A disturbing account of Baltimore’s murder rate and the relationship between the Police Department and the African-American community was the cover story in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine.

This is how the article ends:

The meeting was standing room only. “We just want to feel safe, period,” Monique Washington, president of the Edmondson Village Community Association, told Harrison. “Our people are in fear, and we’re tired.”

An hour into the forum [with new Police Commissioner Harrison], a neighborhood resident named Renee McCray stepped up to the microphone. She described how bewildering it had been to accompany a friend downtown, near the tourist-friendly Inner Harbor, one night a few months earlier. “The lighting was so bright. People had scooters. They had bikes. They had babies in strollers. And I said: ‘What city is this? This is not Baltimore City.’ Because if you go up to Martin Luther King Boulevard” — the demarcation between downtown and the west side — “we’re all bolted in our homes, we’re locked down.” She paused for a moment to deliver her point. “All any of us want is equal protection,” she said.

It was a striking echo of the language in the Department of Justice [that resulted in a consent decree governing police conduct] the activists’ condemnations of the police following Gray’s death. Back then, the claims were of overly aggressive policing; now residents were pleading for police officers to get out of their cars, to earn their pay — to protect them.

You could look at this evolution as demonstrating an irreconcilable conflict, a tension between Shantay Guy and Tony Barksdale never to be resolved. But the residents streaming into these sessions with Harrison weren’t suggesting that. They were not describing a trade-off between justice and order. They saw them as two parts of a whole and were daring to ask for both.

 

I represent neighborhoods where people have babies in strollers. I represent Monique Washington and her neighborhood, where the residents live in fear.

I represent constituents whose primary concern is the injustice of unconstitutional police tactics. I represent constituents whose primary concern is the crime in their community.

What am I doing to address these problems?

I will continue to go to bat for a constituent or a neighborhood group with a complaint about police conduct or public safety.  I will advocate for additional resources to make our neighborhoods safer – more police, better policing, and other safety programs.

This session, I supported legislation allowing  Johns Hopkins  to hire police at a time when there are 500 vacancies  in the City police force. The future of the Police Training Academy in Northwest Baltimore is uncertain. My 41st District colleagues and I have written Mayor Catherine Pugh about this matter.

I opposed placing armed police officers inside school buildings because we must invest in our students instead. The long-term solution is public education. I’ve written before about the Kirwan Commission recommendations. I will redouble my efforts to see that additional money is spent wisely in our public schools.

Baltimore’s future is at stake.

I welcome your thoughts.