Baltimore After Freddie Gray: MORE Murders, Fewer Cops

Via Reuters:

Already beset by a public outcry over the high-profile death of a black man in police custody and a rising murder rate, Baltimore’s police department is facing another headache: it’s shrinking fast.

The number of uniformed officers in the mid-Atlantic city fell 6.1 percent last year and has shrunk by even more in the first half of this year, according to police data seen by Reuters and not previously reported.

The fall in 2015 was the biggest decline in police numbers among nine comparably-sized U.S. cities reviewed by Reuters. The police force in Detroit and El Paso shrank by 4.9 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively, while Denver and Las Vegas saw increases of over 5 percent. (Graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/28SL0kK)

The reasons for the fall are unclear, but it comes at a difficult time when the number of murders and other violent crimes have risen sharply in Baltimore and many other U.S. cities.

The reasons for the fall are unclear?!?!?!?

Since the Soros-funded anti-cop riots in Ferguson, Missouri, in late 2014, law enforcement in general has been getting horrible media treatment. That’s not to say there aren’t some bad cops out there, but the portrayal has been such that people are supposed to believe the profession itself is evil. Why anyone would want to go into a profession where he or she could be killed every day at a time when progressive activists and the media are consistently trying to ramp up anger against said profession is beyond me.

It isn’t a mystery at all why the number of cops is in decline in unstable areas like Baltimore, Detroit, and El Paso (Hello, Mexican border!).

Police involved in shootings are now tried and convicted on Twitter, but not often in courts of law. The kabuki theater prosecutions being attempted for political gain after the Freddie Gray incident are well on their way to a third “not guilty” verdict.

Lionizing the criminals while demonizing the peacekeepers can only lead to chaos in the long run.

And — as the news from Baltimore shows — a sudden uptick in murders and violent crime.