Ken Harris Tribute

The killers of former Baltimore Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. have shattered the hope that Baltimore is safer because there are fewer homicides. The trio of robbers who hid behind scary masks and guns has shown again that anyone can be a target of violence, including a man who worked hard to make this city a better place for men and women of all walks of life.

Raised by a single mother, Mr. Harris worked four jobs to get himself through Morgan State University. He began his community work in his neighborhood and he understood the importance of respect, whereas the thugs who killed him had no respect for human life; they were only too willing to end one in the brief moment it takes to fire a gun.

Confronted as he left a popular jazz club in Northeast Baltimore, Mr. Harris ran to his car. His assailants murdered a husband and father of two who had spent the past decade working to change things that he thought were wrong or unjust or unfair. Mr. Harris fought for evicted tenants and truant youths and young black men too often targeted by police. He pushed corporate leaders and businessmen to fund scholarships for the less well-off. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but no one should die because he stopped by a friend's place early one morning to borrow a corkscrew and use the restroom.

Last year, Mr. Harris, 45, aspired to a citywide elected office, council president, that would enable him to improve life beyond his district in Northeast Baltimore. He wasn't deterred by the crowded field; the underdog role played to his strengths as an independent, impassioned advocate who was himself robbed at gunpoint as a 17-year-old. He lost that race, but he would have been the first to say he was blessed.

By most accounts, killings in this city have declined; there are fewer homicides now than in previous years. And then someone like Ken Harris is murdered and confidence in all the recent hard-won gains is shaken. So many killings here are acts of retribution, revenge, intimidation or simply to have the last word in an argument. The ultimate destructive act - taking a life - has become all too common as a way of settling a score, and that has yet to change.

Ken Harris deserved to live a long life, to serve others again in the causes he championed, to watch his children grow up, marry and have children of their own. This should not have been his time. Baltimore still needs him and others like him too much - good, decent, hard-working citizens who care deeply about the city in which they live and how they can help its people thrive.