Gunpowder Chronicle posted on July 18, 2007 4:31 PM | Rating:
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Showing that the war on crime in Baltimore is failing miserable, and that he was incompetent to the task, Baltimore City Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm -- a longtime veteran of the department, unlike previous failures going back a decade, has stepped down. This according to the Calvert Street Communist Party Newsletter. Mayor Sheila Pratt Dixon-- herself a relative failure as City Council President and now as Mayor -- is expected to announce the resignation formally tomorrow.
With 176 homicides so far this year, the crime wave in Baltimore continues to clime even as murders nationwide decline. The city is on pass to blow past 300 this year for the first time in about ten years. This stat means that for every 100,000 citizens, 51 will be murdered this year. That is a record per capita stat in the history of Baltimore City.
Hamm presided over a number of scandals in the department -- including several alleged rapes by officers in precinct houses, the questionable pension given to Deputy Commissioner Marcus Brown -- as well as the current crime surge.
His departure should be applauded. Frankly, it might be time to start phasing out the entire command staff and giving some of the young turks in the precincts-- who have lived through four commissioners in ten years -- a chance to apply their theories and skills they learned in the war zone that is Baltimore City.
We should also remember that part of Hamm's problem is that he is part of Marty the Mick's legacy of cheerleading without substance.