RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2019/12/space-destroy-baltimore-hits-highest-murder-rate-daniel-greenfield/

Are we pro-crimed out yet?

Obviously not. As “criminal justice reform” marches on, complete with revolving door crime, cashless bail, and the rest of the horror show. Meanwhile “space to destroy” continues paying dividends in the “city that bleeds” which has just turned into one long episode of The Wire.

Baltimore could wrap up 2019 with its highest per-capita homicide rate on record as killings of adults and minors alike for drugs, retribution, money or no clear reason continue to add up and city officials appear unable to stop the violence.

Police recorded 338 homicides as of Tuesday, following a week of relentless gunfire that saw eight people shot — three of them fatally — in one day and nine others — one fatally — another day. That total is up from 309 in 2018 and four shy of the 342 killings tallied in 2017 and 2015, the year when the city’s homicide rate suddenly spiked.

“Suddenly”.

What could have possibly happened in 2015? Oh that’s right. Black Lives Matter threw a tantrum over the accidental death of drug dealer Freddie Gray. And Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said, “We also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well.”

The media and its assorted fact checkers have turned themselves inside out trying to make her unsay what she said. But here are the numbers.

And then the “homicide rate suddenly spiked”.

This is the fifth year in a row this Mid-Atlantic community dubbed “Charm City” has reported more than 300 killings. Before 2015, that number had generally been on the decline, but the trend reversed after civil unrest followed the death in police custody of a young black man, Freddie Gray.

We had to make it to the 7th para to hear about Freddie Gray. Who’s described as a young man, instead of a drug dealer. And the race riots are described as civil unrest.

Keep spinning, guys. It’s working great.

With just over 600,000 residents, Baltimore’s homicide rate would reach approximately 57 per 100,000 residents if the death toll reaches 342. That would eclipse the rate of 1993, when the city had a record 353 killings but was also much more populous.

Don’t worry. Baltimore’s got this.

“It’s a major concern for me, not just as a hopeful man but as a citizen of Baltimore who grew up in inner city Baltimore,” said Carmichael “Stokey” Cannady, a reformed drug dealer turned community activist who wants to be mayor. “I remember when a person had a conflict and would have a fight at best, now these young kids, at the age of 13, 14 years old, are finding handguns in their possession and they use them as toys … The whole system needs to be revamped.”

Sure.

Let’s give juveniles a pass, decriminalize drugs, give drug dealers a pass, give everyone space to destroy, and make a former drug dealer mayor.

There’s no way this can go wrong.

Many accuse police of taking a hands-off approach to crime fighting since six of their own were charged in connection with Gray’s death.

Right.

The city leadership and the media went after the police for fighting crime. Now, the police are accused of not fighting crime. Come on, they’re just into “criminal justice reform” now.

Others attribute it to the apparent free flow of illegal guns, the effects of a punishing opioid epidemic, social inequalities and a lack of decent jobs for many in disenfranchised neighborhoods.

There we go. Blame society. And the NRA.

Not to mention the lack of decent jobs in neighborhoods where Black Lives Matter thugs looted and burned businesses.

“People can expect that number to go down, we are building capacity, but we need to have some type of effect on the poverty, the housing, the education, the addiction, the skills, the jobs and the lack thereof, together at the same time,” Police Commissioner Michael Harrison told The Associated Press. “All of that has to be addressed while prosecuting people who commit crimes and preventing other people from committing those crimes. Otherwise, it continues and then you ask the question, ‘When does it stop?’ without fixing the reason it starts.”

The reason it “starts” is because the laws aren’t enforced.

“Let’s not assume simply that by putting more officers, this is going to lead to greater closure of cases or will be a deterrent,” Jeffrey Ian Ross, a criminologist at the University of Baltimore. “It may help families, it may put behind bars some more bad guys, but it doesn’t mean it necessarily leads to a decrease in crime and homicides.”

Every major city in the 90s would beg to differ.