Baltimore Councilman Says Brazen Crime In Northwest Baltimore Shows Need For More Detectives
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- There is outrage and fear in one Northwest Baltimore community after an attempted dirt bike theft during daytime hours led to flying bullets.
When the theft attempt failed, the suspects started shooting at the person who stopped it, according to authorities. The violent exchange was caught on video.
Baltimore police say they are still looking for the suspects who are involved in the theft.
"These people need to be held accountable," Councilman Isaac Yitzy Schleifer—who represents the district—told WJZ. "The community is outraged by these constant shootings and violent crimes and the most frustrating piece of it is that those who are committing the crimes are not being held accountable."
The video which was caught on surveillance cameras shows a young man—possibly in his teens—stop at Park Heights Avenue and Pinkney Road. Within seconds, a dark-colored car pulls up and blocks him in.
The video shows that someone then hops out and takes the young man's bike. But before the suspect could pull off, Councilman Schleifer said the rider's father sped up to the scene and tried to retrieve the bike. Within seconds a flurry of gunshots echoed through the air.
The video shows drivers frantically making sharp turns to try to get out of the way. Baltimore police say the shooter was one of the suspects who initially tried to steal the dirt bike.
"The brazen-ness of cases like this show how a simple incident of stealing a bike could quickly escalate," Schleifer said.
Schleifer told WJZ it took too long for detectives to show up.
"We need more detectives in the city so that there's less caseload per detective and so that we can respond to crime very quickly," Schleifer said.
WJZ reporter Ava-joye Burnett asked the councilman: What if there isn't the manpower for it?
"There is manpower," Schleifer responded. "There are officers that are assigned to other divisions that can we moved into the detective units immediately."
WJZ brought those concerns to the police commissioner. The department says they are nearly 400 sworn officers short but the commissioner also said every effort is being made to solve the various crimes that occur in the city.
"Every single day my senior team and I meet to talk about our deployment strategy and how we adjust when needed and where needed," Commissioner Michael Harrison said. "We do that every single day."
Despite the fact that the shooting happened during the day, no one was injured and police are still looking for the suspects
"Other people could've been injured and this could've gone far worse," Harrison said. "So what we need is for anyone who knows anything to help us find who did this so that we can hold them accountable and we want to do our part by making an arrest, in this case, to show that we take it seriously."
