Police departments across Maryland reported a rising number of assaults against their officers between 2001 and 2005.
Assaults on police officers increased by 8 percent between 2004 and 2005, but the 4,166 assaults on officers last year is the highest number in at least five years, according to Maryland State Police?s Uniform Crime Report.
A more aggressive approach toward crime by area police departments is creating a backlash in some communities, said Tyrone Powers, director of the Institute of Criminal Justice, Legal Studies and Public Service at Anne Arundel Community College.
“Whenever you increase aggressiveness in the police department, you?re going to get aggression against the police department,” he said.
Steven Cox, a member of the criminal justice faculty with online Kaplan University, which is owned by The Washington Post Co., said he?s heard of similar spikes in assaults against officers in various parts of the United States, including Los Angeles and Washington.
“Typically, it?s gangs and drugs that drive confrontations with officers,” he said.
In one of those assault cases against police officers heard this week in Baltimore City Circuit Court, defense attorneys for William Crudup, 26, were granted a postponement of his attempted murder trial until January.
Crudup allegedly shot Baltimore City Police Officers Andrew Lane and Joseph Banks on March 12 as he fled from the officers who were trying to arrest him for allegedly selling narcotics.
Medics treated Lane for a gunshot wound in the leg, while Banks was treated for a gunshot wound to the right side of his torso. Both officers have returned to active duty.
In 2005, most cases of assaults on officers did not result in “personal injury” to the officer, but 761 did in Maryland. Police made arrests in 96 percent of the cases, statistics show.
“Cities like Baltimore are really starting to enforce quality-of-life-type offenses much more readily to try to drive out drugs,” said Ben Wright, a University of Baltimore associate criminal justice professor.
“You?ve got young individuals, who are desensitized to violence, and don?t want to be disrespected, and you?ve got police officers who don?t want to be disrespected. And unfortunately there?s a clash.”
AT A GLANCE
Number of officers assaulted in Maryland:
2001 » 3,947
2002 » 4,035
2003 » 3,742
2004 » 3,868
2005 » 4,166
Number of officers assaulted with a firearm in 2005:
Maryland » 84
Anne Arundel » 4
Baltimore City » 23
Baltimore County » 7
Carroll, Harford and Howard counties had no reports of officers being assaulted with firearms.
Source: Maryland State Police
