Apparently the mayor of Baltimore got a wakeup call. After Stephanie Rawlings Blake left to pursue not-so-green pastures.
Blake, the former mayor, didn’t even seek reelection. Because staying busy, trying to do the job, earned her nothing but criticisms for refusing to jump through the media circus hoops. Now, Baltimore rests in the hands of Democrat Brandon Scott. And things aren’t going too well.
Recently, more than thirty people were killed in just one week. In many cities, that would be outrageous. Even big cities. I’m a small town Texas girl, so I won’t try to compare Baltimore to my city. But Houston saw 400 killings in 2020. That represented a huge rise in crime for the country’s fourth largest city.
Simplify the math, and Houston sees 7 to 8 killings a week. But Baltimore sees thirty? That’s more than 1,500 deaths a year. And Baltimore is 31st on the list of biggest cities. And if you think Houston is the anomaly, New York City sees about 8 or 9 killings a week. They, too, experienced a huge spike in crime during covid. In other words, the numbers from Baltimore are alarming, at the very least.
Sadly, no one in Baltimore is sounding the alarms loud enough.
As one article chronicled:
Sadly, in Baltimore these days it’s just another day that ends in a “Y.” The city is on track to set yet another record for murders and shootings, something that’s happened every year for quite a while now. But in a sign that even Baltimore’s residents are reaching their limits, there were public demands for accountability and answers. This led to a public meeting with three of the city’s top officials at a church in West Baltimore on Monday of this week. While residents were demanding action, the Mayor, the City State’s Attorney, and the Police Chief didn’t have much to say that they hadn’t heard before. And, of course, none of them were ready to take any blame for their own policies failing to keep people alive. One of the residents noted that when one of the Fire Department’s regular assignments is to wash down the blood on the sidewalks, something has gone very wrong indeed. (CBS Baltimore)
Firefighters washed the blood from the 900 block of North Gilmor Street. The 26-year-old man shot multiple times there is one of more than 30 people gunned down in Baltimore City over the past week, and many across the city are fed up.
Suddenly, the mayor, police commissioner, and state’s attorney admit current strategies to reduce crime aren’t working. Ya think?
They’re finally meeting to lay out a “violence reduction plan.” But considering their success so far, I wouldn’t put much faith in these so-called leaders. Baltimore might as well change it’s name to Chicago.
The article continues:
“Past public safety practices have failed to keep our communities safe from violence and harm. We cannot arrest our way out of a culture of violence,” Commissioner Michael Harrison said.
Mayor Brandon Scott, formerly the President of the City Council, ran for office on a promise to do something to lower the murder rate. It’s only gone up since he was sworn in. State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who we’ve written about here many times in the past, has permanently ended prosecutions of “low-level crimes” in Baltimore, and she showed up to tell everyone that she has no plans to change her approach.
One comment from Police Commissioner Michael Harrison really stands out as being an example of the mindset among the city’s leadership. “We cannot arrest our way out of a culture of violence.”
Apparently Commissioner Harrison is unaware of how arresting the bad guys deters crime. It works like this. If a criminal has more than a 30% chance of being caught, the fear of an arrest becomes a powerful deterrent. In fact, increasing arrests has a greater effect than increasing punishments, such as the length of prison sentences.
However, in a world where leftists want to #DefundPolice, it’s hard to increase arrest rates.
Second Guessing
Clearly, taking police off the streets hasn’t made the world a better place. Thus, the same mayor who worked to cut the police budget by $22 million last year now wants to increase that same budget by $27 million now. Perhaps they’ve seen the err of their ways?
Of course, Baltimore’s leaders seem more interested in arresting the police than they do in arresting the criminals. It’s clear than gang bangers are in charge. In fact, many say HBO’s series The Wire was “based on a true story,” as opposed to just fictional drama. Obviously, that’s because no one is out there arresting the shady characters running things.
The article adds:
Despite all of the evidence of how badly Baltimore has deteriorated, Scott and Mosby were back in public on Monday talking about the need to “engage people” on a social basis to help guide them away from a path leading them to join the gangs and engage in violence. They’ve been saying the same thing for years, as did their predecessors, and the gangs have simply taken that as an invitation to go hog wild.
In other words, no gang banger is scared to do a shakedown, or even shoot someone, when they don’t believe they’ll get caught. Further, they know they won’t face a life in prison. Because Baltimore would rather teach Kumbaya than slaps the cuffs on the criminals.
