Posted on 09/28/22
| News Source: FOX45
During a quarterly crime data update, members of the Baltimore City Council got a glimpse of the Baltimore Police Department’s summer deployment strategy results and demanded more proactive efforts are done to curb the violence.
The Public Safety and Government Operations Committee hearing, chaired by Councilman Mark Conway, peppered Deputy Commissioner Richard Worley with questions during the nearly two-hour hearing. Worley started by walking through some statistics from the summer deployment strategy; Worley said 560 warrants were served during the summer, including 15 homicide warrants and 18 non-fatal shooting warrants.
The hearing Wednesday came just a few months after several of the same council members, led by Councilman Eric Costello, demanded a short-term deployment strategy from BPD before Baltimore entered the summer months, which historically, also meant a rise in crime.
“Our numbers were up slightly, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a success,” Worley said when asked whether he thought the deployment strategy was a success.
Conway said he wants to see more data from BPD to help illustrate what’s working and what’s not as communities continue to grapple with gun violence.
“I think we got some of the questions answered that we needed but I would really like to see more data,” Conway said. “If we are seeing success in certain areas, we should be able to see that and understand how we can replicate it in other areas. If we aren’t seeing success, we need to be honest about it.”