Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Wednesday that she has fired Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, 2 1/2 months after the city broke out into riots following the death of a man who was injured in police custody.
Rawlings-Blake announced her decision in a three-paragraph news release that also noted she has named Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Davis as interim commissioner.
The mayor scheduled a news conference with Davis for later Wednesday afternoon.
Rawlings did not give a reason, but the move comes amid a spike in the city’s homicide rate.
Baltimore was rocked with civil unrest in late April after black resident Freddie Gray died one week after suffering a critical spinal injury in police custody. Six police officers have been criminally charged in Gray’s death.
Since the rioting stopped, the city has seen a sharp increase in violence, with 155 homicides this year, a 48 percent increase over the same period last year.
The U.S. Justice Department is conducting a civil rights review of the department, and Batts has been criticized by the Baltimore police union.
On Tuesday, the police department announced that an outside organization will review the department’s response to the civil unrest that followed Gray’s death. Most of the unrest took place on April 27, prompted by Gray’s death on April 19.
(AP)
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2 Responses
So a black Mayor is firing her black police commissioner. I guess its the white mans fault.
It’s a constant issue in Baltimore. Blacks suffer the most from crime. Being Police Commissioner there is an impossible job, even if you are really good at it. First, you don’t have the best and brightest to work with and when the Police actually do their job, people complain. It’s a no win situation under the best of circumstances.
When Martin O’Malley was first elected Mayor, he did intend to actually have the Police do their job. He started instituting the Guliani plan from NY and even appointed a Police Commissioner from NY to implement it.
As soon as it was rolled out and the Police went after the corner drug dealers, the Black Ministers attack O’Malley and he caved completely, just fudging the numbers and preventing the Police from taking Police Reports, thereby giving the impression of a crime reduction.
BTW, the Ministers we getting money from those drug dealers.
These cities are no longer governable. You can never get a consensus on anything and they are too far gone.
Also, there are no viable options for Mayor in Baltimore. Back to Sheila the shoe and gift certificates?