Baltimore City Council Votes To Audit O’Malley’s “Crime Fighting”

Stolen in whole from The Hedge Hog Report because it is worth reading.

From The Baltimore Sun reports:

The council approved a resolution last night that would attempt to create a task force of academic experts to audit crime statistics. Most council members said they were certain that such a review - whose details and costs were unclear - would erase doubts raised by O’Malley’s critics.

The issue of whether the mayor has accurately portrayed the city’s violent crime reduction during his tenure has become a political touchstone that his opponents in the race for governor - Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Democratic Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan - have used to try to cast doubts on the mayor’s credibility.

O’Malley had this rather perplexing retort.

“This is like attacking John Kerry’s rationale for his Purple Hearts in order not to have to talk about draft dodging and not going to war when you were called up,” the mayor added

[HOCOBLOG COMMENT: With logic like that I soon expect to see links on O'Malley's campaign web site to Doug Duncan's and Bob Ehrlich's web sites. Seriously, if O'Malley is confident of his crime statistics, and it appears that he is, let the audit go forward and be quiet about it. His commentary makes him look like he is hiding something. Let the audit go forward and he can come back and say "Shame on you." Act like and adult! Oh - Doug Duncan and Patricia Jesemey already said that, didn't they.]

Okaaaay….

O’Malley has been helped somewhat recently with the Port story dominating the local news. However, WBAL continues their great reporting on this issue with another disturbing story about O’Malley’s police department fabricating police reports in order to hold down the crime rate. You have to read it to believe it.

[HOCOBLOG COMMENT: Disturbing Story is a wild understatement. Of course the Mayor can reasonably claim he would not be aware of these incidents - and honestly why should he any more than he should be aware of the School systems financial condition?]