No Cicero, Illinois wins the prize for that for corruption.

But Baltimore may tbe the first one to get it for gross incompetence.

The good idea fairy must have had diarrhea all over some people.

The city which rioted because the police are racist is now bringing in the feds in the hopes of helping them put young black men behind bars on murder raps. Awesome.

This "task force" has epic clusterfuck written all over it. Probably enough to generate outstanding content for a whole season of The Wire. It will be declared a rousing success. You can bet on that.

Anyone remember those NYPD detectives that planted evidence and did all sorts of other illegal shit to get awesome clearance rates? Yeah. That's what happens when politicians and police chiefs start talking about clearance rates in public.

DOJ has absolutely no hesitation to throw somebody under the bus.

Oh, no..it WILL help. You can be goddamned sure of that. Because some important somebodies have careers on the line. This is politics...optics.

If it was about actually doing something about crime it would have been done quietly...but it isn't being done quietly so you can be sure it's about politics.

And everyone is going to stay mum about the core reality that actually putting a dent in Baltimore's crime rate will take putting a bunch of young black men in prison for a long time. #BlackLivesMatter! Unless the murder rate makes politicians look bad.

The homicide detectives answer to Lt's, Captains, and a Chief. All of whom are interested in preserving their hide. I guarantee the homicide detectives are being leaned on pretty hard to close cases.

Problem is that Baltimore, already a shithole, has seen a severe spike since it was clear that the politicians were backing shitheads over the cops. The cops have no juice on the streets. They've been pretty publicly punked. That means witnesses are less cooperative than ever...and that's in a culture that was already averse to "snitching". Stir all that together and you get what you're seeing in Baltimore.

The feds aren't there because the Baltimore homicide unit is twiddling its thumbs. That unit is likely overwhelmed and getting absolutely nowhere on these cases. Their numbers have likely been increased by the addition of personnel from other units, but it still isn't enough. And keep in mind that Baltimore is a city that has failed to try people on murder charges because they lacked the resources to do so.

Then factor in all the petty resource protection bullshit that usually goes on in Baltimore PD.

The feds are there to bring in resources and to make it look like the Feds are Doing Something to help this poor downtrodden city. Because this shit is embarrassing as fuck to the fucksticks running the show.

Of course, really doing something means locking up a bunch of young black men for a long time. So the real goal here is to knock things back down to usual Baltimore shithole levels and then declare victory. Because this is all politics. Corners will be cut. Some shitheads who deserve to be in a cage will be locked into one. Some shitheads who deserve to be in a cage will be locked into one on sketchy evidence and sketchy procedure. A few innocents might even get stuck in a cage they don't deserve to be in.

Five to ten years from now their stories will make national headlines continuing to feed the narrative that "the system" is racist. Even though they were locked up because a black mayor and a black president/attorney general didn't want to look bad while arguing that "the system" is racist. Then another black man will get killed and there will be riots and outrage. Then more murders. Then there will be another "task force"...

I'm trying to think of a comparable example from your line of work. Like a FOB is in danger of being overrun and they send a chopper with six guys armed with M9s to "reenforce" you or something.