A deputy police commissioner in Baltimore was the victim of an armed robbery last week.
Deputy Commissioner Daniel Murphy and his wife were robbed at gunpoint on Friday night in Maryland by a group of men who displayed a gun and stole a wallet, purse, cash and cell phones from the couple, the Baltimore Sun reported on Saturday.
“A handgun was displayed and the suspects announced the robbery by demanding their property,” a police statement said.
A department spokesperson later clarified to the Baltimore Sun that Murphy is a civilian employee and does not carry a gun or badge.
Murphy started at his post with the department’s Compliance Bureau in April after he was hired by Police Commissioner Michael Harrison, whom he’d previously worked with in New Orleans. He is in charge of the department’s compliance with its federal consent decree.
Murphy said that he would be able to bring success to Baltimore, a remark made despite Baltimore’s high crime rate.
“Obviously, every community, every police department is unique, but the success we had in New Orleans is directly transferable to here and we will modify it as necessary,” he told the Baltimore Sun.
“I can tell you that, if anything, the incident has redoubled his commitment to Baltimore and to BPD,” spokesman Matt Jablow told the Baltimore Sun.
Just last month, the police department released a Crime Reduction Strategy, which was announced to the public by Harrison just one day before Murphy was robbed.
The strategy described how the department has created “new focused patrol areas and district action team (DAT) activity zones where the levels of these [gun-related] crimes have been highest.”
“Overall, these zones comprise roughly 5% of the city’s geography but account for approximately 33% of the all the city’s gun violence in the past five years,” the strategy noted.
The strategy also said it would “reduce the victimization and fear of victimization of violent crime in Baltimore City.”
Baltimore’s crime rate has been on the rise since 2015 following the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody after his arrest. Subsequent riots and violent crime have placed Baltimore among the top metropolitan areas with higher crime rates, according to Fox News.
The most recent FBI data of Baltimore’s violent crime shows eight homicides and 19 non-fatal shootings in a single week at the beginning of July, higher than the same time of the month in 2018. The city has had 165 homicides since the beginning of the year, and 374 non-fatal shootings in the same time period.
