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Commissioner Batts

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Baltimore terminates its relationship with Commissioner Batts.

He's gone. He got the call Wednesday morning. The mayor, the union, and much of the city lost confidence in his ability to lead, realizing that he'd failed to address the culture of brutality endemic in the BPD while keeping the streets safe. The mayor held a press conference later in the day stating:

"Too many continue to die on our streets, including three just last night and one lost earlier today", Rawlings-Blake said. "Families are tired of feeling this pain, and so am I. ... We need a change."
We definitely need a change, but is this something to rejoice? I don't know.

We're still waiting for the Department of Justice's report to provide us the context of what happened …show more content…

He was definitely considered an outsider, a cleaner. Upon his installment in 2012, we thought we'd see change.

He claimed West Side! He ran up through the LBC (Long Beach, CA) and Oakland PD, which is pretty harsh territory. Its as grimy as my bloody asphalt memories of Gotham in the nineties, with sulfur propelled shrapnel embedding itself in the concrete walls of the darkest borough. I can't imagine doing that job, while listening to the bass of "187 on an undercover cop" bump through the subs of that untouchable sky blue drop-top Deville who's spinners alone cost more than your month's gross salary. (Speaking of which, he now leaves with 190k severance).

Commissioner Batts scared police insiders with his temerity to call audibles to the Feds on his own, rightfully swinging at the blue when the field was out of bounds. Cops just don't do that very often, he was... an …show more content…

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the move infuriated rank-and-file officers, who cast Batts as a "showboat" who didn't go to bat for his officers, and then jumped ship when the going got tough.
Those are some words, but are they fair?

See, its different when Governors calls the DOJ on the police. They're held accountable to the public and swayed by opinion and police understand that. Polls matter on election years. However, as we've heard before, the fraternal order of "Blue No Wrong" does not like to be questioned - especially from inside. When the Mayor of New York merely "suggested" that we needed to discuss policing tactics, the police union all but went on strike.

Why can't you be on the side of the police and the people, especially when police ("like corporations my friends") are people too? In all seriousness, why can't the police even question their own without us turning on them? The good cops are supposed to, but when they blow the whistle we ignore them or question their motives because they provide a narrative contrary to the comfortable lie we've

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