http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/us/after-freddie-gray-death-west-baltimores-police-presence-drops-and-murders-soar.html?_r=0&referrer=



By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
JUNE 12, 2015
BALTIMORE — From the steps of her New Bethlehem Baptist Church, the Rev. Lisa Weah looked down the block to the open-air drug market outside the bodega on the corner a few hundred feet away.
The traffic there had been slowing until the chaos that followed the death of Freddie Gray on April 19, after he was injured in police custody. Now it is back full-bore, and the police are often nowhere to be seen.
A month and a half after six officers were charged in Mr. Gray’s death, policing has dwindled in some of Baltimore’s most dangerous neighborhoods, and murders have risen to levels not seen in four decades. The totals include a 29-year-old man fatally shot on this drug corner last month. Police union officials say that officers are still coming to work, but that some feel a newfound reluctance and are stepping back, questioning whether they will be prosecuted for actions they take on the job.
Around the nation, communities and police departments are struggling to adapt to an era of heightened scrutiny, when every stop can be recorded on a cellphone. But residents, clergy members and neighborhood leaders say the past six weeks have made another reality clear: that as much as some officers regularly humiliated and infuriated many who live here, angering gang members and solid citizens alike, the solution has to be better policing, not a diminished police presence.
“Without law enforcement, there is no order,” Pastor Weah said. “In truth, residents want a strong police force, but they also want accountability.” She said that she sympathized with many officers who did their jobs well but were now just as hated as the abusive officers, and that she prayed the spate of killings would be the shock that finally caused change.
“This crisis was bound to happen because of the broken relationship between law enforcement and the people,” she said. “When something gets this infected, you have to break it down and start from new.”
At least 55 people, the highest pace since the early 1970s, have been killed in Baltimore since May 1, when the state’s attorney for the city, Marilyn J. Mosby, announced the criminal charges against the officers. Victims of shootings have included people involved in criminal activity and young children who were simply in the wrong place.
A 9-year-old boy was shot in the leg over the Memorial Day weekend. Another boy, Kester Browne, 7, a Chinese-language student at an international school, was fatally shot along with his mother, Jennifer Jeffrey-Browne, 31. They were two of the city’s 42 homicide victims in May.
At the time of her announcement, Ms. Mosby’s charges were seen as calming the city. But they enraged the police rank and file, who pulled back. The number of arrests plunged, and the murder rate doubled in a month. The reduced police presence gave criminals space to operate, according to community leaders and some law enforcement officials.
The soaring violence has made Baltimore a battleground for political arguments about whether a backlash against police tactics has led to more killings in big cities like New York, St. Louis and Chicago, and whether “de-policing,” as academics call it, can cause crime to rise.
Still, the speed and severity of the police pullback here appear unlike anything that has happened in other major cities. And rather than a clear test case, Baltimore is a reminder of how complicated policing issues are and how hard it can be to draw solid conclusions from a month or two of crime and police response.
For example, police commanders here attribute the spike in violence in large part to a unique factor: a flood of black-market opiates stolen from 27 pharmacies during looting in April, enough for 175,000 doses now illegally available for sale.

RIOT ideology

[ahy-dee- ol - uh -jee, id-ee-]
noun, plural ideologies.
the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.
such a body of doctrine, myth, etc., with reference to some political and social plan, as that of fascism, along with the devices for putting it into operation.
noun, plural ideologies.
Philosophy .
a. the study of the nature and origin of ideas.
b. a system that derives ideas exclusively from sensation.
theorizing of a visionary or impractical nature.
1790-1800; ideo- + -logy ; compare
French id�ologie
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, � Random House, Inc. 2015.

Oh I see. Now that the bodies are starting to pile up and innocent people are getting killed strong policing is required? Hmmmm. Let's think about that for a second.

To the drug infested and crime ridden inner city residents might I suggest a few things? Try NOT looking the other way when you see the corner deals going down. Call the cops and tell them what you saw. People know where the drug houses are, where the gang bangers live, where the daily numbers are bought, who the working girls are. Turn these people in. If for no other reason, you can collect a crap load of Crime Stoppers money and move somewhere else!

You need to look to the community to police itself by providing the information the cops need to do their jobs. Bust the dealers, the pimps, and disrupt the gangs. Resist the urge to buy the 'cheap' TV out back of the local bar. Resist the carton of smokes that fell off a truck. Same with the knock off clothes, watches,and pirated DVD's.

If you stop consuming the illegal goods and services in your own hood, it dries up and goes elsewhere. Since elsewhere means the street level hoods stick out even more, and get busted more often, the problem eventually goes away. The toughest part is to convince your kids and grandkids that it's the right way to live.

When people can afford to live well, in clean and safe homes, eat good food, and feel that they are being successful, the allure of cheap/stolen stuff fades. If you live hand to mouth, in run down areas, and see no reasonable expectation of improving your standard of living,then the idea that the world owes you something takes hold. Steal? Sure. The insurance companies have lots of money. Get high all day? Sure. The government has lots of welfare money. Have four kids by four different guys? Yeah even more welfare money.

Sorry, but before you RELY on the cops to save your collective a$$es you better be prepared to step up and help solve the problem.

Havent you heard? The Tuity Fruitys of Islam are gonna take up the cops slack......

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mlj45jggj/7-baltimore/


Forbes- The TEN most DANGEROUS cities in the USA.

Baltimore Maryland is number SEVEN
*20 photos & stats on link*

June 10,2015 ( I missed this,6 days ago)

http://wtvr.com/2015/06/10/breaking-silence-baltimore-officers-call-department-policy-reactive/


Two active duty officers with the Baltimore Police Department sat down with CNN's Brooke Baldwin. The officers spoke on the recent riots, the spike in murders and Freddie Gray.


(CNN) — Forty-two people were killed in Baltimore in May, making it the deadliest month there since 1972.

When asked what’s behind that number, a Baltimore police officer gave an alarming answer. Basically, he said, the good guys are letting the bad guys win.

“The criminal element feels as though that we’re not going to run the risk of chasing them if they are armed with a gun, and they’re using this opportunity to settle old beefs, or scores, with people that they have conflict with,” the officer said. “I think the public really, really sees that they asked for a softer, less aggressive police department, and we have given them that, and now they are realizing that their way of thinking does not work.”

He was one of two active Baltimore police officers who spoke to CNN on Tuesday about crime in their city. They also touched on the death of Freddie Gray, a young black man who died in police custody, and the riots that followed.

The officers were not given permission to speak from their department. Because of that, and in an attempt to allow them to talk candidly, CNN agreed on their condition of anonymity.

Both said the Baltimore Police Department is simply reacting to events instead of being proactive. They talked about feeling abandoned by their leadership and feeling scared — not about being hurt, necessarily, but about being charged criminally for doing what they see as their job. Six officers have been charged in Gray’s death, which has been ruled a homicide.

“Ultimately, it does a disservice to the law-abiding citizens. It does a disservice to the business owners. It does a disservice to everybody except the criminal element,” the second officer said about operating in reactive mode.

He denied the existence of a work slowdown but said he couldn’t promise proactive policing.

“Even though you have reasonable suspicion,” he said, “nine out of 10 times, that officer is going to keep on driving.”

City and police officials have repeatedly denied any stand-down order was given to officers after of Gray’s death.

‘They feel betrayed’

Worry has overtaken a lot of officers, and now morale is low, said Lt. Kenneth Butler, who heads a police union in Baltimore, the Vanguard Justice Society.

“They feel as though, if I make a mistake — which we all do make mistakes — then what is this administration going to do to me?” he told CNN’s Miguel Marquez. “Am I going to be the next one to be suspended? Am I going to be the next one who is going to be criminally charged?”

One officer called the union leader to ask if he’d be liable if a suspect he was chasing ran into traffic and got hit by a car, Butler said. He couldn’t answer the question, so the officer told Butler he’d stop pursuing suspects on foot for now.

Normally, officers would do their duty more robustly, Butler said, but they don’t feel like their leadership has their back anymore. “A lot of guys … they feel betrayed,” he said.

Commissioner answers

Police Commissioner Anthony Batts last week blamed the uptick in crime on the number of looted drugs that have made their way to the city’s streets after April’s riots.

After a portion of the officers’ interview aired on CNN, Batts spoke to reporters Tuesday and was asked to respond to what they said.

“What I put to them, again, is (to) remember why you do this job,” CNN affiliate WJZ reported the commissioner said about the officers. “We don’t get to pass up bad guys. We don’t get to let bad guys walk around the streets with guns.”

In similar comments last month, Batts acknowledged he has heard from officers who worry they could face legal jeopardy for pursuing suspects, but denied reports there has been a coordinated work slowdown because of a loss of confidence in department leadership.

“I hope they realize that what their actions are and the fact that the community needs them,” Batts told CNN’s “AC360.” “When I’m going through the roll calls, what I share with them, Anderson, is the fact that remember why you came on this job and why you put that gun belt on, why you put that badge on, and why you wear that uniform every single day, for the grandmothers and the babies and the little ones.”

‘We were told to not engage’

Both officers complained about the response to the riots that rocked Baltimore after Gray’s death. Businesses were burned and looted, and at least 100 officers were injured in the violence that began in late April.

The officers said they would have pushed for a stronger and more immediate show of force.

“We were told to not engage. When I say not engage — to allow the people to throw whatever items were being thrown at us, and just hold the line,” said the first officer, who recalled feeling scared. “I think if they would have just allowed us to get the perpetrators that were instigating it, it would have de-escalated a whole lot quicker.”

Batts has told CNN that officers weren’t prepared when what started as teenagers throwing rocks escalated into a major riot.

‘Everybody has lost something’

Gray died from a fatal spinal cord injury on April 19, exactly one week after he was arrested.

Part of his arrest was captured on cell phone video that went viral. It shows him being dragged by officers and loaded into a transport van. What happened inside that van has become a source of intense speculation.

“When you’re looking at the lives of six police officers, there can be no guessing. There can be no speculation. That’s what the medical examiner is for,” said the first officer, when asked how he believes Gray died.

The second officer talked about compliance and said the officers involved did “nothing wrong.”

“If you’re compliant, you will not have to be engaged by officers. Force has to be used with equal force,” he said.

Authorities have said that Gray bolted after making eye contact with officers at an area known for high crime and drug activity.

The video does not show the entire confrontation between Gray and the officers, but nothing in the footage suggests Gray used any force against the officers. In fact, Baltimore Deputy Police Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez has that said Gray “gave up without the use of force.”

“Our training and expertise, we are trained to be able to escalate things before they escalate,” the second officer said when pressed about his comments on “equal force.”

“Everybody has lost something because of this,” he said about Gray’s death.

When asked what the officers lost, he replied: “Their lives. I mean, they will never be able to go back to their normal life at this point. It doesn’t matter if they’re exonerated, which they should be. It doesn’t matter. This is a life-changing event, which can’t be turned back around.”

Baltimore is a hell hole.

and the cops not willing to face people with guns suck too, need to be replaced

do your JOB,, witout abusing your authority,, what is hard about that?

__________________________________

Baltimore did this to themselves.

1- The protesters/rioters/ criminals.
2- The inept Mayor telling the cops to back off.

Nothing was gained for anyone
* But city & state officials*

And now neither these city officials or cops care or the outside interference or the instigators or the media... ( for the most part)
Now they are facing the consequences of their actions & inactions & it is a case of ...............


THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF

no they didnt

police are throwing tantrums because they have to abide by rules
there isnt an excuse for not doing their job, what they are paid and trained to do,, if it 'scares' them too much, its the wrong job for them

noone cried wolf,, the battered wife said stop beating me so the husband just stayed away from home to teach her a lesson,,,,


time for a new husband for that wife, time for new police officers for baltimore

__________________________________
They wanted to have chaos, they got it. The mayor gave it to them.

They wanted the police off their back to do what they wanted to do. The mayor gave it to them.

You wouldn't be saying the Mayor should get a new job, would you ?

The mayors job is to make sure those under her do their job CORRECTLY, the police throw a tantrum because they are told to do it correctly instead of however they feel like it,, and so they stop doing their JOB

Where are the Roody Poos of Islam? Havent they solved this dilemna yet?

Maybe we could get Mr. Feinstein to comment on it.

Or maybe, the mayor and officials don't want too much probing into their city dealings. The cops probably know it and are not willing to try or die for a corrupt city government?
Just wondering....

yes, I wonder how far and long the corruption runs beyond and including the police myself

"A fish rots from the head down" as they say.

I can think of a change that must be made to start the process of recovery in black communities......



Sharpton's history is checkered and spotty. His talent for transparent money management is one of the worst in the country.

We know beyond the shadow of a doubt Al Sharpton doesn't care about the plight of regular folk in America, black or white.

Instead he feeds off of tragedy and uses it to advance his own political and financial agenda.

It's about time those he claims to represent would speak out against him.

Perhaps more blacks in America will pick up the mantle and use their voices to speak out against this racial profiteer

Baltimore used to be a decent place once upon a time, a pretty nice town. The police are on an "unofficial" strike in my opinion, and I tend to agree that they need to be able to DO their jobs. That means they can't have the mayor telling them to back off. They can't afford to second guess their weapons use when thugs (of any race or color) are armed to the teeth.

I'd go on strike too if I was prohibited from using any means needed to defend or protect myself in that hell hole.

Violent criminals are going to get hurt. People who get in the way and interfere during a police action are going to get hurt...not the fault of the police, given correct procedure, accidents can happen even then. If someone is interfering in a police action they are already breaking the law.

Kindergarten rules, Behave and you won't get in trouble.

and targeting this man who gets media to pay attention to the stories of otherwise disregarded minorities,,, would help minorities how exactly?