In the aftermath of the six Baltimore police officers being charged and indicted for the death of Freddie Gray, murder rates in Baltimore have doubled. Many Police apologists along with Gene Ryan, president of Baltimore city’s Fraternal Order of Police, claim that this is because Baltimore police officers are afraid to do their jobs when a “mistake” can land them in jail. While many experts agree that a decline in policing is related to the rising rate of homicide in Baltimore, there is a second theory on what is motivating police in Baltimore to not do their jobs. This is that they may not really give a fuck about actually serving and protecting, and that getting their way all the time is far more important.
The latter argument may carry more weight. After all, it may not be super hard to not accidentally illegally arrest a man, then torture and beat him to the point that his spine is severed, ignore his cries for help, fold him up like “origami,” give the man a “rough ride” in the paddy wagon rather than immediate medical care, lie under oath about it, release an inaccurate timeline of events following the incident, and then leak false information about the man riding the paddy wagon with him. I have a feeling that officers need not cautiously walk on eggshells every minute of every day in order to not wind up accidentally repeating the kind of horrific “mistakes” mentioned above – but that’s just me.
Granted, it must be really hard for the Baltimore police to keep their morale up now that every time they are present in Baltimore there are crowds of about 30 or so citizens surrounding them, and filming them no matter what they do. But all this wouldn’t be happening if it were not for the brutal torture murder of Freddie Gray in the first place. But why bother dealing with the root of the problem when not giving a rat’s ass about the public is always an option?