With police morale “in the sewers,” violent crime has all but exploded in the city of Baltimore, and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake appears to be clueless about what’s behind the surge.
There have been 100 homicides in the city this year, compared to 71 over the same period last year, Fox News reported. In a 28-day period beginning on the day Freddie Gray died, there has been a 120 percent increase in homicides, with 33 being reported during that time.
“It’s extremely frustrating,” Rawlings-Blake said. “It is disheartening, but I am still resolved to continue to reduce violent crime in our city.”
The very authorities who threw the police department under the bus in favor of appeasing the mob, from the mayor to police Commissioner Anthony Batts, are now faced with a force that has been rocked back on its heels.
Police are being accused of engaging in a slowdown in response, according to Fox News. But officers, who question whether they’ll be supported, are reluctant to police aggressively in a hostile community.
And arrests are down significantly since the riots.
In the face of the anti-police atmosphere, police have stopped being proactive, a 12 year veteran of the force said Friday.
Appearing on CNN, the unidentified officer said morale in the department has plummeted.
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“It’s in the sewers. It’s down,” he said. “It’s the worst of the worst I’ve ever seen in my career.”
The officer said cops are only responding to 911 calls, and go in pairs when they do.
“As officers we’re saying, ‘hey, we’ve gotta have each other’s backs,’” he said.
Even Batts has acknowledged the anti-police atmosphere that has been created in Baltimore.
“Officers tell me and their supervisors, any time they pull up to respond to a call, they have 30 to 50 people surrounding them,” he told the Baltimore Sun last week. “We have to send in multiple units just to do basic police work, which says we have to work on community engagement.”
As for the solution, the unidentified cop told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that improving the situation begins with replacing Batts and his command staff.