Days after Baltimore reached 300 homicides for the fifth consecutive year, Maryland’s U.S. attorney, Robert K. Hur, briefed members of the state’s congressional delegation Tuesday on federal crime prevention efforts in the city.
“For five years in a row, Baltimore City has had over 300 homicides. That’s unacceptable. It’s got to change,” Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) said after members of the delegation met with Hur in the U.S. Capitol.
Hur said that he and the members of Congress are on the same page when it comes to efforts to crack down on violent crime in the city. He pointed to a new federal “strike force” that aims to target drug gangs and their suppliers.
Baltimore should look to other cities like Chicago, Oakland and New Orleans, Hur said, which have seen steep declines in murder rates in recent years.
And Baltimore’s violence problems should concern communities beyond the city’s boundaries, Hur added.
“Crime does not respect boundaries,” he said. “If crime problems are bad in Baltimore City, it is going to spill out to neighboring regions, or states even.”
He added that the crime problems can’t be solved by law enforcement alone. “This is not an issue that we can exclusively arrest and incarcerate our way out of.”
Hur asked lawmakers for more resources to bolster crime-fighting efforts.
“The U.S. attorney made several requests from us, most of them are money,” Cardin said. And, as Congress struggles to fully fund the U.S. government through the fiscal year that ends next September, Hur told the delegation “it would be absolutely tragic if we don’t get a budget done for all of our federal agencies, but certainly the Department of Justice,” Cardin recounted.
The absence of the late Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D), who represented Baltimore, was noted at the delegation meeting, said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D).
“We miss Elijah deeply,” he said. But he said the delegation will continue to “pitch in and pull in the same direction” to advocate for Baltimore at the federal level.
Also present at the briefing were Reps. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D), David J. Trone (D) and Jamie Raskin (D).
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