O’Malley 2016 Just Committed Suicide in Baltimore - By Jackie Kucinich

[FSogol]

45. Yes, I read the article, you're the 3rd person who asked me that.

Also, you do realize that "The Wire" is a work of fiction? It doesn't change the fact that O'Malley left as Mayor in Baltimore in Nov 2007.

Why blame him, yet cut a break to the people in charge the last 7-1/2 years?

Here's my spiel again:

O'Malley, as Mayor of Baltimore (Dec 1999-Nov 2007) followed a policy of zero tolerance, also know as the broken windows policy as did almost every major city in the US. Every major city switched to that form of policing in the mid to late 90s because of the drop in NYC's crime rate. By the mid 00s, everyone was moving away from it due to over-policing, arresting innocent people, profiling, etc. He employed those policies when he arrived as Mayor, but moved away from them for the reasons stated. The number of arrests dropped each year in Baltimore as did the crime rate.

By the end of his Mayoral term he moved away from that policy. He did not employ those methods as Governor. Unlike say, Giuliani, O'Malley changed, evolved, and modified his approach until he got a fairer/more workable system.

From a recent Washington Post article:

“What was positive was that there was zero-tolerance for criminals and drug dealers locking down neighborhoods and taking neighborhoods hostage,” said the Rev. Franklin Madison Reid, a Baltimore pastor. “Does that mean there was no down side? No. But the bottom line was that the city was in a lot stronger position as a city after he became mayor.”

Benjamin T. Jealous, a former president of the national NAACP who worked with O’Malley when Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, credited him for supporting a civilian review board as mayor and for a sharp drop in police shootings that occurred during that time. Jealous said O’Malley’s “mass incarceration” police strategy is “a separate issue” than police brutality, and “a conversation for a different day.”“It was a period where a lot of mayors were doing whatever they could to try to reduce crime,” Jealous said.

and

Over the past year, as he has criss-crossed the country, O’Malley has talked about alleged police misconduct in places such as Ferguson, Mo. and North Charleston, S.C. On Saturday, he called Gray’s death “another awful and horrific loss of life.”
“Whether it’s a police custodial death or a police-involved shooting,” O’Malley said, “we all have a responsibility to ask whether there’s something we can do to prevent such a loss of life from happening in the future.”

Earlier this month, at a civil rights event convened by the Rev. Al Sharpton, O’Malley said his crime-reduction efforts as mayor saved many lives. “There are a thousand fewer black men in Baltimore who died violent deaths over the last 15 years than otherwise would have died had we not come together.”