, intended to prevent disputes from escalating into shootings or killings.

Across all 10 Baltimore Safe Streets sites, the city reported 1,752 mediations in 2025. As of Feb. 3, 2026, officials reported more than 123 mediations completed so far this year.

Program footprint and oversight in Baltimore

Baltimore’s Safe Streets network currently consists of 10 sites in neighborhoods that have historically experienced elevated levels of gun violence. The Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement oversees the program and contracts with two community-based administrators:

• LifeBridge Health’s Center for Hope, which operates several sites including Park Heights.
• Associated Catholic Charities, which operates several other locations.

Officials also said seven Safe Streets sites have reached at least 365 days without a homicide since Mayor Brandon Scott took office: Cherry Hill, Belvedere, Brooklyn, Franklin Square, Park Heights, Penn-North, and Woodbourne-McCabe.

How the milestone fits into broader violence-reduction efforts

The Park Heights streak arrives amid multi-year declines in citywide violence, as Baltimore has emphasized a wider violence-prevention ecosystem that includes community-based intervention, hospital-linked programs, school-based efforts, and coordinated strategies aimed at people at highest risk of being involved in shootings.

Independent academic evaluation of Safe Streets has found statistically significant reductions in shootings associated with implementation across sites, and estimated that the social and economic benefits can exceed program costs depending on how the costs of gun violence are calculated.

City leaders framed the Park Heights result as evidence of localized gains that, they argue, can be replicated—while also emphasizing that the milestone reflects conditions inside a defined coverage area rather than a guarantee of broader neighborhood or citywide outcomes.