Baltimore killings soar to a level unseen in 43 years

[alp227]

Source: AP

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

The 43rd recorded homicide was Jermaine Miller, 18, who was shot in the head just before noon the day before.

With his death on Friday, this year's total homicides reached 187, far outpacing the 119 killings by July's end in 2014. Non-fatal 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 seemingly Sisyphean task of containing the city's violence prompted Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to fire her police commissioner Anthony Batts on July 8.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/60352506f481415c8edf3fc35b6f8103/baltimore-killings-soar-level-unseen-43-years

[HFRN]

1. at least they're protected from skateboarders, though

[Kokonoe]

9. OH crap. guess I gotta say it.

Only in America.

[byronius]

14. Dude, that was hard to watch.

Officer Rivieri is a Keystone Cop. That was an embarrassing display. I've met a few of those, but just a few.

[passiveporcupine]

15. What a fucking asshole

How the hell are we going to raise kids in a world like this, where cops are allowed to "disrespect" our youth the way this creep just did.

What an embarrassment. I'm so glad this was caught on video.

[The Second Stone]

17. What a sorry excuse for a police officer

This man should get in some big boy pants and get a real job. Those kids busted his ass with this video.

[Novara]

32. I would hope someone showed this video to the cop's boss

How in hell are young people ever going to WANT to respect THIS? Until this shit changes, no progress can possibly be made. Those assholes are on a power trip and need to learn what "to protect and SERVE" really means.

This disgusts me.

[Turbineguy]

2. Sounds like Baltimore

could use help from the NRA.

[newthinking]

3. Unfortunately we may be in for another economic related spike in violent crime

We thought we could stop increases in violence related to economic factors by building more prisons. It seems to have worked for a while but that mechanism is weakening.

The best way to keep violence down is keeping opportunity for everyone up.

[Turbineguy]

4. Indeed

A society that people can join.

[7962]

8. Thats not going to stop senseless shit like we see every day

Even when the economy is good we have this nonsense.
Just had a couple last week near where I live shot each other over dinner!

[appalachiablue]

35. +10. Invest in education and jobs, not prisons and jails. ~ Bernie Sanders.

[heaven05]

5. and why is this violence happening?

according to you, are you surreptitiously inferring anything?. You want to put this grim headline out there for some reason, why is this violence at such a level? Answer what you think is the reason...please

[christx30]

7. One theory is that police are

not willing to risk prosecution by being proactive in their jobs.
Posts on a pro-cop website bares this out.

"Does anyone watch the news? Why are LEO's still making stops like this? Answer your calls and in between park in a safe spot and surf the web on your smart phone. You are not going to do your family any favors by going out there and trying to be a hero. The public does not want proactive police work, give them the anarchy they are begging for...."

So they do the bare minimum to make a paycheck, and let the people fend for themselves. They know their jobs are safe because the union is powerful and will protect them.

[OnlinePoker]

20. Here's an interesting Reddit response from a defense attorney in Baltimore to this story.

As a defense attorney in Baltimore city I am reminded of the immortal words of the venerable Dave Mustain: "killing is my business, and business is good."

This city is out of control right now. But blaming the cops, the mayor, or the state's attorney is fundamentally wrongheaded. Nothing will change until these communities change. They have to stand up and be heard. They have to go to the police when then know something. They have to take an interest in their neighborhood and the kids that live in it. They have to impress the virtues of education, self respect, respect for others, and respect for the law (including our much besmirched police). They have to clean up the trash, literally and metaphorically. These parts of the city look like Baghdad, but instead of IEDs there's just the reminders of crushed caps and needles. It's absolutely fucked.

And no doubt these areas are impoverished, but I'm tired of that being an excuse for criminal behavior and chronic indifference. You don't have to be rich to sweep your porch. You don't need money to invite the 12 year old whose standing on the corner to sit and talk for a minute. You don't need a great job to have respect for others. You're time and love can be given freely to those who need it....

https://np.reddit.com/r/baltimore/comments/3fcawm/baltimore_killings_soar_to_a_level_unseen_in_43/ctnk69q?context=3

[heaven05]

21. yeah sure, true

Last edited Sat Aug 1, 2015, 07:03 PM - Edit history (1)

yet, I feel you are still missing the hopeless factor here. It cause self-hate and lack of caring. Take your defense attorney and his logic bubble and you two go help them sweep their porch, set up way to contact police without fear of being ignored or killed, fix up the schools so a child wants to go to school. There is so much you're leaving out that I can put here, but I don't think it would do any good. How about others respecting the life that POC have, which has not been the case so that asinine garbage goes both ways. No, no clue. Typical outside opinion, whether black or white, it seems. I laugh at the attorney's "you've got to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps" bullshit.

[christx30]

23. The problems in the neighborhoods

are because of the people there. Why should it be up to an outsider to swoop in and fix the problems?
If you don't want cops to come in and proactively take care if criminals, don't complain when they take a hands off attitude and let the bad guys do what they are going to do.
But nothing is going to get better with things as-is. The people that live there are going have to decide not to deal drugs or be in gangs, or any other ways that they are assholes.
I grew up in a shit neighborhood. Drug dealers lived across the street from me. Had to call the cops twice because of stabbings. I was surrounded by shitheads that CHOSE to act like that.
But those 40+ people weren't killed by racist cops, or economic issues or any other thing. They were killed by their neighbors that made a choice.

[heaven05]

24. yeah sure

your take, whether you lived there or not....I grew up being one of those you call "shitheads", "assholes", which makes me think you are one and the same. Experience of the AA at the hands of police has created an animosity because the police would rather kill than police any AA or in any AA community. Ohhhh, you forgot that I'm sure. Drug dealers are in the 'privileged' communities also, the 'privileged' do use illegal drugs, they are just more dispersed so as to not attract that much attention of their policing forces as they do in the segregated part of town, like the "inner city". Ohhh, you forgot that I'm sure. When a community is racially segregated and marginalized it's always easy to spot the dealers. Stabbings? Cain slew Able, nothing new there. Sometimes people don't get along. Ask any theater mass shooting perpetrator. Ask any person that walks into a church and kills innocents..I'm sure you missed those "shithead assholes" also.....

You're way off base, but typical of those looking for a reason to be better than those segregated and made hopeless by a vicious local and nationally systemic and institutionalized racist justice system that has police using an occupation army mentality/material every time they deal with someone who happens to have melanin in their skin ...the Warsaw Ghetto comes to mind, really. When I think that #BlackLivesMatter, your opinion is so typical of those...well, I'll drop you off there...

[romanic]

25. You're the one that's off base.

Even without the Dylan Roofs and James Holmes, etc, we still have to deal with gang-bangers and dope slingers and pimps and rapists and god knows what else in our inner-city communities. It's not just the "system" that we have to worry about, it's apathetic police and criminals who take advantage that is the main issue in Bmore and other mostly black communitites. That is a fact that you just can't debunk no matter what you say or think.

[heaven05]

36. it's debunked

that's the fact. I Can't deny the crime, that's for sure, yet I can put your blame BS in the trash bin and leave it there. I think I'll drop you off here, bye bye....

[romanic]

37. Fine with me.

You clearly are disconnected from the reality that faces our inner-cities. Have fun with your head in the sand, or trash in your case.

[christx30]

28. So those murders in Baltimore that are mentioned in the OP..

Who's at fault there? Is it the cops? Is it the city?

[XemaSab]

38. I hear where you're coming from

but there is a strain in liberalism that does not see poor black people as having any agency, and I think it's as racist as anything seen on the right.

[heaven05]

39. true that

[ananda]

6. Well, is it possible that the police are ...

... refusing to police?

[Imajika]

11. There is just basic policing and pro-active policing...

As of now, at least in Baltimore, they are just doing the minimum.

Unfortunately it is hard to even discuss this topic without bitter arguments.

If you want police to just respond to calls and generally be visible but do little else, the crime rate will be higher. If you ask police to stop folks, ask questions, roust people that the police feel are likely troublemakers, etc, you will generally end up with a lower crime rate but frequent infringements of peoples civil rights. There is a happy medium somewhere, but it is tough to achieve for all manner of reasons. For the past couple decades we have erred on the side of letting the police be extremely aggressive. The result is some of the murders of black Americans that we've seen in an age where such things should be long behind us. This stuff has been going on for a long time and the police got away with it, now with cameras everywhere and social media they can't get away with it as easily anymore.

As they say, Stalin kept the streets of Moscow safe - does that mean we want to live in a society like that?

On the other hand people will give up a lot for basic security. If the murder rate in Baltimore continues like this, residents are going to force the politicians to give police the green light to go back to being more aggressive. The pendulum could even swing so far in the other direction that the police are worse than they have been in the past.

There are a lot of good cops, but sadly, a disturbingly large number of really nasty ones that wear the badge as a power trip and will tend to be abusive when they can get away with it. Add to that a lot of cops start off good and become jaded, cynical and view the people they are policing as less than human.

[jwirr]

10. Didn't the Baltimore police kind of stop doing their jobs after the riots? After the killing of

Freddie Gray? They did not leave their jobs just did not do them.

[christx30]

31. People got angry at agressive cops

killing people. Cops arrested and on trial. There were riots and destruction. So the cops are swinging the pendulum the other way and not doing as much. Not wanting to risk that one bad stop where a split second decision either gets someone killed and puts them on trial, or gets them killed. They don't want to risk their lives to protect people that hate them. Let that person speed. Let that car drive by with the missing from license plate. No one is getting hurt by that. Respond to calls, but spend the rest of the time just not looking for trouble.
There is a balance that needs to take place.

[jwirr]

33. I happen to think that ignoring the missing tail light is a good thing. But this article is talking

about a rise is killings in the community. You can hardly equate a murder with a missing tail light. I was asking if these things are also being ignored?

There have been 560 unarmed black persons killed across the country by police persons. And many of those have been for little offenses like a missing tail light. That has to stop. But failing to answer calls regarding a death is another matter entirely.

[christx30]

34. But that's my point.

They are ignoring the problems, because when they go after the problems, they risk death or riots if they make the wrong decision in a split second.
And in a lot of areas, you get people with the "F*** the police" and "snitches get stitches" attitudes. How can you help those people?
Crime doesn't just happen. It's a decision that someone makes. "You have something that I want. I'm going to take it. If you resist, I'm going to shoot you." If that person didn't have that thought process, the murder wouldn't take place.
But the cops not doing their jobs is pretty much "Those people don't want my help, they don't get my help."

[beevul]

12. How strict is the gun control in MD and in Baltimore?

How strict is the gun control in MD and in Baltimore?

[Kang Colby]

30. Among the "toughest gun laws in the nation"....

Last edited Sun Aug 2, 2015, 12:22 PM - Edit history (1)

Shortly after passing additional "reasonable, common sense" gun laws in 2013, the gun control advocates and politicians crowed that the laws were already working to save lives based on a tiny drop in violent crime between late 2013-2014. Nevermind that the drop in crime was well within the standard deviation for any recent time period preceding the law.

Now the tune is different. It's either, "we have to give it time", or "blame DE, PA, WV, or VA" for their "lax" gun laws, all the while overlooking the fact those states have nowhere near the level of violent crime or murder as Maryland. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/maryland-has-among-toughest-gun-laws-in-nation-following-passage-of-bill-this-year/2013/12/09/b7a35d7e-6119-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html

It's a shock to me that Baltimore's violent criminals didn't take the mandatory training including live fire, submit fingerprints, application fees, and receive their HQL (purchase only permit) from Maryland State Police, then buy a gun after completing a 77R and 4473 to begin the minimum 8 day waiting period required by state law which follows the 20-30 day wait for the HQL. Of course, it is surprising that the criminals aren't willing to use only Maryland handgun roster approved guns. Further surprising to me is the fact these violent thugs don't take the 16 hour concealed carry course, complete the CCW application evidencing the impossible referred to as "good and substantial" to meet Maryland's "may issue" requirements, then wait for 90 days for approval or six months to one year if the appeals process comes in to play...

These laws worked.....to get a Republican governor elected.

[Skittles]

13. this is heartbreaking

why can't we help Baltimore instead of throwing money at senseless wars.....we are losing entire generations in OUR cities

[byronius]

16. I'd like to know all the backstories, like in The Wire. Who are all these people?

It's the only way to figure out how to help.

And then I'd like to see it all get really, really boring.

[kwassa]

18. Murders are going up in many cities, according to NPR.

There is going to be a summit of big city police chiefs to talk about it.

There is also the new and dangerous phenomenon of synthetic drugs that are entirely legal that are causing some extreme reactions similar to PCP. This is the new crime story.

[Igel]

19. That would be this story.

Not the same source, but these things tend to not be unique.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/09/us-cities-homicide-surge-2015/29879091/

[madville]

22. Unfortunately all the shitheads know

That the cops are doing the bare minimum and are hands off at the moment and they are taking full advantage of it.

I would bet a large percentage of the cops don't really care that the gangs are killing each other anyway.

[heaven05]

40. To use "shitheads" as a description for human beings

and I do know what you mean by using that description, really shows a level of ignorance that is truly appalling. But expected from some.

[romanic]

41. They are shitheads.

People who sling dope, run with gangs, rape and molest innocent women, shoot up houses and are currently driving up the crime rate in Bmore are shitheads. Racist cops are shitheads too (as if I needed to add onto that). They all suck.

[madville]

43. I think violent criminals are shitheads

Sorry if it offends you.

We all call Republicans much worse, I guess there could be a debate as to whether they are human beings or not though lol.

[heaven05]

44. yeah, sure

anything you say and I'm ready to buy that swampland.....

[romanic]

26. This is why police need to be trained to be aggressive

when need be, not when they see some black dude walking down the street. -_- Without a proactive police free of corruption, you get all the losers and crooks to take advantage of the situation. It's a chain of events and that's what were seeing in Bmore, of course more people, black people especially, are suffering. And as usual, everyone remains numb to it.

[philosslayer]

29. Great idea

More aggressive cops. THAT will solve the problem.

[romanic]

42. I said aggressive when need be.

I'm not saying be aggressive all the time. -_-

[stone space]

27. If it were up to me...