Back in Baltimore, Martin O’Malley is heckled, and could face political fallout

[brooklynite]

Source: Washington Post

BALTIMORE —Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley was heckled on a packed street corner in West Baltimore on Tuesday, after he cut short a trip to Europe to return to the city he led as mayor for seven years.

O’Malley (D), who is preparing to launch a White House bid, waded into a crowd near the burned-out shell of a CVS pharmacy that was destroyed and looted Monday night. He was confronted by two men on motorcycles who shouted expletives and blamed the recent violence in the city on O’Malley’s tough-on-crime policies from 1999 to 2007.

“I just wanted to be present. There’s a lot of pain in our city right now, a lot of people feeling very sad,” O’Malley told reporters at the scene. “Look, we’ve got to come through this together. We’re a people who’ve seen worse days, and we’ll come through this day.”

...snip...

The mayhem that broke out Monday following the funeral of Freddie Gray — who died after being injured in police custody — complicates that narrative. And the unrest has given critics of O’Malley’s aggressive policing strategy a fresh platform to blame him for some of the deep-seated mistrust between the city’s police and the poor communities, more than eight years after he left the mayor’s office.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/back-in-baltimore-omalley-seeks-healing-could-face-political-fallout/2015/04/28/1fc4fc54-ede7-11e4-a55f-38924fca94f9_story.html

[davidpdx]

1. Well there goes O'Malley

They are topping like dominoes.....

[mountain grammy]

2. uh oh, trouble for O'Malley

turns out giving police free reign with a zero tolerance policy, which translates to do whatever you want, isn't the way to fight crime. This was his policy and he will have to answer for it. Let's see how truthful he will be about a failure of the police force to understand the difference between actual crime and just living life while black.

[Omaha Steve]

3. The right wing W Post points a finger at D....shocking

It has been 8 years since he left. IF this is all they have to knock him out of running Hillary might not have the coronation many think is her destiny.

OS

[Blue_Adept]

6. It's not like the reasons for what's going on is new. It's just more publicized

And caught on film.

Plenty of it will come out on him in the next year as well. Like a lot of Hillary's positions, his on crime as Mayor is fair game to be looked at and delved into. And criticized.

[still_one]

12. The Washington Post sure isn't the paper it used to be, and now that Bezos has taken over, I doubt

it will get any better.

[heaven05]

4. democrat, huh?

no surprise there. My progressive/liberal comrade, eh?.....

[malthaussen]

5. "Died after being injured in police custody."

Kind of a spineless way to put it. In a manner of speaking. I suppose the paper doesn't want to go suggesting any responsibility for the death.

-- Mal

[Sunlei]

7. Where are any republicans, why can't they visit the community?

[bravenak]

8. O'malley was a BIG TIME over policer and a liberal drug warrior.

Would never have voted for him anyway.

[darkangel218]

9. What do you mean by that?

Not a sarcastic question, just sincerely want to know .

[Eric_323]

11. David Simon explains some of it.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish

[darkangel218]

17. Thank you.

[JonLP24]

15. In addition to Eric's link

Also from David Simon

To quote him: "In my city, Baltimore, we had a mayor, Martin O'Malley, who decided he was going to escalate the drug war. Zero tolerance was his mantra, and he put it out there: "Get everybody off the corners. Clear the corners." He was running for governor, so, for political reasons, he was basically trying to clear the street a year in advance of the election. We were filming The Wire in Baltimore at the time. And it got to the point that my African-American crew members and actors couldn't get back to their hotel without getting locked up, because they were driving while black. It was just presumed they were out there to cop drugs. So every now and then I'd have to go down and bail out my assistant director or one of my actors. Now, that was what was happening to people who were somewhat notable and had something to say to the cop. Can you imagine how many regular Baltimoreans went down to the city jail charged with nothing?" http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/30/david-simon-americas-war-on-drugs

[darkangel218]

16. Hmm.. thanks. I didnt know that.

[turbinetree]

10. Again

the comments by Orioles COO Angelo's yesterday says it all---its about what economically is happening across this country with our trade policies and other issues being under assault, no funding for jobs, voter suppression, militarization of the police force, a failed news media like Fix (fox) Noise and there propaganda and what Jon Stewart said last night about CNN and there reporting, lack legislation at the state and federal level, the creating of the have's and the have not's classes, etcetera.
This is not one governor or his policies or one mayor.
Why did Hogan wait?
Why didn't he offer to help the mayor before the burial-----I mean really?
This can also be placed at his feet and Ehrlich's feet also, we can blame anyone and everyone, the solutions are to get jobs, respect back into society, and right now, fill in the blank.........

[JustAnotherGen]

13. Very odd

They came crawling out of the woodwork to blame the guy that hasn't been in office for 8 years?

That's odd . . . something doesn't sit right with me?

Maybe it's the Sanders campaign?

[JonLP24]

14. Have you ever known Sanders to be into dirty tricks?

Martin O'Malley ran on zero tolerance policing, it isn't likely people on the receiving end of that to ever forget something like that.

The drug war began it, certainly, but the stake through the heart of police procedure in Baltimore was Martin O’Malley3. He destroyed police work in some real respects. Whatever was left of it when he took over the police department, if there were two bricks together that were the suggestion of an edifice that you could have called meaningful police work, he found a way to pull them apart. Everyone thinks I’ve got a hard-on for Marty because we battled over “The Wire,” whether it was bad for the city, whether we’d be filming it in Baltimore. But it’s been years, and I mean, that’s over. I shook hands with him on the train last year and we buried it. And, hey, if he's the Democratic nominee, I’m going to end up voting for him. It’s not personal and I admire some of his other stances on the death penalty and gay rights. But to be honest, what happened under his watch as Baltimore’s mayor was that he wanted to be governor. And at a certain point, with the crime rate high and with his promises of a reduced crime rate on the line, he put no faith in real policing.
Martin O’Malley3O'Malley was mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007, governor of Maryland from 2007 to 2015, and may seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2016.
“The drug war began it, certainly, but the stake through the heart of police procedure in Baltimore was Martin O’Malley.”

Originally, early in his tenure, O’Malley brought Ed Norris in as commissioner and Ed knew his business. He’d been a criminal investigator and commander in New York and he knew police work. And so, for a time, real crime suppression and good retroactive investigation was emphasized, and for the Baltimore department, it was kind of like a fat man going on a diet. Just leave the French fries on the plate and you lose the first ten pounds. The initial crime reductions in Baltimore under O’Malley were legit and O’Malley deserved some credit.

But that wasn’t enough. O’Malley needed to show crime reduction stats that were not only improbable, but unsustainable without manipulation. And so there were people from City Hall who walked over Norris and made it clear to the district commanders that crime was going to fall by some astonishing rates. Eventually, Norris got fed up with the interference from City Hall and walked, and then more malleable police commissioners followed, until indeed, the crime rate fell dramatically. On paper.

How? There were two initiatives. First, the department began sweeping the streets of the inner city, taking bodies on ridiculous humbles, mass arrests, sending thousands of people to city jail, hundreds every night, thousands in a month. They actually had police supervisors stationed with printed forms at the city jail – forms that said, essentially, you can go home now if you sign away any liability the city has for false arrest, or you can not sign the form and spend the weekend in jail until you see a court commissioner. And tens of thousands of people signed that form.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish

David Simon before Freddie Gray

To quote him: "In my city, Baltimore, we had a mayor, Martin O'Malley, who decided he was going to escalate the drug war. Zero tolerance was his mantra, and he put it out there: "Get everybody off the corners. Clear the corners." He was running for governor, so, for political reasons, he was basically trying to clear the street a year in advance of the election. We were filming The Wire in Baltimore at the time. And it got to the point that my African-American crew members and actors couldn't get back to their hotel without getting locked up, because they were driving while black. It was just presumed they were out there to cop drugs. So every now and then I'd have to go down and bail out my assistant director or one of my actors. Now, that was what was happening to people who were somewhat notable and had something to say to the cop. Can you imagine how many regular Baltimoreans went down to the city jail charged with nothing?" http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/30/david-simon-americas-war-on-drugs

The idea that this is dirty tricks from Bernie Sanders of all people or RW media is or people crawling out of the woodwork is silly when this was something very real from Martin O'Malley.