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Baltimore’s best mayor evah presides over homicide rate not seen in nearly half a century
Hotair ^ | 08/01/2015 | Jazz Shaw

Posted on 08/01/2015 1:28:55 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

You may recall that earlier this year, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was named President of the US Conference of Mayors for her outstanding work in serving the people of her city and demonstrating innovation in turning things around. As part of that process, she decided to summarily fire Police Commissioner Anthony Batts back in the beginning of July. To say the least, I expressed some reservations about the move, particularly considering that most of the questionable tactics employed by the cops during the Freddy Gray riots were handed down from City Hall. But who am I to second guess the Best Mayor in America? Maybe she’s on to something.

Let’s check in and see.

Baltimore reached a grim milestone on Friday, three months after riots erupted in response to the death of Freddie Gray in police custody: With 45 homicides in July, the city has seen more bloodshed in a single month than it has in 43 years.

Police reported three deaths — two men shot Thursday and one on Friday. The men died at local hospitals.

With their deaths, this year’s homicides reached 189, far outpacing the 119 killings by July’s end in 2014. Nonfatal shootings have soared to 366, compared to 200 by the same date last year. July’s total was the worst since the city recorded 45 killings in August 1972, according to The Baltimore Sun.

The expert analysts weighing in on this subject on the city’s behalf are citing all manner of factors including distrust of the police, high unemployment, lack of opportunity and the rest of the usual political talking points. The cops, on the other hand, point out politically unfortunate factors such as turf wars between drug dealers and new, rising black markets fueled by a boatload of prescription pills looted from the pharmacy during the riots.

Perched on a friend’s stoop, Sherry Moore, 55, said she knew “mostly all” of the young men killed recently in West Baltimore, including an 18-year-old fatally shot a half-block away. Moore said many more pills are on the street since the riot, making people wilder than usual.

“The ones doing the violence, the shootings, they’re eating Percocet like candy and they’re not thinking about consequences. They have no discipline, they have no respect — they think this is a game. How many can I put down on the East side? How many can I put down on the West side?”

How’s that community outreach thing going? From the sound of it, not all that great. CNN has done an interesting series of incognito interviews with members of the Baltimore Police force who didn’t wish to be identified but said that things are just a mess. (Some of the video can be viewed here.) The cops are increasingly afraid to do their jobs. They are facing an emboldened criminal class at the same time as they wonder if their leadership will have their backs if they take an aggressive stance against gang violence. I have to sympathize with them on that point. How quickly would you be running down an ally after an armed suspect if you knew that, in the event you had to shoot it out, the aftermath would be moderated on live television by Al Sharpton?

Whatever Rawlings-Blake is doing in Baltimore isn’t working. Perhaps rather than blaming the cops on the beat or dreaming up new social interaction schemes, the city might look at asking her to step down and turn the job over to somebody capable of restoring some semblance of law and order in the streets.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Maryland
KEYWORDS: baltimore; crime; duplicate; maryland; mayor; searchandfind

1 posted on 08/01/2015 1:28:56 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

The author misses the salient truth that Baltimore leads the way in creating a leftist utopia. Chaos is an essential ingredient in breaking down the last vestiges of civil society. Out of the chaos will come totalitarian fascism, the rule of everything by an elite cadre of super bureaucrats. They are almost there.


2 posted on 08/01/2015 1:35:57 PM PDT by Louis Foxwell (This is a wake up call. Join the Sultan Knish ping list.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Planned Parenthood is cheering.


3 posted on 08/01/2015 1:38:20 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: SeekAndFind

See what happens when you leave liberals in charge? Been proven over and over and over and over....


4 posted on 08/01/2015 1:38:31 PM PDT by From The Deer Stand
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To: From The Deer Stand

[leave liberals in charge] == [leave entropy in charge]


5 posted on 08/01/2015 1:59:56 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: SeekAndFind

She coo.


6 posted on 08/01/2015 2:03:17 PM PDT by Mashood
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To: From The Deer Stand
Liberalism will kill a city, sure. But the elephant in the room here is that Baltimore is 63.3% black, according to the US Census bureau. That is something that cannot be overlooked.

Liberalism is just one part of the problem and will eventually lead to the death of a city, state or country, but liberal areas with predominantly white populations have higher standards of living than those with predominantly black populations.

7 posted on 08/01/2015 2:05:01 PM PDT by nonliberal (Sent from a payphone in a whorehouse in Mexico.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Mayor Mouth Breather

8 posted on 08/01/2015 2:05:41 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

I think that’s a hair hat.


9 posted on 08/01/2015 2:12:52 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: nonliberal
Liberalism is just one part of the problem and will eventually lead to the death of a city, state or country, but liberal areas with predominantly white populations have higher standards of living than those with predominantly black populations.

I think Baltimore bacame predominantly liberal before it became predominately black.

10 posted on 08/01/2015 2:14:21 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: Steely Tom

But it wasn’t a crime ridden hellhole before it became predominantly black.


11 posted on 08/01/2015 2:15:13 PM PDT by nonliberal (Sent from a payphone in a whorehouse in Mexico.)
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To: nonliberal

Perhaps another example of Charles Murray’s Bell curve?


12 posted on 08/01/2015 2:17:11 PM PDT by newfreep ("Evil succeeds when good men do nothting" - Edmund Burke)
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To: SeekAndFind

Ohhh yeah, she and dat state attorney gonna go down in history alright..


13 posted on 08/01/2015 2:58:10 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (SEMPER FI!! - Monthly Donors Rock!!)
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To: BenLurkin

A bit “slack jawed”?


14 posted on 08/01/2015 3:23:04 PM PDT by RetiredTexasVet (The cunning Venezuelan gov't has eliminated the toilet paper shortage by creating a food shortage.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Just gib'en 'em space!

How's that working for ya.

15 posted on 08/01/2015 3:32:07 PM PDT by TexasCajun ( “A liberal is someone who thinks he knows more about your experience than you do.“)
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To: SeekAndFind

Maybe it’s because 150 officers were injured during the effing riots that she and that thing posing as a prosecutor encouraged and those officers are just a bit reluctant to do any self initiated work.

There is much of this going around in police work, St. Louis included after Ferguson. Part 2 is rolling around and it will be another Charlie Foxtrot.


16 posted on 08/01/2015 4:02:27 PM PDT by Molon Labbie (Prep. Now. Live Healthy, take your Shooting Iron daily.)
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To: Louis Foxwell

“Out of the chaos will come totalitarian fascism, the rule of everything by an elite cadre of super bureaucrats. They are almost there.”

You’re absolutely correct. This is why conservatives in Baltimore County need to elect a pro-2nd Amendment, Constitutional sheriff.

The sheriff has investigative powers to take down the fascist mayor. That office also has the legal and armed muscle to arrest the thieving bureaucrats infesting the county.

Most people don’t know that an elected sheriff is sovereign and can’t be controlled by the city, state or federal government.

Get to work, good people of Baltimore, and throw these liberal slimeballs into state prison.


17 posted on 08/01/2015 5:24:03 PM PDT by sergeantdave
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To: SeekAndFind
From another similar article...
“and competition among dealers of illegal drugs, bolstered by the looting of prescription pills from pharmacies during the riot.

Federal drug enforcement agents said gangs targeted 32 pharmacies in the city, taking roughly 300,000 doses of opiates, as the riots caused $9 million in property damage in the city.”
...What was this mayor and governor thinking? What did they think would happen? The pharmacies should have been guarded immediately.

18 posted on 08/01/2015 8:21:53 PM PDT by Bayou City
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To: SeekAndFind; Abundy; Albion Wilde; AlwaysFree; AnnaSASsyFR; bayliving; BFM; Bigg Red; ...

Maryland “Freak State” PING!


19 posted on 08/01/2015 9:16:28 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Democrats and GOP-e: a difference of degree, not philosophy)
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