Mayor Young Says FOP Is 'Wasting Ink' With Its Criticism Of Police Commissioner's Crime Plan
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Baltimore Mayor Jack Young had some choice words of the leaders of the Fraternal Order of Police after they criticized the police commissioner's crime plan.
"Instead of them wasting ink they should have read in full the comprehensive plan that commissioner and I put in place," Young said Wednesday.
It comes a day after the FOP criticized how the Baltimore Police Department recruits, citing a 470 officer shortage.
"They said we don't have enough officers on the street, then they need to come out of the FOP Office and patrol the streets of Baltimore," Young said.
The FOP reports an average of one murder a day since June, and Tuesday was no different with a murder-suicide in Northeast Baltimore happening just two hours before the FOP held a press conference.
President Michael Mancuso responded to Commissioner Harrison's five-year crime plan, calling it woefully inadequate saying the department must first fix comstat, which manages personnel in the department and it must focus on hiring and retaining officers with competitive pay and support for those in the field.
"Time is of the essence," he said. "Everyday, more people die."
But during the press conference Tuesday, Commissioner Michael Harrison responded to the criticism.
"With the exception of a couple of items, I'm actually pleased to see that they agree with much of what I put into my crime plan. And it appears that they took what we wanted to implement and build, and put into the crime plan and turn it into a complaint," Harrison said. "But they basically regurgitated everything that's in my crime plan, and turned it into a form of complaint about what hasn't been done, and in my crime plan we said what we want to do and will do."
Young also added to Harrison's thought.
"They said we don't have enough officers on the street then they need to come out of the FOP office and patrol the streets of Baltimore," Young said.
Young said he supports the plan the commissioner has in place, saying he is seeing it starting to work.
