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The Dripby Fern Shen1:41 pmOct 12, 20150

Davis highlights a homicide victim’s criminal record

Interim police commissioner in radio interview: “Today’s perpetrator is tomorrow’s victim”

Above: Interim Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis at City Hall in July.

Baltimore Police press releases rarely offer more information about homicide victims than their name, age and address.

But this morning the city’s interim police commissioner, Kevin Davis, was on the radio offering quite a bit about Tabitha Holtman, who was shot and killed last night in Curtis Bay.

“She epitomizes 2015’s murder victims. She was in fact herself a non-fatal shooting victim, been arrested many many times, been charged with handgun violations,” Davis said on the C-4 show on WBAL news radio 1090.

Earlier in the morning, the press release from police media relations described the fatal shooting late Sunday night this way:

“Holtman, 25, was found lying in the middle of the 1600 block of Church Street with multiple gunshot wounds to her back, and was pronounced dead on the scene.”

The release noted that a 17-year-old boy was also grazed by a bullet in the incident and that he was treated and released from an area hospital.

Davis came back to the subject of Holtman for a second time during the interview with host Clarence M. Mitchell IV.

“Today’s perpetrator is tomorrow’s victim,” he said, going on to cite the accomplishments of the multi-agency “War Room” he announced shortly after he replaced fired police commissioner Anthony W. Batts in July.

He said the war room was designed to single out the “top trigger-pullers” believed to be responsible for m0st of the shootings in the city.

“So we’ve identified those 238 people, like the young lady last night who was killed,” Davis said. “She was a drug dealer. She was shot a couple years ago non-fatally. She’s been charged with carrying a firearm.”

“Those are all the signs that you are yourself either going to kill someone one day or be on the receiving end of violence.” he continued. “So we’ve got to do a better job.”

A Homicide a Day

Davis’ radio appearance comes as a City Council committee is set to consider Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s request that Davis, a deputy commissioner appointed as interim commissioner last July, be hired outright to lead the department.

Davis was asked by the show’s host to sum up the recent data on homicides. Saying there have been 262 homicides so far in 2015, Davis observed a month-to-month decline since he took the post.

There were 45 homicides in July, Davis said, 34 in August, 27 in September and 12 so far in October.

“I hate to just rattle off statistics like it’s a post-Ravens game because these are human beings, these are real people,” he said. “We’re heading in the right direction. We’re not heading there as quickly as I want, but we’re making progress.”

Mitchell spun the numbers a different way, observing that, since May 1, there have been 188 homicides in 164 days.

“That is why a lot of people are disturbed,” he said. “It’s a very long trend of more than a homicide a day.”

Football Analogy

Davis again used a football metaphor when discussing the reasons for the bloodshed.

“It’s not just the protest. It’s not just the unrest and the riots. It’s kind of like saying, ‘Why are the Ravens 1 and 4?’ It’s not just that Terrell Suggs is not there anymore. It’s something more than that.”

Davis went on to cite gang violence, saying that the department’s arrest of Black Guerrilla Family and leadership had created a power vacuum that led to violence, noting that “30% of our victims belong to gangs.”

The schedule change instituted by his predecessor, Davis said, also hamstrung his department. “They abandoned the beat concept. . . We simply don’t have the police officers to populate the shifts,” he asserted.

Responding to “Mike in Belair” who complained about “lawyers plea bargaining everything off,” Davis agreed with him, using another football metaphor.

“Everyone knows our win-loss record,” he said, complaining that for other parts of the criminal justice system “that win-loss record isn’t on the front page.”

Surprised by the Poverty

Earlier this month, Davis was asked about the root causes of Baltimore’s violence and answered the question a different way.

“Why, despite the city’s heavy investment in policing, does violence persist if indeed police are the answer?” The Real News Network’s Stephen Janis asked him.

Davis said the poverty in the city shocked him despite being a lifelong Marylander.

“I had not been in certain communities in Baltimore City my entire life, and I’ve been introduced to those communities since I’ve been here in January,” he said.

“And the poverty – you wouldn’t think that a community like that would still exist in this country, quite frankly,” he added.

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