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Bloomberg calls for more armed security guards at Johns Hopkins University

Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg — a staunch advocate for gun control — said the lack of armed security guards at his alma mater Johns Hopkins University was “ridiculous” given Baltimore’s troubling murder rate.

The potential presidential hopeful vented to reporters following private meetings with Democratic lawmakers and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh on Tuesday, the Baltimore Sun reported.

“When you have a city that has the murder rate that Baltimore has, I think it’s ridiculous to think that they shouldn’t be armed,” said Bloomberg, the school’s largest benefactor who donated an unprecedented $1.8 billion in November.

He went on to say that it was “irrational” that armed security didn’t exist at Hopkins given its 45,000 employees. The private school is Baltimore’s largest employer.

Armed officers on campus would be comparable to security situations at similar schools, he said.





“One of the things I do hear all the time from people who are trying to decide where their kids are going to go to college, they are worried very much about the crime rate, and when they want to go to a hospital, they worry about the crime rate,” Bloomberg said.

The billionaire is the founder of Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit group that fights for “common-sense reforms to reduce gun violence.”

Hopkins is seeking approval from the Maryland General Assembly to place armed guards at its campuses in Homewood, the hospital campus in East Baltimore and the Peabody Institute in Mount Vernon, according to the Sun.

Students Against Private Police, a group of Hopkins students, called out Bloomberg for his remarks.

“Bloomberg’s comments do reinforce the idea that Hopkins is not actually concerned with public safety but instead is focused on the perceptions of parents and others from out-of-town,” the group said in a statement.





The proposal of armed security drew backlash from the community, prompting Baltimore lawmakers to back off from the idea last session.

State Sen. Mary Washington, who holds a doctoral degree from Hopkins, expressed concern that a campus police force wouldn’t be accountable to the public like they are at public schools.

She floated the idea of a special unit of the Baltimore Police Department to patrol near the school and pressed Hopkins to think of options to curb the city’s crime problem.

“I look forward to having a conversation with Mr. Bloomberg about how we can improve public safety without private police functions,” Washington said.

In 2017, Maryland’s largest city recorded a record-high 342 homicides — the worst among the nation’s biggest cities, according to FBI statistics.





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