What Does Baltimore Need? How About ... Less Murder?
08/01/2019
A+
|
a-
Print Friendly and PDF

From the New York Times:

Some Very Specific Things the President Could Do to Help Baltimore

And many things past administrations have done to hurt it.

By Emily Badger, July 29, 2019

… The Department of Justice under the Obama administration reached a consent decree with the Baltimore Police Department after the government found systemic racial bias on the force. Jeff Sessions, Mr. Trump’s first attorney general, tried to stall the agreement and later limited the use of police department consent decrees (he also previously withheld police assistance from Baltimore because of its sanctuary-city status).

In reality, Baltimore’s big new problem is that Black Lives Matter won a political victory over the Baltimore Police Department in its Freddie Gray Riot of 4/27/2015 and the subsequent prosecution of six cops (none of them found guilty, of course). This launched a massive Ferguson Effect, which is visible simply in Baltimore’s annual murder tolls:

  • 2010 223
  • 2011 196
  • 2012 219
  • 2013 235
  • 2014 211
  • 2015 344 (Freddie Gray riot 4/27/15)
  • 2016 318
  • 2017 343
  • 2018 309

Just getting Baltimore’s murder numbers down from the recent average of ~325 per year to the old normal of ~215 per year would be a huge improvement.

[Comment at Unz.com]

 

Print Friendly and PDF