March 25, 2026 • 35 mins
Baltimore is typically seen as the poster child for high crime with the city consistently having one of the nation’s highest murder rates. Things have been changing in Baltimore in the last few years though as the city has had a nearly 60 percent reduction in murder 3since 2022. It is a remarkable story of solving gun violence using every tool in the toolkit.
To understand this amazing turnaround , I talked to Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. Mayor Scott shares his journey, innovative strategies, and insights on reducing gun violence and transforming public safety in Baltimore. This is an episode about how data-driven approaches, community engagement, and leadership are shaping one city’s future.
Brandon M. Scott is the 52nd Mayor of Baltimore, and the youngest person to hold the position in more than 100 years. Mayor Scott is committed to ending gun violence, restoring the public’s trust in government and creating a brighter, better and more equitable Baltimore for all.
Resources:
- Learn More: Mayor Brandon Scott
Follow the Jeff-alytics Podcast:
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
I'm Jeff Asher, and this is the Jeffalytics Podcast.
(00:04):
For years, Baltimore has beenthe city people point to when
they want to talk about surgingviolence, corrupt policing, and
the impossibility of fixingentrenched problems.
In many cases, the version ofBaltimore that they have in
their minds comes from eitherthe national news or Hollywood
in television series like TheWire and We Own This City.
But something unusual hashappened over the last few
years.
(00:24):
Baltimore has seen a sharp dropin homicides and shootings.
And it didn't happen because thecity increased arrests.
In fact, arrests havedramatically fallen over the
same period.
So, what changed?
In this episode, I talk withBaltimore Mayor Brandon Scott
about how the city hasapproached violence differently
and what the data actuallyshows.
We discussed strategies likefocused deterrence and treating
(00:44):
violence as a public healthproblem, and why a small group
of people drives adisproportionate share of
violence.
We also talk about the challengeof communicating crime trends in
a world where perception oftenlags far behind reality.
And what comes next for citiestrying to sustain these
reductions?
Let's get started.
My guest today is Mayor BrandonScott of Baltimore.
Mayor Scott, thank you so muchfor joining the program.
SPEAKER_00 (01:06):
Thank you for having me.
Thank you for having me, Jim.
SPEAKER_01 (01:08):
Let's start off with the same question I generally
ask all my guests.
What is your background?
And more importantly, why is itthat you wanted to be the mayor
of Baltimore and take on what isjust an enormous undertaking
like that?
SPEAKER_00 (01:20):
Well, my background is this I am a young black
Baltimore.
That's really my background.
For me, I was born in 1984.
I'm a first-generationBaltimorean.
My mom's family moved here fromrural Virginia, right outside of
Richmond and Amelia County.
My dad's family, really hisolder brothers, my uncles, my
aunts, they moved here fromrural North Carolina, uh Halifax
(01:41):
County, Littleton, to be exact,with my grandparents.
Worked and ran a pig farm untilthey died.
So I'm a first-generationBaltimorean.
Love the opportunity that thisplace uh provided for both sides
of my family.
My my granddad uh being able to,and this is a great story, when
he was down to$100, him and mygrandmother to their name, uh
(02:02):
being able to get a job atGeneral Motors that like changed
the trajectory of my familyforever.
Uh that's how they bought thehouse that my mom grew up in and
my grandmother lived until shepassed, and my my aunt still
lives in.
Uh, it's actually how my dad netmy mom because he came up to
visit my uncle who had lived inan apartment down the street.
But for me, I had a little bitof a different upbringing in
(02:24):
Baltimore in the 80s, 90s, andearly 2000s, growing up in the
time of zero tolerance policing,the war on drugs, all of that
kind of stuff.
And I wanted to become mayorbecause before I was 10 years
old was the first time I sawsomeone get shot and uh was
pestering my my parents, mygrandparents, older cousins,
uncles, aunts, anybody who wouldlisten around why no one really
(02:47):
cared.
And then uh my mom one daylooked at me and said, If you
want to change, you have to doit yourself.
No one's coming to save us, andthe rest is history.
SPEAKER_01 (02:54):
That's fantastic.
That's a great story andincredible achievement.
So, how has Baltimore crimechanged and gun violence in
particular changed since youtook office?
Or really over the last decade?
SPEAKER_00 (03:05):
When you think about this, I am 41 now.
18 of the 41 years that I'vebeen alive, Baltimore has had
over 300 homicides.
I mean, you think about uh thetime frame following uh the
unrest of Freddie Gray really in2015.
Uh, from 2015 all the waythrough 2022, we saw 300 plus
(03:27):
homicides.
But what you saw started tohappen in 2022 was this steep
decline in homicides andviolence, not just homicides,
homicides and shootings and allkinds of violence in Baltimore.
And we really hit what we nowknow as a historic low.
Uh we uh thought about it adifferent way, right?
Most of my lifetime, uh uh as ayoung man growing up here in
(03:51):
Baltimore, we could see uh thatthose in power, not just here in
Baltimore, but around thiscountry, subscribe to the
thought that only police wereresponsible for the reduction of
violence in any community.
And we know that that didn'twork, right?
What we did have happen here ishundreds of thousands of people
be arrested just because theywere poor and black and living
(04:15):
in neighborhoods and the crimedid not move.
Despite all those years of allthose mass arrests, the crime
did not move.
And I'll give you a perfectexample of that just so that you
have it.
So in 2004, uh the city ofBaltimore, which is roughly uh
close to 600,000 people, theBaltimore Police Department made
(04:36):
91,697 arrests.
That year, we had 278 homicides.
All right.
If you look at 2024, we were allthe way down to 201 homicides,
but we only made 17,872 arrests.
(04:57):
That shows everyone, it shouldbe very clear to everyone is
that we never been about howmany people you arrest, but who
and for what.
And what we have done since Itook office is changed the way
that we think about publicsafety.
Uh, we are implementing a lawthat I passed as the city
council president whereBaltimore has to have a
(05:20):
comprehensive uh publichealth-based approach to dealing
with gun violence.
We call that of CDIP, ourcomprehensive violence
prevention plan.
And we are operating in thatmode, understanding that while
police play a very importantrole in dealing with crime and
violence in our city, they arenot the only agency or group
(05:40):
that has to deal with that.
And we're looking at it from acomprehensive approach.
You know, we've been able to dothat uh by reducing homicides by
40% over the last four years,and we want to make sure that we
continue uh of that reduction aswe make it through the end of
this year.
But the how is very important.
(06:00):
And it's because we did it avery different way.
Uh, we looked at it as thatpublic health issue.
And what we were able to do issay, see, and identify that we
know that it was never everybodythat lived in a in a
neighborhood like mine.
I grew up in Park Heights innorthwest Baltimore, uh, a
neighborhood that has a uhtriple crown horse racing
(06:22):
preakness, but every other dayof the year I wasn't even
treated as human as a young man.
But there's a small group ofpeople, roughly 2% of the
population that is responsiblefor and the most likely to uh be
the victim or perpetrator of gunviolence.
We identified those people andthrough our focus deterrence
model, our group violencereduction strategy, we focus on
(06:46):
them from both the carrot andstick uh point.
Uh we actually give uh folks achance to change their lives.
They actually get a letterdirectly from me that
essentially says, I know who youare, I know what you do.
This is your one and only chanceto change your life.
And if you do not, we willremove you through law
enforcement.
But for those who do take us upon our opportunity to change
(07:09):
their life, uh, we give them theresources that they need,
whether they be housing, jobsupport, education, training,
relocation, whatever.
And we've seen that be veryeffective because over 90% of
the people that have said to usthat they want to change their
life have not been recidivism orhave not been re-victimized,
(07:29):
right?
So they've not recidivated orbeen a victim of gun violence in
our city.
And the other folks, they go tojail.
All right.
We do the investigation throughBPD and they turn it over to our
state's attorney and ourattorney general who are doing
great work at prosecuting thosecases.
And we also uh have vestedheavily into community violence
(07:50):
intervention, paying the verypeople who used to be involved
in that life to go out andintercede in gun violence
through our safe trees program,through our hospital-based
violence responders, throughorganizations like We R Us and
Challenge to Change.
We're focusing in on guns inevery way, suing gun companies,
gun stores, doing guntrafficking cases.
(08:11):
The collective investment thatwe've made into our community
and young people, all of it ishow we've reduced violence.
SPEAKER_01 (08:18):
Can I ask you about focused deterrence?
One more follow-up question onthat.
I'm in New Orleans, where 12years ago, 13 years ago, the
city did pretty much the exactsame strategy and similarly saw
a very sharp, sudden drop, likeclearly connected to the
implementation of the focuseddeterrence.
And then the city'simplementation sort of waned
after that and they weren't asfocused and it wasn't as
(08:40):
effective.
And they had academics come inand researched it and showed,
hey, you you just you stoppeddoing the strategy.
How do you keep doing thisstrategy, A, for the rest of
your term, and also to umsystematize it so that whoever
comes in after you is also ableto keep up these successful
strategies?
SPEAKER_00 (08:58):
Yeah, I think that we we had a front row seat to
that, right?
When I when I got this job, uhthe former police commissioner
of New Orleans, uh what one ofthe former police leaders in New
Orleans, uh Michael Harrison,was my police commissioner here
in Baltimore.
So he had seen what happened andwhat he said to me, uh, and what
everyone said to me, I'll I'lladvisor said to me from UPenn,
(09:21):
the most important thing is theexecutive buy-in.
I had seen that myself.
And this is the third timeBaltimore has tried focus
deterrence.
I saw it myself the second timeBaltimore tried it here as a
young staffer, but even beforeas a citizen.
And what you have to have firstis that executive buy-in.
(09:41):
The reason why we've been ableto have that success like this
quickly is because everyoneknows that it is my strategy,
and every single person thatworks in city government, law
enforcement or not, is going tohave to work under that
strategy, or they're just notsimply going to work here.
But what we're doing to uhinstitutionalize it is we
(10:02):
thought about this in a verydifferent way.
Typically, as you know, uh acity has a program and they do a
program, and that program isdone by the city, is funded by
the city, and all these things.
For us, we have uh privatebusinesses, philanthropic
dollars that are helping withGBRS and they're seeing that
approach.
They're seeing the benefit oftheir investment, right?
(10:23):
We have our federal delegationthat is invested in it because
they're bringing money from thefederal government.
They are seeing the benefit oftheir investment.
Our state government is apartner in it.
They are seeing the benefit oftheir investment.
When it does not solely rely onone individual or one government
agency, and it'll be very hardfor whoever comes behind a brand
(10:46):
of Scott to take it away.
But even more importantly, we'reembedding it in the community,
the fabric, the culture of thecommunity.
People are not going to just sitby and let this go away.
And as I said before, we know uhthat we have to, whoever the
mayor is, is gonna have topresent to the city council and
the public a comprehensiveviolence prevention plan at
(11:09):
least every two years.
So it'll be very hard forsomeone to not have something in
there that has been in thereevery single time and uh that
has been very effective.
That's how you have to do it.
You have to institutionalize itin every way, in every faction
that you can.
SPEAKER_01 (11:26):
You talked about the sharp drop in arrests, and you
haven't it obviously notcorrelating with the increase in
murder or anything like that.
How has policing in Baltimorechanged?
Obviously, there's been aconsent decree, there's been
federal investigations.
Uh how has it changed over thelast decade?
And how are they impacted by thesort of bigger picture law?
(11:47):
You know, you've got fewerofficers now than you've
probably ever had before inquite a long time.
How do all of these thesefactors play in?
SPEAKER_00 (11:54):
Ten years ago was one year after the uprising,
right?
And at that time, think aboutthe Baltimore Police Department
at that time, we were looked atlike as the laughing stock of
policing depart policedepartments in this country.
The irony is that if you were toask me then 10 years ago as a as
a young councilman, that wewould uh now be BPD would be a
(12:19):
place where mayors and policechiefs from around the country
would be coming to look at theirpolicies, their strategies,
their practices, all of thesethings, I probably would have
laughed at you.
But that's the truth.
We are light years away fromwhere we were, and we're still
light years away from where weneed to be.
We have proven uh that you canreduce violence while reforming
(12:42):
the police department at thesame time.
Uh under my leadership, we havecome into compliance with
multiple sections of our consentdecree after being stagnant for
a very long time in that.
But it's really about uhrefocusing and reimagining what
public safety is.
Uh, one of the firstconversations that I had with my
police commissioner, then policecommissioner Michael Harrison,
(13:02):
is that he and I both agree thatuh the police department in
Baltimore, really around thecountry, that we are putting too
much culturally, uh we havedecided that they are the
response for any and everything.
80% of the calls coming into our911 emergency for our police
department were non-emergency.
(13:23):
Things like, especially becausethis is the height of the
pandemic, things like, oh, mykid won't log into Zoom to go to
school, 911.
Uh, my husband is cheating on meon Facebook, 911.
There's a marching band walkingdown the street practicing.
I don't like the noise, 911.
Those things have absolutelynothing to do with police work.
(13:46):
And we have to, through oursmart policing program, refocus
our police department in manydifferent ways.
And that's the same thing thatwe did through GVRS, right?
It can't just be thisplace-based, and any and
everybody that lives in thisplace is the most likely.
No, identify, use data, be veryintelligent about that, right?
Uh, data that is now informinghow they go about doing their
(14:10):
work, where they're focusing,focusing on those groups of
folks, and that, and thenrelieving them of some of the
other smaller things now allowsthem to focus on guns, to focus,
make those gun traffickingcases, to build relationships
and community.
And that's how we're reallystarting to evolve the way that
policing works in Baltimore.
And we we have a long way to go,but as someone who lived through
(14:33):
zero tolerance and policingwhile black, as we call it, as a
young black man to where we aretoday, we are light years away
from where we used to be.
And we just still have to keepworking at it.
And my goal is to get out of theconsent decree before my turn is
out.
SPEAKER_01 (14:49):
That's a great goal.
I wish you luck certainly withthat.
What role has eitherimplementing programs targeting
youth or supporting youth playedin these reductions?
I mean, uh, you've certainlyseen a huge drop in your
shooting numbers nationally andalso in Baltimore.
We've seen enormous drops incarjackings, which tend to be
disproportionately carried outby youth offenders.
(15:11):
So uh have you targeted youthspecifically, or is that just
something that sort of fits intothe overall strategy as just
another piece?
SPEAKER_00 (15:18):
Well, in addition to this rethinking of public
safety, we are also uh changingsomething that has been the case
in Baltimore, at least as longas I've been alive.
Uh, when I was growing up here,I was looked at as a problem to
solve, not something to investin.
We have flipped that on hishead.
We looked at, we look at ouryoung people in my
(15:39):
administration as a deeplyimportant resource that we
should invest in.
And you can see that in thereflection of our budgets.
For example, uh the Wreck andPark's operational budget alone
has grown 40% uh since I've beenin office.
They have had over$200 millionin capital projects.
And I can just run down for you.
(16:00):
Since I've been in office, we'veopened six rec centers that were
some that were closed, some thatwe built new, some that we
renovated.
Uh, we did the same with pools,seven pools, I believe.
I can't count the amount ofplaygrounds that we have.
And right now, as you and Italking, I have five more rec
centers that are underconstruction, two that will open
(16:23):
uh this month, brand new in thecity of Baltimore.
And the last two budgets thatthat I had that passed here by
the city council have been thelargest amounts of money funded
into Baltimore City PublicSchools through from the city of
Baltimore in its history.
Uh, we've opened uh above 12, Ithink 13 uh new school
(16:45):
buildings, built new orrenovated in my time and office.
We opened the first new librarybranch in 20 years, and then we
broke ground on another one.
Uh we are continuing, we hadover 8,000 young people in our
summer jobs, youth jobs programuh last summer.
We are gonna continue to investin our young people in a very
(17:05):
deep way.
We also build their summerprogramming around what they
want.
We took about 300 of our youngpeople and helped them develop
the outside in 25 summer youthprogram where we had teen nights
and pool parties and theseevents and that events, and
having those young people havethat structured uh places for
them to go helps outtremendously.
(17:28):
And that's in addition to uh thefolks who are on the front
lines, our community violenceintervention workers and
organizations who are workingwith those young people who need
through my mayor's office ofAfrican Maryland Mail Engagement
and others who need uh to have adifferent viewpoint, who need to
be brought in, who need to betaught about themselves, who
need to be trained up to be in abetter them.
(17:50):
We're gonna do that as well.
SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
So I want to talk about how we communicate and how
you communicate all of this andhow we communicate going
forward.
And I'm sure that you get avariant of this question all the
time being the mayor ofBaltimore, but what do you say
to someone about public safetyand crime in Baltimore, to
someone that's only seen thewire, or maybe they saw that uh
we own this city on HBO, whichobviously terrific television,
(18:15):
but not inherently always themost truthful to reality and
certainly not the reality thatwe're seeing today.
SPEAKER_00 (18:20):
What I always tell people is that when you visit or
think about New York, you don'tthink about NYPD Blue or one of
the 20,000 different versions ofLaw and Order, right?
You understand that those kindof things happen in a big city,
but you also uh think aboutcompleteness of a place.
And that's what I tell peopleabout Baltimore.
Yes, those things that happen,happen.
(18:42):
I lived them, right?
I lived them.
I understand that.
But I also know uh that eventhen there were so many people
who were working tremendouslyhard to make Baltimore a better
place, and that now uh reallythe story is about how a city uh
that was once the poster childfor things like that is now this
city with mayor after mayor,with police chief after police
(19:05):
chief, or communityorganization, CVI organization
after CDI organization is nowcoming to Baltimore to say, talk
to us about how you did it.
We have gone from being uh theone that everyone's poking at to
the example that everyone wantsto be when it comes to how you
can reduce violence in yourcity, not wave the white flag
(19:25):
and celebrate because we havenothing to celebrate as of yet.
We still have far too manypeople uh dying from gun
violence, but to show tremendousprogress and doing it the right
way is what matters.
SPEAKER_01 (19:36):
And how do you respond to people who you you
point out all of the successesthat you've had and say, well,
it's only following the nationaltrend.
We are, you know, it's truthful.
We are seeing enormous declinesin across most cities.
How do you how do you respond tosomething like that?
SPEAKER_00 (19:52):
Yeah, the the truth is that we're beating the
national trend.
Uh the last two years, ourreductions have been higher than
the national trend.
Uh so we're not following thenational trend.
We're actually, we are thetrend.
And I think that's veryimportant for people to
understand and know.
And in in Baltimore's history,there have been years and years
and years where the nationaltrend has been big reductions,
(20:15):
and Baltimore is seeing theopposite.
So uh we have to make sure thatfolks are reminded that the
national numbers are don'tcompare to what Baltimore has
seen.
SPEAKER_01 (20:23):
And looking ahead, do you, you know, at some point
you're going to see crime isgoing to rise.
You're going to have a yearwhere your shootings are don't
keep falling.
We're inevitably going to seethis enormous historic decline
sort of slow down and possiblyeven reverse nationally.
Do you plan or think about likewhat you're going to do about
those types of things and howyou're going to communicate,
(20:45):
okay, yes, there was a 6%increase in shootings this year,
but you know, the overall trendis positive.
How how do you think about thosesorts of things?
SPEAKER_00 (20:54):
I think about it that we have to keep doing our
work.
That if we continue to do thework that we're doing, uh, that
we can continue to do thereduction.
But we also ultimately have tocontinue to have the
conversation that it's somethingthat we need to really have at
the national level, too.
That the way violence andshootings and homicides happen
now, it's not the same as it wasin the 80s and 90s and 2000s,
(21:16):
right?
People still have this blanketview that it's all gangs and
drugs, right?
11% of the country's homicidesare gang related.
So if you remove all of them,the majority of them still
happen.
Most of it is interpersonalstuff.
Uh people are are getting intothe smallest and pettiest beefs
and people end up dying.
(21:36):
And we have to talk about how wedeal with that issue.
And that issue solely isn't apolicing issue, but we have to
also just focus on the work.
If you are out there savinglives in the way that we have
here and cities around thecountry have done, we can
continue the trend by theunderstanding that things happen
(21:57):
and that we can continue to workon on the other side.
To make sure that we'repreventing it.
SPEAKER_01 (22:01):
Is there a strategy specifically looking at sort of
attacking interpersonal violenceas a driver of gun violence that
you haven't been able toimplement yet or and that you
really want to, or it's justit's really hard, it's really
expensive?
SPEAKER_00 (22:13):
I think it I think it's it's but it is still
connected to groups, right?
So I just want to be very clearabout that, right?
Uh we even when you think aboutour focus groups for G V RS,
people will see, and weunderstand in a format like
this, we can go deeper, right?
But on the nightly news, uh,when they're talking about a
homicide or a shooting, thefirst thing that those reporters
(22:34):
are going to do, because theyhave to be quick, is they're
gonna say, oh, yep, this personhas a a long record, it has guns
and it might have drugs in it.
Yep, it's drug related, right?
But the truth is, is that eventhough that person was involved
in that life, that might not beJeff why that person got shot.
What could happen is that thatperson, let's just say his name
(22:56):
is Jeff.
Uh Jeff realized that Brandon uhand he were dating the same
girl.
He saw that uh Brandon sent thatwoman a message on Instagram.
Jeff decides that he's gonnaconfront Brandon, ends up
shooting and killing her.
It has absolutely nothing to douh with Jeff dealing drugs or
dealing guns, right?
(23:17):
It is an interpersonal conflict.
And I think that that is why thegroup focused deterrence model
is the model.
Because when you're dealing withthose groups and you're focused
on those groups, you'reinterceding in that in many
ways.
That's why CVI is the model,because they will know the
community violence interventionfolks will know who's beefing
(23:39):
over women, who's beefing overrat beef, who's beefing over
small amounts of money ordisrespect in a different way.
That's why you have to have thisall and above approach because
there are things that police canprevent and intercede in, but
there are things that otherpeople can prevent and intercede
in.
And no one, no one is Tom Cruisein the minority report where
(24:00):
they've been able to see itbeforehand, and we have to
understand that.
SPEAKER_01 (24:04):
You remind me of um used to work for the CIA and and
we would talk about how you knowso-and-so was connected to the
Russian intelligence service.
It's like, well, every person inRussia that has any sort of
power is connected to the, youknow, they they know somebody.
So just because somethinghappens doesn't mean it was an
intelligence service-led coup orsomething like that.
How do you get that messageacross?
(24:24):
How do you make a the the mediacover this smarter and people
cover this smarter to sort of beable to do that differentiation
between a person that maybe ispart of a group because they
just they grew up in aneighborhood and they call
themselves something and itversus this was unrelated to
that dynamic.
It was this was an incident ofgun violence that happened
(24:45):
because of interpersonalconflict.
SPEAKER_00 (24:46):
Listen, that part we're still trying to figure out
here, especially, especiallywith some of the media we have
here in the home of Sinclairbroadcasting, right?
Uh people, media, they they wantthe quick and simple.
And I think that's somethingthat we have to, on mainstream
media, get folks to understandthat deciding to shoot and kill
someone or stab someone is not aquick and simple thing.
(25:08):
It's not something that's gonnabe cut up nicely and produced
nicely for you to be able totell a simple story on the
nightly news.
We have to have peopleunderstand the complexity and
the depth that that theseincidents uh really represent.
And we're we're still working onthat.
We've had some instances wherewe've been able to do that, but
by and large, uh people arestill force-fed this model that,
(25:32):
like, oh, yep, the person gotshot.
The person was arrested beforefor selling drugs is related to
him selling drugs, right?
You like that person could havestopped doing that 10 years ago.
I think that we have to keepevolving and understanding and
say what things actually are,not what's easy for us to say.
SPEAKER_01 (25:50):
Looking kind of big picture, what are the challenges
that you face in Baltimore thatyou think are very unique to
Baltimore versus the challengesthat you think every one of your
colleagues as a big city mayoris dealing with?
SPEAKER_00 (26:00):
Well, listen, we face a lot of unique challenges,
right?
I think that being the city thatis the birthplace, the first
place uh that racial rate liningwas passed, literally uh a few
feet from where I'm talking toyou from right now, the first
racial rate lining bill was wassigned.
So still living that legacy ofbeing uh uh uh a city that it's
(26:21):
only one other city that reallycan compare, right?
Us in St.
Louis, uh not having countygovernment and being the only
representative of government uhcreates a different set of
issues for us, especially whenit comes to infrastructure and
some of the other things thatmay challenge this for us.
Being one of the only citiesthat doesn't get to keep some of
the local sales tax, like everyother major city in the country,
(26:42):
that they can put back intoinfrastructure, they can reduce
property taxes, all of thosethings that we're fighting for
uh in our state legislature withour state government here in
Maryland.
Uh that's really uh some of thethings that that jumped to mind
to me.
And then dealing with thehistorical uh disinvestment into
Baltimore and Baltimore'scommunities of color
(27:03):
particularly.
SPEAKER_01 (27:04):
Are there things that you deal with that you're
just like, I know every singleone of my colleagues is dealing
with from a public safetyperspective?
SPEAKER_00 (27:11):
Oh, we yeah, we we we all deal with the shootings,
the homicides, the guns.
Uh the hardest part about beinga mayor of any city is being the
person that has to deliver thatbad niche, right?
It's different for us.
Mayors are people that peopleknow.
Uh I don't know any of mybrother, sister mayors that I'm
very close with who have notpersonally been impacted by gun
(27:32):
violence in their city, right?
When you think about that,having to deliver that message
to people you know, that theirson, that their daughter, that
their parents never coming backhome, having to uh deliver the
the eulogies at at funerals andspeak at funerals, right?
People have no earthly idea, uh,no matter how many times you do
it, how hard and how drainingthat is.
(27:54):
We all have to deal with uh theimpacts that listen, uh the
federal budget gets cut, thestate budget gets cut, and it
rolls downhill to us, and thereis no place for us to cut,
right?
Like we have to deal with theimpacts all the time of
happening at our state level andour national level.
And we're the we're the wherethe rubber meets the road.
We're the ones that the thepeople are gonna see in their
(28:16):
grocery store.
We're the ones they're gonnahold accountable for things that
are eaten literally out of ourcontrol.
We mayors deal with so much.
We deal with the potholes, wedeal with the snowstorms, we
deal with the weather, thethunderstorms, the hurricanes.
We deal with every single thingthat any resident in our
jurisdiction experiences in away that our state and fed and
(28:38):
national partners simply justdon't have to.
SPEAKER_01 (28:41):
You mentioned the funding piece.
How is your approach to publicsafety changing or affected by
the changing funding and supportspecifically coming from the
federal government and makingits way down over the last few
years?
SPEAKER_00 (28:54):
Well, yeah.
I mean, we were smart to uh uhnot bank on only having funding
come that way.
So that's we were very blessedthat we were splitting it up, as
I said to you earlier today, andwe still have that private
support, we have our statesupport, we have obviously the
city support, and we still havethe best federal delegation that
America have.
But it has impacted some of ourlocal organizations who are
(29:18):
doing our CBI and other work,who lost grants, right?
That is a real thing uh that wehave to deal with.
And the community has really uhuh came here in Baltimore,
wrapped our arms around it, andwe, I had to replace some of the
positions that were working onsome of these efforts in
Baltimore, uh, from being onfederal dollars to moving them
to local dollars, which was alla part of the plan in the first
(29:40):
place.
SPEAKER_01 (29:41):
And are the are there any really tough public
safety decisions that you've hadto deal with and navigate with
sort of the community that youlike you look at and you're
like, I really wish I didn'thave to make this decision.
Any approaches, especially withchanges in funding or anything
like that?
SPEAKER_00 (29:55):
Aaron Powell Well, the truth is that when I walked
out of the row house in 2021 andsaid that we were gonna have our
first carpenter's advancedprevention plan and it was gonna
be a five-year plan, right?
It wasn't gonna be somethingthat we're gonna just implement
overnight and boom, murders andshootings and stuff were gonna
go down, that we were gonnastrategically do it over a
(30:17):
five-year period.
Uh, people laughed and werepissed because they they felt
like they didn't, we didn't haveuh uh time.
We didn't have five years.
We needed a plan for right now,and we had to do a lot of the
explaining that the plan is forright now, but it's also about
the future, and that if wewanted to continue to make the
mistakes that are made inBaltimore, time and time again
(30:39):
in my lifetime, is that we wouldthink about public safety only
as a right now.
It was a very unpopularpolitical decision at the time.
I actually said at the time thatwe were going to reduce
homicides by 15% from one yearto the next, and people went
crazy, including my own staffmembers.
But now, uh five years later,everyone wants to be a part of
(31:00):
the comprehensive violenceprevention plan and say, look at
what we're doing here revolting.
You were understating it.
Yeah, right?
Like that's what leadershiprequires of you.
I say this all the time.
Leadership requires you to dowhat's right, not what's popular
and not what's easy.
What's right will get you hated,what's right what might get you
unelected, what's right is notgonna get you a bunch of likes
(31:22):
on Instagram or TikTok, butwhat's right is always going to
be right, no matter how manypeople don't like it.
SPEAKER_01 (31:29):
Let's turn to the future.
I have three future-relatedquestions for you.
The first is just broadly, whatdo you think are the biggest
public safety challenges thatyou're gonna face for the rest
of your term in office?
SPEAKER_00 (31:40):
Well, it's the same ones, right?
I think that that we know,especially with the pressures
now coming down uh from all ofthe policies happening at the
national level, right?
We're talking about uh I I'm inBaltimore, I'm in Maryland, that
is seeing oversized impact ofthe reduction uh of the federal
workforce.
Where when you see the thingsthat people are talking about,
(32:01):
uh uh limiting the access tofood and all of these things, we
know that ultimately that has adirect correlation to what's
going on uh with violence andcrime in any place, but it's
outsized here.
Uh but when you think about now,uh we are now starting to see
cocaine flow be one of thethings that we're recovering and
flowing into the city in waysthat we haven't seen in a long
(32:23):
time.
We obviously always gonna haveto be worried about the flow of
guns into the city of Baltimore,right?
But most importantly, we have tobe worried about the conflict.
The conflict between groups iswhat drives balance in the city,
which is why we're gonna befocused the way that we are.
SPEAKER_01 (32:39):
And what do you hope your legacy is 20 years from
now, 30 years from now, lookingback specifically as it relates
to public safety?
SPEAKER_00 (32:46):
Yeah, I think I I say this, I get this question a
lot from from students.
I always say very simply, uh,when 20 years from now, when
some young person is is readingand studying about me, which is
a weird thing to talk about, Iwant them to look back and say
that that is where the switchhappened for Baltimore.
He is the foundation,foundational block on which the
(33:10):
new best improved version ofBaltimore stands on.
That is more important than methan anything.
Because when you now have astrategy, when we implement that
strategy, when you see it'sworking, you stay connected and
keep it going, then the city canbuild on top of that.
And I say to the young peopleall the time, the person who uh
puts that first part of thatfoundation down is just as
(33:34):
important as the person who putsthe fancy topper on top of the
billboard.
And I'm quite okay being uh thatthat foundational piece if one
of these young people that I'vespoken to in school uh grows up
to be in this chair and is theperson that gets to put the top
over.
That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (33:51):
That's that is a a uh great, great approach.
And then last big question ishow is AI going to change your
job just in general and alsoyour approach to public safety
in the future?
Is that a a question that you'reasking right now?
SPEAKER_00 (34:05):
Yeah, we know it'll change everything, right?
It'll change everything for howpeople analyze things and how
they, you know, quote unquotepredict things.
It'll change.
Obviously, a lot of folks, Idon't, but people use it for
things like speech writing andpolicy writing and all of those
things, is it's gonna changeeverything uh that we do.
But it could have some some uhpositive impacts on, especially
(34:29):
on the analytics and looking atgroups and analyzing those
groups.
I think that that could be avery powerful thing for us.
But with anything, you also haveto, it has to have the cultural
competency and understanding, uhwhich we know and sometimes in a
city like Baltimore, he doesnot.
SPEAKER_01 (34:46):
So, Mayor Scott, what's next for you?
SPEAKER_00 (34:48):
What's next for me?
I think I'm going to read tokids at a school.
That's what's next for me.
SPEAKER_01 (34:53):
All right, that sounds fun.
Mayor Scott, this has beenenlightening, and I really
appreciate you taking the time.
Um, thank you for coming on theprogram.
Thank you for having me.
Thanks for listening to theJeffalytics Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe and tolearn more, head on over to
ahdatalytics.com for moreinformation and previous
episodes.
If you like what you heard,please leave a glowing review,
(35:15):
which will help others todiscover the show.
Until next time, I'm Jeff Asher.
I'm Jeff Asher, and this is the Jeffalytics Podcast.
(00:04):
For years, Baltimore has beenthe city people point to when
they want to talk about surgingviolence, corrupt policing, and
the impossibility of fixingentrenched problems.
In many cases, the version ofBaltimore that they have in
their minds comes from eitherthe national news or Hollywood
in television series like TheWire and We Own This City.
But something unusual hashappened over the last few
years.
(00:24):
Baltimore has seen a sharp dropin homicides and shootings.
And it didn't happen because thecity increased arrests.
In fact, arrests havedramatically fallen over the
same period.
So, what changed?
In this episode, I talk withBaltimore Mayor Brandon Scott
about how the city hasapproached violence differently
and what the data actuallyshows.
We discussed strategies likefocused deterrence and treating
(00:44):
violence as a public healthproblem, and why a small group
of people drives adisproportionate share of
violence.
We also talk about the challengeof communicating crime trends in
a world where perception oftenlags far behind reality.
And what comes next for citiestrying to sustain these
reductions?
Let's get started.
My guest today is Mayor BrandonScott of Baltimore.
Mayor Scott, thank you so muchfor joining the program.
SPEAKER_00 (01:06):
Thank you for having me.
Thank you for having me, Jim.
SPEAKER_01 (01:08):
Let's start off with the same question I generally
ask all my guests.
What is your background?
And more importantly, why is itthat you wanted to be the mayor
of Baltimore and take on what isjust an enormous undertaking
like that?
SPEAKER_00 (01:20):
Well, my background is this I am a young black
Baltimore.
That's really my background.
For me, I was born in 1984.
I'm a first-generationBaltimorean.
My mom's family moved here fromrural Virginia, right outside of
Richmond and Amelia County.
My dad's family, really hisolder brothers, my uncles, my
aunts, they moved here fromrural North Carolina, uh Halifax
(01:41):
County, Littleton, to be exact,with my grandparents.
Worked and ran a pig farm untilthey died.
So I'm a first-generationBaltimorean.
Love the opportunity that thisplace uh provided for both sides
of my family.
My my granddad uh being able to,and this is a great story, when
he was down to$100, him and mygrandmother to their name, uh
(02:02):
being able to get a job atGeneral Motors that like changed
the trajectory of my familyforever.
Uh that's how they bought thehouse that my mom grew up in and
my grandmother lived until shepassed, and my my aunt still
lives in.
Uh, it's actually how my dad netmy mom because he came up to
visit my uncle who had lived inan apartment down the street.
But for me, I had a little bitof a different upbringing in
(02:24):
Baltimore in the 80s, 90s, andearly 2000s, growing up in the
time of zero tolerance policing,the war on drugs, all of that
kind of stuff.
And I wanted to become mayorbecause before I was 10 years
old was the first time I sawsomeone get shot and uh was
pestering my my parents, mygrandparents, older cousins,
uncles, aunts, anybody who wouldlisten around why no one really
(02:47):
cared.
And then uh my mom one daylooked at me and said, If you
want to change, you have to doit yourself.
No one's coming to save us, andthe rest is history.
SPEAKER_01 (02:54):
That's fantastic.
That's a great story andincredible achievement.
So, how has Baltimore crimechanged and gun violence in
particular changed since youtook office?
Or really over the last decade?
SPEAKER_00 (03:05):
When you think about this, I am 41 now.
18 of the 41 years that I'vebeen alive, Baltimore has had
over 300 homicides.
I mean, you think about uh thetime frame following uh the
unrest of Freddie Gray really in2015.
Uh, from 2015 all the waythrough 2022, we saw 300 plus
(03:27):
homicides.
But what you saw started tohappen in 2022 was this steep
decline in homicides andviolence, not just homicides,
homicides and shootings and allkinds of violence in Baltimore.
And we really hit what we nowknow as a historic low.
Uh we uh thought about it adifferent way, right?
Most of my lifetime, uh uh as ayoung man growing up here in
(03:51):
Baltimore, we could see uh thatthose in power, not just here in
Baltimore, but around thiscountry, subscribe to the
thought that only police wereresponsible for the reduction of
violence in any community.
And we know that that didn'twork, right?
What we did have happen here ishundreds of thousands of people
be arrested just because theywere poor and black and living
(04:15):
in neighborhoods and the crimedid not move.
Despite all those years of allthose mass arrests, the crime
did not move.
And I'll give you a perfectexample of that just so that you
have it.
So in 2004, uh the city ofBaltimore, which is roughly uh
close to 600,000 people, theBaltimore Police Department made
(04:36):
91,697 arrests.
That year, we had 278 homicides.
All right.
If you look at 2024, we were allthe way down to 201 homicides,
but we only made 17,872 arrests.
(04:57):
That shows everyone, it shouldbe very clear to everyone is
that we never been about howmany people you arrest, but who
and for what.
And what we have done since Itook office is changed the way
that we think about publicsafety.
Uh, we are implementing a lawthat I passed as the city
council president whereBaltimore has to have a
(05:20):
comprehensive uh publichealth-based approach to dealing
with gun violence.
We call that of CDIP, ourcomprehensive violence
prevention plan.
And we are operating in thatmode, understanding that while
police play a very importantrole in dealing with crime and
violence in our city, they arenot the only agency or group
(05:40):
that has to deal with that.
And we're looking at it from acomprehensive approach.
You know, we've been able to dothat uh by reducing homicides by
40% over the last four years,and we want to make sure that we
continue uh of that reduction aswe make it through the end of
this year.
But the how is very important.
(06:00):
And it's because we did it avery different way.
Uh, we looked at it as thatpublic health issue.
And what we were able to do issay, see, and identify that we
know that it was never everybodythat lived in a in a
neighborhood like mine.
I grew up in Park Heights innorthwest Baltimore, uh, a
neighborhood that has a uhtriple crown horse racing
(06:22):
preakness, but every other dayof the year I wasn't even
treated as human as a young man.
But there's a small group ofpeople, roughly 2% of the
population that is responsiblefor and the most likely to uh be
the victim or perpetrator of gunviolence.
We identified those people andthrough our focus deterrence
model, our group violencereduction strategy, we focus on
(06:46):
them from both the carrot andstick uh point.
Uh we actually give uh folks achance to change their lives.
They actually get a letterdirectly from me that
essentially says, I know who youare, I know what you do.
This is your one and only chanceto change your life.
And if you do not, we willremove you through law
enforcement.
But for those who do take us upon our opportunity to change
(07:09):
their life, uh, we give them theresources that they need,
whether they be housing, jobsupport, education, training,
relocation, whatever.
And we've seen that be veryeffective because over 90% of
the people that have said to usthat they want to change their
life have not been recidivism orhave not been re-victimized,
(07:29):
right?
So they've not recidivated orbeen a victim of gun violence in
our city.
And the other folks, they go tojail.
All right.
We do the investigation throughBPD and they turn it over to our
state's attorney and ourattorney general who are doing
great work at prosecuting thosecases.
And we also uh have vestedheavily into community violence
(07:50):
intervention, paying the verypeople who used to be involved
in that life to go out andintercede in gun violence
through our safe trees program,through our hospital-based
violence responders, throughorganizations like We R Us and
Challenge to Change.
We're focusing in on guns inevery way, suing gun companies,
gun stores, doing guntrafficking cases.
(08:11):
The collective investment thatwe've made into our community
and young people, all of it ishow we've reduced violence.
SPEAKER_01 (08:18):
Can I ask you about focused deterrence?
One more follow-up question onthat.
I'm in New Orleans, where 12years ago, 13 years ago, the
city did pretty much the exactsame strategy and similarly saw
a very sharp, sudden drop, likeclearly connected to the
implementation of the focuseddeterrence.
And then the city'simplementation sort of waned
after that and they weren't asfocused and it wasn't as
(08:40):
effective.
And they had academics come inand researched it and showed,
hey, you you just you stoppeddoing the strategy.
How do you keep doing thisstrategy, A, for the rest of
your term, and also to umsystematize it so that whoever
comes in after you is also ableto keep up these successful
strategies?
SPEAKER_00 (08:58):
Yeah, I think that we we had a front row seat to
that, right?
When I when I got this job, uhthe former police commissioner
of New Orleans, uh what one ofthe former police leaders in New
Orleans, uh Michael Harrison,was my police commissioner here
in Baltimore.
So he had seen what happened andwhat he said to me, uh, and what
everyone said to me, I'll I'lladvisor said to me from UPenn,
(09:21):
the most important thing is theexecutive buy-in.
I had seen that myself.
And this is the third timeBaltimore has tried focus
deterrence.
I saw it myself the second timeBaltimore tried it here as a
young staffer, but even beforeas a citizen.
And what you have to have firstis that executive buy-in.
(09:41):
The reason why we've been ableto have that success like this
quickly is because everyoneknows that it is my strategy,
and every single person thatworks in city government, law
enforcement or not, is going tohave to work under that
strategy, or they're just notsimply going to work here.
But what we're doing to uhinstitutionalize it is we
(10:02):
thought about this in a verydifferent way.
Typically, as you know, uh acity has a program and they do a
program, and that program isdone by the city, is funded by
the city, and all these things.
For us, we have uh privatebusinesses, philanthropic
dollars that are helping withGBRS and they're seeing that
approach.
They're seeing the benefit oftheir investment, right?
(10:23):
We have our federal delegationthat is invested in it because
they're bringing money from thefederal government.
They are seeing the benefit oftheir investment.
Our state government is apartner in it.
They are seeing the benefit oftheir investment.
When it does not solely rely onone individual or one government
agency, and it'll be very hardfor whoever comes behind a brand
(10:46):
of Scott to take it away.
But even more importantly, we'reembedding it in the community,
the fabric, the culture of thecommunity.
People are not going to just sitby and let this go away.
And as I said before, we know uhthat we have to, whoever the
mayor is, is gonna have topresent to the city council and
the public a comprehensiveviolence prevention plan at
(11:09):
least every two years.
So it'll be very hard forsomeone to not have something in
there that has been in thereevery single time and uh that
has been very effective.
That's how you have to do it.
You have to institutionalize itin every way, in every faction
that you can.
SPEAKER_01 (11:26):
You talked about the sharp drop in arrests, and you
haven't it obviously notcorrelating with the increase in
murder or anything like that.
How has policing in Baltimorechanged?
Obviously, there's been aconsent decree, there's been
federal investigations.
Uh how has it changed over thelast decade?
And how are they impacted by thesort of bigger picture law?
(11:47):
You know, you've got fewerofficers now than you've
probably ever had before inquite a long time.
How do all of these thesefactors play in?
SPEAKER_00 (11:54):
Ten years ago was one year after the uprising,
right?
And at that time, think aboutthe Baltimore Police Department
at that time, we were looked atlike as the laughing stock of
policing depart policedepartments in this country.
The irony is that if you were toask me then 10 years ago as a as
a young councilman, that wewould uh now be BPD would be a
(12:19):
place where mayors and policechiefs from around the country
would be coming to look at theirpolicies, their strategies,
their practices, all of thesethings, I probably would have
laughed at you.
But that's the truth.
We are light years away fromwhere we were, and we're still
light years away from where weneed to be.
We have proven uh that you canreduce violence while reforming
(12:42):
the police department at thesame time.
Uh under my leadership, we havecome into compliance with
multiple sections of our consentdecree after being stagnant for
a very long time in that.
But it's really about uhrefocusing and reimagining what
public safety is.
Uh, one of the firstconversations that I had with my
police commissioner, then policecommissioner Michael Harrison,
(13:02):
is that he and I both agree thatuh the police department in
Baltimore, really around thecountry, that we are putting too
much culturally, uh we havedecided that they are the
response for any and everything.
80% of the calls coming into our911 emergency for our police
department were non-emergency.
(13:23):
Things like, especially becausethis is the height of the
pandemic, things like, oh, mykid won't log into Zoom to go to
school, 911.
Uh, my husband is cheating on meon Facebook, 911.
There's a marching band walkingdown the street practicing.
I don't like the noise, 911.
Those things have absolutelynothing to do with police work.
(13:46):
And we have to, through oursmart policing program, refocus
our police department in manydifferent ways.
And that's the same thing thatwe did through GVRS, right?
It can't just be thisplace-based, and any and
everybody that lives in thisplace is the most likely.
No, identify, use data, be veryintelligent about that, right?
Uh, data that is now informinghow they go about doing their
(14:10):
work, where they're focusing,focusing on those groups of
folks, and that, and thenrelieving them of some of the
other smaller things now allowsthem to focus on guns, to focus,
make those gun traffickingcases, to build relationships
and community.
And that's how we're reallystarting to evolve the way that
policing works in Baltimore.
And we we have a long way to go,but as someone who lived through
(14:33):
zero tolerance and policingwhile black, as we call it, as a
young black man to where we aretoday, we are light years away
from where we used to be.
And we just still have to keepworking at it.
And my goal is to get out of theconsent decree before my turn is
out.
SPEAKER_01 (14:49):
That's a great goal.
I wish you luck certainly withthat.
What role has eitherimplementing programs targeting
youth or supporting youth playedin these reductions?
I mean, uh, you've certainlyseen a huge drop in your
shooting numbers nationally andalso in Baltimore.
We've seen enormous drops incarjackings, which tend to be
disproportionately carried outby youth offenders.
(15:11):
So uh have you targeted youthspecifically, or is that just
something that sort of fits intothe overall strategy as just
another piece?
SPEAKER_00 (15:18):
Well, in addition to this rethinking of public
safety, we are also uh changingsomething that has been the case
in Baltimore, at least as longas I've been alive.
Uh, when I was growing up here,I was looked at as a problem to
solve, not something to investin.
We have flipped that on hishead.
We looked at, we look at ouryoung people in my
(15:39):
administration as a deeplyimportant resource that we
should invest in.
And you can see that in thereflection of our budgets.
For example, uh the Wreck andPark's operational budget alone
has grown 40% uh since I've beenin office.
They have had over$200 millionin capital projects.
And I can just run down for you.
(16:00):
Since I've been in office, we'veopened six rec centers that were
some that were closed, some thatwe built new, some that we
renovated.
Uh, we did the same with pools,seven pools, I believe.
I can't count the amount ofplaygrounds that we have.
And right now, as you and Italking, I have five more rec
centers that are underconstruction, two that will open
(16:23):
uh this month, brand new in thecity of Baltimore.
And the last two budgets thatthat I had that passed here by
the city council have been thelargest amounts of money funded
into Baltimore City PublicSchools through from the city of
Baltimore in its history.
Uh, we've opened uh above 12, Ithink 13 uh new school
(16:45):
buildings, built new orrenovated in my time and office.
We opened the first new librarybranch in 20 years, and then we
broke ground on another one.
Uh we are continuing, we hadover 8,000 young people in our
summer jobs, youth jobs programuh last summer.
We are gonna continue to investin our young people in a very
(17:05):
deep way.
We also build their summerprogramming around what they
want.
We took about 300 of our youngpeople and helped them develop
the outside in 25 summer youthprogram where we had teen nights
and pool parties and theseevents and that events, and
having those young people havethat structured uh places for
them to go helps outtremendously.
(17:28):
And that's in addition to uh thefolks who are on the front
lines, our community violenceintervention workers and
organizations who are workingwith those young people who need
through my mayor's office ofAfrican Maryland Mail Engagement
and others who need uh to have adifferent viewpoint, who need to
be brought in, who need to betaught about themselves, who
need to be trained up to be in abetter them.
(17:50):
We're gonna do that as well.
SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
So I want to talk about how we communicate and how
you communicate all of this andhow we communicate going
forward.
And I'm sure that you get avariant of this question all the
time being the mayor ofBaltimore, but what do you say
to someone about public safetyand crime in Baltimore, to
someone that's only seen thewire, or maybe they saw that uh
we own this city on HBO, whichobviously terrific television,
(18:15):
but not inherently always themost truthful to reality and
certainly not the reality thatwe're seeing today.
SPEAKER_00 (18:20):
What I always tell people is that when you visit or
think about New York, you don'tthink about NYPD Blue or one of
the 20,000 different versions ofLaw and Order, right?
You understand that those kindof things happen in a big city,
but you also uh think aboutcompleteness of a place.
And that's what I tell peopleabout Baltimore.
Yes, those things that happen,happen.
(18:42):
I lived them, right?
I lived them.
I understand that.
But I also know uh that eventhen there were so many people
who were working tremendouslyhard to make Baltimore a better
place, and that now uh reallythe story is about how a city uh
that was once the poster childfor things like that is now this
city with mayor after mayor,with police chief after police
(19:05):
chief, or communityorganization, CVI organization
after CDI organization is nowcoming to Baltimore to say, talk
to us about how you did it.
We have gone from being uh theone that everyone's poking at to
the example that everyone wantsto be when it comes to how you
can reduce violence in yourcity, not wave the white flag
(19:25):
and celebrate because we havenothing to celebrate as of yet.
We still have far too manypeople uh dying from gun
violence, but to show tremendousprogress and doing it the right
way is what matters.
SPEAKER_01 (19:36):
And how do you respond to people who you you
point out all of the successesthat you've had and say, well,
it's only following the nationaltrend.
We are, you know, it's truthful.
We are seeing enormous declinesin across most cities.
How do you how do you respond tosomething like that?
SPEAKER_00 (19:52):
Yeah, the the truth is that we're beating the
national trend.
Uh the last two years, ourreductions have been higher than
the national trend.
Uh so we're not following thenational trend.
We're actually, we are thetrend.
And I think that's veryimportant for people to
understand and know.
And in in Baltimore's history,there have been years and years
and years where the nationaltrend has been big reductions,
(20:15):
and Baltimore is seeing theopposite.
So uh we have to make sure thatfolks are reminded that the
national numbers are don'tcompare to what Baltimore has
seen.
SPEAKER_01 (20:23):
And looking ahead, do you, you know, at some point
you're going to see crime isgoing to rise.
You're going to have a yearwhere your shootings are don't
keep falling.
We're inevitably going to seethis enormous historic decline
sort of slow down and possiblyeven reverse nationally.
Do you plan or think about likewhat you're going to do about
those types of things and howyou're going to communicate,
(20:45):
okay, yes, there was a 6%increase in shootings this year,
but you know, the overall trendis positive.
How how do you think about thosesorts of things?
SPEAKER_00 (20:54):
I think about it that we have to keep doing our
work.
That if we continue to do thework that we're doing, uh, that
we can continue to do thereduction.
But we also ultimately have tocontinue to have the
conversation that it's somethingthat we need to really have at
the national level, too.
That the way violence andshootings and homicides happen
now, it's not the same as it wasin the 80s and 90s and 2000s,
(21:16):
right?
People still have this blanketview that it's all gangs and
drugs, right?
11% of the country's homicidesare gang related.
So if you remove all of them,the majority of them still
happen.
Most of it is interpersonalstuff.
Uh people are are getting intothe smallest and pettiest beefs
and people end up dying.
(21:36):
And we have to talk about how wedeal with that issue.
And that issue solely isn't apolicing issue, but we have to
also just focus on the work.
If you are out there savinglives in the way that we have
here and cities around thecountry have done, we can
continue the trend by theunderstanding that things happen
(21:57):
and that we can continue to workon on the other side.
To make sure that we'repreventing it.
SPEAKER_01 (22:01):
Is there a strategy specifically looking at sort of
attacking interpersonal violenceas a driver of gun violence that
you haven't been able toimplement yet or and that you
really want to, or it's justit's really hard, it's really
expensive?
SPEAKER_00 (22:13):
I think it I think it's it's but it is still
connected to groups, right?
So I just want to be very clearabout that, right?
Uh we even when you think aboutour focus groups for G V RS,
people will see, and weunderstand in a format like
this, we can go deeper, right?
But on the nightly news, uh,when they're talking about a
homicide or a shooting, thefirst thing that those reporters
(22:34):
are going to do, because theyhave to be quick, is they're
gonna say, oh, yep, this personhas a a long record, it has guns
and it might have drugs in it.
Yep, it's drug related, right?
But the truth is, is that eventhough that person was involved
in that life, that might not beJeff why that person got shot.
What could happen is that thatperson, let's just say his name
(22:56):
is Jeff.
Uh Jeff realized that Brandon uhand he were dating the same
girl.
He saw that uh Brandon sent thatwoman a message on Instagram.
Jeff decides that he's gonnaconfront Brandon, ends up
shooting and killing her.
It has absolutely nothing to douh with Jeff dealing drugs or
dealing guns, right?
(23:17):
It is an interpersonal conflict.
And I think that that is why thegroup focused deterrence model
is the model.
Because when you're dealing withthose groups and you're focused
on those groups, you'reinterceding in that in many
ways.
That's why CVI is the model,because they will know the
community violence interventionfolks will know who's beefing
(23:39):
over women, who's beefing overrat beef, who's beefing over
small amounts of money ordisrespect in a different way.
That's why you have to have thisall and above approach because
there are things that police canprevent and intercede in, but
there are things that otherpeople can prevent and intercede
in.
And no one, no one is Tom Cruisein the minority report where
(24:00):
they've been able to see itbeforehand, and we have to
understand that.
SPEAKER_01 (24:04):
You remind me of um used to work for the CIA and and
we would talk about how you knowso-and-so was connected to the
Russian intelligence service.
It's like, well, every person inRussia that has any sort of
power is connected to the, youknow, they they know somebody.
So just because somethinghappens doesn't mean it was an
intelligence service-led coup orsomething like that.
How do you get that messageacross?
(24:24):
How do you make a the the mediacover this smarter and people
cover this smarter to sort of beable to do that differentiation
between a person that maybe ispart of a group because they
just they grew up in aneighborhood and they call
themselves something and itversus this was unrelated to
that dynamic.
It was this was an incident ofgun violence that happened
(24:45):
because of interpersonalconflict.
SPEAKER_00 (24:46):
Listen, that part we're still trying to figure out
here, especially, especiallywith some of the media we have
here in the home of Sinclairbroadcasting, right?
Uh people, media, they they wantthe quick and simple.
And I think that's somethingthat we have to, on mainstream
media, get folks to understandthat deciding to shoot and kill
someone or stab someone is not aquick and simple thing.
(25:08):
It's not something that's gonnabe cut up nicely and produced
nicely for you to be able totell a simple story on the
nightly news.
We have to have peopleunderstand the complexity and
the depth that that theseincidents uh really represent.
And we're we're still working onthat.
We've had some instances wherewe've been able to do that, but
by and large, uh people arestill force-fed this model that,
(25:32):
like, oh, yep, the person gotshot.
The person was arrested beforefor selling drugs is related to
him selling drugs, right?
You like that person could havestopped doing that 10 years ago.
I think that we have to keepevolving and understanding and
say what things actually are,not what's easy for us to say.
SPEAKER_01 (25:50):
Looking kind of big picture, what are the challenges
that you face in Baltimore thatyou think are very unique to
Baltimore versus the challengesthat you think every one of your
colleagues as a big city mayoris dealing with?
SPEAKER_00 (26:00):
Well, listen, we face a lot of unique challenges,
right?
I think that being the city thatis the birthplace, the first
place uh that racial rate liningwas passed, literally uh a few
feet from where I'm talking toyou from right now, the first
racial rate lining bill was wassigned.
So still living that legacy ofbeing uh uh uh a city that it's
(26:21):
only one other city that reallycan compare, right?
Us in St.
Louis, uh not having countygovernment and being the only
representative of government uhcreates a different set of
issues for us, especially whenit comes to infrastructure and
some of the other things thatmay challenge this for us.
Being one of the only citiesthat doesn't get to keep some of
the local sales tax, like everyother major city in the country,
(26:42):
that they can put back intoinfrastructure, they can reduce
property taxes, all of thosethings that we're fighting for
uh in our state legislature withour state government here in
Maryland.
Uh that's really uh some of thethings that that jumped to mind
to me.
And then dealing with thehistorical uh disinvestment into
Baltimore and Baltimore'scommunities of color
(27:03):
particularly.
SPEAKER_01 (27:04):
Are there things that you deal with that you're
just like, I know every singleone of my colleagues is dealing
with from a public safetyperspective?
SPEAKER_00 (27:11):
Oh, we yeah, we we we all deal with the shootings,
the homicides, the guns.
Uh the hardest part about beinga mayor of any city is being the
person that has to deliver thatbad niche, right?
It's different for us.
Mayors are people that peopleknow.
Uh I don't know any of mybrother, sister mayors that I'm
very close with who have notpersonally been impacted by gun
(27:32):
violence in their city, right?
When you think about that,having to deliver that message
to people you know, that theirson, that their daughter, that
their parents never coming backhome, having to uh deliver the
the eulogies at at funerals andspeak at funerals, right?
People have no earthly idea, uh,no matter how many times you do
it, how hard and how drainingthat is.
(27:54):
We all have to deal with uh theimpacts that listen, uh the
federal budget gets cut, thestate budget gets cut, and it
rolls downhill to us, and thereis no place for us to cut,
right?
Like we have to deal with theimpacts all the time of
happening at our state level andour national level.
And we're the we're the wherethe rubber meets the road.
We're the ones that the thepeople are gonna see in their
(28:16):
grocery store.
We're the ones they're gonnahold accountable for things that
are eaten literally out of ourcontrol.
We mayors deal with so much.
We deal with the potholes, wedeal with the snowstorms, we
deal with the weather, thethunderstorms, the hurricanes.
We deal with every single thingthat any resident in our
jurisdiction experiences in away that our state and fed and
(28:38):
national partners simply justdon't have to.
SPEAKER_01 (28:41):
You mentioned the funding piece.
How is your approach to publicsafety changing or affected by
the changing funding and supportspecifically coming from the
federal government and makingits way down over the last few
years?
SPEAKER_00 (28:54):
Well, yeah.
I mean, we were smart to uh uhnot bank on only having funding
come that way.
So that's we were very blessedthat we were splitting it up, as
I said to you earlier today, andwe still have that private
support, we have our statesupport, we have obviously the
city support, and we still havethe best federal delegation that
America have.
But it has impacted some of ourlocal organizations who are
(29:18):
doing our CBI and other work,who lost grants, right?
That is a real thing uh that wehave to deal with.
And the community has really uhuh came here in Baltimore,
wrapped our arms around it, andwe, I had to replace some of the
positions that were working onsome of these efforts in
Baltimore, uh, from being onfederal dollars to moving them
to local dollars, which was alla part of the plan in the first
(29:40):
place.
SPEAKER_01 (29:41):
And are the are there any really tough public
safety decisions that you've hadto deal with and navigate with
sort of the community that youlike you look at and you're
like, I really wish I didn'thave to make this decision.
Any approaches, especially withchanges in funding or anything
like that?
SPEAKER_00 (29:55):
Aaron Powell Well, the truth is that when I walked
out of the row house in 2021 andsaid that we were gonna have our
first carpenter's advancedprevention plan and it was gonna
be a five-year plan, right?
It wasn't gonna be somethingthat we're gonna just implement
overnight and boom, murders andshootings and stuff were gonna
go down, that we were gonnastrategically do it over a
(30:17):
five-year period.
Uh, people laughed and werepissed because they they felt
like they didn't, we didn't haveuh uh time.
We didn't have five years.
We needed a plan for right now,and we had to do a lot of the
explaining that the plan is forright now, but it's also about
the future, and that if wewanted to continue to make the
mistakes that are made inBaltimore, time and time again
(30:39):
in my lifetime, is that we wouldthink about public safety only
as a right now.
It was a very unpopularpolitical decision at the time.
I actually said at the time thatwe were going to reduce
homicides by 15% from one yearto the next, and people went
crazy, including my own staffmembers.
But now, uh five years later,everyone wants to be a part of
(31:00):
the comprehensive violenceprevention plan and say, look at
what we're doing here revolting.
You were understating it.
Yeah, right?
Like that's what leadershiprequires of you.
I say this all the time.
Leadership requires you to dowhat's right, not what's popular
and not what's easy.
What's right will get you hated,what's right what might get you
unelected, what's right is notgonna get you a bunch of likes
(31:22):
on Instagram or TikTok, butwhat's right is always going to
be right, no matter how manypeople don't like it.
SPEAKER_01 (31:29):
Let's turn to the future.
I have three future-relatedquestions for you.
The first is just broadly, whatdo you think are the biggest
public safety challenges thatyou're gonna face for the rest
of your term in office?
SPEAKER_00 (31:40):
Well, it's the same ones, right?
I think that that we know,especially with the pressures
now coming down uh from all ofthe policies happening at the
national level, right?
We're talking about uh I I'm inBaltimore, I'm in Maryland, that
is seeing oversized impact ofthe reduction uh of the federal
workforce.
Where when you see the thingsthat people are talking about,
(32:01):
uh uh limiting the access tofood and all of these things, we
know that ultimately that has adirect correlation to what's
going on uh with violence andcrime in any place, but it's
outsized here.
Uh but when you think about now,uh we are now starting to see
cocaine flow be one of thethings that we're recovering and
flowing into the city in waysthat we haven't seen in a long
(32:23):
time.
We obviously always gonna haveto be worried about the flow of
guns into the city of Baltimore,right?
But most importantly, we have tobe worried about the conflict.
The conflict between groups iswhat drives balance in the city,
which is why we're gonna befocused the way that we are.
SPEAKER_01 (32:39):
And what do you hope your legacy is 20 years from
now, 30 years from now, lookingback specifically as it relates
to public safety?
SPEAKER_00 (32:46):
Yeah, I think I I say this, I get this question a
lot from from students.
I always say very simply, uh,when 20 years from now, when
some young person is is readingand studying about me, which is
a weird thing to talk about, Iwant them to look back and say
that that is where the switchhappened for Baltimore.
He is the foundation,foundational block on which the
(33:10):
new best improved version ofBaltimore stands on.
That is more important than methan anything.
Because when you now have astrategy, when we implement that
strategy, when you see it'sworking, you stay connected and
keep it going, then the city canbuild on top of that.
And I say to the young peopleall the time, the person who uh
puts that first part of thatfoundation down is just as
(33:34):
important as the person who putsthe fancy topper on top of the
billboard.
And I'm quite okay being uh thatthat foundational piece if one
of these young people that I'vespoken to in school uh grows up
to be in this chair and is theperson that gets to put the top
over.
That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (33:51):
That's that is a a uh great, great approach.
And then last big question ishow is AI going to change your
job just in general and alsoyour approach to public safety
in the future?
Is that a a question that you'reasking right now?
SPEAKER_00 (34:05):
Yeah, we know it'll change everything, right?
It'll change everything for howpeople analyze things and how
they, you know, quote unquotepredict things.
It'll change.
Obviously, a lot of folks, Idon't, but people use it for
things like speech writing andpolicy writing and all of those
things, is it's gonna changeeverything uh that we do.
But it could have some some uhpositive impacts on, especially
(34:29):
on the analytics and looking atgroups and analyzing those
groups.
I think that that could be avery powerful thing for us.
But with anything, you also haveto, it has to have the cultural
competency and understanding, uhwhich we know and sometimes in a
city like Baltimore, he doesnot.
SPEAKER_01 (34:46):
So, Mayor Scott, what's next for you?
SPEAKER_00 (34:48):
What's next for me?
I think I'm going to read tokids at a school.
That's what's next for me.
SPEAKER_01 (34:53):
All right, that sounds fun.
Mayor Scott, this has beenenlightening, and I really
appreciate you taking the time.
Um, thank you for coming on theprogram.
Thank you for having me.
Thanks for listening to theJeffalytics Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe and tolearn more, head on over to
ahdatalytics.com for moreinformation and previous
episodes.
If you like what you heard,please leave a glowing review,
(35:15):
which will help others todiscover the show.
Until next time, I'm Jeff Asher.
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