Black American residents of Baltimore, Maryland, are now blaming a lower police presence for the city’s soaring murder rate despite three years of Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists insisting that police be pulled from their neighborhoods.
Baltimore has now experienced higher murder rates for three years in a row after riots and BLM-sponsored protests began rocking the city after the death of Freddie Gray, a suspect who died in police custody in the spring of 2015, National Public Radio (NPR) reported.
Since the riots, police morale has collapsed, and city officials began planning a lighter police footprint in response to complaints of residents and protest leaders.
But now, black leaders are blaming cops for the spiraling murder rate, saying that the police pullback has put them in danger.
The Rev. Kinji Scott, a Baltimore activist, is blaming city hall for leaving the neighborhoods unprotected.
“We wanted the police there,” Scott insisted. “We wanted them engaged in the community. We didn’t want them beating the hell out of us, we didn’t want that.”
Scott and others are now pressuring the city to bring police back in as a deterrent to the soaring crime rate.
Despite the loud proclamations from BLM activists that the police are the problem, Scott and his fellow activists are now claiming that they never wanted police to go away.
In an interview with NPR, Scott claims only the progressive activists wanted cops to be eliminated:
No. That represented our progressives, our activists, our liberal journalists, our politicians, but it did not represent the overall community. Because we know for a fact that around the time Freddie Gray was killed, we start to see homicides increase. We had five homicides in that neighborhood while we were protesting.
What I wanted to see happen was that people would be able to trust the relationship with our police department so that they would feel more comfortable. We’d have conversations with the police about crime in their neighborhood because they would feel safer. So we wanted the police there. We wanted them engaged in the community. We didn’t want them beating the hell out of us, we didn’t want that.
Scott also blamed the city for not fostering a community atmosphere between police and the neighborhoods.
The primary thrust nationwide is what President Obama wanted to do: focus on building relationships with police departments and major cities where there had been a history of conflict. That hasn’t happened. We don’t see that. I don’t know a city—Baltimore for certain—we’ve not seen any changes in those relationships. What we have seen is that the police has distanced themselves, and the community has distanced themselves even further. So the divide has really intensified, it hasn’t decreased.
And of course we want to delineate the whole culture of bad policing that exists—nobody denies that—but as a result of this, we don’t see the level of policing we need in our community to keep the crime down in our cities that we are seeing bleed to death.
This is despite Baltimore protesters carrying signs that read things such as “disarm the police,” or wearing T-shirts promising to kill cops.
The reverend’s claims also seem to fly in the face of a list of 19 demands issued by protesters in 2015, one of which demanded that police be barred from entering certain buildings or parts of neighborhoods they had designated as “safe” from police. Clearly, the protesters wanted police removed from Baltimore’s neighborhoods. But now that they’ve gotten their wish, community leaders have suddenly realized what a bad idea such a pullback is.
You’re the slave, idiot. A slave to hate and ignorance.
A disabled white man was attacked on a Maryland mass transit bus by an African American who seemed to be blaming the victim for putting his ancestors into slavery, according to police.
The 52-year-old victim was a passenger on a Metro bus in the Washington, DC, suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland, when Marquis Evans-Royster, 27, began spitting in his face and hurling racial epithets at him, according to ABC in Washington.
The harassment began almost immediately after Evans-Royster boarded the bus without paying the fare, police said.
The victim, who is homeless and remains unnamed in reports, initially tried to ignore Evans-Royster’s taunts but finally tried to push the attacker away when he began to go through the victim’s pockets while yelling, “You owe me for making my grandmother a slave.”
When other passengers began to try and intervene to stop Evans-Royster from attacking the victim, the attacker threatened to douse them with urine.
The threat caused one bus rider to tell the media that Evans-Royster must also have some sort of mental problem. “Who carries around a bottle a urine?” bus rider Desi Cureton scoffed.
At length, the bus driver threatened to call police causing Evans-Royster to jump off the bus and run away.
Police identified Evans-Royster from bus surveillance video and he was arrested four days after the incident and charged with assault and racial harassment. The attacker already has a long police record including charges of race or religious harassment, robbery, and assault.
Tyrone Kenney, a 70-year-old black man who grew up during the Civil Rights Era, decried the incident.
“It speaks to the state of the times,” Kenney said. “People are desperate, they’re looking for leadership, they’re looking for guidance, but they’re not getting it at home, they’re not getting it from government. It’s a period of time I’ve never seen before.”
Evans-Royster will be represented by a public defender and will next appear in court on October 27.
The switching Sissy doing what he does best: making a total fool of himself.
President Obama’s clashes with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may cost him a membership at an exclusive golf club, sources said.
Obama is looking to join the elite Woodmont Country Club in Maryland once he becomes a private citizen.
But members of the mostly Jewish club are at each other’s throats over whether to accept the golf-loving president, with many saying he deserves to be snubbed for not blocking an anti-Israel vote at the United Nations, according to the sources.
Obama’s UN decision was Followed by a speech by Secretary of State John Kerry that was seen by many in the Jewish community as hostile to Israel.
“In light of the votes at the UN and the Kerry speech and everything else, there’s this major uproar with having him part of the club, and a significant portion of the club has opposed offering him membership,” a source told The Post.
Obama’s complimentary membership in the club — which charges regular members an $80,000 initiation fee — would have begun after he leaves the White House on Jan. 20, Inauguration Day.
The Obamas will continue to live in Washington, DC — and the Rockville club would offer a relaxing respite just miles from his new home. It would also offer a chance for Obama to hit the links on “two premiere golf courses . . . known across the country for their spectacular championship play and . . . rave reviews by golfers throughout the years,” according to the club’s Web site.
“It’s a very exclusive, high-end club,” a source said.
In addition to the steep initiation fee, members must cough up $9,673 in annual dues.
“Originally, this was supposed to be a back-door thing to get this done and give him the membership — free of charge — and circumvent the rules,” said a source.
“But now, with the UN thing, they are not in position or likely to do it,” he added, saying the club is currently facing threats of potential lawsuits and litigation for breaching the bylaws to let Obama join.
Democrats and Republicans in the club both oppose waiving normal procedures for the soon-to-be ex-president, a source said.
While the club “probably skews more Republican than the Jewish community as a whole,” there are many prominent Democratic members, a number of whom supported Obama’s campaigns. But they might not support him now.
“Can you imagine how angry I would be if I had paid $80K to have to look at this guy who has done more to damage Israel than any president in American history?” an official in a Washington Jewish organization fumed to The Post.
“After the UN vote and attack on Israel, I think it probably hurts the club. If there is a club that excludes Jews, he would probably be more comfortable around those folks.”
Obama first played there in September 2015 with aide Joe Paulson, former Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides and John Shulman, head of the private equity firm Juggernaut Capital Partners.
Shulman and his wife, Alison, have donated thousands to the Obama Foundation, according to published reports. His daughter also reportedly attends the Sidwell Friends School, as do the Obamas’ daughters. He did not return calls seeking comment.
When rumors first began to spread in Washington that Obama might consider joining the club, the CEO and general manager, Brian Pizzimenti, welcomed him.
“We’d be honored to have the president at the club as a member,” Pizzimenti told the Jewish publication The Forward. “We’re glad to have offered [Obama] fun and relaxation.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
