Month: July 2015

Post-Riot Baltimore: Arrests Down and Gun Crimes Up

Total arrests per day are in orange. Firearms crimes per day are the lower lines, in blue. (Click to embiggen) The bottom axis represents the numbered day of year. 1 is Jan 1. 178 is June 27th. The riot was on April 27, day 117. This was partly inspired by a frustrating discussion on the…
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“My own private Baltimore”

This piece by Tim Kreider is pretty fabulous. It includes John Waters’ great line: “NYC is full of normal people who think they’re crazy; Baltimore is full of crazy people who think they’re normal.” And “Bananas & hardware for sale at the bar” actually only narrows things down to a half-dozen locations. I still use…
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“If what the FOP reported is wrong… prove it.”

That’s from the Sun. The FOP riot report is good. Well done. And based on everything I’ve heard from police officers, true. It’s proofread and a surprisingly well put together package (the whole “issue” and “recommendation” and “references” thing). Keep in mind this is coming from a local FOP chapter that misspelled my name on…
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The next boss

The next Baltimore police commissioner really needs to be home-grown. Why not Lt. Col. Melvin Russell?

Batts is out!

I just heard the news.

“Conservator of the peace”

“Conservator of the peace,” you say. I was skeptical about how/if Mayor Rawlings-Blake could legally declare a curfew in Baltimore. Turns out she can: Circuit Judge Paul Alpert determined that a curfew was within Rawlings-Blake’s powers as a “conservator of the peace.” The powers of that title are not clearly defined in the city charter…
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