FOP: Police don't have a plan to fight crime in Baltimore - Fox Baltimore

FOP: Police don’t have a plan to fight crime in Baltimore

BALTIMORE (WBFF) -- In a release issued on Wednesday, the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police was critical of the police department saying it is critically understaffed and that it has no long term plan of action to fight crime.

FOP president Gene Ryan says the department cannot hire enough officers to catch up with attrition, and says the city has failed to properly manage the agency.

“I really have a problem with elected officials being silent with what’s going on in the streets of Baltimore right now,” Ryan said. “I mean we have bodies dropping on a daily basis.

Baltimore has had 161 homicides so far in 2017, more than ever recorded in the first six months of the year.

Police Commissioner Kevin Davis cancelled leave last weekend and placed officers on mandatory 12 hour shifts in an effort to curb the violence. The order came after eight people were shot, six fatally overnight last week.

“This, however, is merely a stopgap measure and not a long term plan of action, a plan to fight crime that the Baltimore Police Department still doesn't have in place,” Ryan said in a release.

Ryan says that in January, the FOP warned that the city was at a “tipping point in fighting violent crime due to the critical understaffing of uniformed officers assigned to patrol the city’s neighborhoods.”

Ryan says since then, only 23 additional officers have been assigned to patrol.

“Our police officers are repeatedly being drafted and forced to work additional hours to fill the shortage in patrol and patrol shifts are still going out under strength,” Ryan said. “In turn our officers are fatigued and morale continues to decline. This in turn leads to the continued exodus of some of our best and youngest police officers to other agencies.”

Commissioner Davis denied these claims in a phone call saying, “I’m not certain where people are getting their information but the fact of the matter is, police applicants are up 18 percent, our local police applicants are up 46 percent.”

Ryan says that the agency doesn’t have a long term plan to fight crime. As a result, the FOP “will be going out in the community to meet with the neighborhood councils and discuss our mutual concerns.” They also plan to mean with local businesses and elected officials.

In defense, Davis said the department does have a plan. “Yes we do have a plan, we do have a strategy,” Davis said. “To go after violent repeat offenders, guns, gangs and drugs, and renew a focus on violent youthful offenders.”

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