Baltimore: a city in chaos

Baltimore: a city in chaos

 

Baltimore is drowning in the blood of its own residents. In the last 3 weeks, there have been 23 murders and multiples of this number in nonfatal shootings. Most of the murders in the city use to occur under the aegis of darkness, not anymore. Two of these 23 murders were brazenly carried out during daylight hours. The weapon of choice utilized in this crime wave was the handgun. Maryland’s stringent gun control laws have had no effect on the levels of endemic crime in the city, except in one area. State gun control laws have increased the difficulty for law-abiding citizens to obtain weapons for self-protection. Baltimore’s elected officials are perplexed why their high level of crime has risen even further. As usual, the city turned to the legal profession for answers. Two new prosecutors will be engaged to rectify the problem of violence or so they think. These new prosecutors will have sweeping investigatory powers and work in conjunction with state and federal officials. The question arises: How does engaging members of the legal profession prevent crime when the police cannot? Maryland is inundated with attorneys. Of the 33,000 lawyers admitted to the state bar, a large wedge of them work directly for Maryland. The Attorney General’s Office, located in the heart of the city, is overflowing with prosecutors. With a vast population of  litigators at the city’s disposal, one would assume government officials would tap this reservoir of legal minds. From the perch of many, the AG’s office is too busy harassing lawful citizens to take time to fight actual crime. Yet, Baltimore City politicians believe that two more prosecutors will stem the flood of deaths when many others have tried and failed. Baltimore’s problem is one of culture, not insufficient lawyers. A recent protest march to curtail violence did little more than help to relieve the frustrations of those who participated. This group refused to acknowledge the deep-rooted problems that generate city crime. Nearly 70% Baltimore City households have single parents. Dysfunctional families are the norm in the city, which are supported by a huge entitlement network that expends billions to keep the status quo.  Nothing will change as long as this culture continues to abandon its children to the streets. Baltimore’s government reflects the same culture that roams its streets, misdirected and aimless. As long as they are in power the drug problems, bad schools, murders and other crimes will remain at present levels. Baltimore needs a new direction with better leadership, otherwise we might as well write the city’s obituary. Mark Davis, MD President of Healthnets Review Services and Davis Book Reviews. www.healthnetsreviewservices.com, platomd@gmail.com Author of Demons of Democracy and the forthcoming book, Obamacare: Dead on Arrival, A Prescription for Disaster.

Baltimore: unsafe at any speed

Baltimore: unsafe at any speed

 

Baltimore City is one of the nation’s hot zones for crime. In every category Baltimore crime rates are at the top of the list, no matter how the numbers are cooked. In 2010, Baltimore’s population hovered at approximately 620,000 with 223 victims of homicides. By 2011, the death toll from murders dipped to 197, yet its aggravated assault rate for a city with a population over 100,000 was one of the highest in the nation. In the most recent year in which statistics are available, 2012, murders again breached the two hundred mark to 217. Other crime statistics are equally as ugly including; forcible rape, larceny, arson, motor vehicle theft, violent assaults, robbery and more. Kudos to the Baltimore City Police Department, they are some of the finest people I have ever met. As a former owner of several businesses in the city, these men and women were always available to protect us whenever we called. Yet, the criminal element has overwhelmed the resources of Baltimore’s finest. An unprovoked violent attack against a tourist on St. Patrick’s Day in 2012, whose video went viral on the internet, displays the type of people causing most of the city’s crime. Over the last 30 years, hundreds of billions have been spent on Baltimore to improve its infrastructure and upgrade the lives of those who live there. Unfortunately, with all that largess poverty and drug driven crimes continue to haunt the denizens of the 24^th largest city in America. There is plenty of blame to spread around for the city’s failures; the disintegration of the nuclear family, a judicial system that favors the victimizer over the victim, an endemic use of drugs, schools that do not prepare their students for the rigors of life that reality offers and a government mismanaged at every level. As the City celebrated a great victory in the Super Bowl, multiple stabbings occurred nearby, resulting in several deaths. Crime in Baltimore never takes a rest. With recent revelations that the city is on a path to bankruptcy, less not more protection will be available for the innocents at large. Since 1960, Baltimore has lost over 300,000 residents. No doubt some of the reasons enumerated in this article drove people to leave. Could Baltimore die by its own hands, the evidence is mounting that it will. Mark Davis MD, platomd@gmail.com, Author of the book that told you lawyers are incompetent to run government entities or anything else, Demons of Democracy.