Ten federal agents will join the Baltimore police homicide unit, commanders announced Sunday, after the city followed its deadliest month in decades with a night in which 10 people were shot, reports the Baltimore Sun. Interim Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said the addition of agents from the FBI, the DEA, ATF, the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Secret Service represent a “flipping of the script of sorts.”
The department’s homicide clearance rate is 36 percent. Davis said the agents will use federal resources to help homicide detectives solve killings. A total of 191 people have been killed in Baltimore in 2015. Forty-five people were killed in July alone, matching the all-time monthly high from 1972, when the city had 275,000 more residents. Forty-two people were killed in May, the month after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody sparked riots. Davis said officers have confiscated about 20 percent more guns on the streets this year. Police believe people are arming themselves amid an “atmosphere of uncertainty” after April’s unrest.