Tragically, the city witnessed its sixth homicide recently, as reported in today's Capital.
In the most tasteful way possible, I would like to point out the where of the crime and why that matters.
Much has been made of crime in public housing areas, but we must be careful as to the definition of these areas. Much of the data reported concerns the public housing communities of the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis (HACA).
However, this is not the entire picture. There are subsidized communities in Annapolis that are not subsidized by HACA, but instead by the federal government. One such community is Bay Ridge Gardens, where the last 2 homicides have occurred. These communities, as far as I understand, have the same demographics as the HACA communities.
It is AP's belief that for this reason, the 'tale of two cities' (using The Capital's words) crime problem is probably understated, and that the arguments made to hire more police officers and deploy effective community policing is an even stronger one.
It has been reported that last year we saw a record 8 homicides, and this year we are on pace for 9. It is AP's hope that we can be serious about reversing the trend.
2 comments:
this was homicide seven not six. talk about hiring officers, how about this fact. AACO police just had homicide number 10. they have a 10 man homicide unit to investigate them. APD just had number seven. we do not have a homicide unit. Detectives from other units join together to handle homicides. thats right APD has six detectives that handle it all.
AP -- In response to the annonymous comment posted, this is a very concerning statistic. First, the City of Annapolis is only a portion of Anne Arundel County, and our homicide rate is 70% of theirs???
Gosh, do you think we need more officers and detectives? Do you think perhaps we need to suspend talks, debate, and the introduction of frivilous legislation and start focusing on our Crime Crisis???
I believe we all need to stand up, write to the Mayor, our individual Alderman, and the Chief of Police and not only recognize and express our appreciation for the job the the Men and Woman of the Annapolice Police Department do every day, but also demand that they make their primary focus filling the 23 vacancies with qualified officers. This needs to be done immediately, before another person looses their life unnecessarily in Annapolis, and/or we surpass Anne Arundel County.
Last and certainly not least, we need to not only focus on the recruiting of new police officers, but also on the retention of talant we already have. Let's make sure that these men and woman are adequaltly compensated for the jobs they do and the safety they work so hard to provide us each and every day.
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