After another violent weekend with a number of homicides and shootings in the city, the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) called out Police Commissioner Michael Harrison Tuesday morning, saying more officers have left the department than have been hired during his tenure, leaving the police department 500 officers short.
WJZ reported there were seven non-fatal shootings and five murders over the weekend in Mayor Brandon Scott’s (D) Baltimore, and another fatal shooting in broad daylight Monday, bringing the homicide total to 325 so far this year.
In a press conference Monday, Commissioner Harrison and Mayor Scott addressed the violent weekend.
Two of the murder victims were in the city to sell a gun, and “two women were gunned down Sunday night at the intersection of Old Frederick Road and South Kossuth Street,” Mayor Scott said.
In the Tweet posted Tuesday, Baltimore’s police union not only criticized the shortage of police officers in the city, but also the lack of a concrete plan to fight crime at street level.
“No actionable crime plan at the street level!” the tweet continued. “In the last 13 days, there have been 19 homicides and 30 failed murders (shootings) in Baltimore. If your starting pitcher is getting crushed, you bench him!”
500 Officers short! Homicides and shootings are pacing with last year's record violent crime stats and we have lost more Officers than we have hired over the last 2 years of PC Harrison's tenure in Baltimore. https://t.co/FFPjEWDluq
— Baltimore City FOP (@FOP3) December 22, 2020
Violence continues to surge in the city even though according to Breitbart, “Baltimore has extremely stringent top-down gun controls, which were adopted throughout the state of Maryland over the past seven years.”
“For example, the Firearms Safety Act of 2013 banned “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazines and put in place a fingerprinting/registration requirement for new handgun buyers. And the Baltimore Sun reported that since Maryland’s red flag law took effect October 1, 2018, the gun crime in the city continues to rage.”