Batts Fired, Deputy in Charge

Kevin Davis, ol whatshername

Decked out in a serious and seriously rack-hugging suit jacket, SRB announced today that she'd gone and fired her hand-picked commissioner Batts and that his deputy, one Kevin Davis, was now in charge.

Which is momentarily startling but not really shocking - the litany of awful since April 27 includes:

• A homicide rate as bad as the early years of Schaefer,* accompanied by talk of an intentional police "work slowdown."

That's in-credible!

• The FOP's own report finding that the "credible threat" police cited preceding the riots on April 27 when they built up their street presence, urged major businesses to close, shut down metro and bus service and surrounded Frederick Douglass kids in the Mondawmin parking lot was, in fact, not "credible" in the least:

"On April 27, 2015, the commanding officer of the Criminal Intelligence Section was deployed as a commander of a Mobile Field Force to Mondawmin Mall ... work in this situation would have been better spent investigating and analyzing the 'purge' information that was received."

• Also it turns out that it wasn't a tounge-flub at all when the mayor said she "gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well" -- the FOP reported that officers were indeed told at roll call that day to "the Baltimore Police Department would not respond until they [the protestors] burned, looted, and destroyed the city so that it would show that the rioters were forcing our hand." Charming!

• The van with BPD lettering on the back door: "Enjoy your ride, cuz we sure will!"

And the final straw: an earnest 20-something white guy got mugged for his bike and wrote an op-ed about it published in the Sun, revealing to both citizens and apparently the police spokesman* and City Councilman Brandon Scott that police stations in two of the worst districts (South and Southwest) are closed, as in doors locked, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m nightly. This was followed by tales of officers' unprofessionalism, mass quittings and 24-hour-shifts surging on Reddit, and the shit show was somehow made even worse when the "most professional" of the officers the victim dealt with going on Facebook and blaming him for biking "in the dark" when he wasn't.

Update:
Fenton has a good summation of Batts' career.*
Batts was brought in from Oakland to be a change agent. What he brought: California-style riots to Baltimore, with the "space to destroy" and "show[ing] that the rioters were forcing our hand."
Also from the FOP report:

Batts used tactics in Oakland that he denies using in Baltimore. 'We allowed the protesters to start breaking into Foot Locker. They broke into Foot Locker and different places. But we had to do that because we didn’t want to look like this was a police action, where we were responding too soon. Then we had a very coordinated plan. It took us time to just kind of corral them, bring them in, and take them to jail. We didn’t have any complaints whatsoever, and the citizens said we did a good job.'

Notable: Kevin Davis, who called Batts a "true reform commissioner" himself "had a long career in Prince George's County, where he helped police emerge from federal oversight related to officers' use of force.*"

Dixon, anyone?

'Let Them Drink Coconut Water'

Hot on the heels of flaming riots, SRB's administration has cut water to 1,600 homes.* Water has not been cut to any delinquent businesses. Businesses owe more than 1/3rd of the tab.

Officer Vincent Cosom will spend 6 months in jail for that bus-stop beating that went viral.


Two men and three women were shot on N. Broadway Saturday.

Hey Serial fans, the Court of Special Appeals has granted Adnan Sayed's wish and remanded his case to Baltimore city Circuit Court to rule on a post-conviction proceeding. Court docs here

Crazy home invasion on Campus View Drive in Towson (so victims were students?) Three men and a woman were tied up by two perps-- Demencio Wilson and David Thompson-- demanding drugs and money, one of the victims jumped out a 2nd-story window and got help, perps were caught at the scene.

Jason T. Weinstein-- formerly Rod J. Rosenstein's right-hand guy with the Feds, prosecutor of Ed Norris and "Itchy Man,"  left to work for Holder's office, took the fall for Fast n Furious, was vindicated, decamped to D.C., now a private attorney banking Bitcoin bucks -- is in the Sunpapers comparing the Freddie Gray case to the Duke Lacrosse case,* Marilyn Mosby to Mike Nifong, and urging her to not rush an indictment and top drop false imprisonment charges for officers.

JTW

    So what is the deal with that knife? Legal or illegal? Where is it? Who has it? Anyone? Anyone? Said/reported/opined Page Croyder:*

 "Ms. Mosby was so hasty it appears she locked up two completely innocent officers.  She charged Freddie Gray’s arresting officers with “false imprisonment” because she said the knife that Gray had on him was legal.  In fact, as The Sun reported, the Police Task Force found it to be illegal after all.  It was Ms. Mosby who had no probable cause to lock the arresting officers up, an injustice she could have easily avoided by taking her time."