BALTIMORE
— Martin O'Malley often casts Baltimore as the comeback city that
overcame the ravages of drugs and violence when he was mayor.
Now,
weeks before the former Maryland governor expects to enter the 2016
presidential race and challenge Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic
primaries, Baltimore's turnaround has been marred by the unrest after
the police-custody death of Freddie Gray. The turmoil has placed new
scrutiny on O'Malley's "zero tolerance" law enforcement policies as
mayor from 1999 to 2006.
The
record shows that murders and violent crime overall declined in
O'Malley's years as mayor. But in that time, a grand jury concluded that
too many arrests were being made in black neighborhoods without merit.
And the city settled a lawsuit from people who said they were wrongly
arrested for minor offenses. Altogether, these are the sort of concerns
driving some of the anger in Baltimore today.
David
Rocah, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Maryland, said the O'Malley
administration left a legacy of "hyperaggressive and militarized
policing" that, in his view, contributed to the outrage behind the
riots. "I think the idea that you can arrest your way to public safety
has always been deeply misguided and counterproductive," Rocah said.
But O'Malley says those judging him in hindsight should remember the crime and despair of the Baltimore he inherited as mayor.
"I
don't think that any of us want to go back to the days of 1999,"
O'Malley said. "Our city is undoubtedly a safer place, and our city is
becoming a better place, but our city still has a lot of progress to
make."
He
spoke outside the Dawson Safe Haven Center, an after-school refuge for
children that was once a home for a family of seven killed in a 2002
firebombing by a drug dealer. O'Malley called that episode "our Alamo."
Even
now, O'Malley clings to the story of Baltimore's redemption, terming
the unrest "a heartbreaking setback for an otherwise remarkable
comeback."
He
said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that when he makes an
announcement about his presidential intentions, he wouldn't think of
making it anywhere other than Baltimore.
O'Malley
has tried to build a following in Iowa and New Hampshire as an
alternative to Clinton, the dominant front-runner. O'Malley has backed
tougher regulations on Wall Street, opposed the Trans-Pacific
Partnership trade deal and addressed student debt — issues that resonate
with liberals.
Still relatively unknown, even among Democrats, O'Malley frequently points to his time as mayor as a key part of his biography.
A
2013 video by his team, shown at a New Hampshire Democratic dinner
where he appeared, described Baltimore in the late 1990s as a "cauldron
of crime, drugs and profound despair" and credited O'Malley with "an
assault on hopelessness. He didn't make a campaign promise to make the
city safer, he made a pledge. And he kept it."
In the 1990s, more than 300 people were murdered each year in Baltimore. O'Malley advocated "
stop-and-frisk"
practices, cracked down on lower-level crimes such as public
drunkenness and disorderly conduct, and brought in two police commanders
from New York steeped in such policing. The number of homicides fell to
253 in 2002 and stayed below 300 during his two terms, while never
dropping to his goal of 175.
But the approach did lead to many arrests.
In
2005, a Baltimore grand jury found excessive arrests in black
neighborhoods and recommended retraining officers. Judge Joseph McCurdy
Jr. had tasked the panel with determining "what can be done to address
the lack of confidence that exists between many members of the public
and law enforcement."
The
ACLU and the NAACP sued in 2006 on behalf of 14 plaintiffs who said
they were wrongly arrested as part of a policy that emphasized arrests
for minor offenses under O'Malley's watch. The city agreed to the
$870,000 settlement in 2010.
O'Malley's successors moved away from zero-tolerance policing.
But he hasn't shied away from his record.
When
the recent protests erupted, he cut short a trip in England and
Ireland, returned to Baltimore and walked the streets to talk to former
constituents and community leaders. Some stopped to shake hands or take
pictures with him while others told him about their bad experiences with
the police. A few heckled him.
O'Malley
told one person the police were also victims of violence. "I buried 10
police officers" as mayor, he said. "Half were black. Half were white."
Asked
about the zero-tolerance policy, O'Malley said, "What we had zero
tolerance for was police misconduct. We worked at it every day."
On Sunday, he said that "extreme poverty breeds conditions for extreme violence."
His
advisers note he created a civilian review board for police conduct,
expanded drug treatment and saw a decline in excessive force complaints
and police-involved shootings.
After two terms as mayor, he won two terms as governor with strong support in Baltimore.
"The
people of Baltimore were given ample opportunities to express at the
ballot box their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the direction that
our city took to reduce violent crime, to reduce homicides, to make our
city more livable," O'Malley said.
Still, some think the riots erupted, in part, from years of frustration among residents who felt unfairly targeted.
"He
had some responsibility," said Marvin "Doc" Cheatham, a former
president of the NAACP's Baltimore city branch. "But you have to lay
blame also with the majority of the City Council, because the majority
of them were in office when he was in office."