They do. Just to name one example, New York improved dramatically in all ways under 20 years of non-Democratic rule. Examples abound throughout the nation.
quote:
"Bloomberg endorsing Obama is no big deal at all. He endorsed him 4 years ago and has always at heart been a very liberal Democrat. He only left the party so he could become Mayor." - dougrhon, 11/2/12Alrighty then.
Excellent post Bhawk.
I'm going to stand up and begin the slow clap. Bravo Sir. Bravo!
I can't wait to hear his response.....will we see an excuse or accountability?
Yes dougrhon - how dare you make a comment that directly contradicts what you said almost 3 years ago???
What have you become? A politician?
😉
I understand that everything discussed in the Whipping Post is reduced to partisan politics, but what is happening in Baltimore is not caused by politics. Nor is it limited to to Baltimore. It is a cultural issue.
Carry on.
Yea, bad cops… right.
Death and Dearth in Black America: Baltimore, a Failure of Leadership
by David Webb1 May 01, 2015
Much of the black community in America is dying, which is the “death,” and lacking true leadership and solutions across a wide range of issues, which is the “dearth.”
The failure of leadership in Baltimore didn’t start when Freddie Gray died. This isn’t proven to be about race. Now that charges have been brought against the police officers, the legal due process must be allowed to play out. True justice under our system of laws is when all sides are heard, all evidence presented, and considered by a judge and a jury of our peers.
The peaceful protesters and community leaders must have patience. Media also has a responsibility to show more than the negative as there are many in the Baltimore community who would like the violence to stop and are taking action to do so, often on their own.
It is a long-running failure of leadership elected, appointed, and communal that do not address the problems in the community until there is a crisis, regardless of what initiates the crisis. Another failure of leadership is when President Obama asked Governor Hogan to exercise restraint. Law enforcement should have exercised the use of restraints for rioters, not restraint which ended up harming the community further and allowing rioters to destroy a significant amount of property, the aftermath of which the peaceful and local protesters are now burdened with.
The professional protesters, anarchists, outside negative influences by any name must be shunned by the community publicly whenever possible to remove them from the equation. The most prolific and professional protester is Al Sharpton who was President Obama’s liaison on race in Ferguson, Missouri. Ask Ferguson if Sharpton has returned to help in the aftermath. The video now widely televised in which Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake walks silently while an apparently in-control Sharpton appears to be the one who determines when and in what manner she speaks should trouble all in Baltimore. Since when did their duly elected mayor come second to a professional race-hustler?
An examination of the city’s crime rates over a decade show the tragic recent history in a city, for the most part, run by the Democratic Party and progressive policies for 40+ years. These types of crimes reflect a broken community where too many residents are left behind. Baltimore is 62.7 percent black, according to a city-data.com 2012 report. Crime statistics in this report from 2002 to 2012 tell a troubling story of failure at all levels. In 2012, there were 3,605 robberies, 4,651 assaults, 7,700 burglaries, 17,397 thefts, and 3,982 auto thefts.
These types of crimes are often indicative of poor, gang-related, and drug-filled areas. It will take years to reverse these statistics. Simply throwing money at the problem is not a solution.
The community, whether by voting or not voting, are responsible for the leadership they get or, in this case, fail to have when needed. Forget the debate over Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s words: “we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that.” They have already polluted a partially-violent environment. This riot, like others, will pass, and then the question should be about what is done going forward after this crisis subsides to address ongoing, and help prevent future, tragic events.
In the weeks and months after of the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King beating, Mayor Richard Riordan, the last Republican mayor of Los Angeles enacted a series of strategies to bring the community into the governance picture. For example, community boards with real input to City Hall were formed and legislation was passed preventing council members blocking reform laws. Mayor Riordan was elected after a 20 year term by Democratic Mayor Tom Bradley. New York City also saw a rebirth under Mayor Rudy Giuliani after more than twenty years of Democrat leadership under David Dinkins, Ed Koch and Andrew Beame. I’m willing to give Ed Koch a partial pass because he tried and was a quintessential New Yorker who cared. Pay attention and you’ll notice a trend in America’s big cities under Democrats.
Going forward, there needs to be a strategic plan for Baltimore. This is primarily a socio-economic issue, not a race issue. Ignore the typical liberal progressive policy cries of income inequality. Race is a factor, albeit an imported one. The human capital in Baltimore must be rebuilt with a strong foundation in every way possible for future success. Human capital is the true strength of any community. This plan must address issues of gangs, drugs and related crimes, community policing, reintegration of former prisoners, failures in public education, and accountability by the elected officials. Jobs and economy are a part of the picture but will only come in a substantive way if the aforementioned issues and more are addressed successfully.
Yes dougrhon - how dare you make a comment that directly contradicts what you said almost 3 years ago???
What have you become? A politician?
😉
I'm not the one that set the scope of the matter at 20 years... 
Yea, bad cops… right.
Death and Dearth in Black America: Baltimore, a Failure of Leadership
by David Webb1 May 01, 2015
You neglected to mention that this is from breitbart.com or include a link. Since you constantly slam any source that you do not personally approve of, it is noteworthy that you rarely if ever share articles in a way that makes the source obvious (and at times you have even lied about the source, claiming something was from the "AP Wire" when clearly it was not). Anyway, below the link to the article you posted. You're welcome.
By the way, while I don't agree with everything in the "article" (in quotes because it is really more of an editorial than an article) I do think it is more right than wrong.
[Edited on 5/13/2015 by gondicar]
Yea, bad cops… right.
Death and Dearth in Black America: Baltimore, a Failure of Leadership
by David Webb1 May 01, 2015You neglected to mention that this is from breitbart.com or include a link. Since you constantly slam any source that you do not personally approve of, it is noteworthy that you rarely if ever share articles in a way that makes the source obvious (and at times you have even lied about the source, claiming something was from the "AP Wire" when clearly it was not). Anyway, below the link to the article you posted. You're welcome.
By the way, while I don't agree with everything in the "article" (in quotes because it is really more of an editorial than an article) I do think it is more right than wrong.
________________________________________________________________________No need to mention that the article was published by Breitbart, as well as many other newspapers, magazines and websites. The source of the article is David Webb whose pieces are published often and wide.
And, as far as it must irritate the left, David Webb is a highly successful and respected writer, broadcaster, political activist and a black man.
David Webb is part of the growing middle and upper class of black people that clearly see the failure of Democrats and their liberal policies that only perpetuate the ghettos and keep poor black people in the generational entitlement zone.
They are also supported by Republicans who want results which are not coming from The Democrats who, like pops, if someone even broaches the subject are labeled a racist.
Pops and his type will not even discuss the root of the problems nor admit their failures.
That mentality solves nothing.BTW, I pull information from wire services all the time. I prefer the raw information, not the re-written and editorialized crap published by the main stream media.
You should learn how to access the A/P Wire Services because you obviously have difficulty retrieving source data.On Baltimore specifically, why, in a city that spends third highest in the country on each public school student do they have a 50% dropout rate and only a one third graduation rate and over half of the 6th graders can’t read?
The City, precincts and the Public School Board are run exclusively by Democrats.
Why are they failing so badly?
They do. Just to name one example, New York improved dramatically in all ways under 20 years of non-Democratic rule. Examples abound throughout the nation.
quote:
"Bloomberg endorsing Obama is no big deal at all. He endorsed him 4 years ago and has always at heart been a very liberal Democrat. He only left the party so he could become Mayor." - dougrhon, 11/2/12Alrighty then.
I'm going to stand up and begin the slow clap. Bravo Sir. Bravo!
Wrong. No contradiction at all. Note I did not say that Conservatives have governed New York. I said 20 years of non-Democratic rule. Yes Bloomberg is at heart a liberal Democrat. He did not govern New York that way, certainly not when it came to crime and economic policies. Instead he continued the succesful policies of his predecessor. So stop with the silly sophistry and open your eyes. There are tons of cities and states that have moved beyond the failed policies of the old "Great Society" pradigm and found success. Hell even the Democrats did under the Clinton administration. Now it's like it never happened for some. Only a fool or a pure ideologue would continue to carry on policies which have failed disastrously for more than 40 years.
Reminds me of the failed policy of trickle down economics.
"If you cannot comprehend what would drive riots in Baltimore please ask yourself, 'If these people, who are in so many ways like us, would do something that we wouldn't think of doing, what must the conditions be like to drive that behavior'?
What drives people to commit murder?
Reminds me of the failed policy of trickle down economics.
Well, after all, we're just silly deceitful people with their eyes closed, what do we know?
It all follows the same theme.
Google: Richard Fletcher
Ya gotta love those Democrat run cities:
Moody's downgrades Chicago debt to 'junk' with negative outlook
Everett Rosenfeld | @Ev_Rosenfeld
Tuesday, 12 May 2015 | 5:02 PM
Moody's downgraded Chicago's credit rating down to junk level "Ba1" from "Baa2."
The announcement, which the ratings agency released Tuesday afternoon, cited a recent Illinois court ruling voiding state pension reforms. Moody's said it saw a negative outlook for the city's credit.
Following that May court decision, Moody's said it believes that "the city's options for curbing growth in its own unfunded pension liabilities have narrowed considerably."
"Whether or not the current statutes that govern Chicago's pension plans stand, we expect the costs of servicing Chicago's unfunded liabilities will grow, placing significant strain on the city's financial operations absent commensurate growth in revenue and/or reductions in other expenditures," the agency said in a release.
The downgrade affected $8.9 billion of general obligation, sales, and motor fuel tax debt, according to Moody's.
The firm said its downgrades could trigger up to $2.2 billion in accelerated payments on Chicago debt.
—Reuters contributed to this report.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102650351
We could post all the stories about how Kansas is being run into the ground by it's republican governor, or about the poverty, etc. in the southern red states, but I'm sure you also gotta love those republican run states....
We could post all the stories about how Kansas is being run into the ground by it's republican governor, or about the poverty, etc. in the southern red states, but I'm sure you also gotta love those republican run states....
Why don't you go ahead?
We could post all the stories about how Kansas is being run into the ground by it's republican governor, or about the poverty, etc. in the southern red states, but I'm sure you also gotta love those republican run states....
Why don't you go ahead?
Why should he do your research for you?
We could post all the stories about how Kansas is being run into the ground by it's republican governor, or about the poverty, etc. in the southern red states, but I'm sure you also gotta love those republican run states....
_______________________________________________________________________
Nice try.
Kansas as a state is doing quite well with one exception; Kansas City which is run by Sly James, a Democrat (now calls himself an independent for re-election purposes).
The American cities with the highest debt problems, violent crime rates, most failing schools and lowest quality of life are all run by Democrats.
Why?
Hmmm. A simple Google search of "Kansas Economy Brownback" doesn't paint the picture of Kansas doing well. Maybe I'm on the wrong internet?
LJWorld.com
Fact-checking Brownback's claims on the economy: Only part of story being told
April 25, 2015Topeka — Two competing views about the state of the Kansas economy emerged last week when state budget officials released their new forecast about state tax collections.
On one side, independent economists who took part in the process predicted the state’s economy would grow at a much slower pace than they had previously forecast.
“The Kansas economy appears to be growing somewhat slower than the nation as a whole,” said Ranney Gilliland, head of the Legislature’s nonpartisan Research Department, citing estimates that had come from the economists.
Overall, he reported, real personal income in Kansas is now predicted to grow 3.4 percent during 2015, down from the 4.2 percent growth rate the group had forecast back in November.
And the overall state economy, measured by the “gross state product,” or GSP, is expected to grow 2.3 percent this year, down from the 2.5 percent growth predicted earlier.
Those predictions factored into the revised revenue forecast, which now shows the state in an estimated $400 million budget hole.
But Gov. Sam Brownback’s budget director, Shawn Sullivan, painted a rosier picture.
“There are kind of two things I want to point out,” he said during a press briefing about the new forecasts. “The first is, we believe there are positive trends in the private-sector economy, and those are things we’ve seen over the last few months.”
Specifically, he pointed to employment growth, which he said was stronger in the first quarter of 2015 than it was during the same period a year earlier.
“There were 17,200 jobs that were added from January through March 2015 compared to January through March 2014, so that appears to be heading in the right direction,” Sullivan said.
“The second positive indicator is with wage trends with Kansas workers,” he said. “We’ve been at above 2.5 percent growth since the summer of 2014, which places us above our regional border states.”
But a review of economic data for Kansas from the U.S. Department of Labor shows the administration’s claims are only partly true and are based on figures that show only part of the overall picture.
Employment growth
Brownback's press secretary, Eileen Hawley, said the figure of 17,200 new jobs referred to private-sector job growth from January 2014 through March 2015. But the Journal-World could not find any set of data, either on the state or federal Labor Department websites, to support that figure, and Hawley wasn't immediately able to provide the source for that number.
However, numbers from the Kansas Department of Labor's monthly labor market reports do support the claim that job growth during the first quarter of 2015 was slightly stronger than a year earlier, when growth was relatively flat.
But those numbers routinely fluctuate from month to month, so different conclusions can be drawn simply by choosing different starting and stopping points on the time line. For example, while the preliminary number for March is higher than it was in January, it is still well below December 2014, which was the high mark for the last two years.
Overall, though, private-sector employment in Kansas has been on a generally upward trend for the last couple of years.
But private-sector employment is only one part of the total labor market, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total employment in Kansas grew only 1.1 percent over the last 12 months, which ranks Kansas 40th in the nation during that period.
Also missing from Sullivan’s description was any description of the types of jobs being added.
According to BLS figures, the largest growth was in the low-wage “leisure and hospitality” industry, which added 5,300 jobs, or 4.35 percent. Construction jobs grew by about 1,800 jobs, or nearly 3 percent.
Other key sectors of the labor market shed jobs over the year. Manufacturing fell by 1,100 jobs, or about 0.7 percent, and government service, which was down 700 jobs, or about 0.3 percent.
Wages and income
Speaking to reporters last week, Sullivan cited a 2.5 percent growth in wages in Kansas since the summer of 2014.
According to BLS information, that statement is accurate. The average hourly wage for a Kansas worker in March was $22.59, up 2.5 percent from the March 2014 wage of $22.03 per hour.
Nationally, average wages rose only 2.1 percent, to $24.86 an hour during that same period.
But hourly wages are only one measure of how individuals are faring in the labor market. BLS defines that number as a worker’s, “straight-time wage rate or, for workers not paid on an hourly basis, straight-time earnings divided by the corresponding hours.”
In making their new estimates of state revenue, however, economists on the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group looked at a broader measure of earnings, “personal income,” which takes into account other types of income including earnings from investments, rents and royalties, and business income.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Economic Analysis, personal income in Kansas grew 2.9 percent last year, well below the national rate of 3.9 percent, ranking Kansas 42nd in the nation.
In November, the university economists who serve on the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group had predicted that personal income would grow 4.2 percent during 2015. Last week, they revised that downward to 3.4 percent, which would still be higher than the 2014 growth rate.
The three university economics professors, from Kansas University, Kansas State University and Wichita State University, who participate in the consensus estimating group historically have refused to speak publicly about the process they use in making their predictions.
The estimating group meets behind closed doors, usually twice a year, to analyze economic trends in the state and project what total revenues will be for the current fiscal year and the next year. By law, their numbers must be used as the basis for the budget that the governor submits to the Legislature as well as the final appropriations bill the Legislature passes in the spring.
Originally published at: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/apr/25/fact-checking-brownbacks-claims-economy/
And this:
When Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS) pledged to improve the lives of kids in his state on the campaign trail, this probably isn’t what he had in mind.
A pair of Kansas public school districts will close down early this school year and the state’s current leadership is so committed to continuing a radical, budget-destroying tax cut experiment that it won’t furnish the resources necessary to allow these communities to finish out the academic calendar.
“We are popular with the kids but not the parents,” Concordia district Superintendent Bev Mortimer told the Wichita Eagle after announcing that her schools will shut down six days earlier than planned. In the Twin Valley district, just south of Mortimer’s terrain, schools are closing down 12 days ahead of schedule. The districts are “losing $51 million they expected to receive for the current school year after Gov. Sam Brownback signed a school funding overhaul bill in March,” the paper explains. Brownback disputes that causal claim, but the school board in Twin Valley specifically referenced “mid-year, unplanned financial cuts recently signed into law.”
The early closures are a micro-level indicator of what’s really a macro-level problem across all of Kansas’ public services to its people. Brownback has followed through on a promise to all but erase the state’s income tax code, ditching all taxes on a class of businesses known as “pass-through entities.” Many of the people who rely on the pass-through structure for tax purposes are only businesses in the sense that they collect royalties for a book or other non-wage compensation from something that isn’t a standard payroll job, and a vanishingly small percentage of such tax entities are “small businesses” in the traditional, job-creating sense. But anyone who can present their income as “pass-through” cash to the state of Kansas can sidestep income taxes.
Brownback chased that major overhaul with other, more standard conservative tax-slashing policies, with the full pricetag for the near-total Reaganing of Kansas coming in over a billion dollars. The result has been massive deficits that endanger public services like roads, schools, and pension contributions for public employees. The only concession the governor has made to fiscal reality is proposing a combination of regressive sales tax hikes and higher “sin taxes” on cigarettes and alcohol.
On school funding, Brownback’s administration essentially stepped into a waist-deep hole with a grin and a shovel. Kansas had already slashed its spending on schools from 2009 to 2011 during the recession, as many states did as part of a scramble to maintain balanced budgets amid the downturn. And while Brownback has made nominal increases in state spending on education, the structures of those increases have undermined local governments’ ability to furnish school money themselves. The result is that total schools funding has been basically flat in inflation-adjusted terms ever since Brownback took over, despite a larger portion of all public education spending coming from the state level in his tenure. And with the block-granting move this spring, Brownback essentially pulled the plug on the complicated funding formula that is supposed to ensure more-or-less equitable funding for educating kids in both rich and poor districts.
From 2008 to 2014, Kansas has cut per-pupil spending by $950, more than all but two states. That roughly 16.5 percent cut in the resources available to educate Kansan kids has brought some dire consequences — like school nurses being told to put wet sponges in a freezer because real ice packs are just too expensive — and the ire of the state Supreme Court, which has ruled that Brownback is overseeing unconstitutionally low education spending.
None of this is paying off. The state’s economy is growing more slowly than the national average, and the poverty rate has risen steadily.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/04/03/3642787/kansas-schools-close-early-due-to-money-drought/
And this:
BY DAVE HELLING
The Kansas City Star
GOOGLE+
ORDER REPRINT OF THIS STORY
In 1974, I worked at a college radio station that reported, incorrectly, that former president Richard Nixon had died.The mistake caused quite a stir. The local newspaper wrote about our error, and several of us were suspended from the station. It taught me an important lesson: Don’t report what you don’t know.
It was quite humiliating. Eventually, though, I was able to joke about the mistake — I told people we weren’t really wrong, just 20 years ahead of the story.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is now making a similar argument about the state’s economy.
In recent appearances, Brownback has blamed reporters for inaccurately describing the results of his tax cuts.
“The biggest way it’s been misrepresented is that people are expecting everything to happen very quickly,” Brownback recently told conservatives, according to The Missouri Times.
Let’s leave aside the fact that Brownback promised things would happen quickly, not reporters. And let’s not focus on the contradiction between the governor’s plea for more time and his claims, made at the same meeting, that things are going great now.
Also forget that the tax cuts took effect two years ago.
Instead, let’s take Gov. Brownback at his word. Let’s assume it’ll take a few more years for the Kansas economy to grow enough so tax revenue accelerates, as supply-side theory suggests.
You wonder what message that sends to those who use state services today.
Let’s say you’re a third-grader forced to use an outdated textbook for another year or a sophomore using old laboratory equipment. Brownback’s request for more time means you’re out of luck — it’s just unfortunate that you happen to be a public school student now, when taxes have dipped and operational per-pupil spending must be pared back.
The state has plenty of time. You? Maybe not.
It’s true legislatures can’t pay for the same things the same way every year. Priorities change, recessions hit, economies rebound.
But expecting today’s students to sacrifice because the economy might get better down the road is a pretty tough ask.
Yet that’s what Brownback wants.
The Kansas economy will eventually bounce back. When it does, the governor will probably say he wasn’t really wrong in 2015, just 20 years ahead of his time.
I said the same thing about our Nixon story, except I was joking.
To reach Dave Helling, call 816-234-4656 or send email to dhelling@kcstar.com.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/local-columnists/article13527149.html#storylink=cpy
The Nats played a day game today. I could do this all night.
We could post all the stories about how Kansas is being run into the ground by it's republican governor, or about the poverty, etc. in the southern red states, but I'm sure you also gotta love those republican run states....
Why don't you go ahead?
Why should he do your research for you?
I was thinking we might get some information that wasn't covered by the previous 62 times somebody posted a link about how horrible the Red States were. Never know.
Only 62?
As a native of Kansas and a lifelong Kansas Citian with the exception of a few years living in Chicago, I feel compelled to point out that Sly James is the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. As far as I know he has never lived in Kansas. An extremely successful attorney, he began his political career as an independent and remains so to this day. He is extremely popular, providing strong leadership through enhancing the police force, spearheading the passing of water bonds to help deal with the crumbling infrastructure, leading the way on a massive public transportation project, and rallied several local leaders and businessmen in an extremely strong but ultimately failed effort to bring the 2016 Republican National Convention to KC. He has retained the lobbying agency of Kit Bond, former Republican Governor and Senator, as the main lobbying entity on KC's behalf. James has also done amazing work making things easier for Google Fiber to spread their local footprint. His basic M.O. is "If it's good for the city, it's good for everyone." Many folks here think very highly of him and think he has done an amazing job so far.
The mayor of Kansas City, Kansas is a man named Mark Holland.
There are two Kansas Cities? 😛
His basic M.O. is "If it's good for the city, it's good for everyone."
M.O. that stands for Missouri right? The State next to Kansas that doesn't have a Governor named Brownback? The "City of Fountains" as I recall. Home to the Kansas City Chiefs and the Kansas City Royals?
How many professional sports teams play in the State of Kansas? Hmmmm.
More than 30 murders in Baltimore since the riots. The Maryland U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.
After rioters burned Baltimore, killings pile up largely under the radar
Pedestrians walk past a line of vacant homes on N. Gay St. on the east side of Baltimore earlier this month. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)
By Peter Hermann May 17 at 6:56 PM
BALTIMORE — Andre Hunt counseled troubled kids through the Boys and Girls Club. He volunteered at the local NAACP chapter. A barber, he befriended the son of an assistant high school principal, swapping tales of football and life while the boy grew into adulthood under the clips of his shears.
“He was like a big brother to my son,” the mother, Karima Carrington, said of her trips to Cut Masters on Liberty Heights Ave¬nue.
The 28-year-old Hunt was lured out of the barbershop, according to his attorney, and shot in the back of the head on the afternoon of April 29. He was among more than 30 people slain in Baltimore in 30 days, an alarming number of killings and part of an undercurrent of violence here.
Although riots and protests after the death of Freddie Gray, who was injured in police custody, brought national attention to the city, the slayings have attracted little notice. They come as Baltimore works to recover from the unrest, with a police force demoralized by the arrests of six of its members — three of whom face murder or manslaughter charges in Gray’s death — and under the scrutiny of the Justice Department.
The Rev. Jamal H. Bryant, pastor of the Empowerment Temple and a local activist, said city residents have “almost been anesthetized” to the killings. “In any other community, these numbers would be jaw-dropping.”
Andre Hunt, 28, was charged with drug distribution and pleaded guilty in federal court. He was killed April 29 in Baltimore before he could begin serving his prison term. (Courtesy of Baltimore Police Department)
A month before Gray’s death, Bryant joined Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) at a summit to urge black men to help stop black-on-black killings. African Americans comprised 211 of Baltimore’s 216 homicide victims in 2014. Now Bryant, who eulogized Gray at his funeral, believes in “enlarging the narrative beyond Freddie Gray” to harness the anger and renew the focus on curbing violence.
“The young people are engaged,” the pastor said. “Now there has to be a clear conversation on the contributing factors to murder — lack of jobs, lack of opportunity, hopelessness. All have contributed to the down¬sizing of life. .?.?. Young people don’t fear death. They’ve almost embraced it as part of life in Baltimore.”
Hunt’s killing remains unsolved. His attorney describes it as a daylight execution along the dilapidated commercial strip a little more than a mile from where the riots first erupted at Mondawmin Mall. Hunt’s friends believe the barber’s death is linked to his former position as a middleman in this city’s lucrative heroin trade. He was shot a month after he was sentenced to three years in federal prison for distributing drugs in Gray’s neighborhood, and 10 days before his attorney said he planned to report to serve his term.
Hunt’s roles as youth mentor, legitimate wage earner and drug dealer are part of the dysfunction and paradox of surviving in troubled neighborhoods, where narcotics are an integral part of commerce and as common as the vacant rowhouses that dominate the landscape. Hunt bought heroin wholesale and sold to street-level pushers working West Baltimore’s Gilmor Homes and its isolated courtyards between strips of drab public housing. This is the part of the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood where Gray grew up and where he was arrested before he died April 19, after having been shackled and put without a buckled seat belt in the back of a police van.
Upsurge in homicides
The protests and riots that roiled this city in the aftermath of Gray’s death quieted after the police officers were charged. But even as shops were looted and burned and 3,200 Maryland National Guard troops came to restore order, another type of violence was consuming Baltimore.
From mid-April to mid-May, 31 people were killed, and 39 others were wounded by gunfire. Twice, 10 people were shot on a single day. As of Friday, the deadly burst has pushed the city’s homicide count to 91, 21 above last year at the same time. In the District, 40 people had been slain as of Friday, not including four people found dead Thursday in cases police said are being investigated as homicides but are awaiting a ruling by the medical examiner.
Baltimore has historically been a violent city, earning a moniker of “Mob Town” during gang riots of the 1850s. Homicides topped 300 for 10 consecutive years in the 1990s. Although the annual figure has fallen to the low 200s, the city remains among the top tier in per capita murders, ranking fifth in 2013, behind Detroit, New Orleans, Newark and St. Louis.
As of May 14, there have been more than 90 homicides in Baltimore. About a quarter of them occurred since April 27, the day of Freddie Gray’s funeral and when rioting started. View Graphic
The past few weeks have been rough on rank-and-file cops who, according to their union representatives, feel distrusted by the citizenry, vilified by the media and alienated by prosecutors. “Officers are coming up to me and saying, ‘I’m afraid to do my job,’?” said Lt. Kenneth Butler, a 29-year veteran and president of a group for black officers. He said officers, black and white, are “equally upset, their morale is low.”
Lt. Victor Gearhart, with 33 years of experience, said officers are second-guessing themselves, tamping down aggressive policing. “Now they have to think, ‘What happens if this turns bad? What is going to happen to me?’?”
During the rioting and protests, Baltimore police disclosed the killings on the department’s Twitter feed amid tallies of looting, fires and rock throwing. But shootings did not become a topic except when police assured they were not linked to the unrest. The day after the rioting began, and as the National Guard deployed, the police commissioner declared on TV: “The citizens are safe. The city is stable.”
Andre Hunt was killed the next afternoon.
Intersecting lives
Hunt was trying to escape the drug life.
He graduated in 2004 from a high school in Milford Mill, a suburb of Baltimore. He got his barber’s license and started cutting hair. He had two cousins in the drug trade, and his attorney, Richard C.B. Woods, blames them for luring him into illicit dealing.
One cousin, Sean Wilson, 46, was sentenced in February to 11 years in federal prison for working with a heroin dealer in New Orleans. When police raided his house in suburban Baltimore, they found 10 kilograms of heroin and $464,000 in cash. An additional $89,000 was found stuffed into the pipes of a Ford D-250 pickup.
This was the atmosphere in which Hunt found himself, Woods said, and, starting in 2012, he joined with another cousin to sell heroin. Hunt’s nickname was “Cousin,” due to the family connections that put him in easy reach of large amounts of drugs. He worked out of a stash house in Reservoir Hill, a neighborhood just above the intersection of Pennsylvania and North avenues that was the epicenter of the riots.
In his plea agreement in federal court, Hunt admitted they poured drugs into Gilmor Homes. Business was brisk. In one car stop of Hunt, police reported finding 50,000 empty yellow zip-top bags typically used to package drugs for streets sales. Inside the Reservoir Hill house, police found 1.6 kilograms of heroin and a .357 Magnum revolver.
Hunt and others were arrested in October 2013. He pleaded guilty in May 2014 but wasn’t sentenced until in March 17, 2015. A federal judge allowed him until May to surrender for prison.
But just two weeks after Hunt entered his guilty plea, Wilson, who had not yet been arrested, heard that his cousin was going away for just three years, while others got much more time, according to court filings. Wilson talked to his New Orleans supplier on a call bugged by the FBI.
“I don’t know how the [expletive] that happened,” Wilson said, according to a court affidavit. “I’m still trying to get to the bottom of it.”
The Maryland U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment. Woods said his client was spared a long prison term because he had no prior convictions and appeared to be trying to turn his life around.
“He was hard-working,” the lawyer said. “He mentored young people. That’s unusual. Most people in drug-distribution rings don’t care anything about anything but their money. He was a good young man who got roped into this.”
Karima Carrington, the assistant principal of the Academy for College and Career Exploration, a city high school, said she met Hunt a decade ago while he was cutting hair at Cut Masters.
She took her sons to his shop. The youngest was then 12. Hunt and the youth talked sports and jobs, and Hunt attended the boy’s football games. Carrington said of Hunt’s death: “Absolutely it had something to do with what he was doing on the street. No one would want to hurt him other than someone in that life.”
Carrington said that after Hunt was arrested, he confessed to her about selling drugs. “He was remorseful,” she said. “He was ashamed. He really was trying to get out of the life he had led.”
Tessa Hill-Aston, president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP, said Hunt volunteered at her office. “He was trying to change his life around,” she said, “and was looking forward to serving his sentence and starting over. I’m so sorry he didn’t have a chance to do that.”
Hill-Aston was talking on the phone with a reporter on a recent Monday afternoon. A friend had just called her from a doctor’s office in West Baltimore and told her she dived to the floor when three gunshots went off outside.
It was 1:30 in the afternoon, at a place called Walbrook Junction. Another man shot in the head. Another death.
Hours later would be a funeral for another man killed May 2, the last day of the curfew imposed during the rioting. He was the grandson of a founder of Bible Way Church, oldest son of the church’s former bishop, nephew of the bishop-designee.
The shootings and the burials continued their frenzied pace.
“It’s almost like there’s a war going on,” Hill-Aston said.
Muletool can't read. The article says 22 murders since the riots, not 30. Actually it says 1/4 of 90. Muletool sucks at math.
Muletool can't read. The article says 22 murders since the riots, not 30. Actually it says 1/4 of 90. Muletool sucks at math.
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For your benefit dumbass:
"From mid-April to mid-May, 31 people were killed,"
The liberal run city hasn't a clue and black people continue to die.
For your benefit dumbass:
"From mid-April to mid-May, 31 people were killed,"
The liberal run city hasn't a clue and black people continue to die.
Have you figured out the differences between Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, KS yet dumbass?
