Building Baltimore: A coalition connects police and community
On Wednesday, July 8, Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts joined a long list of police commissioners who’ve been fired by Baltimore mayors. For many Baltimoreans, the firing fit a familiar pattern: a rise in murders leads to community pressure for safety. The mayor, feeling the political heat increase with an election less than a year away, needs to show some action. Somebody has to be sacrificed. It may as well be another police commissioner.
Such was the cynical judgment also of many around the country when they heard that a reform-talking police chief had been ousted in Baltimore. But on the ground, the details painted a different story.
For at least a year prior to the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, residents in the neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester had been calling for additional police in their neighborhood. They met with the acting commander of the Western District and logged details of police response times in their neighborhood, comparing them to response times in the middle-class neighborhood where the church I pastor is located, just a mile away. They discussed the need for foot patrols—officers who would walk the streets, learn the names of residents, and listen to those who were committed to doing their part to rebuild a neighborhood still struggling from the legacy of redlining, unemployment, and the war on drugs.
