A new report from USA Today suggests that Baltimore police officers “stopped seeing crime” after facing harsh criticism — even from their own mayor — following the 2015 death of a man in their custody, Freddie Gray.
Gray died after receiving injuries in the back of a police transport vehicle; three officers were put on trial for the incident and later acquitted. Prosecutors dropped their case against three other officers. The Justice Department opened an investigation into Baltimore’s police department at large and accused “Baltimore’s police of arresting thousands of people without a valid legal basis, using unjustified force and targeting black neighborhoods for unconstitutional stops,” according to USA Today.
Civil rights activists say they had hoped the DOJ’s findings would encourage Baltimore’s law enforcement officials to improve their policies and adopt a kinder and gentler form of policing. Instead, fearful that they might be indicted for any wrong move, Baltimore’s police force stopped moving at all.
“These guys aren’t stupid. They realize that if they do something wrong, they’re going to get their head bit off. There’s no feeling that anybody’s behind them anymore, and they’re not going to do it,” a retired officer told the paper. “Nobody wants to put their head in the pizza oven when the pizza oven is on.”
“Police questioned fewer people on the street. They stopped fewer cars,” USA Today reports. “Police officers reported seeing fewer drug dealers on street corners. They encountered fewer people who had open arrest warrants.”- READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Baltimore recently instituted a “violence reduction initiative” amid a sharp increase in homicides, and this week, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh did a walk-through in some of the affected neighborhoods, doling out anti-violence advice of her own.
According to the Baltimore Sun, Pugh suggested that, to combat loitering and gang violence, local grocery stories might consider shutting their doors a little earlier.
Pugh went on to tell reporters that she and her team are “on top of” the drug- and gang-driven violence that is plaguing the city, making it one of the most dangerous places to live in the entire United States. Police have boarded up vacant housing and removed abandoned vehicles, and city officials are looking to improve marketing for city services they say will help lift people out of poverty.
But Pugh is really fixated on the corner markets.
“These stores on Pennsylvania Avenue and North Avenue need inspections,” the mayor told reporters. “Health Department, I’m going to expect you to get in there and inspect those places because some of those places need to be shut down.”- READ MORE
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