Tony Barksdale is a retired commissioner from the Baltimore Police Department. He believes violence can be solved, and he’s committed to see that happen.

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Episode Summary

* Tony Barksdale is a retired Deputy Commissioner of Operations from the Baltimore Police Department. He served as an officer in the city for twenty years.
* Tony has developed a model that proved effective in reducing Baltimore’s violent crimes. Now he wants to share what he’s learned with communities around the country.
* Tony grew up with corrections officers in his family. He was also inspired to join the force by a troubling event in his childhood, as well as a drive to make his grandfather’s neighborhood safer.
* Tony’s advice for anyone who wants to end violence in their areas is to get involved in the local community, and to let police know about criminal activity—but only if it can be done without the threat of retaliation.

Guest Links

* Website: tonybarksdale.com
* Twitter: @deputybarksdale

Transcript
This transcript may differ in minor instances from the audio content. Please notify Josh Morgan of any errors you may find.
Monologue by Josh Morgan
Tony Barksdale is a retired Deputy Commissioner of Operations and a former Acting Police Commissioner for the Baltimore Police Department. Tony served as a law enforcement officer for twenty years in one of the toughest cities in America. His mission today is to show communities how Baltimore reined in its most violent offenders instead of those involved in non-violent crimes. I talked with Tony, what inspired him to become a police officer, and why he holds onto the hope that violence is a problem that can be solved.
I’m Josh Morgan. My conversation with Tony is coming up next on The Plural of You, the podcast about people helping people.
This is Episode 32. You can read along if you’d like at pluralofyou.org/032.
I’ve mentioned before on this podcast that crime and violence have never been lower in human history than they are in the 21st century.1 In the United States in particular, crime overall has decreased significantly since it peaked in the early 1990s, yet violent crime in the US continues to persist in many urban areas, including specific neighborhoods in Baltimore.
In 2015, riots following the death of Freddie Gray, a man who died in police custody, led to a crime wave in the city and homicides spiked, mostly among young black males. The city’s newspaper, the Baltimore Sun, ran a headline at the end of 2015 that read “Deadliest year in Baltimore history ends with 344 homicides.” That referred to the fact that Baltimore recorded more homicides per capita that year than at any point in the city’s history.
If we watch the news long enough these days, I’m sorry to say we’ll probably see plenty of other terrifying stories along the same lines. When I talked with Tony about his work to end violence, the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orland...