In brief: Baltimore mayor fires police boss

BALTIMORE – Baltimore’s mayor fired the troubled city’s police commissioner Wednesday, saying that a recent spike in homicides in the weeks after an unarmed black man died of injuries in police custody required a change in leadership.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake thanked Police Commissioner Anthony Batts for his service – and praised the job he had done – but said growing criticism of his performance had become a “distraction” that was preventing the city from moving forward.

Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, who has only been with the department since January, will serve as interim commissioner, Rawlings-Blake said.

The firing comes 21/2 months after the city broke out in riots following the death of Freddie Gray, who died in April of injuries he received in police custody. Six police officers have been criminally charged in Gray’s death.

Gun in fatal shooting was reported stolen

SAN FRANCISCO – The gun that law enforcement sources here have said was used in a fatal shooting of a 32-year-old woman on the city’s Embarcadero had been reported stolen from the vehicle of a federal law enforcement officer four days before the July 1 killing, a U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman said Wednesday.

A spokesman with the San Francisco Police Department said the theft “was reported and investigated,” but once a case is handed over to the district attorney, “we are not able to discuss” it.

Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, 52, who had been deported to his native Mexico five times for illegally entering the United States and has a lengthy criminal record, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to one count of murder with firearms enhancements.

Safety panel pushes changes for Amtrak

PHILADELPHIA – The National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday urged Amtrak to install “crash- and fire-protected inward- and outward-facing audio and image recorders” on all locomotives.

The recommendation came in response to the May 12 derailment of Amtrak Train 188 in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond neighborhood that killed eight passengers and injured 200.

Amtrak spokesman Craig Schulz said, “Amtrak is reviewing the NTSB recommendations and will incorporate them, as appropriate, into our plan to install inward-facing cameras in the locomotive fleet.”