Yikes. Things are getting so bad in Baltimore that even the police are getting robbed. The Baltimore Sun reports that the city's new Deputy Police Commissioner, Danny Murphy, was mugged at gunpoint Friday night while walking with his wife.
via The Baltimore Sun:
One of Baltimore’s newest deputy police commissioners and his wife were robbed at gunpoint Friday night near Patterson Park, police said.
Deputy Commissioner Daniel Murphy and his wife were approached around 9 p.m. by four men in a large white SUV at the 2200 block of East Pratt Street, police said in a statement. Two approximately 18-year-old men got out of the SUV and approached the couple. The men announced it was a robbery and showed a gun before fleeing with a wallet, a purse, some cash and multiple cell phones, the press release said.
In April, Murphy was brought in by the city to enact sweeping reforms to improve safety. Murphy had previously had success in New Orleans.
"I think the challenges are very similar," Murphy said of Baltimore and New Orleans.. “Obviously, every community, every police department is unique, but the success we had in New Orleans is directly transferable to here and we will modify it as necessary.”
The crime happened just a week after police revealed that the murder rate in the city is 16% higher than at this point last year. There have been 171 murders as of July 1st in Baltimore so far this year. In 2018 at this point, there were 147 murders.
Baltimore's new mayor, Jack Young, pleaded directly to families to help turn crime around in June.
"Everybody knows what’s going on, they [are] in your families, and you know what they are doing, turn them in," he said on June 19. "Everybody wants to say we are not doing anything...But my question is, what are we doing as a community to say enough is enough and to start reporting and turning these people in?"
