Justin Fenton isn't prettytalking to please anyone: violent crime went up this year in Baltimore while in almost every other major city it went down.* More murders, more nonfatal shootings, and (now it's me talking) a return to stop-and-frisk strategies that are not only not legal but do not work and a commissioner who seems clueless about what the law actually is.* All of the hard-won and tremendous-but-tenuous gains the city made under Dixon/Bealefeld are rapidly slip-sliding away due to poor management, disorganization, a lack of transparency, and an apparent reluctance to take an evidence-based approach to anything.
In other awful news, Andrea Williams, 45, was allegedly stabbed to death by her boyfriend Robert Wimbley early yesterday morning.
A 23-year-old man was shot to death in the 2700 block of E. Monument,* victim #234.
The Sun's Carrie Wells has picked up the story of the Slumlord v. Ott lawsuit.* [Rochkind] "alleges that I vandalized his property — it's just simply not true," Ott said. Which is technically correct, in the way it's technically correct that Stanley Rochkind doesn't own the property because his real estate trust/LLC does. Court date is in March, and it will be well worth the price of parking.
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| Robert Wimbley |
In other awful news, Andrea Williams, 45, was allegedly stabbed to death by her boyfriend Robert Wimbley early yesterday morning.
A 23-year-old man was shot to death in the 2700 block of E. Monument,* victim #234.
The Sun's Carrie Wells has picked up the story of the Slumlord v. Ott lawsuit.* [Rochkind] "alleges that I vandalized his property — it's just simply not true," Ott said. Which is technically correct, in the way it's technically correct that Stanley Rochkind doesn't own the property because his real estate trust/LLC does. Court date is in March, and it will be well worth the price of parking.
4 comments:
" ... the hard-won and tremendous-but-tenuous gains the city made under Dixon/Bealefeld are rapidly slip-sliding away ... "
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Ditto NYC, say, in about 2014 or 2015:
" ... the hard-won gains the city made under GIULIANI, and which were at least maintained by BLOOMBERG, are rapidly slip-sliding away under DIBLASIO ... "
Let's be honest here. We are talking about statistical gains. Under the apex (I'm loathe to call it that) of the Dixon administration, 10% of the city's population was arrested every year, Baltimore reigned as the country's heroin, syphilis, and teen pregnancy capitol, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 38% of City children dropped out of school prior to reaching 9th grade, with only 60% of the successful 9th graders ever finishing high school.
We're talking about a fundamentally broken system here (I live in it), regardless of whether the Mayor advocates for more silly, surficial laws like the new gun control law (Hey, hasn't it been illegal to discharge a firearm in Baltimore for 50 years? Isn't murder a felony?). And regardless of whether "tenuous gains" of 10% reductions in murder can be noted in the statistics.
Baltimore hasn't been the teen pregnancy capitol for some time. That honor belongs to Mississippi.
Ignoring that Baltimore is a city and Mississippi is a state, New Mexico (9.3% pregnant) has the highest state rate, followed by Mississippi (9% of teens pregnant).
Baltimore's current (2009) rate is actually 6.9%. On a whim that I might be wrong, I looked up Detroit's - around 11%.
The national teen pregnancy rate is about 3%, so I think we can agree that Baltimore's is insanely high.
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