BALTIMORE — Three candidates are vying for the job of Baltimore's top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby who hopes to keep her job as Baltimore city state's attorney, along with challengers Ivan Bates, and Thiru Vignarajah.
Mosby has the edge as the incumbent with a familiar name to voters but her recent legal troubles could make things difficult for her on primary night.
In a city which continues to see more than 300 murders year after year and deals with the issue of squeegee workers, how each one of them plans to address these two big issues could make a difference in voters' minds.
Ivan Bates promotes himself as being one of the lead attorneys who helped take down the Gun Trace Task Force.
Thiru Vignarajah, who previously ran for mayor of Baltimore City, also is a former federal prosecutor and Maryland deputy attorney general. He pledges to reduce violence and bring more transparency to the office.
Meanwhile, Marilyn Mosby seeks a third term and is running on a campaign of ending racial disparities and mass incarceration, as well as focusing resources on violent offenders.
Following a deadly encounter with a squeegee worker in which a man carrying a baseball bat was shot and killed earlier this month, the issue on the minds of many voters is what to do about squeegee workers on the streets of Baltimore.
At a press conference last week, Mosby said “until we get serious about addressing the systemic root causes of poverty and the economic equity, we are going to have people of all ages and all races having to hustle and make risky choices and in most instances in order to survive.”
Challenger Bates said “community court will serve as the place that now two things can happen with your cases. One, an individual, a squeegee worker can agree to go into the diversion program that Mayor Scott has it up or number two, the individual can agree to be prosecuted.”
Vignarajah said “we’re actually confiscating the squeegees themselves and make it harder to do this work fall by. We’re going to enforce the law and bring charges if needed. Those cases don’t need to go to trial. We need to get them into system to give them a chance to get the jobs and the opportunities they deserve.”
If the Baltimore city state’s attorney primary turns out to be a close race, the candidates might not have much to celebrate Tuesday night as mail-in ballots legally won't be able to be counted until 10 o’clock Thursday morning.
