AG Frosh visits Salisbury to discuss recent violence

Three shootings in Salisbury have resulted in two murders and one person now in serious condition at shock trauma in Baltimore. All of these incidents took place within the last two weeks.

Thursday night, state and local leaders met at Salisbury Fire Headquarters on Cypress Street for a community engagement event aimed at identifying and fixing the sources of the city’s violent crimes.

Mayor Jim Ireton presented numbers from 2011 to 2015, taking a closer look at the city’s nine homicides, eight of which involved guns.

He tells 47 ABC that the keys to fixing the violence problem coincides with generational poverty.

“I believe generational poverty has a lot to do with the issues that we face today.” And “There are times that it ebs and flow, there are times economically that it ebs and flows, what we have to try to do is be proactive.”

Also in attendance at tonight’s meeting was Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh.

While it was expected he would address Salisbury’s recent violence he focused on an issue hurting citizens on the shore and across the state.

Heroin.

Attorney General Frosh told those in attendance the work his office is doing to help combat the growing problem.

He says efforts have been intensified to catch the people making a living off of the deaths and overdoses from heroin.

In addition, he highlighted his work with other attorneys general across the east coast in developing a task force involving Maine to Maryland.

The Attorney General presented some alarming data pertaining to the entire state, “In Maryland, the rate of heroin overdose deaths has doubled in the past four years, it’s tripled in the past 10 years.”

Cindy Shifler. with the Wicomico County Health Department brought up another alarming stat, saying, “In the past twelve months we’ve had 20 overdose deaths. That’s 20 too many. 10% of the babies born at PRMC are born addicted to heroin.”

Mayor Ireton tells 47 ABC that unless citizens own up to the alarming data presented, he doesn’t expect much to change.