Marilyn Mosby Blames Baltimore’s Exploding Violence on Martin O’Malley

In an interview with the City’s ABC affiliate, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby insisted that there is no connection between the recent social unrest and riots and the city’s growing murder rate. Mosby also blamed Democratic Presidential candidate and former Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley for setting the stage for this year’s mounting violence.

During the taping of the local show “Square Off,” Maryland Shock Trauma physician-in-chief Dr. Thomas Scalea said the worsening violence in the city “seems temporally related to the riots.”

But Mosby completely disagreed with that assessment. “I think the violence was already going up. When you look at January, it was already like 28 murders,” she said.

Mosby then went on to blame the city’s violence troubles on former Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley, who later went on to become Governor of the state and is now a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president.

Mosby claimed that O’Malley’s “zero tolerance” policies led to a climate of mistrust between residents and the police force and despite that O’Malley hasn’t headed the city for eight years, those sour feelings have somehow fueled the city’s violence this year.

“I think violence is cyclical, and I think we’re seeing the effects of policies that have not worked,” Mosby continued. “I mean, there’s a number of old policies that we are seeing the result of. That distrust of communities, where communities don’t want to step forward and say who killed a 3-year-old — it’s a direct result of these failed policies.”

Baltimore has experienced the most violent summer it has seen in some 43 years.

As August began the city had seen 189 homicides, outpacing the 119 killed at the same time last year. And with nonfatal shootings up as well, the city hasn’t seen this sort of violence since 1972. Forty-five were killed in July alone. Authorities say that there may end up being more than 300 killings in the city by year’s end.

“Square Off” will air in Baltimore on Sunday.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter: @warnerthuston. Email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.