Baltimore gets bloodier as arrests drop post-Freddie Gray

[Jazzy]

A 31-year-old woman and a young boy were shot in the head Thursday, becoming Baltimore's 37th and 38th homicide victims so far this month, the city's deadliest in 15 years.

The most recent killings claimed the lives of Jennifer Jeffrey and her 7-year-old son, Kester Anthony Browne. They were identified by Jeffrey's sister, Danielle Wilder.

Jeffrey and her son were found dead early Thursday, each from gunshot wounds to the head.

As family members cried and held each other on the quiet, leafy block in Southwest Baltimore where they lived, Wilder said she felt as if "my heart has been ripped out."

Wilder said a neighbor called their other sister early Thursday, concerned that she hadn't heard any noise coming from Jeffrey's house: no footsteps, Wilder said, no voices, and no gunshots. But when her brother let himself into the house to check on the mother and son, he discovered their bodies.

"She was in the living room," Wilder said. "The baby was upstairs, in the bed."

Thursday's deaths continue a grisly and dramatic uptick in homicides across Baltimore that has so far claimed the lives of 38 people. Meanwhile, arrests have plunged: Police are booking fewer than half the number of people they pulled off the streets last year.

Arrests were already declining before Freddie Gray died on April 19 of injuries he suffered in police custody, but they dropped sharply thereafter, as his death unleashed protests, riots, the criminal indictment of six officers and a full-on civil rights investigation by the U.S. Justice Department that has officers working under close scrutiny.

West Baltimore residents worry they've been abandoned by the officers they once accused of harassing them, leaving some neighborhoods like the Wild West without a lawman around.

"Before it was over-policing. Now there's no police," said Donnail "Dreads" Lee, 34, who lives in the Gilmor Homes, the public housing complex where Gray, 25, was chased down. "People feel as though they can do things and get away with it. I see people walking with guns almost every single day, because they know the police aren't pulling them up like they used to."

Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said his officers "are not holding back," despite encountering dangerous hostility in the Western District.

"Our officers tell me that when officers pull up, they have 30 to 50 people surrounding them at any time," Batts said.

Batts provided more details at a City Council meeting Wednesday night, saying officers now fear getting arrested for making mistakes.

The Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3 on Thursday posted a statement from President Gene Ryan on social media saying that the police are "under siege."

Source

Thoughts?

 

[seasidemike]

it is just one of those escalating situations that are not good, the police and the community are in conflict with each other, and that opens the door for serious problems.
If I was part of the public I would have been furious about those deaths, and if I was a cop who was being harassed for doing my job I would not be too quick to come running to the rescue either.
Not as a punishment to the community, but what if my next call out I needed to shoot someone?? what would happen to me?

This is a lose lose situation

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

The people in that city voted for those leftist democrat losers. Now they are reaping the rewards of there design to create lawlessness and the destruction of society. Good job people! You will get no pity from me until you stop putting these people in charge. I have no problem with the cops doing what they are doing. They don't want them around doing there jobs then so be it.