Laurel Duggan, DCNF

Democratic Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said his critics needed to take to the streets and personally fix the city’s violent crime problem when confronted by a journalist about calls for his resignation.

“If folks have something to say, get your ass on the streets, walk with us, do something. Don’t tweet, don’t talk, don’t go to FOX45,” Scott told Fox 45 reporter Mikenzie Frost. “Everybody has to do something, and this can impact anyone.”

Scott campaigned on reducing homicides by 15% each year and getting the city below 300 murders in his first year. At least 32 people have been killed in Baltimore in the first 27 days of this year, according to the Baltimore Sun, meaning the city is on track to see well over 400 murders this year.

While president of the city council in 2020, Scott successfully pushed for a $22 million cut to the city’s police budget before proposing a $27 million increase in 2021, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Baltimore operates a Safe Streets program in which “violence interrupters” mediate disagreements in dangerous neighborhoods to help prevent shootings. The program has contributed to a significant reduction in fatal and nonfatal shootings in its target areas.

A “violence interrupter” was shot and killed on Jan. 19 in a quadruple shooting. He was the third Safe Streets member to be killed in the last year, according to ABC News.

Maryland is a may-issue state, according to the U.S. Concealed Carry Association (USCCA), meaning that can be difficult for most people to obtain concealed carry permits. If Baltimore residents took to the streets of one of America’s most dangerous cities to try to prevent murders, they would generally have to do so unarmed.

Scott places responsibility for the city’s crime problem on its residents, Fox 45 reported. After a weekend in June 2021 in which three people were shot and a woman was assaulted in the upscale Fells Point neighborhood, Scott suggested that the police were to blame, telling the police commissioner to “make sure that resources are where they were supposed to be” and saying parents needed to “hold their children accountable,” Fox 45 reported.

Scott did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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