Well done, Officer Rogers! “An officer was actually on this block on another call and actually heard the shots being fired, said T.J. Smith, Baltimore City Police Spokesman. “That officer gave pursuit.” How often does that happen? And what exactly happened? An edited and shortened version of the bodycam footage had been acquired by WMAR, which made me go, “damn!”…
There’s another quality policing podcast in which I talk to data analyst Jeff Asher about the Brennan Center’s latest report on crime. Asher had posted this thread about methodological problems in their data and analysis. Brennan has a new report out showing murder down 2.5% nationally, but there are some major issues with that finding. 1) The figures cited aren’t…
Last postI presented the depressing fact that at current level of violence, the chance for a man in Baltimore’s Western District to live to age of 35 without being murdered is just 93% [updated to include 2018 data]. Yes, more than 7 percent of black men in the Western District will be murdered unless Baltimore can get a grip on…
Back when I wrote Cop in the Hood, I was horrified to figure out that 11.6 percent of men in the Eastern District were being murdered (see the footnote on pp. 219-222). [Updated to include 2018 data and more accurate population figures.] From 2015 through 2018, 226 people were murdered in Baltimore’s Western District. 145 were black men age 18…
If only we cared about homicide victims as much as we did about traffic fatalities, we might see an article in the paper about the biggest homicide spike in 50 years. Instead, there is a Times article about distracted driving: “Biggest Spike in Traffic Deaths in 50 Years? Blame Apps.” The rise in traffic deaths — the total number of…
Somehow, between the Cubs winning the World Series, the presidential election, friends and family visiting, and, you know, my job, I missed this. The Brennan Center, which has been repeatedly telling us not to worry about rising homicide, predicts that this year’s homicide increase will be even bigger than last year’s increase (last year’s was 10.4%, this year’s is predicted…
Murder is up. Who knew? (I’ve been saying so since last October.) Eventually, we’re all going to have to accept this (not in a moral sense but in a statistical sense). The accepted liberal reaction to this increase seems to be “it’s not a big deal” and “Don’t freak out.” Let’s not get “hysterical.” Let’s talk about “gun control.” (In…
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…
Murders are usually thought of in the abstract. People “get killed.” Homicides “rates” go up or down. But to each killing, there’s a person who kills and a person killed. This isn’t really understood by those who don’t live or work in high crime areas. (Yes, while murder can happen anywhere… no, murder actually doesn’t happen everywhere). Not to glorify…
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…