ANNAPOLIS, MD—Governor Larry Hogan today joined WBAL Radio on the “C4 and Bryan Nehman Show” to discuss the administration’s aggressive efforts to curb the rising tide in violent crime plaguing Baltimore City.
On the Re-Fund The Police Initiative:
“I was the first elected official anywhere to speak out strongly against the defund the police initiative. I talked about the need for more police, for tougher sentences, to get the violent criminals off the streets. And now, people all across the country are finally coming around to that two years later. And so you now have today, President Biden is going to New York to talk about our initiative basically to put more money into state and local police, which is something that all the Democrats have been against. It seems as if the mayor of San Francisco, the mayor of New York, the mayor of Chicago are all agreeing with us that we need to do something about the violent crime. And it seems like the only ones in the country that haven’t gotten around to that are the city officials in Baltimore and the Maryland General Assembly, but we’re going to keep pushing and we’re going to try to get our crime bills passed. And we’re going to try to put more money into state and local police.”
“We’re putting half a billion dollars into increased police for state and local police forces and we’re trying to pass a really tough crime bill that has real sentences for people who commit violent felonies with guns. And that makes the judicial system transparent like the legislative and executive branches are and letting people know what kind of sentences they’re giving for violent crime. So yes, if we can pass these two pieces of emergency legislation that will make a huge difference. If we can put more officers out on the streets, that’s going to make a difference. But we have to have city leaders who are willing to go after the criminals, and we have to have a prosecutor that’s willing to prosecute them. We have to have judges that are willing to sentence them. I mean, there’s nothing going to change that unless those three things change.”
On parole and probation:
“There are far too many people on parole and probation. And it’s about to get much, much worse because the legislature took us out of the process for parole. So you’re going to have thousands more violent criminals on the street. We increased the number of parole and probation officers. We sent 330 of them into Baltimore City, into every single police precinct to work with the police there. But parole and probation officers don’t have arrest powers. They don’t have the ability to issue warrants. It takes police officers that are making the arrests. It takes judges that issue the warrants. So that’s the part that’s failing, we’re not arresting people, we’re not prosecuting people, and we’re not sentencing them and we’re not putting them in jail. And then now thanks to the legislature, they’re getting more people out of jail, and it’s going to get worse.”
On the Re-Fund The Police Initiative:
“I was the first elected official anywhere to speak out strongly against the defund the police initiative. I talked about the need for more police, for tougher sentences, to get the violent criminals off the streets. And now, people all across the country are finally coming around to that two years later. And so you now have today, President Biden is going to New York to talk about our initiative basically to put more money into state and local police, which is something that all the Democrats have been against. It seems as if the mayor of San Francisco, the mayor of New York, the mayor of Chicago are all agreeing with us that we need to do something about the violent crime. And it seems like the only ones in the country that haven’t gotten around to that are the city officials in Baltimore and the Maryland General Assembly, but we’re going to keep pushing and we’re going to try to get our crime bills passed. And we’re going to try to put more money into state and local police.”
“We’re putting half a billion dollars into increased police for state and local police forces and we’re trying to pass a really tough crime bill that has real sentences for people who commit violent felonies with guns. And that makes the judicial system transparent like the legislative and executive branches are and letting people know what kind of sentences they’re giving for violent crime. So yes, if we can pass these two pieces of emergency legislation that will make a huge difference. If we can put more officers out on the streets, that’s going to make a difference. But we have to have city leaders who are willing to go after the criminals, and we have to have a prosecutor that’s willing to prosecute them. We have to have judges that are willing to sentence them. I mean, there’s nothing going to change that unless those three things change.”
On parole and probation:
“There are far too many people on parole and probation. And it’s about to get much, much worse because the legislature took us out of the process for parole. So you’re going to have thousands more violent criminals on the street. We increased the number of parole and probation officers. We sent 330 of them into Baltimore City, into every single police precinct to work with the police there. But parole and probation officers don’t have arrest powers. They don’t have the ability to issue warrants. It takes police officers that are making the arrests. It takes judges that issue the warrants. So that’s the part that’s failing, we’re not arresting people, we’re not prosecuting people, and we’re not sentencing them and we’re not putting them in jail. And then now thanks to the legislature, they’re getting more people out of jail, and it’s going to get worse.”
–###-