WaPo: Bloody Baltimore

The Washington Post editorializes about the results of officialdom's failure to support the police following the riots in that troubled city.

May was the most lethal month in the city in more than 40 years in per capita terms, it may have been the bloodiest month since record keeping began.

There were 43 victims of homicide in the city last month, the most since August 1972, when Baltimore’s population, now 600,000, was about 900,000. In addition, there were 108 nonfatal shootings in May, nearly triple the number recorded the same month last year. Over the three-day Memorial Day weekend alone, the city recorded 32 shootings and nine homicides.

As Baltimore’s streets succumb to the wave of carnage, the police have simply withdrawn, by many accounts. Harassed, hooted at and openly hated in the wake of the arrest of Freddie Gray, whose death in custody triggered the rioting in April, uniformed officers seem to have decided not to do their jobs.

Arrests, already down from 2014 levels before the rioting, have plummeted by more than 50 percent since then.

Policing isn't fun, not something you do for pure enjoyment. When unappreciated - unsupported - it likely will happen half-heartedly, if at all.