Davis Disputes Sun Editorial Decrying 'Panic Over Youth Crime'

Baltimore police Commissioner Kevin Davis said he couldn't believe what he was reading late last week when he flipped to the Baltimore Sun editorial page to find an editorial that referred to the push to curb a spate of juvenile crime as "panic."

"There is no panic, there is resolve, and there's resolve to hold violent people accountable who are sticking guns in people's faces and taking people's cell phones and their property," Davis told C4 Monday.

In particular, the editorial board took issue with the fact juvenile offenders were being put through the adult criminal justice system.

Baltimore Sun opinion page editor Andy Green will join C4 at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

"If we are compelled to charge 16-year-olds and above as adults if they're caught robbing people or carrying guns that's not Kevin Davis' decision, that's not the Baltimore Police Department's decision," Davis said.

He said that the decision lies with prosecutors, working under state law that allows them to charge 16-year-old offenders and older as adults. Davis said anybody who has a problem with that should call for the state should change thew law.

"There are definitely systemic issues that determine why people turn to crime," Davis said. "I'm not denying that those things exist...but when a person puts a a gun in his hand or her hand, C4, her hand and sticks it in someone's face and takes their property, I can no longer choose to cling to the systemic issues that are very real. I have to do what I am tasked to do as police commissioner."

He said that characterizing the status quo as anything approaching normal sets an extraordinarily low bar.

"If we have that level of low expectations for our young people then shame on us," Davis said. "If that's OK or if that's normal or if we're just going to say that there are systemic issues that cause those behaviors, so leave that alone, if we have that level of low expectations for the behavior of our young people, then shame on us as adults."