Baltimore mayor fires police commissioner
BALTIMORE: Baltimore’s mayor fired t he troubled city’s police commissioner on Wednesday, saying that a recent spike in homicide rates weeks after a black man died of injuries in police custody required a change in leadership.
Mayor Stephanie RawlingsBlake thanked Police Commissioner Anthony Batts for his service — and praised the job he had done — but said growing criticism of his leadership had become a “distraction” that was preventing the city from moving ahead.
Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Davis will serve as interim commissioner, Ms Rawlings-Blake said.
“We need a change,” the mayor told a news conference with Mr Davis by her side. “This was not an easy decision but it is one that is in the best interests of Baltimore. The people of Baltimore deserve better and we’re going to get better.”
The firing comes less than three months after the city broke out into riots following the death of Freddie Gray, who died in April of injuries he received in police custody. Six police officers have been criminally charged in Gray’s death.
After the violence, arrests in the city plummeted and the city’s homicide rate increased.
On Tuesday night, gunmen jumped out of two vans and fired at a group of people a few blocks from an urban university campus, killing three people. A fourth person sought treatment for a gunshot wound to the buttocks and was in a stable condition.
“As we have seen in recent weeks, too many continue to die on our streets, including three just last night and one earlier today,’’ Ms Rawlings-Blake said. Referring to Mr Batts, she said that “recent events proved that his being here was a distraction”.
“A key goal of my administration is making Baltimore a safer place. We cannot continue to debate the leadership of the department. We cannot continue to have the level of violence we’ve seen in recent weeks in this city. We have made progress; I don’t want to lose that progress.”
The mayor said that in addition to reducing crime, Mr Davis would “bring accountability to police, hold officers who act out of line accountable for their actions.”
On Tuesday, the police department announced that an outside organisation will review the department’s response to the civil unrest that followed Gray’s death. Most of the unrest took place on April 27, prompted by Gray’s death on April 19. In the meantime, the US Justice Department is conducting a civil rights review of the department. Mr Batts has been criticised by the Baltimore police union.
Ms Rawlings-Blake appointed Mr Batts as police commissioner in September 2012.
He has had more than three decades of experience in law enforcement, according to his biography on the Baltimore Police Department website, including serving as chief of police in Long Beach, California, and Oakland, California.