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“This Is a Killing Field”
Since the Freddie Gray situation, even if you call the police and give a description, they can’t touch the criminals, the business owner said. They know they’re untouchable. That’s the key. He asked not to be identified, saying his life had already been threatened. “This is a killing field,” he said.
Baltimore is in trouble, serious trouble. The relationship between citizens and the police department is at a low point. To make matters worse, the relationship between city hall and the police department is no better. Officers may have begun to vote with their feet.
This year, it is on track to beat both records and surpass all other big U.S. cities. The 124 slayings in Baltimore, with a population of 614,000, bring the homicide rate to 20.2 per 100,000 residents. Comparatively, Washington, with 681,000 people, has had 41 homicides so far this year, for a rate of 6.
Meanwhile, Baltimore’s police force has shrunk in the past several years, from 2,900 officers to 2,700. Washington has 3,800.
Trying to replace 200 officers is a difficult process. The testing process and then academy time, as well the on-the-job training can take up to a year. Some of the loss may be due to early retirement, but the question becomes, was early retirement a viable option for some officers due to the Freddy Gray debacle? Some officers may have left to take positions with other police agencies. The real answer will come by looking at the number of the potential applicants that may decide not to test for a position with the Baltimore Police Department.
The Ferguson Effect — or in Baltimore’s case, the Freddy Gray Effect — regardless of what the talking heads may say, is real. Beat cops on the lowest rung of the policing ladder know that to survive the machinations of the relationship between a hostile city hall, hostile admin cops at the top rung of the ladder, and a hostile State’s Attorney’s office will have to become call takers. Proactive policing could cost you your job, and even your liberty.
Your competent officers and supervisors will start to leave first. They know that they can work anywhere in the state, or country for that matter. Your lazy and mediocre officers and supervisors will stay; call-taking suits them. The Department of Justice, the State’s Attorney’s office, city hall, and the street gangs in Baltimore got the politicized police department they wanted, the good and decent citizens of Baltimore that are caught in the crossfire did not get the one they need.
Published in General
The Left is a force of destruction.
Russia did it.
And they don’t care who gets hurt in their wake. They only care about their own utopian goals at any cost. Obama was their man, and they wanted to pant any opposition to him as racist and needed proof we were a hopelessly racist nation. So they aggravated race relations to serve their purpose.
This is what they’ve left behind. Children without their parents, parents grieving their children, death and destruction. Black lives only mattered when those lives could be use as a hammer against the opponents of Progressivism. They care not a whit, now.
What they said.
Of annihilation…They don’t care if they rule over *ashes*. Kyrie eleison…
I was sitting on a plane waiting for takeoff when Ferguson first hit the news right into my captive ears. It was obvious – obvious – right then that someone had flipped a switch. Someone had given the command to launch a prepared offensive campaign. It has been successful, hasn’t it, as an exercise for the troops, a recruitment effort, and as honing of an agitprop utility theme in the national media, all as well as a move to vitiate civil society. The Left failed to achieve an American equivalent of an “Interior Ministry”, with its “Militia Men”, but did achieve these other things.
This is by design. Delegitimize government’s authority, make it impossible to live in peace.
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kinds of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of lawbreakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.” Ayn Rand
Just to clarify, the “Freddie Gray situation,”
That’s the one where the cops killed murdered a guy by severing his spinal cord and then all the cops walked away scott free, right?
Fred that isn’t really a question. Let me ask you a question that does not contain a premise. Did you read the pdf’s of the judge’s decision in two of the trials of the police officers that were involved with Freddy Gray?
No. It’s not a question. It wasn’t meant to be. It’s a reminder to everyone that “Freddie Gray situation” is that he was murdered by the police.
Fred that was not what the judge found in his rulings. I would strongly suggest that you exercise some intellectual curiosity before you’re going to comment on something that you have not researched. To do otherwise is disrespectful to the writer of any essay, regardless of the subject.
The officers were acquitted by operation of law. Hence, the claim they committed murder is a libel. Or do you no longer believe in the rule of law?
That’s just not what happened at all. Gray was not mentally stable, and though shackled down in the paddy wagon he managed to partially get himself loose and pretty well did himself in while in transit. This was known by the prosecution, but for political reasons they went ahead and pressed charges. They were then utterly embarrassed in the trials that followed.
Moderator Note:
The officers were acquitted in a court of law. To continue to insist that this was murder is to libel them.I think it’s disrespectful to the victim, who had his spinal cord severed by the police, to minimize the man’s death.
Government is supposed to protect the rights of citizens, not murder them. If it’s inconvenient to the police that the citizenry objects to that, well that’s too bad.
The fact that they were able to murder this man, and none of the officers involved went to prison for it, tells me that there are serious systemic problems in Baltimore.
Okay, so at a minimum, their gross negligence caused this man’s death.
You truly do not know the facts on this one.
How is this negligence? Were the officers not following SOP for transporting Gray? If so that would have come out at trial.
I’m not going to re-litigate the trials. The judge that conducted the bench trials of the officers was Black, and he specialized in the practice of civil rights law when he was in private practice. The pdf’s of his findings of not guilty are available. I found them well reasoned, and precise in applying the law. Anyone is free to read them and come to their own conclusions, but regardless the officers were acquitted.
The rule of law is fading in our country and it’s heart breaking. I’d leave that force, especially if I was a non-black officer. Why get killed over it all?
I am absolutely astonished by Fred’s naked and unsubstantiated assumption that Freddie Gray was “murdered” by police officers.
I live in Baltimore. I saw the enormous pressure that the courts were under to convict those officers. And I saw how hard the DA tried to get them hung. But the facts were stubborn things: Gray was high, and was a “flopper”. In making a big deal of his arrest, he threw himself around, head first, while the paddy wagon was driving around.
Gray died of self-inflicted injuries. At worst, the arresting officers were guilty of not following the latest (and recently updated) seatbelt protocol.
There was some confusion about the seatbelt protocol. It was sent as an email to officers, but it was not presented in roll calls. Whenever there was a new SOP in the agency I worked for it was always presented at roll call by a supervisor who would also ask for any questions concerning the new SOP. Part of the confusion also concerned the fact that some officers believed that depending upon a subjects behavior that using the seatbelt was discretionary.
For better or worse, Baltimore Police are pretty incompetent as a rule. But they are not evil, and there are many there who really are trying to do a good job.
If I were a police officer in Baltimore, I would take the first job I could find anywhere else. It is bad enough that the citizens hate you; it is worse that you get no support from the administration either.
The police here are like janitors in a chicken coop. Cops didn’t cause the mess (Democratic policies did). They cannot stop more filth from being created. All they can do is occasionally turn over the worst-smelling piles. They cannot win.
Fred, you seriously cannot even be bothered to go to the Wikipedia entry on this one? Because if you can type it, it must be true?
Fred, it’s OK. This happened before Trump was elected. You can let this one go.
I actually am not sure whether Fred thinks the way he does because he distrusts coercive authority (which I understand), or whether he always just defends the drug user (which I do not).
What is going on in Baltimore is a shame. I used to go there a lot for work (had a big customer there) and the wife and I spent some time there on vacation. The city has really gone down hill. It seems like as NYC has improved, Baltimore has fallen.
I blame Bush.
My sister who works in state government says Baltimore is not funding the replacements for her department of social services when they retire. They are encouraging early retirement. Baltimore is so overwhelmed with welfare and children’s services cases, including child support, they are transferring large amounts of cases to other areas within Md. including her small mountain town. No jobs – rampant drug use and overdose deaths. Now those case officers and staff are overwhelmed. Gangs are moving in this remote area to be near their loved ones who are in prison – it’s bad. That state does not want to clean up or fund cops, or social services. It’s one of many cities falling into chaos. If it cleaned itself up, the beautiful waterfront could once again be a hub for work and tourism. It’s location on the East Coast is a great spot. They need to drain the state gov. swamp.
Maryland State Government is a swamp. Baltimore is the quicksand pit in the middle of it.
I try to provide sources in every fact based essay that I write. Anecdotal essays on my personal experiences as a police officer are a bit different. I never divulge the real names of other officers or suspects in my anecdotal essay’s.
When I read a media story I read it through the lens of my police experience. You cannot obtain a warrant based upon hearsay, and you cannot deprive a person of their liberty based upon emotions or feelings. I’m fact driven and the anonymous source story just does not work for me.
Not all laws have merit, and I’m certainly not going to defend every law that finds its’ way into state or local statutes. However I’m not in favor of recreational drug legalization, especially opioids. I’ve seen the damage they do to families and the community. Even if the state provided opioids to addicts they are not going to feed, clothe, and provide shelter for their children or themselves. All that matters to the addict is obtaining and using the drug of their choice. Even if legal the search will continue for additional drugs when they have used their monthly allotment from the state.