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The last contribution to the Freddie Gray archive, in July of 2019, ended with this:

All the while, Baltimore continues to descend into third world squalor, and its Leftist rulers, whose experiment with applying the Ferguson/Baltimore Effect has been such a stunning success, are determined to apply even more Leftism, which as we all know, cures all ills, or at least kills the patients so Leftists don’t have to worry about cures.

The topic of that article was primarily the descent of Baltimore into something resembling a third world combat zone.  Baltimore surpasses Chicago in mayhem.  But as one might expect, the Democrat politicians that have run the city for decades cannot possibly bear any responsibility, as Fox News reports:

The mayor of Baltimore says local leadership isn’t to blame for the city’s increasing homicide rate, telling reporters on Wednesday he’s “not committing the murders” himself.

Bernard ‘Jack’ Young, who took office in May, said during his weekly press conference that ‘there’s not any lack of leadership of my part.’

‘That’s what people need to understand. I’m not committing the murders. The police commissioner is not committing it. The council is not committing it. So how can you fault leadership?’ he questioned. ‘You know this has been five years of 300-plus murders, and I don’t see it as a lack of leadership.

No, of course not, but if the city were in Republican hands, it would be people like Young screaming about their responsibility for the carnage.

At least 296 people have been killed so far in the major northeastern city in Maryland this year, according to The Baltimore Sun, putting the city on track to have more than 300 homicides for the fifth year in a row. Baltimore has a population of more than 600,000 people.

Baltimore cops have somewhat relaxed the intensity of their enforcement efforts in the wake of Freddie Gray’s 2015 death while in police custody and the protests that followed. Preliminary data suggests cops have been reporting fewer and fewer criminal incidents in the years since Gray died, leading many observers to draw a correlation between overly cautious law enforcement stemming from the heightened scrutiny.

Oh, that’s good: “Baltimore cops have somewhat relaxed the intensity of their enforcement efforts.”  That “somewhat” is a pale description of the carnage Baltimore politicians and prosecutor Marilyn Mosby wrought, and continue to inflict, on the Baltimore Police Department.  After the Freddie Gray persecution, every officer that could fled the city.  Those that remain, understand all too well that if they dare enforce the law against actual criminals, particularly black criminals, they will not only be harassed, but prosecuted, even imprisoned.  BPD ranks are so empty, they’ve had to dramatically reduce qualifications, even accepting people with significant criminal convictions and histories of drug and alcohol abuse, and still, they can’t find sufficient numbers of officers.  Remaining officers do the absolute minimum.  They don’t stop and frisk suspicious people, and they avoid the highest crime areas out of self preservation, giving black gangsters and criminals free reign to prey on black communities.  They’re not cowards, they just know if they actually do their jobs, it is they, not the criminals, that will face consequences.

Young, who became the city’s mayor after Catherine Pugh resigned over a book-buying scandal, said every agency in the city feels it’s urgent to reduce crime.

‘We’re going to get the bad guys,’ Young said. ‘We’re going to get them.

The crime wave visited on Baltimore post Freddie Gray is eloquent testimony of Young’s determination to “get “bad guys.  Unfortunately, D/S/Cs always consider the bad guys to be the police.  Criminals, particularly black criminals, are their natural constituency.  And how does he intend to “get them”?  Fox News reports:

The new mayor of Baltimore — one of America’s most dangerous cities — wants rival factions to put down their guns and put up their dukes.

During a Sunday speech at an anti-gun violence rally, Mayor Bernard ‘Jack’ Young — who took office after Catherine Pugh resigned in May amid scandal — advocated organized fights as a means to solve disputes without using weapons.

‘There’s mediation. If they wanna really settle them, we can have them down at the Civic Center, put a boxing ring up, and let them go and box it out,’ Young told WBAL.

He said that if boxing were the option, ‘the best man win, and the beef should be over.’

‘Those are some kind of things that I’m thinking about, and hoping that we can get these people to put these guns down,’ Young said.

Well of course!  Why didn’t anyone think of that before?  I’m sure enforcers for drug gangs, and a wide variety of other homicidal criminals would be delighted to engage in a gentlemanly boxing match, and when finished, embrace, become fast friends, take up needlepoint and give up their lives of crime.

Gee, with this kind of enlightened leadership, I wonder why things are such a mess in Baltimore?  It’s puzzling.