Armstrong Williams: Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott’s crime numbers don’t add up | STAFF COMMENTARY
The question is: Are Mayor Brandon Scott’s misleading crime messages unwitting or intentional?
At the American Music Awards In 2009, hip-hop mogul Jay-Z famously countered rapper 50 Cent, who had been taking public shots at him, with the now legendary words: “Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t,” referring to his rival’s music sales.
Numbers similarly discredit Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott’s crime reduction promises and assertions. Among other things, he pledged to slash homicides and shootings 15% each year during his four-year term, a goal he met only once in his first three years, and is on track to miss again this year, if current homicide trends continue.
The question is: Are Mayor Brandon Scott’s misleading crime messages unwitting or intentional?
During his first year, homicides and shootings increased. In the second year, the numbers remained flat. In 2023, his third year, numbers showed a plunge in homicides and shootings. But who deserves the credit? Some say U.S. Attorney Erek Barron’s “Al Capone” style of prosecution on the federal level is responsible. Others credit State’s Attorney Ivan Bates, who entered office promising prison terms for illegally possessing firearms. But only rank partisans credit Mayor Scott, who took office in December 2020.
Moreover, while homicides and shootings fell in 2023, many other categories of crime jumped in neighborhoods across the city, according to my analysis of Baltimore City Police Department data, including rape, aggravated assault, auto theft and burglary. Baltimore residents do not feel safe, according to opinion polls — including one released this month by The Sun, Fox45 and the University of Baltimore — regardless of the rhetoric Mayor Scott and his cronies continue to spout.
Baltimore police numbers show a jump in crime in 221 of the 278 neighborhoods that make up Charm City. Only 46 neighborhoods witnessed crime reduction, while crime remained level in 11.
Auto theft in Baltimore rocketed 133% in one year alone. Mayor Scott’s ballyhooed redevelopment area around the Inner Harbor hosted 2,154 reported violent and quality-of-life crimes in the past two years.
In Scott’s backyard of East Baltimore, communities such as Belair-Edison saw a 109% increase in property crime over the past year, while neighborhoods such as Berea — a tight-knit African American community — witnessed auto thefts increase 675%.
Little Italy and other historic areas witnessed a 500% climb in auto thefts and 118% hike in violent crime during the last year. No neighborhood is safe, including communities represented by some of the city’s most influential politicians.
In Bolton Hill, the longtime residency of City Council President Nick Mosby and his ex-wife, former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, property crime spiked 41% with a rash of stolen automobiles going from 16 cases in 2022 to 101 in 2023. In City Comptroller Bill Henry’s Radnor Winston neighborhood, aggravated assault, burglary, auto theft and larceny mushroomed.
Mayor Scott continues to tout the success of his Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS). But the numbers tell a different story. Crime jumped in 17 of the 21 neighborhoods in the Western District of Baltimore. Three communities saw crime fall. No change was reported in one neighborhood.
While historically violent areas of this district witnessed progress in 2023, with a 9% decrease in total crime in Upton, for example, neighborhoods such as Sandtown-Winchester — home of the riots following the death of young Freddie Gray while in police custody — saw a dramatic 30% hike in crime. Besides the 14% increase in violent crime, this area of West Baltimore witnessed a 95% increase in robberies, which includes a 200% increase in commercial robberies, as well as a 300% increase in arsons and a 252% increase in auto theft.
In his recent press conference with Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, Mayor Scott trumpeted their professed partnership in fighting crime through the GVRS initiative. But the putative beneficiaries of the supposed crime-fighting success were nowhere to be seen or heard. They are figments of the imaginations of Scott and Brown — much like the “honesty” and “candor” Mr. Brown, who lives in Prince George’s County, claims city residents received from the first-term mayor.
In the next election, Baltimore voters will no longer be willing to throw the dice with their lives or property. Has Mayor Scott occupied his office too long for any good he has done?
The residents of Baltimore deserve better than Scott’s revisionist crime data. It’s far too important a subject — life and death in some cases — to cherry-pick which numbers to share for the sake of winning a mayoral contest.
Armstrong Williams (awilliams@baltsun.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.