City leaders credited their sustained focus on repeat violent offenders and an increased community engagement for the continued drop, reflecting a nationwide decline in crime.
[13] On July 10, 2015, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake fired Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, saying his presence had become a distraction in a city that needs to focus on ending a dramatic spike in homicides.
"What Mosby basically did was send a message to the Baltimore police department: 'I'm going to put you in jail for making a bad arrest.'
So officers figured it out: 'I can go to jail for making the wrong arrest, so I'm not getting out of my car to clear a corner,' and that's exactly what happened post-Freddie Gray."
In Baltimore, arrest numbers have plummeted from more than 40,000 in 2014, the year before Freddie Gray's death and the subsequent charges against the officers, to about 18,000 as of November 1, 2017.
In 2009, a total of 1,318,398 violent crimes were reported nationwide across the United States, equivalent to a rate of 0.4 incidents per 100 people.
[26] In the second half of the 20th century, Sandtown experienced economic depression, housing abandonment, crime, and the effects of the Baltimore riot of 1968.
Following his death, the area was hard hit by riots, including the looting and burning of a CVS drug store off the north-east corner of Sandtown-Winchester at the intersection of Pennsylvania and W. North Avenue.
[33] The veracity of crime statistics reported by the Baltimore Police Department once again came under scrutiny in 2006, this time from Maryland legislators.