Community Corner

Readers Sound Off on Northern Distrtict Crime Spike

Patch gives readers a chance to share their opinion on controversial or interesting topics.

 Christian

One of the major reasons for the spike is due to the current economic conditions and unemployment in the city, along with a blatant disregard for human life. To offset this the BCPD must have visible police presence in the communities within the Northern District and establish a "Neighborhood Watch" program rather than the existing neighborhood patrols attended by men, women and children. The Neighborhood Watch program is far superior to these planned walks in the community because the neighbors know who should be in the neighborhood and can report to the police any suspicious activities. Bring back the cop on the beat because he/she will know her neighborhood and be able to assist the neighbors in any crime related issue on a one person to another basis.

Eliot Watts

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The Northern is lead by a bunch of clowns, that's why there is problems, no leadership. What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall when Batts realizes what he has in command staff.

Kerry Craven

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What I would welcome is a beat cop presence in some of the Northern neighborhoods. They have proven statistically that the physical presence of officers on foot is one of the biggest deterrents to crimes of opportunity. I also don't think it helps when a citizen calls the detective of record about a case (in response to a wanted composite) that they don't take the caller's number, don't ask more specific questions. Let's see if they check out the lead provided to them........There is also a huge disconnect in the reporting of crimes in conjunction with the crime maps out there.....they are exceedingly out of date. What about a flyer to the community, especially about potential serial sexual assaulters???

baltochick

I second and third the request for beat cop presence. I'm a lifetime city girl and I can remember "back in the day" when we had cops on the beat in the city. It made a world of difference when there were feet on the ground instead of the drive by policing with spotlights that we get now. We knew our neighborhood cop by name and he knew us. A mutual respect grew and It became easy for him to spot someone "out of place." Residents knew they could trust him. I've been told that there's an increased presence of officers in our neighborhood (Better Waverly / Waverly) right now as the result of the uptick in burglaries, but I can honestly say I haven't felt it or seen it first hand. Being a city child I've never been afraid of my home, but I can say that the rash of break ins in the neighborhood does have me on edge and I don't feel like my property is safe when I'm not there. Thank goodness for alarm systems.

Dee Spencer

The city budget issues have impacted the police budget also. We understand that special ops officers -- plainclothes robbery and drug units, for instance -- are virtually non-existent. We must have investigators in the field building quality cases and not leaving it up to patrol cops who would likely only witness and be able to charge lesser crimes.

Sean Tully

Thanks God nobody has said the increase is because the great Bealefeld is gone. The fact is that Tom Kiefaber has it mostly right in that our leadership stinks and nothing in this city is going to change as long as we keep putting in office these people. I am a Democrat but I really think Baltimore would benefit from a "Rudy" Giuliani type Republican. We also need to bring back the "broken window" theory policing.


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