O'Malley: Blacks are not 'disposable citizens.'

[elleng]

Former Gov. Martin O’Malley on Sunday said that recent racial tensions in Baltimore were the result of national disinterest in black communities.

“What happened in Baltimore should be a wake-up call for the entire country,” O’Malley told host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“We need to stop ignoring people of color and acting like they are disposable citizens,” he said.

“There are people in our cities who feel like they are being totally left behind and disregarded,” O’Malley added. “They’re angry and feel ignored.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/240890-omalley-blacks-are-not-disposable-citizens

[giftedgirl77]

1. He didn't feel that way when he was mayor.

[elleng]

2. Wrong.

[giftedgirl77]

4. Oh yeah, that's why he took the whole broken windows

policing approach? People couldn't sit on their own front stoops without getting harassed & arrested by the cops. Nice try though. Minorities remember the fucked up shit he did & his legacy is still burning bright today. Him trying to sugar coat it with niceties & pandering doesn't change the facts.

[Raine1967]

5. O'Malley left office in 2007 and I am no fan of CompStat — and I want to make that clear.

Last edited Sun May 3, 2015, 08:45 PM - Edit history (1)

To assume that what has happened is O'Malley's total fault, is in my opinion, myopic.

However, there dis a fact check to O'MAlley's claims regarding the crime drop in Baltimore during his tenure. http://readingeagle.com/ap/article/fact-checker-omalleys-claim-about-crime-rates-in-baltimore

I understand that there are going to be critics of O'Malley just as I understand there will be of every candidate.

This is from WaPo.

Crime fell during O’Malley’s mayoralty, with the number of homicides declining by 16 percent — part of a wider decline across much of the country. At the same time, the number of arrests in Baltimore soared, reaching 108,447 in 2005, or about one-sixth of the city’s population.

“What was positive was that there was zero-tolerance for criminals and drug dealers locking down neighborhoods and taking neighborhoods hostage,” said the Rev. Franklin Madison Reid, a Baltimore pastor. “Does that mean there was no down side? No. But the bottom line was that the city was in a lot stronger position as a city after he became mayor.”

Benjamin T. Jealous, a former president of the national NAACP who worked with O’Malley when Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, credited him for supporting a civilian review board as mayor and for a sharp drop in police shootings that occurred during that time. Jealous said O’Malley’s “mass incarceration” police strategy is “a separate issue” than police brutality, and “a conversation for a different day.”


“It was a period where a lot of mayors were doing whatever they could to try to reduce crime,” Jealous said.

People who lived in Baltimore at the time might be better suited to address this issue, of that I am aware, but I do believe that what was stated in the OP does come from an honest place.

To assume the opposite of that just makes this an either/or discussion. I don't like CompStat, it looked fine and good on paper in 1995 but it didn't work so well with city police departments across the nation. Speaking for myself alone, it is because the biggest problem was a lack of community policing. That was not just in Baltimore.

[giftedgirl77]

6. No, it wasn't just Baltimore but that doesn't exonerate him.

One sixth of the population was incarcerated, that in itself is unacceptable. He has to live with what he did & people who have lived through shit like that have no sympathy for the excuse of well it was the norm at the time. I don't like being harassed for being latina & sitting on my stoop it's bullshit & will never vote for anyone that ever enforced anything of the sort.

[Raine1967]

7. Ok. You will never vote for him.

That's fine. I did not use the word exonerate.

Please re-read the SoP. Discussion is fine, and encouraged.

I understand that you will not vote for this person should he become a candidate.

[giftedgirl77]

8. I'm well aware of the SOP, O'Malley stands a snowballs chance

in hell of getting the nomination based solely on his treatment of minorities. That's not something he can just whitewash away & we are too much of the voting block to make it otherwise.

[Raine1967]

10. Perhaps this is not the group for you.

GD is a good place for the issues you raise.

This is a group for O'Malley supporters and people who want to learn more about him.

I don't believe it is a place to turn a blind eye to issues that you raise. I addressed them. You disagree, and as thus I suspect we are done. Speaking for myself, I am not going to go around debating you on an issue (arguably a very important one, and one that am not dismissing) that you have made clear is your line in the sand. I respect that.

[FSogol]

12. Every major city in this country followed that form of policing between 1990s and ealry 2000s.

They did it due to the drop in NYC's crime rate after adopting that policy. By the mid 00s, everyone was moving away from it due to over-policing, arresting innocent people, profiling, etc.

O'Malley employed those policies when he arrived as Mayor (999), but moved away from them for the reasons stated. The number of arrests dropped each year in Baltimore as did the crime rate.

By the end of his Mayoral term he had moved away from that policy and instead used a model called Citistat. It used community policing (cops assigned to certain neighborhood who got to know the residents and could tell where the problems were and targeted policing at know problem spots, such as drug markets.)

He did not employ those methods as Governor. Unlike say, Giuliani, O'Malley changed, evolved, and modified his approach until he got a fairer/more workable system.

From a 2010 article in the Baltimore Sun:

A lawsuit filed in 2006 on behalf of 14 people alleged that their arrests indicated a broad pattern of abuse in which thousands of people were routinely arrested without probable cause. The suit also alleged that the so-called "zero tolerance" system was endorsed and enforced by city officials under the tenure of then-mayor Martin O'Malley.

In a joint statement with the plaintiffs, the police department said it has agreed to institute policies that reject the "zero tolerance policing" and establish a range of appropriate officer responses to minor offenses. The department will issue written directives that spell out the elements of common minor offenses to ensure that officers are aware of the scope of their authority, and will train every officer on the new policies for offenses, the statement said.

Arrests in the city have fallen by the tens of thousands since O'Malley became governor, and the ACLU and NAACP said in the statement that they recognize that the current city leadership has taken steps to address the issue and "applaud those efforts."

What do community leaders in Baltimore think about O'Malley? From a recent Washington Post article:

“What was positive was that there was zero-tolerance for criminals and drug dealers locking down neighborhoods and taking neighborhoods hostage,” said the Rev. Franklin Madison Reid, a Baltimore pastor. “Does that mean there was no down side? No. But the bottom line was that the city was in a lot stronger position as a city after he became mayor.”

Benjamin T. Jealous, a former president of the national NAACP who worked with O’Malley when Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, credited him for supporting a civilian review board as mayor and for a sharp drop in police shootings that occurred during that time. Jealous said O’Malley’s “mass incarceration” police strategy is “a separate issue” than police brutality, and “a conversation for a different day.”“It was a period where a lot of mayors were doing whatever they could to try to reduce crime,” Jealous said.

O'Malley's statements on the issue:

Over the past year, as he has criss-crossed the country, O’Malley has talked about alleged police misconduct in places such as Ferguson, Mo. and North Charleston, S.C. On Saturday, he called Gray’s death “another awful and horrific loss of life.”
“Whether it’s a police custodial death or a police-involved shooting,” O’Malley said, “we all have a responsibility to ask whether there’s something we can do to prevent such a loss of life from happening in the future.”

Earlier this month, at a civil rights event convened by the Rev. Al Sharpton, O’Malley said his crime-reduction efforts as mayor saved many lives. “There are a thousand fewer black men in Baltimore who died violent deaths over the last 15 years than otherwise would have died had we not come together.”

[Jim Lane]

14. You've badly garbled the statistic

You write: "One sixth of the population was incarcerated, that in itself is unacceptable."

The actual datum was that the number of arrests was equal to one-sixth of the number of people living in the city. I'm sure quite a few didn't lead to incarceration. Furthermore, because some people were undoubtedly arrested multiple times, it wouldn't even be correct to say that one-sixth of the people were arrested.

There was certainly a big increase in arrests, because of a change in the city's approach to policing -- a change that probably had both good and bad consequences.

[bravenak]

3. Agreed.

[giftedgirl77]

9. Didn't realize this was the O'Malley group trashing now

so as not to offend those that don't want to see him for what he is.

[Raine1967]

11. Trashing?

You are the only one trashing. I am trying to have a discussion with you and it appears that you are not happy about that.

this post makes little sense. Once again, perhaps you might be better served posting elsewhere on DU.

[giftedgirl77]

13. No, I just don't want to offend anyone in here with my opposing views

I would support O'Malley in the general, but I have nothing good to say about him now. So to avoid accidently posting in here again I'll just hide his group.