Baltimore

Published 13 mins ago
Baltimore property owned by Elijah Cummings burglarized hours before Trump tweet attack
By Bradford Betz, Chad Pergram | Fox News

President Trump hammers Rep. Elijah Cummings, equates living in Baltimore with living in hell

A Baltimore property owned by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., was burglarized early Saturday, local police confirmed to Fox News.

Authorities say it is unclear whether anything was taken from the property, which is located on Madison Avenue northwest of downtown Baltimore and the city's Inner Harbor.


Mike Hellgren

@HellgrenWJZ
Breaking: Congressman Elijah Cummings home broken into. Baltimore police investigating @wjz


Fox News was told that the Congressman was not at the property at the time of the break-in. Sources say the break-in occurred in a part of the property that Cummings rents out, not the part of the property where he resides.

Cummings' office referred Fox News to the Baltimore Police Department, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The reported break-in came few than four hours before Trump set off a firestorm in the media by deriding Cummings’ district as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess."


Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump
Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA......

“If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place,” Trump tweeted.

Congressional security officials are investigating whether the break-in was a random crime or if there is a threat "nexus" tied to Cummings due to Trump's comments. However, a source with knowledge of the investigation told Fox News there was "no skullduggery" when asked if the break-in had any relation to the president's remarks.

Fox News has obtained a memo sent to House offices the day before the break-in regarding Congressional security over the August recess. The memo from House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving reminds lawmakers of "the significance of maintaining an enhanced security awareness in your district."

"Members and staff should always remain vigilant of their surroundings and immediately report anything unusual or suspicious to the relevant law enforcement or police entity," Irving wrote. "I also recommend a notification to the USCP [U.S. Capitol Police] or my office so that we may coordinate any review with the relevant law enforcement agency."

Anyone with information about the break-in at Cummings' property is asked to contact 410-396-2221 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7Lockup.

Ohhh the beautiful hooah irony

louie wrote:

Ohhh the beautiful hooah irony

I wonder if he had insurance.

Baltimore approaching record for most homicides in a year
Baltimore On Pace to Break Homicide Rate Record in 2019
National Review • December 26, 2019

Baltimore may see the highest homicide rate ever recorded in the city by the end of 2019, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.

Police had recorded 338 homicides as of Tuesday, four shy of the 342 seen in 2017 and 2015. The city saw 353 homicides in 1993, the most of any year on record.

However, because the city had a larger population in the early 1990’s, the homicide rate per 100,000 residents in 2019 is nearing the rate from 1993, despite the lower total. If Baltimore sees 342 or more homicides by the end of 2019, the homicide rate will reach 57 per 100,000, surpassing the 1993 rate.

“It’s a major concern for me, not just as a hopeful man but as a citizen of Baltimore who grew up in inner city Baltimore,” Carmichael “Stokey” Cannady, a reformed drug dealer who became a community activist, told the AP. “I remember when a person had a conflict and would have a fight at best, now these young kids, at the age of 13, 14 years old, are finding handguns in their possession and they use them as toys.”

The homicide rate was declining before 2015. On April 12 of that year, 25-year-old Freddie Gray died while restrained in the back of a police van after officers arrested him on suspicion of illegally carrying a switchblade. The death sparked riots in the city after officers were accused of racism in the case. Gray was African-American.

The state attorney for Baltimore, Marilyn Mosby, charged the officers involved with murder, and said she would attempt to give voice to rioters’ chants of “no justice, no peace.” The six officers charged were eventually acquitted, and in 2016 prosecutors dropped all remaining charges.

The homicide rate in Baltimore has remained high since Gray’s death. In 2019 the city appointed current Police Commissioner Michael Harrison to revamp the department.

“People can expect [the homicide rate] to go down, we are building capacity, but we need to have some type of effect on the poverty, the housing, the education, the addiction, the skills, the jobs and the lack thereof, together at the same time,” Harrison told the AP. “All of that has to be addressed while prosecuting people who commit crimes and preventing other people from committing those crimes. Otherwise, it continues and then you ask the question, ‘When does it stop?’ without fixing the reason it starts.”

President Trump in July described the district in which the Freddie Gray incident took place as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Trump blasted the district’s longtime representative Elijah Cummings, who died in October, for what the President said was Cummings’s failure to address problems of crime in the district.

Maryland’s Republican governor Larry Hogan denounced Trump’s remarks as “outrageous and inappropriate.”

UPDATE:

https://apnews.com/90e998520a52d35fb0626be51c4aaefd

Baltimore broke its annual per capita homicide record after reaching 342 killings Friday.

With just over 600,000 residents, the city hit a historically high homicide rate of about 57 per 100,000 people after recent relentless gunfire saw eight people shot — three fatally — in one day and nine others — one fatally — another day.

The new rate eclipses that of 1993, when the city had a record 353 killings but was much more populous before years of population exodus.