The agents detailed to the city from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Secret Service represent a “flipping of the script of sorts”, Interim Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said. The latest bloodshed follows the deadliest month in more than four decades: 45 homicides in July alone.
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“Certainly the post-unrest period in Baltimore is something to be reckoned with”, Davis said on Sunday, referring to a period of civil unrest following the death of a young African American man, Freddie Gray, in police custody in April.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake took part in a crime walk Monday morning in the wake of several weekend shootings, including one shooting on Garrison Boulevard that left seven people injured in what police believe was an act of gang-related retaliation.
That incident occurred Sunday in northwest Baltimore. Davis also said the influx of prescription pills – 32 pharmacies were looted during the April 27 riot and almost 300,000 doses of prescription medication stolen – has contributed to Baltimore’s spiking violence.
Adding to the urgency of Baltimore’s violence is the relatively low “clearance rate” of closed homicide cases. “There are a number of different circumstances that are contributing to where we are now”.
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby attributed to the spiking violence to violent repeat offenders, whom she called “a small number of individuals responsible for the majority of the crimes”.
Gomez, now a consultant for ABC News, said Baltimore police “clearly need assistance from various agencies and now they’re going to get it”. Davis said he would join other police chiefs from across the country on Monday to discuss strategies to quell the violence.
Black people are not a monolithic group, but what we are facing is something that’s extreme – and that’s poverty, that’s homelessness, that’s higher rates of joblessness, that’s law enforcement invading our communities day in and day out – and we are uprising. “Now we’re back at the table, and our cities are looking at Baltimore”.
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