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Ehrlich Ads Hammer O'Malley on Crime
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Deputy Commissioner Marcus Brown said the department is more committed than ever to reducing homicides. But he pointed to a two-inch-thick binder to explain what officers are up against. It contained the often-lengthy criminal histories -- not of the assailants but of this year's homicide victims . "The criminals now are the majority of the victims of homicides in Baltimore," he said.
Sharpe, 35, the city's 176th homicide victim, had been arrested at least 13 times, including five times for drugs, four times for assault and once for attempted murder, according to police records.
In that 2005 attempted-murder arrest, Sharpe repeatedly struck a man in the head with an aluminum baseball bat in a dispute over a girlfriend, according to police. The charge was dismissed by prosecutors, in part because the victim failed to testify.
In his 13 arrests, the stiffest sentence Sharpe received was 30 days in jail for a drug conviction, according to police records. In most instances, prosecutors opted not to proceed with the case.
Therein lies a large part of the problem, said City Council member James B. Kraft (D). He said the office of Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy (D) routinely drops charges it should not and agrees to lighter sentences than it should, particularly in gun cases.
Jessamy and her aides, meanwhile, cite what they call shoddy police work. A drug distribution charge against Sharpe, for example, was dropped this year because the arresting officer failed to show up in court. Police corruption cases have also made it more difficult to win convictions, prosecutors say.
John Morton III, a former bank executive who was the incoming chairman of the Greater Baltimore Committee when O'Malley took office, said the mayor's goal did galvanize police, as business leaders had hoped.
"In retrospect, it was probably a stretch goal and unrealistic," Morton said. "But what was important is he made it a target and tried to achieve it."
