Baltimore Police Commissioner Fired After Record Number of Homicides in 2017

Baltimore, MD — Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh fired Police Commissioner Kevin Davis after a surge of homicide rate and a lot more controversies during his term. He was replaced by previous deputy police commissioner Darryl DeSousa.

In a news conference, the 67-year-old Democratic mayor announced that she is discharging Davis as the police commissioner because she wanted to see more immediate results. “I’m impatient. We need violence reduction. We need the numbers to go down faster than they are,” she said.

Davis was appointed two years ago as the police commissioner. During his term, the homicide rate in the city increased with 343 killings in 2017, a record high for killings per person in the city.

A lot of controversies about the police department has also happened. One is the death of Freddie Gray, an African-American city resident who was apparently killed at the hands of police officers. A further investigation done by the Justice Department in 2016 revealed that police officers have long been involved in racial discrimination against African-Americans.

Another controversy involved eight police officers who were charged with fraud for false affidavits which have reportedly affected about 2,000 criminal cases. Detective Sean Suiter who was due to testify against the crooked cops was suspiciously shot dead just a day before the scheduled hearing in November 2017.

DeSousa, the newly appointed commissioner, has promised that the police department is going after the “trigger-pullers.” He added, “The district commanders in all nine districts know who they are. And we’re coming after them.”

The 53-year-old new commissioner joined the Baltimore police department in 1988 and has served every rank. He became Davis’ deputy commissioner in August 2015.