MD Gov O'Malley's Failed Crime Record
A spate of violent crimes has raised questions about the supposed success of Maryland Governor O'Malley's public safety initiatives.
On June 23rd, Baltimore settled a lawsuit filed in 2006 by the NAACP, ACLU, and 14 private citizens charging the city’s police force with harassing and arresting prisoners without cause.
The plaintiffs claimed that the Baltimore Police executed unprecedented, preemptive arrests en masse (one-third of those incarcerated were released without ever being charged with a crime). The court eventually ruled against Baltimore city, requiring that the plaintiffs be paid $630,000 and that the city enlist an auditor at the price of $240,000 to monitor police behavior
No one can doubt that Baltimore has had its fair share of crime. The city has consistently ranked as one of America’s Top 15 Most Dangerous Cities, now occupying the #12 spot on the list – an improvement from Baltimore’s 2005 ranking as the 6th most dangerous city. Many attribute this improvement to Governor O’Malley’s commitment to improving public safety.
When asked if he believed that his public safety campaign inspired this unwarranted arrest scandal, O’Malley claimed, "there was never, ever a policy that asked police officers to go beyond the Constitution or engage in illegal arrests.” The governor lamented that so many Baltimore policemen took such extreme measures, but he is still proud of the progress that has been made these past five years in limiting crime.
Unfortunately for the governor and Baltimore constituents, unprecedented levels of violence have marked these past two weeks and tainted the supposed “progress” made by O’Malley’s public safety initiative.
This past weekend, in what police believe to have been a gang-related fight, a 19-year-old boy was shot in the city’s central, touristy Inner Harbor. This shooting was one of six nonfatal shootings in the past two weeks –one involving a pregnant woman.
According to police reports, 20 people have been shot in Baltimore since the weekend of May 31st, Memorial Day.
Perhaps granting the police some flexibility in enforcing a stringent “zero tolerance” crime policy is a legitimate allowance … unfortunately, such flexibility has resulted in the city having to pay $870,000 in an attempt to reduce seemingly unrestrained police authority. However, in light of the record-number of shootings that have wreaked havoc on Baltimore this past month, many are wondering whether such restraints will do more harm than good.