But there's plenty more to know and be outraged over! This just in from TBC:
Did you know that alleged strangler and rapist William Vincent Brown may have been rendered unable to kill three people if the Judiciary had done a halfway decent job? Read more to find out why!
BCPD is back on the case of Clarence "Buddy" Downs III, who police suspect was killed by scary lady Cindy McKay.
From the "Damn, you stupid" department: a Frederick citizen was busted after turning a stereo over to Best Buy, but not before removing his crack.
The City State's attorney's office will have a chance to crack down on Witness Intimidation in the case of "Robo" Jones...
Plenty of nonfatal offenses in the Blotter. Gee, that doesn't sound so bad when phrased that way...
So apparently Gerald Mungo Jr - arrested after riding a dirtbike - was arrested because his mother complained about the officer's treatment of her son.
Never bring a knife to a geranium fight?
22 comments:
[Warning: long post]
Bill Cosby and Sheila Dixon will meet in Park Heights to discuss crime reduction.
His angle: personal responsibility on the part of young black males.
Her angle: it’s not their fault. Blame it on garbage and disinvestment in physical infrastructure.
Her solution: Operation Protect.
So, I went back and looked at operation protect:
Said Fred Bealefeld last year,
"If I had to do just one job to have an impact making people's lives safer, it would be the footman, Bealefeld said. "At the end of the day, if you just had a footman dealing with problems in the neighborhood, you really could make the community safer."
And so I thought, "O.K., how much has he increased patrol manpower since then ???"
Lenny Hamm was pretty clear that we do not have enough manpower.
FOP President Paul Blair concurred.
Well, it turns out that we have almost exactly the same number of active-duty, full-time police officers at 2,982 as we had last year, in spite of all that buzz about recruitment from Puerto Rico, scuttled this Spring.. That is, despite the attention to the subject of manpower deficiencies in the Mayoral campaign, we are still at a fifteen-year low in personnel.
So,… just how many do we need ???
To answer that, first consider a crime reduction success story: New York City, once among the most crime-ridden cities in America.
How many officers have they got? Around 38,000.
Sounds like a lot, but not when you consider the population base of 8,275,000. That’s one officer per 217 residents.
How about Baltimore? One officer per 209 residents.
So we’re good, right? Comparable?
NOT SO FAST.
Baltimore has four times the per capita heroin addicts of New York.
Three times the community corrections (translation: prisoners released early into your neighborhood.) population per capita.
Two and a half times the violent and property crime incidents per capita.,…
and that’s before the AUDIT. (Surely you didn’t think I’d forgotten about the audit!)
18% fewer persons in the labor force per capita.
8% more persons without earnings per capita.
7% more persons in both the under $15,000 and under $25,000 household income brackets per capita.
How did New York get its criminal population down?
More Cops on the Beat Cut Crime in NYC
The Safe Streets, Safe City Program was enacted in 1991 to fund an additional 3,462 police officers in New York City. This landmark law also requires the City to maintain its police force at approximately 38,000 officers.
So, based upon the above indicators of how much more problematic Baltimore’s population (or, total capitae) is than New York’s, it would appear that we’d need to have around three times New York’s per capita police manpower. If we wanted to achieve a civilized level of crime control.
That would be around 10,000 officers.
What do we have? 2,982.
How many does it appear we’ll have this time next year?
About 2,982.
One thing that's worth considering is that the Baltimore PD wastes a lot of manpower and screws over patrol. I've heard more than a few people complain that there are too many specialized units both downtown and in the districts, many of which focus on doing nothing but making petty drug arrests to generate stats. The manpower for all these "special" units comes from patrol, resulting in too few beat cops. I wonder if we could get Buzoncrime's take on that, since he knows more about the BPD than anyone else here.
Oh, and how many are we supposed to have under the current budget?
3,200.
Fat chance you'l ever see that many.
The additional money alredy budgeted and appropriated for those 200 officers could buy Sheila Dixon about 2,600 fur coats or 5,200 Persian jackets, so don't wait up for it to be spent on police patrols.
Patin, you and I will likely not agree on the value of drug arrests in Baltimore.
The majority of such arrests are readily prosecuble prima facie possesion cases which get pretty ill-behaved people off the streets and into jail, who would otherwise need to be brought in for their dealing, burglary, unlawful weapons use, or other hoodlumry.
Thre just aren't that many innocent, pot-smoking post-hippies getting arrested here. Most of these guys have serious records and recidivate immediately upon release.
They mostly need to be jailed, whether for CDS or for their more survellance-intensive misconduct.
If we nix drug busts, then you'd need even more patrol officers to properly babysit these guys.
The problem with the prosecution of small quantity drug busts is the inclination of the judiciary/SA's office to cut them slack because 'it's not like it's a real crime'.
Galt:
It's not like patrol officers can't make drug arrests either. The validity of the war on drugs is a whole separate issue, but if we're going to stick with our current set of laws I don't think that creating a plethora of "special" units is the way to do it. I understand that the sorts of people who're selling drugs are the sorts of people who also need to be locked up for other reasons. I don't have time to write anything more, but I'll explain my thinking later.
Oh, and on this idea that fewer murders by gunshot equates with an overall qualitatively better city, please note how the general policing has worsened over time in response time and ability to handle calls properly.
There's just no capacity here.
Totally wrong. We have enough police. We have enough police to arrest more people than this town can actually process. The problem is NOT with the police.
The problem is what happens AFTER the preps are arrested. As we can plainly see, the criminals (and victims) behind the most heinous crimes almost without exception have extensive criminal histories.
Increasing the number of cops will lead to more arrests and perhaps a mild drop in crime at a huge increase in expenditures. It will also make parts of Baltimore look like Fallujah (although some nutcase may actually pefer that).
Our expenditures will go much farther if we can target the right people, keep them behind bars and get serious about rehab before release.
If you have enough hoodlums who have created legitimate grounds for their lawful arrest, then any bottlenecks in processing them are simply bureaucratic obstructions to be eliminated. Just do it.
It takes 40 minutes for Baltimore police to respond to a nonshooting in my neighborhood. That means hoods have 35 minutes of impunity. Decent people cannot coexist with hoodlums under such circumstnces.
And if Baltimore is that full of perps, then it is Fallujah and anyone who doesn't wish for it to look that way is engaging in exercises in self-deception.
I support rehab for those who are truly committed to it. Many treatment slots are wasted on addicts who intend to go right back on the stuff.
As for keeping them behind bars,... no disagreement. Please go and threaten to break the parole boardmembers' kneecaps. I raise my glass to you.
Now, on the subject of 'targeting the right people',... wouldn't that be violators of arrestable offenses under the Criminal Code of the State of MD ???
In my neighborhood, that's well over half the male population.
Or did you have in mind to only selectively enforce only certain laws in order to save tax money so that it might be given to parasitic nonprofits instead ??? That's $300 million cash out of the city budget a year.
That's what I see in Baltimore: crime is allowed provided it doesn't shake up the wrong constituency.
Murders of children and white women are unacceptable.
Murders of black males are less so.
Robberies, burglaries, theft, and vandalism are just,... what,... fair game here ???
It's not acceptable for this government to authorize three times the crime level of other large cities. I don't care how much $$$ you can pocket by doing so. It's simply wrong.
The charter county of the City of Baltimore does not have the privilege of vetoing the laws of the State of Maryland, even if it doesn't agree with certain of them. It asked to be granted police power. That conferred a certain responibility, as well.
If the City doesn't want to bear the burden of enforcement, then that capacity should be stripped from it and conferred upon a more responsible government. Perhaps the County.
Query: which crimes do you propose to allow criminals to commit against me ???
There are diminishing returns to law-enforcement as crime levels approach zero.
The cost of reducing crime per capita to the level of, say, the placid suburban township in which I was raised would be somewhat prohibitive.
(That would be down to about 45 violent and 1,000 property crimes per 100,000 population.)
We in Baltimore, however, are not blessed with that dilemma.
New York has about 680 violent and 2,000 property crimes per 100,000.
Baltimore has had about 1,750 violent and 5,185 property crimes per 100,000.
What that means, in other words, is that the residual excess of over 7,000 violent and 20,000 property crimes a year occur principally because Baltimore City didn't care to shoulder the (economic and political) burden of their prevention.
I consider this city government to be virtually an accessory to those crimes. They could be prevented through the deployment of large numbers of competent police officers. As Helix correctly observes, those don't come cheaply.
So what? It what we refer to as necessary and essential services. They comprise the basis for taxation. And the first application of its proceeds.
Question: how would you go about explaining to the actual victims thereof that they were robbed or assaulted or burgled because you wanted to spend the money planting trees or providing community organizers instead ???
On reflection, I retract the characterization of the City government as an accessory.
The proper term of art is depraved indifference.
BPD (Bealefeld?) made a policy decision some time ago to allot each district 160 officers--no matter how geographically large a district was or how many crimes/how serious those crimes/how many arrests made/how many traffic accidents had to be handled. And they reduced each patrol sector by one patrol unit--comparable to what they had on the overnight/midnight shift. They did this years ago.
Recently, the Northeastern District was a pilot district for the 10-hour/4 day work week for officers, so they got more police than the other 8 districts ("some" more--perhaps 10 or so).
All the rest of the officers are in specialized or administrative units, who work out of downtown (or like the district detectives who are physically located in the districts but actually report to bosses downtown.) So, the patrol force is chronically short of people on the street. Generally, in many districts, there is no meaningful uniformed patrol deterrent. Generally, the specialized units spend the bulk of their time in the Eastern and Western Districts--and they don't handle calls for service, unless there's a glamorous arrest handy or it's an emergency, such as an officer needs help.
New York City, even before Giuliani and Bratton, hugely increased its police force--and taxed itself for it.
Buz:
Do you agree with Ed Norris's claim that there are too many investigative units downtown, and that more of their manpower needs to be shifted to the districts? Norris seems like a smart guy, but he's also completely in love with himself so I have to take his opinions with a grain of salt.
Also, how much BPD manpower is used to patrol the JFX within city limits, and does this come out of the districts that I-83 is located in? I always thought that the easiest way the state could help B'more free up a bit of manpower would be to have the MSP assume responsibility for I-83 inside the city.
This is interesting:
As many as five Baltimore homicides over the past three months might be connected to the April kidnapping of two teenage boys from a Catonsville home, according to several law enforcement sources.
PP--I don't often listen to Norris, so I didn't hear what he said, but I would agree that over the last several years a plethora of specialized units du jour have proliferated (Norris created some of them). And this constant quest to keep the lid on the murders, though laudable, is done to the staffing detriment in the districts. When the citizens call, they need a cop to come--sometimes right away. But having said that, it would do no good to have the specialized units transferred out to the districts, only to still have them report to their commanders wishes downtown. The patrol force, Helix, does need more people.
pp--Calls for service on the JFX are handled/assigned by whatever district the incident happens to be in. Enforcement in a proactive manner is rarely done by the districts, sometimes by specialized traffic units. Everyone talks about the State Police coming in to help, but the truth is they don't have as many troopers for their current duties as they would like, and now come long distances for their calls. I doubt that they would be willing, and the city would ask for their assistance.
It has been helpful that the Maryland Transportation Authority police have taken over full policing of I95 I895--though their predecessor, the Toll Facilities Police, pretty much were doing it anyway.
John Galt--I agree we need more police but it has been extremely difficult to fill those empty positions, despite "Iam so Wise's" assertions. Baltimore's starting pay is 4K below Baltimore County's with far worse working conditions and community support and equipment. And new recruits, while told they can be placed on any shift, are pretty much sentenced to a year or more of permanent midnight shift. A lot of folks don't want that.
I agree.
You get what you pay for, and this government wants to use its tax money for handout programs instead of providing necessary and essential public services.
Yesterday in Park Heights, sheila dixon said
"The role and responsibility of government is to take care of really basic, fundamental needs,"
Yeah, but not just for two weeks before a parade, Hon. It's year-round.
Buz:
Very informative response as usual. It's great to hear from someone who actually worked in the BPD how this stuff worked.
We're never going to have a cop on every corner, just forget about it.
The BPD has done well with what they are given. Their job would be MUCH EASIER if the courts, juries, prosecutors and penal systems were functional.
Unlike the police who are the whipping boys for criticism when it comes to crime, judges get a free pass when it comes to accountability. Everyday they make decisions that make victims' families shriek in horror. They ROUTINELY allow dangerous career criminals back into neighborhoods with hardly a slap on the wrist.
I don't even have to talk about Pat Jessamy who sees it as her mission to provide "services" to criminals.
Its time for the other components of the city to step-up and be accountable for the crime problem. The police can only do so much.
Helix, the judiciary and states attorney are elected officials.
They aren't accountable for matters of discretion (as opposed to law, in which case they may be subject to appelate process.)
They are representative politicians. Whn they represent a large population of hoodlums and their families & friends, they're going to be sympathetic.
You have to 'correct' the composition of your population; that's probably best done by aggressive enforcement from the police inducing them to leave.
Is it equitable that they bear the burden? Maybe not. But that's how it gets done.
Let's review how judges get their jobs...
1) They are appointed
2) They are elected
Even in the latter case, the public has virtually no feedback. Quite literally, we are presented in the election booth with a list of names to check off. Much of the time the number of slots open is equal to the number of names. All that judges have to do is to be allowed to get on that list by some review board of lawyers (who don't give a rat's ass about crime control and prevention)-- and they practically have the job.
What we really need is some news outlet that has the balls to expose the performance of judges in a compare and contrast fashion.
I've proposed a 'judicial watch' concept, but you first have to figure out how to 'equate' cases.
If an assailant with a knife against a woman pled to 10 years in Judge Jones's court, but another got five years in Judge Smith's court, it might be because the defense created a 'reasonable doubt' before a sympathetic jury.
How do you compare outcomes of incident-similar cases with different within-courtroom specifics ???
Compare-contrast would apply better if charges were adjudicated separately, but when they are combined in a case, one is often compromised in exchange for a plea on another.
example:
If a rape & assault case is pled down to assault with a null pross on the rape, 1) does the judge get full credit for the assault sentence (relative to some other assault case) and 2) does he get penalized for the null pross on the rape (relative to sentencing in another adjudicated rape case) ??
Every case is different. However, a pled (plead?) (Pleaded?) case very often has little to do with the judge. The state nolle-prosses cases (the state declines to prosecute) for whatever reason. Usually because they have a weak case and/or want to spare the victim or family the trial. On the other hand, the defense often accepts a guilty verdict if the sentence is "reasonable", and they give up the possibility of losing big time. The judge almost always simply acquiesces because he/she often doesn't have a lot of say.
On the other hand, some judges are far too lenient in giving repeated suspended sentences assuming or hoping the defendant does or gets better. Repeated probation simply tells the defendant that the system is easily gamed. Wanna bet how many probation officers are able to leave the office and go out to a place where the probationer is supposedly working? Or how successful they were in the drug/violence treatment program? How many urinalyses were given under what supervision?
Many defendants because of the nature of their world are deceitful, deceptive, and manipulative.
Notwithstanding the above, the wealthiest state in the nation per capita (Maryland) has citizens who do not want to fund sufficient police, prisons, courts, and probation/parole agents. And its citizens mostly, unlike Anna, do not demand elected officials fix the criminal justice system in Bmore.
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