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Baltimore: An Update
Well, since the events of Freddie Grey fame, Baltimore has developed a “new normal.” Police are essentially on half-strike — they don’t feel loved by the City (I cannot imagine why not), and they don’t want to risk doing anything that gets them in trouble. So the net result is that the Mayor’s own “crack” anti-crime unit has resigned, the Feds are moving in, and crime is going through the roof, since police don’t want to do much.
Please note that the police in Baltimore City have not, for at least a decade, been very good to start with. So we have moved from 20% to 10% or lower. They won’t make arrests or file crime reports if they can possibly help it. Bad for the stats.
In my neighborhood and community, we have had, in the last week alone, a pair of armed holdups on the street (three blocks from my house), several house breaks, and 14 cars broken into, with some stolen.
The open question is whether the police are ever going to be remotely effective again, or whether this ends up being the trigger for the local Shomrim and equivalents to grow into a more comprehensive community-protection role.
Published in General
Curious, iWe, which scenario you would prefer.
In some ways, wouldn’t you rather not have the mediocre or worse police and rely on yourself and your community?
Doubtful if the police will ever be effective again without better leadership.
Thanks for the update. What we don’t get from news reports is whether the violence and crime is spread throughout the city or concentrated in gang territory or project complexes.
A friend of mine from Baltimore once said that, while in the South crime tends to be somewhat separated by city areas, in Baltimore crime varies from street to street.
The CBS article Drudge highlights has this to say:
On a related note, a cop acquaintance – whose department has been told to increase their situational awareness – said the scuttlebutt is that the anti-cop people are planning something “really big” for next summer.
After the conversation, I realized I hadn’t asked whether “next summer” meant 1 month or 13 months.
Right now we are not in a good place. Police want to arrest white people to show how enlightened they are (Affirmative Action ad absurdum). And we live in fear of Zimmerman-style stories from even a single episode.
I am very happy with the idea of self-reliance. But we don’t want to get locked up for catching thieves.
Crime in our neighborhood went DOWN during Freddie Grey. All the crooks were having a blast downtown, instead of rationally hitting where the cops were not.
Now it is back up. Armed muggings are particularly disturbing. I am distributing pepper/bear sprays, and letting people know they can legally carry it (concealed) and use it in self-defense.
Now that Ms. (Our day has come) Mosby, States Attorney is in charge the Baltimore Police know she wasn’t referring to them. You can’t get in trouble for being a call taker. The new crime stats reflect call taking and I’m willing to bet the call taking stats haven’t dropped. Proactive police work risks indictment in Baltimore and you can’t indict someone for taking calls.
You’re going to need Snake Plissken this summer.
iWe, my prayers continue for you and yours.
Armed robbery? I thought guns were outlawed in Maryland. Who knew the bad guys would keep theirs?
Appreciated! We get to be the canary – just wait until the Feds try to nationalize all the police forces, and we end up (at best) with TSA law enforcement on the streets.
The ridiculous irony about all this is that the robberies are happening to men going to synagogue on Shavuos or Shabbos to get there by sunrise – we start about 5 AM. And we have nothing – nothing – of value on us at all!
I think it must be incomprehensible to the thieves that men dressed in suits at 5 am are not carrying wads of cash. Because they keep mugging us!
Maybe a billboard put up in Jewish communities to inform the clueless that: Friday nights and Saturdays are the Jewish Sabbath and they do not carry anything of value on the Sabbath. Might save a few broken heads.
The nightly news is always scaring us about some threat, imagined or real so we will make sure to “stay tuned.” We are hypervigilant for sexual abuse of kids from strangers when it most commonly happens from someone they know. Child Protective Services gets called when children are allowed to roam free. [1]
People have been saying for a few years that we are living in a time of low crime rates. [2][3][4]
They could be right.
Or perhaps our incarceration rates are so high [5] that repeat criminals are unable to commit more crime?
Or perhaps we are just not very good at gathering statistics because people are giving up on reporting crime? Or perhaps police departments are letting us down and failing to properly file crime reports?
Prayers for ingenuity, safety, wisdom and discernment, dear friend!
Except Philadelphia is very gun-unfriendly, if self protection is needed.
I would suggest you begin the process for a CCW permit, and get as much training as you feel necessary.
“When seconds count the police are only minutes away.”
re #11 (myself): this inconsistency at the local level is more fuel for those who seem to be (quietly?) proposing the idea of a more federally regulated local police.
I hope that you are not lulled into proposing more federal control over local matters.
TSA.
That tends to reduce the enthusiasm.
The failure of the liberal state has been comprehensive! Which is why criminals in Baltimore are usually not able to read billboards.
Both are true. Calling the police is a hassle and a waste of time.
And police do NOT want to file reports. Any broken car “was left unlocked”. Any home invasion was really just a misunderstanding. Everything that MUST be reported is consistently downgraded.
So even before the Grey case, the mayor could stay idiotic stuff like “Crime is getting better in every way – except for those pesky homicides.”
Why? Because bodies are harder to make disappear. But even homicides in Baltimore are reported as accidental deaths as often as possible. You know: “kids were playing with guns and one accidentally killed someone. Nothing to see here: move along!”
I recognize the problem of inconsistent statistics gathering.
Others seem to be using this as a call for more federal control as their prferred solution.
As a pro-liberty conservative who is a fan of federalism and subsidiarity, I am hesitant to go down that path.
I have not yet identified a solution. It may be that we are stuck with bad data.
Cannot get a CCW permit here. I don’t carry huge amounts of cash in my business, nor have the Bad Guys sent me numerous verifiable Death Threats. Alas.
The sprays are effective against the kinds of crooks we tend to have here. I just want to make sure everyone has them – then we can achieve a kind of herd immunity.
My sympathies. I missed the part in the regs where you need a “reason” to exercise your 2nd amendment.
How do I love the government? Let me count the ways….
iWe, leave. Vote with your feet. They are perfecting the “Curly Effect.”
This is my community. Orthodox Jews cannot readily live just anywhere: we need to be within walking distance to a synagogue that has at least 10 other grown men also within walking distance. Then there is access to kosher food, a huge range of services, etc.
There is a reason why probably 95% of America’s orthodox Jews live in a handful of metropolitan areas (greater NY/NJ, Miami, LA, Cleveland, Chicago, Baltimore, Lakewood, Boston…. with a few smaller communities in places like Denver, Seattle, etc.) Each community has its own flavor and ethos. Baltimore is famous for its accepting nature, unity, and lack of open disputes. Unique in the world, this place never features Jewish leaders violating the CoC against other Jewish leaders.
This is my community, and I will stay and help work to keep and save it.
Besides, the “enemy” here are not educated muslims who will plot acts of terror. The enemy here are uneducated bored young men who feel entitled to whatever they can get away with.
We can deal with it by merely making it less “fun” to mess around in what they call “Jewtown.”
Very interesting. That makes homicides (and accidental deaths?) a sorta of mega-statistic.
What do you mean MUST?
Is there regulation on these statistics?
State regulation? Federal?
The first few results in google for: crime statistic regulations
were all related to higher education campuses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clery_Act
No. You can get a carry permit, although it might take the assistance of a lawyer. You may wish to contact the Second Amendment Foundation who were a party to the lawsuit described below.
https://www.saf.org/
Very recently in a case in Washington (Wrenn et al v. District of Columbia) the courts struck down the requirement that applicants for gun permits have “some special and unusual reason to be granted a concealed carry permit.”
The pertinent parts of the court order are as follows:
ORDERS that Defendants, their officers, agents, servants, employees, and all persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of the injunction are enjoined from enforcing the requirement of D.C. Code § 22-4506(a) that handgun carry license applicants have a “good reason to fear injury to his or her person or property or has any other proper reason for carrying a pistol <snip>
ORDERS that Defendants, their officers, agents, servants, employees, and all persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of the injunction, are enjoined from denying handgun carry licenses to applicants who meet the requirements of D.C. Code 22- 4506(a) and all other current requirements for the possession and carrying of handguns under District of Columbia law <snip>
In other words, as long as the applicant meets all other requirements to carry weapons, you get your permit. The “reason to carry” requirement” was struck down from the D.C code.
Because the victim refuses to be denied. Or there is a dead body and the coroner won’t call it an accident. Or the insurance company demands a police report.
Cooking the books is OLD. Police forces have always done it.
This is Ballmer. And the law is not updated.