Haven’t read this yet, but looks interesting. By Justin George in the Baltimore Sun:
In the days following Freddie Gray’s death, The Baltimore Sun had exclusive access to police investigators as they gathered evidence, debated legal issues and weathered public pressure.
Here’s the latest in terms of Baltimore homicides, pre and post riot. The downward slope is a slight silver lining in a homicide rate the doubled overnight.
There’s an interview with Justin George in The Trace. He was a Baltimore Sun reporter who recently moved on to Milwaukee. I like that he’s willing to consider the possibility there might be some trade-off between aggressive policing, which causes community resentment, and getting illegal guns off the streets, which saves lives:
Which of the citywide initiatives to help cut the homicide rate has been the most successful?
What everyone talks about most is these plainclothes cops, which are very controversial. These are detectives who are working in unmarked cars. They gather intelligence. When Baltimore’s homicides dipped below 200, in 2011, for first time in decades, one of the things pointed to were these units. They were chasing down leads, looking for guns and getting info on who has them. But a lot of black residents were being unfairly harassed. At the John Hopkins gun policy center they say that some units that are specifically trained to spot guns have shown effectiveness in other cities. But these units also run the risk of alienating the neighborhood.
So what can be done to turn things around in Baltimore?
I can only speak to what the residents tell me. And they tell me repeatedly that there aren’t enough things for you to do on the streets. They say that they want more recreation centers; they miss the different athletic leagues and getting youths involved with good influences. And there’s certainly that notion that a lot of these kids need people who are rooting for them. And when I say kids, I’m talking about teens here. I think if there’s a boost in the economy, you’ll see a change. But I want to express, I’m not an expert in any of this — I’m just a humble journalist. But I do think people underplay the poverty in the city. They really don’t understand it.
In case you’re wondering how police could possibly be opposed to a “violence prevention program” like a city-funded program that “hires ex-felons to mediate disputes,” consider this from the Baltimore Sun: “One of the guns found in a raid on the Safe Streets violence prevention program’s East Baltimore office has been connected to at least two shootings.”
Also found were a “semiautomatic handgun with a 26-round extended magazine found in a ‘drop-style ceiling’ in the office. Two loaded guns and four extended magazines were found in a cabinet. A plastic bag containing .40-caliber cartridges was found in a plant pot. Police also said they found 450 suspected heroin capsules as well as materials such as cutting agents and sifters used to prepare heroin for distribution.”
Basically this was a tax-payer funded criminal enterprise. And yet, somehow, “City officials remain supportive of Safe Streets, which has been credited with stemming violence in the neighborhoods where it is active.”
I don’t know what neighborhoods they’re talking about. This is a city where the homicide rate doubled in April.
I wonder how close the vetting for the Safe Streets participants gets to the mayor. This sure would be an interesting case of “follow the money.”
[More on the program and the arrests, from NPR. (Thanks to PG)]
No, Freddie Gray should not be. What a disgrace to MLK, Jr. I hate to paraphrase The Trump, but just because you are killed or die in police custody does not make you a hero. But such is politics in Baltimore.
When these officers look at this larger-than-life mural with Gray in the center, they see a drug dealer next to the greatest civil rights leader of all time and they can’t seem to make sense of that.
“Put that little girl up there. McKenzie. Not him,” the officer says.
He is referring to 3-year-old McKenzie Elliot, who was killed in a drive-by shooting last August. “Why weren’t there riots for her? That, I would understand.”
This comes from a piece in Salon by Danielle Ariano, who went on a ride-along in Baltimore. It’s well worth reading the whole thing.
I often joked about this, but I really never thought this day would happen.
On August 16, both New York and Baltimore had 208 murders. Baltimore has added another 8 since then. I’m not certain about NYC. New York City has 7.5 million more residents than Charm City.
A bunch of people are getting shot. Including kids. An arrest was made.
But more out of the ordinary is this by Keven Rector in the Sun:
Attorneys for six Baltimore police officers charged in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray said in a court filing Thursday that prosecutors either failed to turn over evidence or lied about conducting a thorough investigation into Gray’s death.
The evidence already provided by prosecutors is “completely devoid of any information obtained during the course of the State’s investigation,” the defense attorneys said, leading them to conclude that “either the State is withholding the information from its investigation, or there was no investigation.”
I suspect the former. A judge will rule soon.
Prosecutors are required by law to share any “exculpatory” evidence that would help clear a defendant of charges, and the defense said it is “difficult to imagine” that nothing in the state’s investigation was “in some way exculpatory to at least one of the Defendants in this case.”
Other than one witness interview by an investigator in Mosby’s office, the defense attorneys said, they have not received “a single document, witness interview, report, recording, or even mention of a shred of evidence procured through” the independent investigation.
From the Baltimore City Paperby Edward Ericson Jr. A quote from an officer:
I can recall Commissioner Batts addressing the officers at headquarters prior to going out on the street. He pretty much patted himself on the back making statements like. “I have been in five riots and I will assure you that this is the real deal.” With a potential riot looming, command staff was more concerned with officers not wearing black gloves and looking intimidating. With all this “experience” and beforehand knowledge at Commissioner Batts’ disposal, he still led us officers to slaughter. We were ill-equipped, overwhelmed and sent out with no less lethal crowd control weapons or real secondary plan. We were given the order to stand down, yet we could not retreat or defend ourselves. It wasn’t until after all of the officers were injured that we received riot equipment.
And:
Then last week Connor Meek published an Op-Ed in The Sun about his experience with police after he was mugged for his bicycle on the Gwynns Falls Trail. He walked to the district police station and was told by an officer there that it was closed after 7 p.m., then told he was at the wrong district. Even as the department scrambled and ordered districts to remain open 24 hours, one of the officers Meek had dealt with took to Facebook to chastise him, saying essentially that he was in public near dusk and so should not have expected to be safe. The Facebook posts quickly disappeared after City Paper called attention to them.
And this:
This year’s homicide “clearance rate”—that is, the percentage of murders in which police arrest someone and charge them with the crime—is under 40 percent. Officials at the July 6 press conference said the figure was above 60 percent earlier this year, but over the past four or five years it had averaged in the mid-40s, which was characterized as “just above average” compared to other cities that report the figure to the FBI.
A good step in the right direction from Acting Commissioner Kevin Davis.
Apparently — and I didn’t know this — Baltimore is actually a role model for other cities in how to control civil unrest.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake didn’t exactly jump the shark right here. She jumped the shark a long time ago. But this is becoming insane. She actual said this:
And while you say it’s under negative scrutiny, when I go around the country and I look at the fact that other cities have burnt for weeks — Baltimore itself burnt for weeks during the riots of 1968 — we were able to control the unrest and riots to a few hours on one day. There are a lot of cities right now that would love to have that record.
And just which cities are those, Ms. Mayor? Madam Mayor is perhaps crazy (does she even believe what she says?). She is certainly incompetent. She is also dead wrong.
At the latest, the riots began at 4:44pm on April 27 when the Rite Aid on North Avenue was looted and then set on fire. So, by her logic, everything was basically OK after a few hours. A record a lot of cities would “love to have”! What’s a few? Four or five hours? So can we can still catch a late show at the Senator Theater?
The riots were not over by midnight. The city called down in the early morning hours. The riots weren’t really even over the next day. The national guard left and the curfew was lifted on May 3rd.
MayorSRB on riots "lasting only a few hrs": "There's a lot of cities that would love to have that record" pic.twitter.com/zP4LCYGd8c
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) July 19, 2015