[removed]

I just lurk here for updates and to get a feel of the city before my trip in April, thanks for posting this OP.

This is all the info about the arrests that is in the article currently:

>Baltimore police said the first arrests have been made in connection to a string of robberies involving people posing as ride-share drivers.

>It's not clear how many arrests have been made, but police said they're working with multiple businesses to track down suspects.

Good job BPD! At least it's multiple arrests. I'm glad they started catching whoever was doing this.

Baltimore’s had a bad rap for a while, but I’ve never seen crime like this until this year. Idk what’s going on but it is not usually like this.

I would hope Uber Lyft and BCPD are all making this an absolute top priority, b/c:

1. There should be a ton of data available to track this down.

2. This will be absolute poison for entertainment spending in the city if it continues or spreads.

3. This could be an giant threat to Uber and Lyft if it started happening more widely, esp globally

Yeah, crime has always been an issue but people have become more brazen with their disreputable actions towards other people. Is lacking consequences an issue?

Hope they get locked away for a long, long time.

I always wonder why these are so hard to track down. Uber/Lyft won't let you ride for free, so presumably stolen/invalid cards won't work. Should be plenty of ID and GPS data to work with.

Possibly, also likely desperation with higher cost of living and a lack of jobs. Not to say that these criminals would immediately jump on an hourly job but long term the only solution is opportunity and for many in Baltimore that's just not something on their radar.

Getting their kicks before Bates comes in next week and starts bringing down the hammer, perhaps?

At least I hope that’s what he does. Expectations very low, but hoping to be surprised.

Yeah, I doubt that teenagers with guns are really that politically aware as a whole, much less basing their violent crimes on who is likely to be elected

I try to point people to the story of the guys that robbed a "cop bar" type restaurant in like 2017. Most of the stuff you see around Baltimore isn't like some well thought out mission impossible. People are impulsive and/or desperate. And you'll get a person or a small group of people that commit the same crimes with the same m.o. like 4 times in a row in a span of 24 hours. For the most part they're not like slipping in and out of the shadows between police shifts or calculating the hours until a new states attorney takes office.

I first read it that way, too, but I think the commenter you're replying to was only saying that he hopes that they're only attempting to get away with these crimes until we reach a point where the crimes will be punished adequately to limit them. Not that they're trying to get away with them because they're currently aware of the transition to a new state's attorney.

I'm also not confident that much will be done to limit the amount of crime that's being committed by teens as young as 13, it seems, in a more immediate way.

There’s only so much that can be done about that without creating a working social safety net, investing in education and healthcare, etc.

I mean the murder rate is in line with that of the last several years. Still sad and way too high but not really an anomaly or increase.

I also can’t seem to find anything saying violent crime is up this year versus years previous.

Yep. That’s how they all get caught. They repeat the same crime over and over again in a very short period in the same location/area.

I definitely agree. As a homeowner in the city, I really hope that we're able to work on that while also finding a way to reduce the crime in the short-term. I want the city to be more equitable all-around, but I don't want the progress that is made to take so long that crime drives many more families out first.

Lol yeah I was joking for the most part, outside of my cautious, weak optimism for Bates.

Real talk, I do agree that the crime has gotten pretty alarming as of late. Not sure exactly what’s happening but I’m hoping either we get a handle on it or it subsides on its own.

I'm more surprised by stealing money via the Zelle or cashapp. Presumably that has got to be the easiest crime to solve in the history of crime.

Yeah. Wouldn’t count on it subsiding without the city doing anything.

A recession is here, whether it’s official or not. The working class never fully recovered from 2008, and is already feeling terrible effects of inflation.

People are desperate, and desperate people do desperate things.

The city has been propping itself up for a long time. It was always going to get worse before it got better. Continual focus on short term solutions and greater police funding has only made this worse.

We need to do something about the actual problems, not just tough on crime short term solutions. That sort of technique isn’t going to keep teenagers from doing what they do.

There have been a lot of carjackings in Hampden. Used to be every year or two there’d be a gang out doing carjackings or muggings for a weekend, but this year it has just kept going and going.

This week they were carjacking Uber drivers to steal the car, pick up the next passenger, and rob them.

Who is bates?

That makes sense. Hopefully a governor who might prioritize the city's concerns more than Hogan and a States Attorney who seems to have a good head on his shoulders can move things in the right direction.

Ivan Bates. New SA about to take over Marilyn Mosby’s job. He’s pledged to be tougher on crime but he’s also done both prosecution and defense so I’m optimistic that he understands in certain cases rehabilitation might be the more appropriate approach too. Basically his approach seems way more nuanced than Mosby’s which was basically let all low level crime slide for sake of not locking up minorities, while it also doesn’t seem like he’s gonna go gung ho lock people up for the rest of their lives for some drugs either.

[deleted]

Interesting, that brings up similarities to the former DA of San Francisco, Chesa Boudin in my mind.

They’ll be out in no time. That’s why they’re so brazen because of a lack of law accountability.

Anonymous account not tied to any bank account. On a burner phone. All you gotta do is find someone willing to sell you cryptocurrency with the payment app funds, then find a crypto exchange and cash out.

Really think the federal government should be working on a national carjacking strategy. These crimes are rising in several cities and they get a lot of coverage.

ELI5, please… how are people getting robbed with this scheme? Are they registering as drivers in the apps, accepting a ride, and then robbing the person they picked up, or is it something an alert ride sharing customer could sniff out easily?

>Getting their kicks before Bates comes in next week and starts bringing down the hammer, perhaps?

What's this?

My post was mostly jokes, but Ivan Bates, our incoming SA, is likely to be even remotely more aggressive in prosecuting crimes than the incumbent, Marilyn Mosby.

Sounds unrealistically complicated and also involving several easily identifiable individuals and organizations that are guilty of receiving or possessing stolen goods -- but what do I know.

Ah, bummer. For a moment there I had hope.

There is hope with him! There’s likely to be some iota of improvement, which, hey, is better than nothing. My expectations are low, but I do believe there is a possibility for them to be exceeded.

I don’t think there’s any certain info about how this works, but since Uber accounts are linked to the driver’s personal ID, I don’t imagine there are many drivers willing to go on a crime spree where their identity is known.

That being said, the most likely explanation is a driver getting their phone stolen, or getting their login info stolen. In that case, you’d be able to detect that something was “off” if the car or license plate don’t match the app info.