I was pleased to read the recent column by Armstrong Williams on Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates and how he has reduced city crime (“Armstrong Williams: Ivan Bates deserves credit for making Baltimore safer,” Oct. 10).
This newspaper and others have written article after article applauding Mayor Brandon Scott’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy. Scott himself has stood on his soapbox and touted his success. Amazingly, each of these articles fails to mention Marilyn Mosby’s tenure in office and the changes that have taken place under Bates.
Mosby’s policies and failures were devastating for Baltimore. They included leniency on petty crime, plea deals and dismissals for violent crimes and gun offenses resulting in no jail time, poor recruiting and retention in her office and her personal moral lapses. The result was a culture of no consequences for criminals in Baltimore.
During these years, I renovated homes and commercial spaces throughout the city, especially in East Baltimore and Upper Fells Point. Job sites were plagued with theft, vandalism and drug use. Even with hard evidence in the way of photos, videos and persons on site committing crimes in real time, the general attitude from Baltimore Police was, “Why bother? If I arrest them today, they’ll be back on the street tomorrow.” Under Mosby, criminals knew they would go free, and city police officers knew it, too.
Bates has almost doubled the clearance rate on murders and significantly reduced dismissals and plea deals on felony gun cases. He is finally taking the violent offenders off the street and giving the city a chance to thrive. He has also pioneered an alternative to arrest for “quality of life” crimes, insisting on accountability for lawbreakers without setting police and the system up to be overburdened. Police can now make an arrest, and it makes a difference.
Is it any wonder that the murder statistics in Baltimore most closely correlate to the prosecutor’s election? The eight years under Mosby were the worst on record. Bates immediately reversed that trend. Why is Mayor Scott getting the credit?
— Joe Wilner, Baltimore
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