Former Baltimore Police Commissioner De Sousa target of wider probe
BALTIMORE — Baltimore’s latest police commissioner resigned on Tuesday, a week after he was charged with failing to file taxes for three years and the same day it was publicly revealed that a federal probe of him extended far beyond his tax issues.
Within hours after Mayor Catherine Pugh announced Darryl De Sousa’s resignation, media reports disclosed that federal prosecutors have issued subpoenas seeking information about his taxes, pay, second job, taxes and even his education.
Pugh released a statement Tuesday that read in part:
“Today, I received the resignation of Darryl De Sousa as Commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department and have accepted it. I have initiated a national search to identify the new Commissioner. In the meantime, Gary Tuggle will serve as Interim-Commissioner.”
Tuggle had been the deputy commissioner until De Sousa’s suspension on Friday,
De Sousa’s resignation, just 11 weeks after he was sworn in comes at a tumultuous time for the city, which is grappling with a surge in violence. He was Baltimore’s third police commissioner in three years and the ninth since 2000.
The mayor, as well as many City Council members and community activists, had expressed great hope that De Sousa, a 30-year veteran of the city’s police force and a graduate of Morgan State University, could bring order to a department that in many ways has spiraled out of control in recent years.
Pugh fired former commissioner Kevin Davis Jan. 19 because she said he was not doing enough to control the city’s soaring homicide rate. She named De Sousa, then the deputy commissioner, as the acting commissioner. He was sworn into the top job on April 28.
Last year, a record 343 people were killed in Baltimore, which has a population of nearly 622,000. In comparison, there were 211 slayings in the city in 2014. Many people have blamed the police for the surge in violence, saying that many officers have taken a hands-off approach to crime in retaliation for the Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby charging six officers in the death of Freddie Gray in 2015. Gray, 25, was fatally injured in the back of a police van.
Gray’s death set off riots in the city that made international news. The uprisings led the governor to declare a state of emergency and summon the National Guard as well as institute a nighttime curfew. Three of the police officers were acquitted and Mosby dropped the charges against the remaining three.
This article is republished with permission from Talk Media News.
Regina Holmes has more than two decades of experience as a journalist –editing and reporting for news dailies including the Miami Herald, Newsday and the Baltimore Examiner.