Baltimore Woman Killed After Rolling Down Car Window to Give Woman Money, Officials Say

Stock photo of police tape. (Carl Ballou/Shutterstock)

A Baltimore woman died after she stopped to help a person who she thought was in need, according to reports on Dec. 1.

Jacquelyn Smith, 52, was killed at around 12:30 a.m. on Dec. 1 as she sat in her car with two relatives after she attended a family gathering, Fox Baltimore reported.

She was in the front passenger seat when she saw a woman who appeared to be holding a baby and a sign asking for help.

“This was a good Samaritan who saw an individual holding a sign, who appeared to be down on her luck,” said Jeremy Silbert, a Baltimore police spokesman. “So, they stopped the car and gave her money.”

When she rolled down a window, a man approached the vehicle to thank her for the donation. He then tried to take her wallet, leading to a confrontation, before he stabbed her in the chest, officials said.

The man and woman fled the scene. Smith’s family took her to the hospital, where she was later pronounced dead, the Fox affiliate report stated.

The stabbing suspect is described as a black male who is 6 feet tall with a goatee and around 30 years of age. The female is about 5 feet, 4 inches tall and is black.

Anyone with information is being asked to call detectives at [phone]. Police want to identify and locate both suspects.

Other details about the incident are not clear.

The Baltimore Sun reported that 284 people have been killed in the city so far in 2018. Baltimore saw 18 murders in November, which is a drop from the 35 people killed the month before.

Baltimore Crime on the Rise

There were several shootings on Saturday in Baltimore.

“Police also responded to two shootings Saturday. About 10:35 a.m., police found a 39-year-old man with multiple gunshot wounds to his upper body near the 1900 block of Druid Hill Avenue. He was taken to an area hospital, where he is in critical but stable condition. About two hours later, officers responded to a report of a shooting in the 400 block of Lyman Avenue, where a man was suffering from a gunshot wound to his leg,” the Sun reported.

In a September report, The Associated Press said Baltimore’s homicide rate has hit a record high, deadlier than Chicago or Detroit.

Crime statistics released by the FBI place Baltimore’s homicide rate last year well above that of any other large American metropolis, making it an anomaly in the national crime landscape for U.S. cities with populations over 500,000 people.

The 342 homicides notched last year in Maryland’s biggest city yielded a punishing homicide rate of 56 per 100,000 people, according to the FBI’s annual Crime in the United States report released Monday. Earlier this year, Baltimore had announced 343 slayings for the year, but three deaths were reclassified, eventually bringing the total to 342 in the city of roughly 615,000 inhabitants. The per capita rate was a record high for the city.

Violent Crime Down in 2018

The FBI said that in 2017 violent crime had dropped by 0.2 percent, according to a release, but aggravated and rape offenses increased by a respective 1.0 percent and 2.5 percent. The murder rate dropped by 0.7 percent, the agency said.

“In 2017, there were an estimated 1,247,321 violent crimes. The estimated number of robbery offenses decreased 4.0 percent, and the estimated number of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses decreased 0.7 percent when compared with estimates from 2016. The estimated volume of aggravated assault and rape (revised definition) offenses increased 1.0 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively,” said the FBI.

The agency added: “By violent crime offense, the arrest rate for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter was 3.8 per 100,000 inhabitants; rape (aggregate total using the revised and legacy definition), 7.2; robbery, 29.3; and aggravated assault, 120.4 per 100,000 inhabitants.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.