BALTIMORE _ As Baltimore braces to surpass 300 homicides for the fifth year in a row, Mayor Bernard C. "Jack" Young said the city's leadership isn't the problem.
"I'm not committing the murders and that's what people need to understand," Young said Wednesday during his weekly news conference. "How can you fault leadership? This has been five years of 300-plus murders. I don't see it as a lack of leadership."
There have been 296 killings so far in 2019. Since the unrest in 2015 that followed the death of Freddie Gray, the city has been unable to keep the number of homicides below the grim benchmark of 300.
Among the most recent victims is Jordan Taylor, a beloved youth sports director at the Catonsville Y. The Y in Central Maryland's CEO John Hoey wrote in an op-ed that as violent crime soars, the city has seen "a crisis of leadership."
Asked Wednesday about Hoey's comments and the persistent bloodshed, the Democratic mayor said that every city agency feels a sense of urgency to reduce crime.
Young, who took over as mayor this spring after Democrat Catherine Pugh resigned amid investigations into her business dealings, is running for reelection in a 2020 race in which the crime rate will play a major role.
"We're going to get the bad guys," Young said. "We're going to get them."
