Baltimore ended April with five homicides, the lowest monthly total in recent memory, as looming cuts to federal grants threaten gun violence prevention programs.

It marked the lowest total of any month in any year dating back to 2012, according to a Banner analysis of public crime data released on Open Baltimore, which covers 2012 to the present. Mayor Brandon Scott went even further, saying the total was the fewest in any one month in the city’s history.

The city’s current downward trend in homicides began in 2023, the first of consecutive yearly decreases that started after a national spike in violent crime immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. The more than 20% year-over-year decrease in 2024 was already a historic drop unlike the city has seen since the 1970s.

The drop in the first four months of 2025 is even steeper, also undoing decades of geographic trends that clustered most homicides in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

Historically, most homicides occurred in the majority-Black neighborhoods east and west of downtown, commonly referred to as the Black Butterfly because of the way the neighborhoods resemble a butterfly on a map.

But that’s not the case so far this year.

So few neighborhoods have had a homicide this year that the historic geographic pattern has broken down, said Daniel Webster, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health who reviewed The Banner’s analysis.

Webster said that was a sign that Baltimore’s balanced approach to policing and violence intervention was focused on the neighborhoods that needed it most — lower-income neighborhoods that have a “concentrated racial disadvantage.”

“As you think about the reduction that the city has been recording, you can only do that by impacting the areas where the problem is the worst,” Webster said. “So much of effective violence reduction starts with a proper focus on the people and places that are connected with the biggest risk.”

Experts in gun violence prevention, city officials and anti-violence workers had attributed the 2024 decline to a variety of factors: statewide and national efforts to fight “ghost guns,” political stability in City Hall, and the maturation of the mayor’s approach to pairing policing with services and support.

Last week, Scott called on the president to reverse what he described as “reckless cuts” to public safety grants administered by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Baltimore’s drop in the homicide rate coincided with unprecedented investments in community-based gun violence prevention groups from former president Joe Biden’s administration.

The decline in Baltimore’s monthly homicide counts first accelerated at the end of 2023. In previous years, Baltimore saw more than 20 homicides in most months, peaking with 45 in July 2015, shortly after Freddie Gray’s death, which was classified as a homicide. Since 2023, Baltimore saw only one month with 20 or more homicides.

Scott said in a statement that the April drop in homicides was a direct result of his administration’s comprehensive violence prevention plan.

“That includes the men and women of the Baltimore Police Department, the entire community violence intervention ecosystem, the Attorney General, the State’s Attorney, and most importantly, the people of Baltimore,” Scott said Thursday. “This is progress, but we aren’t stopping to celebrate. Five homicides in April is still five too many — and we will continue to use all tools at our disposal to prevent violence and save lives.”

As of April 30, Baltimore has recorded 39 homicides this year, down more than 30% compared to the same time last year. The exact rate of change is hard to know because homicides are sometimes reclassified, making it difficult to know the current homicide total without also knowing the current status of every homicide. Discrepancies between different versions of Baltimore Police crime data also complicate the counting.

President Donald Trump’s administration may threaten some of this progress.

The city has yet to directly lose DOJ grant dollars, but the mayor said that federal resources “reach far beyond the dollars granted.”

Kurt Palmero, a gun violence prevention expert who works with young Baltimore residents at risk for gun violence, said that what has been accomplished in Baltimore is “remarkable” and a “powerful testament to what can be done through collaboration and teamwork.”

Palmero, the executive vice president of the nonprofit violence intervention and behavioral health program Roca Maryland, said the partnerships between his group, police and the mayor’s office have helped “save hundreds of lives in recent years.”

But Palmero stressed there is “still so much more work to do,” adding that he is disappointed in the Trump administration’s funding decisions.

“Community violence prevention works and is a great investment,“ he said. ”We witness it in the transformation of young people we support, and we see evidence of its impact in the data with markedly lower rates of homicide, much less recidivism, and millions of dollars saved for taxpayers in avoided incarceration costs.