Baltimore’s Next Police Chief Faces Demoralized Department

Baltimore’s next police commissioner will have a daunting to-do list: quell a surge in murders, rebuild trust between officers and the public, win the confidence of a demoralized and alienated department, and keep the peace when the explosive Freddie Gray case comes to trial.

Interim Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis (L) speaks with students participating in a junior state’s attorney program, Thursday, July 9, 2015, in Baltimore. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

BALTIMORE — Baltimore’s next police commissioner will have a daunting to-do list: quell a surge in murders, rebuild trust between officers and the public, win the confidence of a demoralized and alienated department, and keep the peace when the explosive Freddie Gray case comes to trial.

“It’s the toughest job in the United States at the moment,” said Eugene O'Donnell, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and a former New York City police officer.

Commissioner Anthony Batts was fired by the mayor on Wednesday, less than three months after riots erupted over Gray’s death from a spinal injury the 25-year-old black man suffered while being bounced around the back of a moving police van. Six officers are awaiting trial in October on charges ranging up to murder.

The new chief has to institute a culture that builds much closer relationships between the department and the community.

— Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law