Leon Donta Smith

Leon Donta Smith, a 34-year-old Black man, died on January 9, 2011, in Baltimore, Maryland.

That winter day placed him on the city’s homicide rolls, tied to the 300 block of East 33rd Street—an address recorded alongside the date his life ended, the kind of blunt entry that hints at flashing lights, hurried voices, and neighbors craning at windows for answers that wouldn’t come easy. In the public lists that catalog Baltimore’s killings from that year, his name appears without a ...