David Simon: O’Malley ‘Destroyed’ Policing

[DonViejo]

David Simon, creator of The Wire and a former Baltimore journalist, slammed ex-mayor and current presidential candidate Martin O’Malley for “destroying police work in some real respects.” Simon claimed the loss of “all professional ethos” in the police force began with the war on drugs, but “whatever was left of it when [O’Malley] 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.” Simon did, however, say that if O’Malley wins the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, “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.”

Read it at The Marshall Project

###

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/04/29/david-simon-o-malley-destroyed-policing.html

[bravenak]

1. The War on Drugs is a war on the black and the poor.

He is culpable for the fallout from his broken windows policies.

[uponit7771]

3. +1

[Dawson Leery]

2. If O'Malley brought the "broken windows" policy to Baltimore,

we do not need him anywhere near the Whitehouse.

[bigtree]

4. O'Malley left that office in 2007

Simon is wrong to pin whatever is going on now to O'Malley's tenure. He claims that O'malley inflated or 'cooked' the crime statistics, but O'Malley uses FBI numbers and is mostly correct in his statistics on murders:

Fact Check:

One of O'Malley's favorite stump speech lines is about the drop in crime rates in Baltimore when he was the city's mayor. Frequently in speeches, interviews and even his Reddit Ask Me Anything Q&A, he touts that for a 10-year period after he became mayor, the city achieved the "biggest reduction" in crimes (which he sometimes specifies as Part 1 crimes) in any major city in America.

O'Malley served as mayor of Baltimore from 1999 through 2006, and was Maryland governor from 2007 to 2015.

O'Malley is referring to 1999-2009 data from the FBI, which tracks crimes reported to law enforcement agencies. Part 1 crimes are serious crimes that are likely to be reported to police, and are divided into violent and property crimes. These crimes include criminal homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, arson and motor vehicle theft.

At The Fact Checker, we often are critical of politicians bragging about successes during their term — such as job gains and drops in crime — that can result from numerous factors out of their control. But O'Malley uses a specific measurement of FBI data, and his claim about Part 1 crime rates from 1999-2009 check out. It is to his credit that he references this wonky measurement most of the time in his statements, when most politicians would be tempted to drop that caveat.

Moreover, the issue today is police killings, even if one makes the non-credible leap that he's still responsible for the police dept.

Some different perspectives:

The American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP sued the city in 2006 on behalf of 14 people who alleged their arrests indicated a broad pattern of abuse. O'Malley was running for his first term as governor at the time.

The city settled four years later, and agreed to retrain officers and allow an outside auditor to monitor "quality of life" arrests.

"There was, I think, a recognition within the Police Department and eventually at the political level that these strategies were counterproductive, which is what we had said from day one," said David Rocah, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Maryland.

Leaders at the NAACP — the group that brought the 2006 lawsuit against the city — said they no longer believe O'Malley should be held responsible for the police strategy. Gerald Stansbury, president of the Maryland State Conference of the NAACP, said the organization has a solid relationship with the governor.

"Clearly, the police problems go well beyond Martin O'Malley," Stansbury said. "There's been ongoing mistrust for some time."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-police-omalley-politics-20141007-story.html#page=1


“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.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/as-mayor-of-baltimore-omalleys-policing-strategy-sowed-mistrust/2015/04/25/af81178a-ea9d-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html

[DonViejo]

5. Thanks for posting this....

[CTyankee]

6. the drop in crime in that time period could also have been the Roe v. Wade decision.

Women were able to safely and legally end unwanted pregnancies. I know many people won't want to hear this but it is a very arguable point of view. An unwanted child is at risk of lots of bad things happening to them. Reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies meant fewer unwanted, unhappy and even abused children.

Some people can't handle the truth.

[FSogol]

7. +1 n/t

[Vattel]

8. Some people are still trying to pretend that this stuff didn't happen,

or that O'Malley wasn't responsible, but the people remember:

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.


“Now, the mass arrests made clear, we can lock up anybody, we don't have to figure out who's committing crimes, we don't have to investigate anything.”

My own crew members [on “The Wire”] used to get picked up trying to come from the set at night. We’d wrap at like one in the morning, and we’d be in the middle of East Baltimore and they’d start to drive home, they’d get pulled over. My first assistant director — Anthony Hemingway — ended up at city jail. No charge. Driving while black, and then trying to explain that he had every right to be where he was, and he ended up on Eager Street4. Charges were non-existent, or were dismissed en masse. Martin O’Malley’s logic was pretty basic: If we clear the streets, they’ll stop shooting at each other. We’ll lower the murder rate because there will be no one on the corners.

[bigtree]

9. when you critizize for this you omit the dangerousness on the street which compelled the policy

...the reasoning that 'we don't have to figure out who's committing crimes, we don't have to investigate anything' is made up and contrary to his first police commissioner's efforts which initially reduced the backlog of violent crimes, including murders in the city.

It's one thing to accuse their zero-tolerance policy of an abuse of civil liberties - it undeniably was, it was found unconstitutional by the courts - but it's incorrect to represent that policy as the totality of his administration's efforts on policing and crime which included a strong community outreach and consultation effort, as well as actual police reform. There were real and concrete successes during his term as mayor in reducing crimes, including criminal homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, arson and motor vehicle theft.

More importantly, not only did he campaign on a zero-tolerance policy, but it was being asked for, demanded, by many in the community, including some prominent members of the black leadership and clergy who were desperate to make the streets safe from the explosion of violent crime and drug activity.

That's not to excuse the abuses of civil liberties, but it an explanation which belies the cynical reasoning that O'Malley was just practicing some political 'clean up the streets' stunt. There were real and consequential reasons for instituting the police strategy; a focus on reducing violent and aggravating criminality in the Baltimore neighborhoods which persists today. It's actually a separate issue from the criminality surrounding the police killings and abuses today, and it's ludicrous to suggest that policies over a decade ago, policies which were supposedly ended by the administration which followed his term, are responsible for 'mistrust' between youth and police in that community today.

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.

Those successful policies which reduced aggravating and dangerous crimes in the city are not insignificant and should be included in narratives about his police commissioner's discredited policy of arrests - including David Simon's criticism, writer and producer of the fictional television show 'The Wire,' and his biased, inaccurate, and incomplete article.

[Vattel]

10. You are making progress: "That's not to excuse the abuses of civil liberties."

But the cat is out of the bag, and to say that "the dangerousness on the street compelled the policy" is completely false:

So Martin O’Malley proclaims a Baltimore Miracle and moves to Annapolis. And tellingly, when his successor as mayor allows a new police commissioner to finally de-emphasize street sweeps and mass arrests and instead focus on gun crime, that’s when the murder rate really dives. That’s when violence really goes down.

You also make a lot of other false claims about Simon's views, but I will settle for quoting the article you reference:

“We still have men who are suffering from it today,” said Marvin “Doc” Cheathem, a past president of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP, which won a court settlement stemming from the city’s policing policies. “The guy is good at talking, but a lot of us know the real story of the harm he brought to our city.”

. . .

A. Dwight Pettit, a Baltimore lawyer whose clients have won numerous settlements from police brutality complaints, said O’Malley’s “approach to policing when he was mayor was disregard for the Constitution.”

“His philosophy was, ‘Put them in jail and figure it out later,’ and that will solve the crime problem,” he said. “It created a confrontational mentality with the police.”

. . .

In 2005, with O’Malley in office, Cheathem recalled the local NAACP branch being “inundated with calls from African Americans and Hispanic men saying they were being arrested and no charges were being filed.”

A contingent of activists “met with the mayor and shared our anger — that these guys weren’t being charged but were coming out with arrest records,” Cheathem recalled. “We requested that this process be stopped, and he was not receptive to it at all. We left with the idea that we had no recourse but to sue.”

The NAACP joined in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU that was based on the arrest of a 19-year-old man with no prior criminal record who spent hours in jail for dropping a candy wrapper on the street while sitting on the steps of his aunt’s house. The suit named O’Malley and other Baltimore officials, including the police commissioner, and alleged that the Baltimore police had improperly arrested thousands of people “without probable cause and in violation of the U.S. Constitution.”

The complaint was settled four years later, with Baltimore agreeing to pay an $870,000 settlement. By then, O’Malley was governor.

[JonLP24]

11. Right

The OP mentions he brought in Ed Norris who was real police but quit because O'Malley wanted the crime stats.

The murder of Meir Kahane

While commander of the 17th Detective Squad, Norris led the investigation into the murder of Meir Kahane, an American-Israeli rabbi and ultranationalist writer and political figure. At the time, the NYPD officially classified the murder as the act of a lone gunman, over the protests of Norris who warned of a bigger conspiracy. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, it was later revealed that Meir Kahane was the first al-Qaeda murder inside the US, as well as the first incident leading up to 9/11.

Kahane was killed in a Manhattan hotel by an Arab gunman on November 5, 1990 after Kahane concluded a speech warning American Jews to immigrate to Israel before it was "too late.” He was shot by El Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian-born American citizen. Nosair fled the room, shooting 74-year-old Irving Franklin. As Nosair continued onto Lexington Avenue, attempting to flee in a taxi, he saw a police officer approaching him. Nosair stepped out of the taxi and fired shots toward the officer. The officer returned fire and both men lay wounded in the street. Upon searching Nosair's wallet, a list was found containing the names of several New York elected officials along with Nosair's New Jersey address.

At Nosair's home, detectives found and arrested two Egyptian men who admitted to driving taxis for a living as well as being in the vicinity at the time of the shooting. The ensuing search of Nosair's home revealed many items of concern including photographs of New York City landmarks, classified US Military documents, bomb-making manuals and books containing Arabic diagrams that Norris believed to represent plans to hijack an armored car. These diagrams were later revealed to be a plan to assassinate then Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak.

The next morning, while briefing the Chief of Detectives, Norris refuted the NYPD's assertion that this was the act of a single crazed gunman. Norris described the evidence and the drivers of the believed get-away car in custody. The Chief of Detectives told Norris, "you shut up and handle the murder, they do conspiracies," pointing to the FBI agents in the room. Norris was then ordered to release the cab drivers and turn over his documents. Nosair was sent to prison for the Kahane assassination and the cab drivers were released.

One of the released cab drivers later rented the van that was used in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. During the World Trade Center bombing trial, the documents uncovered from Nosair’s home were translated to reveal the words Al Qaeda, and a descriptive roadmap of 9/11. Norris' vision of a bigger plot in the single murder case have been mentioned in The Cell by John Miller and Michael Stone, 1000 Years for Revenge by Peter Lance, House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties by Craig Unger, and several others books.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Norris

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.

<snip>

The city eventually got sued by the ACLU and had to settle, but O’Malley defends the wholesale denigration of black civil rights to this day. Never mind what it did to your jury pool: now every single person of color in Baltimore knows the police will lie — and that's your jury pool for when you really need them for when you have, say, a felony murder case. But what it taught the police department was that they could go a step beyond the manufactured probable cause, and the drug-free zones and the humbles – the targeting of suspects through less-than-constitutional procedure. Now, the mass arrests made clear, we can lock up anybody, we don't have to figure out who's committing crimes, we don't have to investigate anything, we just gather all the bodies — everybody goes to jail. And yet people were scared enough of crime in those years that O’Malley had his supporters for this policy, council members and community leaders who thought, They’re all just thugs.

But they weren’t. They were anybody who was slow to clear the sidewalk or who stayed seated on their front stoop for too long when an officer tried to roust them. Schoolteachers, Johns Hopkins employees, film crew people, kids, retirees, everybody went to the city jail. If you think I’m exaggerating look it up. It was an amazing performance by the city’s mayor and his administration.

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

I'm with you. O'Malley deserves credit for picking Ed Norris but what about Ed Norris quit? He has a solid record of real policing, he later joined The Wire as a cast member so David Simon certainly is well aware of the internal squabbles & for over his long history as a police reporter on what works & what doesn't or just what reporting it as is rather than political spin I think we should pay attention to what David Simon says.

[Vattel]

12. Yes, Simon is an insider with lots of information.

To dismiss his claims about crime statistics being manipulated on the grounds that the FBI stats show a big reduction from 1999-2009 is pretty lame. Where did the FBI get their stats from? Correct me if I am wrong, but I would assume that they relied on the city numbers that Simon is questioning. And notice that O'Malley likes to appeal to a period that extends two years after he left office because the numbers come out better for him that way. The Washington Post's fact checker doesn't even mention that.

[JonLP24]

13. Yes, exactly what I was thinking

The article mentions the bypassing of the first police commissioner that brought those real reductions to manipulate the stats. That is Season 3 of The Wire right there. Its no surprise that Freddie Gray was killed by Western District police officers "the Western District way". He really called it.

Especially when Ed Norris quits because of the City Hall interference & later joins The Wire as a cast member & while I can't find much specifically critical of O'Malley, I certainly can find his opinion on police strategy & he clearly doesn't agree with "zero tolerance"

[bigtree]

14. yeah, Norris joined a fictional TV show as a cast member

...it makes sense that both Norris and Simon want to make their fictional TV show appear to mirror their version of O'Malley and Baltimore. Griping about 'interference' from City Hall reads like a cheap movie script. It stinks to high heaven and it's a joke to pretend the TV series can be used to measure what really occurred during O'Malley's term. The conflict of interest is so glaring that it's only in this digital age that a fictional television show would be believable and accepted as fact by so many.

[JonLP24]

15. When they made the Homicide Life on The Street

the show was inspired by David Simon's book but himself it wasn't the story he wanted to tell because it dramatized the truth, bailed out the audience. The show was different because it showed how individuals were compromised by the institutions. Especially those that want to advance their careers and they clearly had people with high levels of experience including the show creators with David Simon a police reporter with the Baltimore Sun for over 13 years.

It was obvious the inspiration for Tommy Carcetti's run for mayor was Martin O'Malley. You have his friend who he backed initially running against the incumbent, then Carcetti enters it with his friend & the incumbent "split the black vote" now while I never know Martin O'Malley actually uttered those words, it was a factor that helped him become elected coming from a district that only elects white people. Tommy Carcetti himself was idealistic, he was running against the Comstat while Bunny Colvin was the inspiration for "real police" came in was compromised with the massive debt problems the Baltimore Public Schools had came in so he couldn't follow through with his police reforms but went back to the numbers games(clearances & numbers and stats a huge part of the problem). It was social commentary not motivated by scripts & the political games are really that cynical. You go to Police Chief Magazine you see articles detailing how many who have obtained the position hated the political nature of the job as you're half politician/half police chief. Phoenix recently fired a police chief specifically with City Hall calling for his firing because the Unions opposed his reforms including the body cameras.

Another example is Marlo Stanfield was inspired by Timorror Stanfield and judging from this (from The Wire's co-creater) the fictional version is remarkable similar to the real life version.

Stanfield Investigation

The investigative process—incorporating controlled arrests, random interviews, and grand jury investigations—was developed during the 1986 Timmirror Stanfield homicide investigation. Stanfield, a classic gang leader, was 25 years old when he was indicted. He headed a drug gang of more than 50 members that controlled South Baltimore's Westport area and West Baltimore's Murphy Homes housing project. The gang was extremely violent and had grown so bold that it denied postal workers access to Westport on their daily rounds.

The gang was responsible for several murders, and the investigation focused on four of the murders that occurred at the 725 George Street highrise. Former Maryland State Attorney Kurt Schmoke authorized Assistant State Attorney Howard Gersh to use a special grand jury to investigate the gang. Approximately 40 gang members and other neighborhood witnesses testified before the panel. Within 5 months, the four cases were prepared for trial, with 15 gang members ready to testify against Stanfield. Three of the cases were presented for prosecution, and convictions were secured against the nucleus of the gang.

<snip>

Investigations' Conclusions

From the evidence gathered in the Stanfield and Boardley investigations, it appears that only a few members adopted the violent mentality of the core group. The majority of gang members appear to be trapped between their essentially good upbringing and their fear of the gang's violence. Those members who are uncertain and confused are the ones who the investigators target. The process proposes to resolve a subject's conflicts by offering a safe alternative to the gang—cooperation with government officials.

The investigative strategy achieves its primary goals. This process disempowers the leader, disrupts the integrity of the gang, and generates new evidence that leads to successful prosecutions of the gang's nucleus. The investigative process has a significant impact on both those who cooperate and those who are prosecuted. Based on 1998 data, the Murphy Homes area—formerly known as the Murder Homes—has not experienced new gang or gang-related murders. Drug dealing still exists in the neighborhood, but not with the degree of organization or violence imposed by the former gang.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/bja/gang/bja4.html

Of course it wouldn't only be the TV show I'd judge my opinion of him because obviously Tommy Carcetti seems like a different guy, just the political circumstances are similar & inspiration (in a way he was running against the Martin O'Malley type of mayor only to become Martin O'Malley.) It takes it too certain places such as "Hamsterdam&quot the drug war) or the manufactured "homeless serial killer" (to make a point about the state of journalism today) to make a point but I understand the case, the reasons, and the reality that exists to make them plausable. His opinion of O'Malley and his African-American crew getting locked up matters to me on the point of the issue.

In The Wire. "The Western District Way" was a slogan cops used to describe the brutality they inflicted on suspects that ran making them chase them. Recently Freddie Gray ran from Western District cops & what happened. Almost prophetic.

[bigtree]

17. the implication that Norris was hounded out of office by O'Malley goes against his public embrace

... of his police chief. Norris created his own problems by mismanaging how he spent the city's money and the revelation by reporters of a secret 'travel and entertainment' account:

Mayor Martin O'Malley said yesterday that he was angry about the "sloppy" accounting and "poor management" of the "arcane, strange, off-line account" that Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris has been using for travel and entertainment to recruit officers.

O'Malley said the accounting lapses reflected poorly on Norris' management. But the mayor said he was proud to keep Norris on as police commissioner because he is one of the nation's greatest crime fighters, someone who has saved many lives and made Baltimore safer.

Under Norris' leadership, the city Police Department has helped the city to achieve the highest rate of violent crime reduction in the United States, O'Malley said.

"We all have our strengths and weaknesses," O'Malley said. "He has great strengths in saving lives and preventing crime ... but he is not as strong as an accountant."

The mayor said he learned about the "bizarre" account's existence only a few weeks ago, when The Sun started asking for records showing how the money was being spent.

City Council President Sheila Dixon and several other City Council members said they had never heard of the account. Many said the funds should have had better oversight.

"I don't support having a fund like this at all," said Dixon. "Perhaps the money should be used for the Police Athletic League, which is desperate for funds, instead of wining and dining."

Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. said: "We are talking about fiscal responsibility here, and it doesn't sound like Norris used good management practices for the fund."
http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/news/bal-te.md.omalley14aug14,0,6015470.story

(Norris later served time in federal prison for misusing the city police account and lying on his tax returns.)

four police commissioners during his term in office as mayor:

· Ronald L. Daniel : O'Malley's first commissioner, Daniel resigned after a contentious 57 days, during which he and the mayor were at odds over crime-fighting strategies.

· Edward T. Norris : He took over in early 2000 and left in late 2002, when Ehrlich hired him as superintendent of the state police. Norris later did federal prison time for misusing a city police account and lying on his tax returns.

· Kevin P. Clark : He was appointed in early 2003 and fired in late 2004 after O'Malley said Clark's domestic dispute with his fiancee had become too much of a distraction.

· Leonard D. Hamm : Filling in after Clark's departure, Hamm became commissioner...

[JonLP24]

18. The same prosecutor was later reprimanded

I can't remember where that link was but the smoking gun was his father gave him some money that he marked down as "gift" with the prosecutor alleging it should have been "loan" because he paid the money back. Norris claimed the guilty plea was easier because of the mortgage issue he claims it was politically motivated but who knows, but the prosecutor being reprimanded helps him on that point. (Something about e-mails indicating the prosecutor was politically motivated)

In a plea agreement, the mortgage charge was dropped in exchange for a guilty plea of abusing the expense account, which Norris had denied. On March 8, 2004 Norris pled guilty to federal corruption and tax charges.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.md.norris09mar09,0,5325678.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

At any rate, his prior history indicates he really does know policing and I found statements from his radio show where he suggested to "end the drug war" & other things to show he wouldn't be in favor of zero tolerance policing. With his fugitives division and cold case squads those weren't successfully simply by arbitrary arresting people. Publicly saying something & Ed Norris certainly deserves credit because it seems he is real police usually mayors are interested people who "resign quietly" or have some other job or political promise I don't know the inside scoop but you have the article from the David Simon who knows Ed Norris well enough on a personal level to describe some sort of rift over a difference of strategy. I'm not sure what the real story is but I can't expect a politician to be honest about it on public statements to the media.

If I'm not mistaken Shelia Dixon was convicted of embezzlement herself? Same with Ed Norris I don't know the full details of that either.

[bigtree]

19. my point was addressing the assertion (his?) that he was forced out because of political ambition

Last edited Thu Apr 30, 2015, 09:55 AM - Edit history (1)

...on O'Malley's part.

It appears, from the manner in which he was defended by the mayor, that O'Malley had no problem with his policing, contrary to what Simon claims in his article. Moreover, as O'Malley's statement reflects, Norris caused his own exit from the department with his mismanagement of finances, which was revealed by Baltimore Sun reporters. Claiming that his exit was the result of some desire by O'Malley for some untoward effort to inflate crime statistics is unsupported by any evidence presented by Simon and looks self-serving to Norris, who has every interest in minimizing his convictions.

[bigtree]

16. You've made no progress at all in acknowledging there was consequential crime problem in the city

...and you dismiss the drop in crime on one hand and praise his first commissioner for progress in the other. O'Malley has always insisted that the drop in crime was from a combination of policies, but you can only dwell on the zero-tolerance policy as if it was the entirety of his administration's approach. Then you want to take the biased word of this television producer who has every interest in making like his production is real-life drama and accuse O'Malley of the worst motivations for wanting to make more of a difference in the crime in the city he oversaw.

"With nearly 10 percent of the population—60,000 people—addicted to drugs, more than 300 murders a year throughout the 1990s, only 16 percent of third-graders meeting state reading standards, 15 percent of teenagers neither in school nor employed, an unemployment rate twice that of the rest of Maryland, and somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 homes left vacant by the fleeing population, the city turned over to O’Malley was on life support."
http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_can_mayor_omalley.html

God forbid someone assume he actually cared about keeping the community safe, with a murder rate that was six times higher than New York’s when he took office. Heaven forbid we focus on his reform of the police department to make officers more accountable, reform which NAACP's Ben Jealous says resulted in a sharp decline in officer shootings. Don't say a word about his community outreach, expanded minority hiring, creation of an independent civilian review board - don't mention that as governor he decriminalized marijuana possession and repealed the death penalty.

Now, a decade later, the current leadership wants to blame O'Malley for what's happening in Baltimore today. It's ludicrous and self-serving to fault him for the present disintegrating environment while insisting - as Rawlings-Blake does - that they changed police tactics. At some point, the focus has to be on the more pernicious and consequential measure of actual criminality in Baltimore. This griping about a disbanded police policy a decade ago looks to be a way for some to deflect from that point and obscure O'Malley's successes in bring those numbers down. That's not just some abstraction to the people in those communities who have to deal with those criminal acts and enterprises every day.

[FSogol]

20. +1 Well said. n/t

[Vattel]

21. I never said O'Malley had the worst motivations for wanting to reduce crime. Please don't put words

in my mouth. I also never dismissed the drop in crime rate nor did I praise his first commissioner for progress. I think you put Simon's words in my mouth there, and you are confused when you suggest that Simon was somehow contradicting himself.

You also commit a classic ad hominem when you dismiss Simon's perspective on the grounds that he has every interest in making like his production is real-life drama. That is a cheap shot about someone who was a police reporter for years and knows a lot more about what went on then you do.

I don't agree with everything Simon says, but I agree with a lot of it partly because I have other sources that corroborate it.

If it will make you happy I will say that O'Malley made the right choice in making the income tax in Maryland more progressive. And I am glad he helped to eliminate capital punishment and legalize gay marriage. He is a democrat after all and I would hold my nose and vote for him if he were running against Jeb or one of the other Republican clowns. I will have to check on whether Ben Jealous is correct in claiming that under O'Malley there was a sharp decline in officer shootings.

I will continue to tell the truth about O'Malley's horrendous use of the police during his tenure as Mayor even as you try to shine the turd.

[bigtree]

22. the article posted knocks his motivations

...you posted extensive excerpts and you didn't notice where Simon says convicted felon Norris believes he was ousted because of a political motivation by O'Malley's city hall to inflate the crime statistics?

You keep posting this narrow perspective of his successful efforts to reduce crime based on the one policy of zero-tolerance, and I'll continue to present the entire focus and record of his tenure.

Simon's view is compromised by the very article you just posted which is incomplete, biased, and inaccurate. It's remarkable (for the hubris he's spreading) that he'd hire Norris as an actor, much less hold him up as an impartial and unbiased arbiter of O'Malley's policing efforts.


from Lis Smith, Democratic communicator and consultant for Team O'Malley. Former Director of Rapid Response, Obama for America:

Lis Smith @Lis_Smith
Two things I learned today: 1- David Simon is a GREAT fiction writer. 2- Reporters LOVE The Wire. Check the facts: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030201812.html …

[Vattel]

24. Your dishonesty is remarkable.

Bigtree: "you posted extensive excerpts and you didn't notice where Simon says convicted felon Norris believes he was ousted because of a political motivation by O'Malley's city hall to inflate the crime statistics?"

Of course I noticed it, but that hardly justifies putting words in my mouth. The point is that I didn't post anything that would justify your claim that I believe that O'Malley's motivations were purely political. Why not just be honest and admit that you put words in my mouth?

[bigtree]

25. alright, so you don't agree with that point Simon is making

...but you're all stoked that he's a credible source and knocking me for questioning his integrity.

I read you saying that you don't agree that O'Malley's motivations were 'purely' political. I don't know how you reconcile that with what you stated to me earlier in the thread...

"...to say that "the dangerousness on the street compelled the policy" is completely false"

What I don't accept is the qualification of 'purely' you're now making without any proof at all that he was insincere in his efforts to reduce violent crime in Baltimore, as Simon says. What Simon is claiming, by way of using Norris, is that Norris was pushed aside because he wasn't getting the crime numbers O'Malley wanted, insinuating that O'Malley wanted some sort of artificial inflation in the statistics by way of his zero-tolerance policy and the way he tracked crimes committed. That assertion is demonstrably false.

[Vattel]

27. Let me put it this way.

I generally avoid speculating about politicians' motives. I genuinely don't know much about O'Malley's motives for doing the things he did. One motive is clear: he wanted crime rates to go down. Some of the pressure on the police to achieve that result may have led to some of the questionable numbers that Simon talks about, but I don't know much about that. I would love to hear more details about that from Simon.

I don't see why you think that Simon's claims about manipulation of statistics are "demonstrably false," but I am willing to listen if you care to elaborate.

[bigtree]

28. read the article I provided. I can't post the entire report

"If there is a mass conspiracy to downgrade or hide crime, there are a lot of us who would have to be on board with that," said Kristen Mahoney, chief of technical services for the department. "This is really a blanket indictment of real people who come to work every day to do their job."

read: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030201812_2.html

[Vattel]

29. Thanks for the link. I read the whole thing.

That article does not show that Simon's contentions about bad stats are incorrect. There is a lot of disagreement among those quoted. Like most newspaper articles, it is mostly he-said-she-said. Simon, of course, suggests that he has been told horror stories about ways that the stats were manipulated from actual police officers. IMHO it's hard to know what the truth is here.

[BainsBane]

23. I have great respect for David Simon

as the creator of The Wire, a program I have often referred to as the Shakespeare of television.
I take these charges very seriously.

[lovemydog]

26. Same here.