Baltimore Police Officer Joshua Jackson was shot Tuesday evening while on Light Street in Federal Hill. The incident was appalling and brazen. The 27-year-old officer, who thankfully did not suffer life-threatening injury, said he had witnessed someone driving erratically near the Inner Harbor and attempted to pull him over. The suspect fled, crashed into a parked car, tried to run away and then opened fire. Kudos to the young officer’s bravery in the face of such madness. Even in a city beset by violence, this is a sickening development at a time when Baltimore already has enough to feel ill about.
The incident comes on the heels of a violent weekend during which nine people were killed and five injured. A murderous Memorial Day is not exactly uncommon by modern standards, but it is in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic during which certain violent crime has been in decline, seemingly a side effect of a stay-at-home order. The city’s rate of shootings has been running significantly behind last year’s, and the homicide rate slightly so.
We don’t know what caused the Federal Hill shooter to open fire. Nor have we seen a definitive explanation of the dead and wounded from the weekend; Commissioner Michael Harrison observed Monday that some victims were not random, but chosen for what he called “retaliatory violence." We have seen this all before. The circumstances of the drug trade, rival crime gangs, a lack of respect for human life, addiction and dysfunctional families and mental illness, concentrated poverty, historic racism, distrust of police, lack of education and job skills, and on and on. This doesn’t excuse crime, but it amounts to a pathology, to the behavior of a disease. Violent crime permeates this city like COVID-19 has seized much of the country, and there are comorbidities here. Fighting this epidemic is not a war that rests solely with police any more than hospitals are the only place where the virus is battled.
What do we do when we are battling a deadly disease? We martial resources, we change behavior, we move heaven and earth to save lives. And what has happened in Baltimore? Some people seem to expect Commissioner Harrison and his officers to do all the heavy lifting (or at least the triage). President Donald Trump flies into Baltimore for a Memorial Day ceremony but not with any help for the city he views mostly as a haven for rats. Gov. Larry Hogan pays the matter some lip service, but when it’s time to do something big, he’s pulling out the veto pen and rejecting Kirwan Commission reforms that would raise school performance. The list of elected leaders living outside the city’s borders who condemn the violence is long, the list of those willing to help do something about it is strikingly short.
Fighting violence isn’t easy. It’s difficult. Very difficult. Because the cycle of behavior can’t be fixed by mere arrests. There has to be a better life available to people trapped in these circumstances. There has to be help keeping families intact, in teaching youngsters a better way to live, in job opportunities. None of that is cheap. And the economic recession wrought by the pandemic makes it all the more difficult. Put more officers on the streets? With what money? More drug treatment slots? With what money? More job training? With what money?
We are not fatalists. We have met too many people working hard to make Baltimore a better place to believe this difficult task is a lost cause. Nor do we believe anyone should go soft on those who break the law. But what we’re looking for is perspective. One bad weekend doesn’t decide a war. Neither does one bad incident. And so the battle against violent crime continues as the city looks for allies. The question to ask ourselves: What are any of us (and all of us) willing to do to help fight this deadly epidemic?
The Baltimore Sun editorial board — made up of Opinion Editor Tricia Bishop, Deputy Editor Andrea K. McDaniels and writer Peter Jensen — offers opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. It is separate from the newsroom.