The violence-plagued US city of Baltimore has fired its police chief after a surge in homicides and riots which erupted over the death of a black man in custody.
Police Commissioner Anthony Batts had transferred to Baltimore in September 2012 with a mandate to modernise its police force, the eighth largest municipal force in the US.
But there have been 155 murders and 303 shootings in the city so far this year, including a quadruple shooting on Tuesday near a college campus that claimed three lives. This compares to 105 homicides and 163 shootings at this time last year.
Batts has also been criticised for his handling of riots that erupted after the death of an African-American man, Freddie Gray, 25, in police custody in April.
Six police officers were charged in connection with Gray's death.
It was America's worst outbreak of civil unrest since the August 2014 shooting of black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri by a white police officer.
AFP
