A QUAGMIRE IN BALTIMORE:

A city council leader, alarmed by Baltimore’s rising homicide rate, wants to give the mayor the power to put troubled neighborhoods under virtual lockdown.

“Desperate measures are needed when we’re in desperate situations,” City Council Vice President Robert W. Curran told The (Baltimore) Sun. He said he would introduce the legislation next week.

Under Curran’s plan, the mayor could declare “public safety act zones,” which would allow police to close liquor stores and bars, limit the number of people on city sidewalks, and halt traffic during two-week intervals.

Police would be encouraged to aggressively stop and frisk individuals in those zones to search for weapons and drugs.

This “surge” approach sounds novel. Perhaps if it works we can try it elsewhere. . . .

UPDATE: Reader Charles Rutt emails: “Obviously, we need to just leave Baltimore. We’ve been there for almost 200 years and still don’t have it under control. I think we should cut off funding to the city to teach them that we mean business and be out of there by the end of summer. I’ve got 29 Senators who agree with me…. ”

Only 29?

Meanwhile, Brian Noggle notices something missing from the story. Okay, he’s being sarcastic. But sadly it echoes a lot of the kind of stuff we’ve been hearing from the left.