Saturday, May 23, 2015

Baltimore's Murder Rate Surges As Police Arrests Plunge

Some have speculated police in Baltimore are staging a work “slowdown.”

Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts speaks at a press conference regarding the death of Freddie Gray on April 30.

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

In the weeks following the death of Freddie Gray and arrest of all six Baltimore police officers involved, the city's troubled western district has seen its murder rate skyrocket and arrests plunge.

Across the city, 100 people have been killed so far this year, far outpacing the 71 homicides by the same time in 2014. This week alone, at least 19 people were shot, four of them fatally, according to a Baltimore Sun count.

In the western district, the 28-day period ending on May 16 saw six homicides, up from only two in 2014, according to police data. Non-fatal shootings in the district over the same period jumped from only five in 2014 to 20 this year.

Meanwhile, arrests are down sharply in the city. In the three weeks after Gray's death on April 19, officers made 1,452 arrests, the data shows. By comparison, the data reveals that during the same three-week period in 2013 and 2014, police made well over 2,000 arrests:

Jim Dalrymple II from Baltimore police data / Via data.baltimorecity.gov

Police data also shows arrests have declined in recent weeks as compared to earlier this year. The first 15 days of May, for example, had fewer arrests than any previous half-month period in 2015.


View Entire List ›



from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1cc7gTg

No comments:

Post a Comment