Baltimore must copy NYC crime strategies

Former New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir outlined the key tactics that reduced the New York’s murder rate by 85 percent, a strategy that could work in Baltimore (“Former NYC police commissioner lays out to reduce Baltimore crime,” Nov. 6). But this will never work as long as Mayor Catherine Pugh and Commissioner Kevin Davis continue to emasculate patrol officers, offer lame excuses for understaffed police ranks and pay only lip service to “accountability.”

There is a true disconnect between the way the city postures itself versus its solemn responsibility to keep its citizens safe. Do the mayor and commissioner believe it’s a display of competence to bring 21 charges against Officer Caesar Goodson Jr. for driving the van in which Freddie Gray was injured yet dither to account for another 300 murders, escalating robberies and assaults and juvenile lawlessness?

Mayor Pugh and Commissioner Davis, it’s time to look in the mirror and recognize that your policing approach has failed. You could start by adopting Mr. Safir’s recommendation to employ “assertive policing … done right and constitutionally.” This year, New York, with 13 times our population, will record fewer than 300 murders. If our city authorities were equally effective, the Baltimore murder “goal” would be 23, not 300! Think about that.