Baltimore’s mayor announced Friday she has replaced Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, citing the city’s high crime rate and promising to restore the confidence of residents.
Mayor Catherine E. Pugh named a deputy commissioner, Darryl D. DeSousa, as interim leader of the beleaguered police force. The change, made public Friday morning, is immediate. Pugh said she wants DeSousa to be the permanent commissioner, which requires City Council approval.
“As I have made clear, reducing violence and restoring the confidence of our citizens in their police officers is my highest priority,” Pugh said in a statement. “The fact is, we are not achieving the pace of progress that our residents have every right to expect in the weeks since we ended what was nearly a record year for homicides in the City of Baltimore. As such, I have concluded that a change in leadership is needed at police headquarters.”
Davis, who joined the Prince George’s County Police Department as a cadet in 1992, rose quickly through the ranks and various assignments, and made major by the time he was 36 and assistant chief at 42.
[Homicides in region drop; Baltimore’s rise]
He later joined the Anne Arundel County police department as chief before moving to Baltimore. He assumed the lead of that city’s force in the aftermath of the death in 2015 of Freddie Gray from an injury in police custody, and the riots that followed. Davis was named chief in July 2015 after the ouster of Anthony W. Batts, following criticism of the way police handled the riots and a sharp spike in crime, most notably homicides.
But homicides continued apace over subsequent years, finishing 2017 with 343, setting a record in per capita murders and making the city one of the deadliest in the country. The District, with a slightly larger population, had 116. Baltimore, with 620,000 residents, had more homicides than New York City, with 8.4 million people.
The killings in Baltimore included several high school students, random robberies, the bludgeoning death of a 97-year-old man in his home and the unsolved shooting deaths of a homicide detective as he worked a case and an off-duty D.C. police sergeant fatally shot in his car.
Davis also was dealing with the federal prosecution of a group of police officers accused of shaking down drug dealers and stealing money; several have pleaded guilty but authorities have indicated the investigation is continuing. A homicide detective was killed the day before he was to testify at a federal grand jury, though authorities have said his killing was not connected to the corruption investigation.
[Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis works to restore neighborhood ties]
Davis also was shepherding his department through a Justice Department consent decree entered into by agreement to help reform a force found by federal authorities to have acted in discriminatory and abusive policing. The decree stemmed from abuses discovered in the aftermath of the Freddie Gray case.
The new commissioner, DeSousa, a 30-year veteran of the department, will inherit not only these issues but a department that is trying to build as it struggles with a tarnished national reputation. He is 53 years old and a native of New York City. He moved to Baltimore in 1983 and joined the police force in 1988.
Police union leaders have complained that officers, angry over the prosecutions of six colleagues in the death of Gray, all of which failed to get convictions, had stopped aggressive policing. Pugh was also under intense pressure to lower the crime rate after a year of sobering headlines. Her city found itself again in the national crosshairs after a woman was discharged from a hospital into the cold wearing bed clothes and images of shivering students adorned a local newspaper cover as schools lost heat in the latest cold snap.
[Veteran, 97, killed in home burglary in Baltimore]
Members of Baltimore’s City Council and police union leaders criticized Pugh for failing to put forward a clear and comprehensive crime plan for the city. When Pugh appeared on a local radio station, a host demanded she explain why residents should not move to the suburbs “as fast as possible.” The 98 Rock host told her, “This city is slipping away.”
Pugh authored a column that appeared last week in The Washington Post in which she described the end of 2017 as one of a “sense of loss, regret and deep frustration.” She wrote of a young college student killed after he innocently came by a robbery in progress.
“These sad realities are legitimately part of our narrative,” Pugh wrote. “But we are working hard to write a new narrative, one that reflects our progress and determination to end violence by ending the conditions that are its undeniable cause. Admittedly, this isn’t happening as fast as our citizens rightly demand.”
In her statement Friday, Pugh said she believes DeSousa “has the ideas, approach and demonstrated track record that will enable him to lead an accelerated effort to get criminals off our streets, reduce violence and restore safety — and peace of mind — throughout our neighborhoods.”
Pugh had kind words for Davis, who became a fixture in the city and in its troubled neighborhoods, making interacting with residents and community policing a central part of his style and plan. “I am grateful to Commissioner Davis for all that he has done to implement the initiatives underway to address violent crime at it root causes,” Pugh said. “I speak for the entire community in expressing our admiration and gratitude for his service to Baltimore and for his leadership of the women and men who put their lives on the line to serve and protect our citizens.”
[A wartime mayor struggles to curtail violence in Baltimore]
DeSousa, in the same statement, said Baltimore has been his home for many years. “I’ve spent my career on its streets and in its neighborhoods to address problems and bring about solutions that are meaningful for the people we serve,” he said.
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