Every American big city will eventually reach its moment of truth where the future of its police department is on the line. Baltimore has come to it. The Brooklyn Day tragedy was the culmination of years of Baltimore’s crime-enabling and police-incapacitating policies. The city’s review process was an extraordinary opportunity to change its disastrous course. The city blew it.

Instead of self-reflection leading to positive transformation, the entire city administration conducted a whitewash of the event and the policies that precipitated it. They covered up the real failures to crucify the one agency that can prevent crime: the Baltimore Police Department.

Nothing kills a police department faster than the destruction of officer morale—and in the BPD, morale is dead. After this report, more good cops will quit or retire early, more officers will back off from proactive policing, and quality men and women who want to serve their community and make a difference will not even apply for the job.

Baltimore’s thin blue line is broken. Anarchy will terrorize the city’s law-abiding citizens. It will get a lot worse before it gets better. The people of Baltimore have the power to resurrect their police department—but to do that, they must first find new leadership for their city.

[This is a shocking development in one sense, and inevitable in another. Baltimore was an early entrant into the “social justice” urban marketplace, valuing woke virtue signaling over effective policing and public order. The current state of the city and its police force results from those policies chosen by city leadership and the prosecutors’ office. Until the people of Baltimore start prioritizing public safety over wallowing in grievance, it won’t change. — Ed]