Baltimore mayor fires top cop
Former commissioner Anthony Batts faced criticism after riots, surge in crime
WASHINGTON— Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore announced Wednesday that she had decided to replace the city’s police commissioner, Anthony Batts, citing arecent “crime surge” within the city as the primary reason for her decision.
The mayor acted just hours after the police union issued a report critical of the department’s response to the riots set off by death of Freddie Gray, an unarmed black man who suffered a fatal spinal cord injury while in police custody in April.
At a news conference at city hall on Wednesday afternoon, Rawlings-Blake said debate over Batts’s leadership had been “a distraction” that took away from her mission to make the city safer.
“Recent events have placed an intense focus on our police leadership, distracting many from what needs to be our main focus: the fight against crime. So we need a change,” the mayor said.
She continued, “This was not an easy decision but it’s one that is in the best interest of the people of Baltimore.”
The mayor’s office said Kevin Davis, the deputy police commissioner, would run the department on an interim basis, effective immediately.
Rawlings-Blake and Batts, who are both African-American, had been watched closely in the aftermath of Gray’s death because it was the first time since disturbances in Ferguson, Mo., that a city led by African-American officials had faced the same kinds of tensions over police conduct in the death of an unarmed black man that erupted both in the St. Louis suburb and in New York City.
The mayor appointed Batts in 2012 after he had resigned as the police chief in Oakland, Calif., hailing him as capable of overhauling a police department that had been mired in scandal and accusations of brutality.
Batts faced criticism in Baltimore after the unrest in April. Six officers have been indicted in Gray’s death.
The report released Wednesday by
“Recent events have placed an intense focus on our police leadership, distracting many from what needs to be our main focus: the fight against crime.” STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE BALTIMORE MAYOR
the city’s police union, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, was highly critical of the department’s handling of those disturbances, which devolved into rioting and arson. The city has also seen a recent increase in homicide. In its “after-action review,” issued Wednesday morning, the union said its members reported they “lacked basic riot equipment, training and, as events unfolded, direction from leadership.”
The report complained that “the passive response to the civil unrest had allowed the disorder to grow into full-scale rioting” and that officers had followed direct orders from their commanders “not to intervene or engage the rioters.”
Despite the timing of the dismissal, the mayor insisted she had not acted to placate the police union.
Instead, she said, her motivation was the spate of murders that has erupted in the city during the past month.
At the news conference, Rawlings-Blake commended Batts for “serving the city with distinction,” citing improvements in transparency and accountability. But she said he had become a distraction from crime fighting.
“We cannot continue to have the level of violence we’ve seen, particularly over the recent weeks, in our city,” she said. “We have made progress, and I don’t want to lose any of that progress.”
She said new leadership was needed to stem a recent surge of violence, including the deaths of three people in a quadruple shooting near the University of Maryland, Baltimore, on Tuesday night.
The city’s homicide rate spiked soon after riots overtook much of West Baltimore on April 27. The city recorded 42 homicides in May, the deadliest month in 25 years. There have been 31 homicides in the past month. With files from Star wire services