In a 2018 report, USA Today ranked Baltimore, Maryland, as the ‘Most Dangerous Big City’ in the nation.

The newspaper found that Baltimore had the highest per capita murder rate in the U.S. last year, with almost 56 murders per its 100,000 people, CNS News reported.

“At 343 murders in 2017, the city tallied the highest per capita rate in its history,” the newspaper said of Baltimore.

The report also stated that the rise in homicides was blamed on illegal drug activity and gangs in the area.

On July 30, Breitbart News reported that Baltimore’s Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) president, Sgt. Michael Mancuso, said the city was currently short 500 police officers, 400 of which are needed on patrol to lower the city’s crime rate.

“As it stands now, there are not enough Officers to even respond to the number of calls to 911,” he commented.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) received criticism recently from President Trump for his lack of action regarding the crime rate in his district which includes over half of Baltimore.

“Baltimore, under the leadership of Elijah Cummings, has the worst Crime Statistics in the Nation. 25 years of all talk, no action! So tired of listening to the same old Bull,” the president tweeted on Monday.

Democrats came to Cummings’ defense, citing the president’s “racist” remarks as an attack on people of color.

“He attacks everybody,” Al Sharpton said during a press conference Monday. “But he has a particular venom for blacks and people of color. He doesn’t refer to any of his other opponents or critics as ‘infested.'”

However, Breitbart News reported on Wednesday that in 1999, Cummings referred to his own district as a “drug-infested” area, adding that “a lot of the drugs we’re talking about today have already taken the lives of so many children– the same children that I watched 14 or 15 years ago as they grew up, now walking around like zombies.”