Hopkins Slasher, Kennedy Krieger hand and bag Shooting, Police crotch shooting: The Crisis of Crime in Baltimore

There have been a lot of disheartening stories about crime in Baltimore this year, but 3 are linked in Buz's iconoclastic mind: the shooting of 2 Kennedy Krieger Institute employees shot as they left work recently, not even victims or involved, but the errant shots of an angry, violent thuggy-wuggy dad who never grew up, and didn't believe in calling the cops (one of the gals was not actually shot as her handbag and contents deflected the round); the shooting by an off-duty officer of another thuggy-wuggy who, at gunpoint tried to force the officer to the floor in his own home (sources tell us that the bad guy was shot twice in his penis); and the killing of the career criminal burglar by the Hopkins undergrad this morning.

While the stats show that crime is "down" to many year lows, one has to wonder if the system of measurement is faulty. And though we are pleased that the commish and his team are doing a good job keeping murders down, along with nonfatal shootings, we have to wonder if police intervention in a private civil war is actually having the unexpected side effect of causing other criminals in other areas to be bold and not expect to get caught. And of course, with the economy still in shambles, things will probably get worse before they get better.

I wonder about the criminal justice system, not just the police, and how many, many repeat offenders are out there, who may have been stopped much earlier in their careers with proper interventions or prison.

Our police patrol force has been cut to the bone: each district has, at last check, been assigned 160 officers, for around the clock coverage--no matter how large the district or how bad its problems: the thinking is : the Violent Crimes Impact Division will take care of it. We hope