In New York City, year to date, murders continue to be lower than last year (124 vs 140) and higher than record-low 2014 (112). Given the rise of homicide in so many other cities, this is great news.
In Baltimore there were 26 murders in May. It’s hard to call this exactly “good news.” But last year, post riot, there were 42 murders in May. In previous years, May typically saw about 21 murders. Year to date (though May) 110 murders is not particularly good news. But it could be worse.
In 2014 Chicago saw about 155 murders through May, last year there 173, and this year about 265 (just through May). Coinciding with this huge increase in murder is the fact that Chicago police are shooting far fewer people than ever! In 2014 CPD shot 45 people. This year they’re on pace for 15. The obvious conclusion is that police are less likely to proactively engage with violent criminals. This is great news for the police-are-racist-harassers-of-innocent-black-men camp. But not great news if you happen to be a young black man in Chicago getting shot.
Yes, there might be a real trade-off between 30 people not shot by police and 1,400 more people shot by criminals. I’m not saying it’s direct cause-and-effect (it’s not like police were shooting all the bad guys) as much as mutual causation (police are interacting less with potential criminals).
This certainly doesn’t fit the narrative from the left that police use-of-force is the paramount criminal justice issue of the day. But while the streets run red some people’s faces will go blue saying, “we don’t know why crime is up in Chicago!” What we do know is that no other standard factor has changed so much in Chicago in the past two years.
If one happens to think, as I do, that most police-involved shootings are justified, this isn’t good news. Seems to me that police are not proactively engaging with potential murderers, and this matters. (And it matter more than, say, reducing the racial disparity in juvenile arrests based on population demographics.)
I bet arrest numbers are down, too. [Well, I know they are, but why is it so hard to get Chicago arrest numbers?] Best I can find is this from 538.com.
Here is one person’s decision to pack up and leave the city. It’s well worth reading. It’s a short move, two miles north, to the burbs. And he’s taking his tax dollars with him. This is especially worth reading if you think the biggest problem facing Baltimore is racism and policing. Or if you’re privileged enough to live in a city where you get to gripe about hipsters, gentrification, and racism and policing in Baltimore.
Yes, it’s all about crime. But it’s also about bad parents and a political leadership that doesn’t get it.
Hours after posting about the police-involved killing of robber Robert Howard, I read Justin Fenton’s amazing storyabout the robber: “Man fatally shot by off-duty officer was also shot by police 20 years earlier.” Are you effing serious?! What are the odds? I don’t think anybody in American history has ever been shot by cops in two separate incidents. I don’t know what that amazes me, but it does. Oh, Baltimore.
But wait, there’s more. It’s deja vu all over again! Remember how in last week’s shooting, witnesses reported Howard was unarmed and running from cops? And they said that cops shot him in the back? If it weren’t for the video, many people (and a Baltimore City jury) would doubt the cops.
How many “witnesses” come forward when the shooter isn’t a cop?
Well back in 1996 Howard was again busy robbing. He pulled a gun on cops, fired on cops, and cops shot back. Cops could have kept shooting. But the police didn’t kill Howard because once Howard was no longer a threat, they stopped shooting. That’s what cops are supposed to do. Police arrested Howard, without further incident, after Howard tried to kill them. Job well done, right?
Well in the 1996 shooting there was no video, and a jury acquitted Howard of all criminal charges. Howard’s attorney said officers planted a “drop gun” on Howard. One witness adamantly testified Howard did not have a gun. (Boy, if cop did have drop guns to plant, why are so many “unarmed” people shot by cops? Think Sean Bell, Diallo, Zongo, and Michael Brown.)
As an outsider, this may seem like just a shame, understandable given years of oppression. Or maybe even true. But it’s not. And it happens all the time. It what frames cops’ worldview. And if you’re the cop involved? It’s life changing. And not for the better.
Howard then (unsuccessfully) sued the officers for $12 million. He claimed he was unarmed and had his arms raised.
When I was in Baltimore, Kevon Gavinwas killed after his car was deliberately struck by a criminal being chased by other cops. The killer was doing 80mph and rammed Gavin’s car, crushing it. The killer was arrested at the scene wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a semi-automatic handgun. Later, in the jury trial, the killer was acquitted of all criminal charges. He walked free. (Even his lawyer admitted he was surprised at the verdict.)
It’s happened before and it will happen again.
So back in 1996, Stephen Cohen was one of the two cops that shot Howard:
The fallout prompted Cohen to leave the agency: He said he was accused at the civil trial of being corrupt and racist.
“The most upsetting thing about it was that he had the audacity to come after us, like we did something wrong,” Cohen says in a phone interview…. He pulls a gun, we shoot him, and now he’s accusing us, because he did nothing wrong and we’re the bad people.”
“I saw the writing on the wall. I decided, I can’t live my life like this. This is not what I want for my life,” he said.
…
Cohen said the civil case with Howard 20 years earlier caused him to lose faith in his role as a police officer.
“This was life-changing. You’re a young white guy, being crucified by a whole community of black people saying the only reason you shot him is because he was black,” Cohen said.
“At the end of the day, you can’t help people who don’t want your help, and can’t help themselves,” he said. “I was saying, ‘What am I doing in this picture? I can’t change anything. I’m going to end up miserable, bitter or dead in jail.”
So he quit.
Right now people are getting away with robbery and murder. This year alone there have been 67 homicides and 1,219 reported robberies in Baltimore. And yet when the story is reported, the only questionable characters are the cops.
I wonder how many people Howard robbed in the past 20 years. You have to assume he didn’t die with a lifetime robbery record of 0 – 2.
On April 15th, an off-duty Baltimore cop shot and killed a man. “Witnesses” said, according to WBAL:
The officer was having an argument with the man outside the store and the man ran away toward the store.
“As he was running in the store the police shot him, boom. When he got in the store, the police (officer) got over top of him, but once he seen us run up there, he tried to pause and say, ‘Stay right there, don’t move,’ and then he called for the ambulance,” a witness said.
It’s a pretty detailed account. Yes, says this good citizen, who of course prefers to remain anonymous. A cop chased and shot another black man in the back. But luckily these good Samaritans — and at great personal risk — followed the cop in the store to make sure the cop didn’t deliver the coup de grâce. Is hero too strong a word?
This is how false narratives gain traction “Hands up, don’t shoot!” (Which was also a lie.) After all, all cops wake up every morning thinking, “who can I shoot today?” and Baltimore cops in particular love killing innocent people.
This WBAL story does note, really an afterthought:
Police said witnesses inside the store, including clerks, told them that the suspect announced a robbery in the store.
Police are reviewing surveillance video.
But really, who you gonna believe? I mean, this wreaks of a police cover up, store owners cowering in the face of police pressure, and the bad word of police against the good word of criminals.
Luckily, in this case there was video. Good video.
Reporters, in their defense, can’t verify that a witness was there. But they could try a bit harder. In places like Baltimore “witnesses” appear after every police-involved shooting. And the story is always that the cops killed a surrendering man. Hands-up-and-shot. It’s nothing new. I’ve been keeping an eye on this for the past 17 years. And in Baltimore it’s never happened. Not once. Sure, it could happen. But it hasn’t. And you’d think that might matter. (When I was in the academy a housing cop was accused of this but luckily shot this criminal through the criminal’s pants’ pocket and the criminal’s hand. But what if he hadn’t been so luckily in missing center mass?) And during that time there have been 4,422 murders.
Eight times out of ten, the “witness” didn’t see it; and nine times out of ten, they’re lying. (And the 10th time? Well, I’m glad there’s video.)
In this case it’s not just the “witness” was wrong. Sometimes reasonable people can disagree on what they see. It’s that the witness’s story was 100 percent anti-police fiction and still reported as very possibly true.
A cop is in the store and a guy comes in a pulls a (turns out to be fake) gun and a knife. He tells the cop to kick it out (or whatever the kids are saying these days when robbing people). Presumably, after rubbing the customers, he would rob the store.
And yes, if you try and rob a cop, you get shot. Nothing wrong with that. And cops in Baltimore (unlike many cities) are required to carry a gun off duty while in the city (and permitted to in the rest of the state). When I took out my trash, I was packing.
And, as usual, the video showed exactly what police said happened. Of course you generally only hear about the exceptions. And you should hear about the exception. But you don’t have to base your worldview on them.
Again, Commissioner Davis had the cop’s back, as he should. From the Sun:
“He did the absolute right thing,” Davis said of the officer.
Davis said the officer acted appropriately and courageously. He said a witness in the shop told him he felt his life would have been in danger if the officer had not acted.
…
Davis on Saturday also criticized some media outlets who quoted people at the scene who identified themselves as witnesses and gave what he said was false information.
Davis read an excerpt from a Baltimore Sun story in which a man said Howard “ran in the store for safety.” A second man said the officer started “fussing” with the Howard, who cursed at the officer before the officer drew his weapon.
Davis said several other outlets spoke to the men, but that their accounts were false. He called the reports “absolutely erroneous and irresponsible,” and said the two men “lied about what occurred.”
The department released surveillance video outside the store that shows the officer walking into the shop, and Howard crossing the street just behind him, contradicting the witness accounts.
In their later story, after the video was released, WBAL dropped the “witness.” Given everything that has happened in the past year in Baltimore, maybe the lying “witness” should have been mentioned.
I’m finally getting around to watching The Seven Five, a documentary about the 75 Precinct in the 1980s and criminal cop Michael Dowd. Good stuff… the documentary, that is, not the cop.
I like how the movie is told through three perspectives: the dirty cops, the cops who caught them, and the criminal the cops worked for. And of course they’re all really charismatic.
But what amazes me is the reputation for NYC being so crazy back then. I mean it was. Sort of. In 1990, the height of the crack epidemic (the Bronx was already burnt) New York City’s homicide rate peaked at 30 per 100,000.
And the 75 Precinct was the highest homicide precinct in the city, with 126 murdersin 1993. That’s a rate of about 80 per 100,000.
Last year in New York City? The homicide rate was 4.
You know what Baltimore’s homicide rate was last year? 55.
When I worked the Eastern District the homicide rate was 100.
Last year in the Western District, the homicide rate was 140.
Think of what that means, to residents and cops alike.
[Fun fact: The most ever homicides in any one Baltimore district? The Western in 1972. 87homicides. (Though last year’s rate was probably higher, given the population flight from the area.)]
Another vacant crumbling amid high winds – Mosher St at Vincent St. Fell into alley cut-through pic.twitter.com/s1T5s3qnUO
Yesterday I was asked by a journalist what it means for politicians and police brass to “have cops’ backs.” It’s a fair question. It doesn’t mean not being critical of police. It doesn’t mean defending cops when they make an unreasonable mistake. It does mean giving cops the benefit of the doubt and supporting officers when they do their job.
This is Baltimore City Police Commissioner Davis having the cops’ backs (I transcribed from the video in this story):
We had three police officers who were in the right place at the right time.
…
The police came and did their job and did what they had to do.
And I would add to that if not for the Baltimore police department yesterday, we could have had a mass shooting on our hands where several innocent lives could easily have been taken. I’m very proud of the work of our police officers yesterday. Their bravery. We can’t run from danger. We don’t run from bad guys with guns. We engage them.
We fired 56 rounds yesterday, until this threat was eliminated. I want to put that right out there right now: 56 rounds. And you can see, and you can perhaps imagine confronting, in a neighborhood street in broad daylight, a father and son duo, with an intent to kill, that’s what it took to eliminate that threat.
I’ll add to that, the son, one of the two men that we shot and killed yesterday, the son was out on bail for a handgun offense and the father was out on probation for a handgun offense. And that’s why I’ve personally spent so much time in Annapolis in this legislative session, in an effort to convince lawmakers, and we certainly have convinced the ones from Baltimore, about the necessity to do more with these laws and make these misdemeanors felonies. It’s about time. But that message still isn’t getting through.
But our police officers and our community knows [sic] that unfortunately there are violent repeat offenders among us, who live right here in our city, who think nothing about carrying two guns like that in broad daylight and popping out of a car. If it weren’t for the bravery of the Baltimore City Police Department, we could be having an entirely different press conference right now.
Kudos to Davis. You couldn’t ask for more. Now this is what one would expect from a good leader. But good leadership, especially in Baltimore, is not a given.
Davis didn’t have to say what he said. He didn’t have to say anything. Or he could have had a spokesperson say something neutral like “we’re investigating the incident.” Or he could have raised an eyebrow by mentioning the number of shots fired before emphasizing how the “officers guns were taken immediately after the shooting and they remain on modified duty, as is departmental policy.”
But Commissioner Davis didn’t do any of that. He went out of way to support his officers how bravely engaged with armed gunmen. This matters.
Contrast this with former commissioner Batts who, in the name of progress and reform, threatened cops and led the city into riots and violence.
But really contrast this with Baltimore City’s elected State’s Attorney, Marylyn Mosby, who pushes a cops-are-the-problem perspective. Her husband is running for mayor. She’s wasting her precious prosecutorial resources by prosecute good cops who may or may not have made an honest mistake.
After this shooting, Mosby treated the officers like criminals. For the first time in as long as anyone can remember, officers involved in a good shooting were read their Miranda Rights like common criminals. For shame. These cops aren’t criminals; they aren’t suspects in “custodial interrogation.”
Were it not for Davis and his strong and passionate words at the press conference (and also good journalism by the Baltimore Sun from which Davis quoted), it’s easy to imagine an anti-police narrative taking root. After all, this is Baltimore, where police are quick to gun down a father and son (with latter with junior-high-school graduation pictures at the ready) over a misdemeanor! (In Maryland and many states, illegal gun possession is just a misdemeanor).
I’m sure some non-present “witness” could be found saying, “The cops didn’t have to fire all those shots. They had already given up.” Academics would criticize Broken-Windows policing. Al Sharpton, able to get a few days off work, would appear to criticize racist policing. Protesters could chant “56 shots!” while the national media returned to Baltimore and ask if (ie: hope that) more violence would be forthcoming.
In that world, if Davis doesn’t have the cops’ backs, the next time a group of officers in an unmarked car see two guys getting out with guns? The cops could just keep on driving.
Eventually, after the shooting stops and bodies drop, somebody would call 911.
Would you engage armed gunmen? Why risk your life? Why face potential criminal prosecution? This is why having cops’ backs matters.
Update: Regarding Mosby reading the cops their rights, here’s the FOP’s statement:
2nd Update: Also, homicides year-to-date are up 25 percent this year compared to last. But given the post-riot near doubling in violence last year, being up only 25 percent from pre-riot figures is actually a massive improvement of sorts.
3rd Update: Mosby’s office denies it. (I wasn’t there. But I don’t believe her. It’s not like she has a track record of telling the truth.) And the BPD decides not to engage. But the union will play:
Lt. Gene Ryan, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said Saturday that the statement from the state’s attorney’s office was “so completely inaccurate that it should be labeled an outright lie.”
I’m surprised that I can still be surprised at Baltimore’s State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s continued battle again Baltimore’s police. I don’t know, maybe she thinks all cops are bad because she grew up around so many bad cops. But Freudian analysis aside, imagine if the public prosecutor was out to get you and your colleagues. This concerns the latest police-involved shooting:
The Baltimore Police officers involved in Thursday’s fatal shooting of a father and son armed with weaponswere videotaped being read their Miranda rights at the direction of prosecutors after declining to give statements, a police union attorney said.
Michael Davey, the attorney, said it was the first time he could recall such a move by prosecutors in 16 years working with the police union.
“These guys should get a medal for what they did, instead of being treated like criminals by the State’s Attorney’s Office,” Davey said.
It’s almost charming, in that Baltimore criminal kind of way, that father and son were out doing something together. My dad used to take me to the beach.
If that guy could’ve let off with that rifle, all three of those cops would’ve been dead. That pink rifle might look silly, but it is highly lethal. You’re goddam right they fired 56 shots.
Wait a second… if you think Baltimore has 73,000 arrests, watch this magic:
[POOF!]
I just reduced arrests by 63 percent!
There were fewer than 28,000 arrests in 2015. That’s a pretty big difference.
Can’t we expect better facts from a City’s Health Commissioner. She’s a medical doctor, for crying out loud. How about factual facts?
Reasonable people can and should differ on opinions, but I still have this naïve belief that if people stop believing lies, we’d have a lot more common ground.
Baltimore arrests peaked in 2003 (with 114,000). From 2003 to 2011, homicides steadily declined in Baltimore and so did arrests. Great. 2009 was the last time Baltimore saw more than 70,000 arrests. 2009 was also the only year (since God knows when) that Baltimore has seen fewer than 200 homicides.
This matters because blaming arrests is the false political narrative put out by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s administration in order to deflecting blame for last year’s riots. The 2015 “uprising,” say those on the left, happened because people are angry about racial injustice and police abuses. (Like being “angry” excuses rioting or makes it inevitable.)
That’s right, say “progressive reformers,” criminals like Donta Bettshelped burn the city because he was angry about er, mass-arrest policies that he isn’t even old enough to remember?
Any time ideology trumps common-sense problem-solving, you’re in for trouble. And reformers love circular logic. Reforms can’t not work, because reform is needed. And reformers never accept responsibility for the unintended (and sometimes intended) consequences of their actions. And when reforms don’t work? Then we need more reform. I prefer the old adage: when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
And yet the city administration — I don’t know if they’re purposeful lying or shamefully ignorant ideologues (though either would be troubling) — harps back to a false past to deflect blame for the messed-up and deteriorating present.
Things were actually getting better in Baltimore. And then a minor corruption scandal (Dixon) led to the current unqualified reform (SRB) mayor who brought in a certain reformer of police (Batts, whose only proven success seems to have been at career hopping) who done messed everything up! Murder increased from pretty much the moment Batts “reformed” the police department. Things got worse. Well it can never be the fault of reform. So it must O’Malley’s fault from 10 years ago.
Here’s my litmus test: If you talk about the crime and police without ever once saying the word “criminals,” you’re a reforming fool.
Does anybody recognize this guy from Humans of New York? More than 13,000 shares and 147,000 likes on facebook.
He says he was a Baltimore cop for 21 years and a heroin addict the entire time. It’s not inconceivable, but it doesn’t ring true. I see a guy sitting on a bench in NYC with a story. I don’t believe him. I prefer my facts verified.
And I’m naturally suspicious. He says he took two-weeks’ leave and quit cold turkey. But he also says he was an addict the entire time? Which one is it? And how did he pass random drug tests?
Update: It’s hard to prove a negative, but I’m called BS since nobody I know recognizes this guy (and that includes people who came on the job in the since the 1960s). It just doesn’t ring true. From various Baltimore cops, past and present:
If he was addicted his whole time on the force, somebody on the street would have outed him to get a better deal from another officer. He’d have been too high to be as afraid as he claims. Who walks in on their junkie side partner and just says “well, as long as it doesn’t affect your work”? How many junkies would YOU trust YOUR life to? So he gets clean and doesn’t force his WIFE into rehab? She’s using every day and spending his money?????
Nah. Good reading,though. I’ll wait for the movie.
And this:
Let’s say this fool retired 20 or even 25 years ago, it still would have been during the time when mandatory “random” urinalysis was conducted. From what I understand, when the program was started, within the first two years, everyone had been tested at least once.
That long ago, to use heroin in a powder form it would have had to have been “smoked” as the purity of the powder back then, I do not believe was high enough to snort. And there is no way he was doing it while working and getting away with it because he would have immediately went “on the nod” and not been able to work until he came off of his high.
Locking himself in a hotel room, alone, for two weeks while he kicked it is another pile of manure. He would have needed at least one other person there to even try to pull it off to help him keep hydrated, etc. And the hotel staff after a few days of the do not disturb sign on the door know would have checked in some form to see if he was in there and did not skip out on the bill.
The only thing this story is good for is fertilizer.
The heroin purity argument is persuasive. Heroin, best I know, needs to approach 40 percent purity to make it snortable. It was nothing close to that in the 1980s. From the DEA:
The only real chance nobody would recognize this guy is if were already retired in the 1990s.
I know that there were some steroid users in the mid 80s, a couple of cocaine resignations, and a couple of positive test results where the addicted claimed addiction as a medical disability.
And of course, why this matters:
We have enough issues, now everyone will think half of us get high.
Impersonating a former cop. But why did he have to pick Baltimore?
2nd Update: I’ve heard back from more old-time former Baltimore Cops. Nobody has ever seen this guy before.
Baltimore homicides, year to date, are only up a bit compared to last year. Through March 24th, 50 this year compared to 47 in 2015.
Rarely is more murder good news. But it’s certainly an improvement from last year, post riot. From May through December 2015, there were 269 murders in 244 days. So 50 murders in 84 days in 2016 is strangely good news. Yes I know it’s low season. But it’s still a good sign. We’ll see if it lasts.
