The Mosby-Hogan Feud Flares Up....

 

After ceding local control of Baltimore City Police Department to federal DOJ and OCR monitored Court Supervision via consent decrees, the Baltimore City Attorney now complains about the lack of State funding...

Marilyn Mosby, "Republican Hypocrisy on 'Blue Lives Matter'"

With recent national concerns about public safety, many conservatives believe they have found a winning political issue. Conservatives across the country seem intent on tying the “defund police” movement to spikes in crime, despite there being no evidence of any connection. Never ones to let facts get in the way of a good attack ad, they are intent on seizing the mantle of law and order to “back the blue.” Undercutting their claims that “Blue Lives Matter” are incidents that have taken place on the watches of these conservatives.

Perhaps the clearest example of this double standard is in my state, Maryland. There, Gov. Larry Hogan styles himself as a moderate, the rare type of Republican who can win election twice in a blue state. Hogan quite clearly has aspirations to take on Donald Trump in the next Republican primary, and has used his position in Annapolis as a springboard to boost his profile among the right-wingers who are key to the nomination.

Being an ally of law enforcement is essential for Hogan, and he often holds events with police, and has even hung the “Blue Lives Matter” flag in his official residence, Government House. His new initiative is a campaign to “re-fund” the police. Hogan has announced millions of dollars in additional support for state and local police to counter the impact of the “defund police” campaign. Hogan followed the campaign with an ad that would make Lee Atwater blush, complete with images of crime scenes, ominous headlines, and a clip of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a Muslim member of Congress who is the subject of regular racist attacks by Republicans, speaking at a protest.

Less than two months after Hogan launched his “re-fund” campaign, a young female Baltimore police officer, Keona Holley, was shot in her patrol car. She subsequently died. City and state leaders were outraged. As is his tendency as he builds his national profile, Hogan appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and was asked about Officer Holley. Hogan responded, “We have a prosecutor in Baltimore City that refuses to prosecute violent criminals, and that’s at the root of the problem.”

But none of that was true. In fact, the truth is that the lead suspect in the killing of Officer Holley was supposed to be under the supervision of a state agency at the time of that horrific offense. The suspect was on state-run pretrial supervision at the time of the homicide, yet managed to evade that supervision.

This was not an isolated incident. Indeed, Hogan’s tenure has been permeated by poor management of dangerous individuals on parole and probation. A recent report, which Democrats forced Hogan’s staff to publish, noted that since 2019 there have been 509 individuals under the supervision of the Department of Parole and Probation who were involved in gun violence in Baltimore City, as a victim or a perpetrator. Last year alone, there have been at least 70 people who were under state supervision when they were charged with a homicide. Almost 85% of them had pending violations at the time the homicides took place. In a recent editorial, the Baltimore Sun noted the governor’s failures on these issues and urged him to step up.

Similarly, in 2018, the secretary of Hogan’s Department of Juvenile Services erroneously attempted to blame my office for the release of a juvenile who ultimately killed a Baltimore County police officer. In fact, the department pushed for the juvenile’s release over the objection of both my prosecutors and his own mother. So yet again, Hogan’s state agency failed to properly supervise an individual, who then took the life of a police officer.

The governor’s response to all these failures has been to withhold millions of dollars in funds from my office, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney. As with Ilhan Omar, Hogan has found another woman of color who is a convenient foil for him to rally the right. In what world does “refunding” police and defunding prosecutors make sense? Only in a world in which you are uninterested in public safety and are only interested in animating an increasingly racist conservative base.

How Hogan squares his professed adulation of police with this level of incompetency is a question voters in Maryland have asked for years, and one which voters across the country should soon ask a man who wants to be president.

The reality is that Republicans like Hogan do not care any more about police or public safety than they care about criminal justice reform or racial justice. Their shameless double standard on police and prosecutors shows that the only guiding value they have is political opportunism. Democrats must be unafraid to call them out on this hypocrisy.

Marilyn J. Mosby is the Baltimore City state’s attorney.