:: Guest post from Justin Fenton ::

Want to work in law enforcement?  

How about working as the third-highest-ranking member of the Baltimore Police Department, overseeing the homicide unit and crime lab? Well, job hunters, you’re in luck, as the department has posted an ad for chief of its Criminal Investigations Division on Craigslist.org.

The job is posted in the government jobs section of the site, and police officials say they have used the site before to try to reach as broad an audience as possible. Of course, chief of detectives is hardly a job that a broad range of people have the chops for, but the move is in step with the department’s vow to look both inside and outside of the agency to replace Col. John Bevilacqua, who retired earlier this year.

The job is one of the most high-profile in the department, overseeing the venerable homicide unit; district detectives, who investigate shootings, robberies and aggravated assaults; the special investigations section, which investigates child abuse, missing persons and sex offenses; and the crime lab.

Spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the department turned to the online classified web site to reach the "largest range of qualified people that we can" but also in hopes of finding someone who is tech savvy. "Part of being chief of detectives is that you’re up to the latest and greatest," noting that the Internet has become an increasingly more useful tool for police. He specifically cited Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. "All of that stuff is not reserved for high school teens anymore."  

(Aside: Does this mean that the next chief of CID better have on his resume that he’s seen "Chocolate Rain" on Youtube and is following Ashton Kutcher on Twitter?)

Some inside the department were surprised that the department hasn’t promoted someone in-house for the job. Col. Dean Palmere, who oversees the elite Violent Crimes Impact Division in East, West and Northwest Baltimore, has been pulling double-duty as acting CID chief.

"We want the best person for the job, whether he’s from here or from another city and bring the best practices," Guglielmi said.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Crime hasn't gone away but your blogger is taking a rare break. I'll be back Tuesday ready to roll with any and all issues.

Stay safe over the holidays!

Posted by Peter Hermann at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III (at left talking about a drug bust, in a picture by The Sun's Barbara Haddock Taylor) went in front of the City Council Tuesday night to talk about how to best inform the public about crime through the Internet. The department through its new spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, has been experimenting with Facebook, Twitter and Nixle, a texting program in which breaking crime and other news alerts can be sent to resident's cell phones and emails in their neighborhoods.

During his discussion, Bealefeld also talked about the still-under-review policy of when and how to name officers who discharge their weapons. Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton was at the hearing and here is his story:

The hearing was called by City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who wants the city to provide citywide text or email alerts about robberies, missing persons, auto theft and violent crimes (shootings, etc.). But she also wanted the department to talk transparency when it comes to police involved shootings, an issue that has simmered in recent months.

Rawlings-Blake pointed to Chicago, where an independent police oversight commission posts investigative reports of police-involved shootings on a web site. She held up one report that was 12 pages in length and went into detail about what investigators found when they looked into one particular shooting.

Rawlings-Blake wants Baltimore police to do something similar. Bealefeld noted that his staff looked into the Chicago commission and found it had 53 investigators, 11 supervisors and a budget of $7 million. But Rawlings-Blake noted that the commission and its budget are irrelevant - she said such reports are compiled in Baltimore already by homicide investigators and later, prosecutors, and that the only issue at play here was whether to post them on the Internet or not.

"If we're already doing it, is there some reason why redacted reports are not made available?" she asked.

Bealefeld said he endorsed the idea of posting them online but stopped short of saying the department would do it. He noted that many police-involved shootings become the basis for civil lawsuits.

"That's all possible. That's where we should head. I support doing that, but we need to make sure we're covering the legal bases," he said.

Bealefeld also gave an update on the city's policy regarding naming officers who shoot or kill citizens. The department sparked controversy earlier in the year when it said it would no longer identify the officers, ending a decades-long policy citing safety concerns for the officers. Several other large cities do not name officers who shoot or kill citizens, though others continue to do so, including most Maryland jurisdictions. The department was also unable to support the notion that any officers had faced threats after their names were disclosed following a shooting.

At the urging of Mayor Sheila Dixon, Bealefeld said he would re-consider the policy. On Tuesday evening at the council hearing he said that he had met with community leaders and sought their feedback on the policy, and asked them to gather opinions from their neighbors. He also consulted a group of leaders from the faith-based community. He said he received "considerable" feedback but is still contemplating the policy; in the meantime, disclosure of officer's names remain on a case-by-case basis. It's perhaps worth noting that there hasn't been a police shooting since Bealefeld said he would rethink the policy, after a flurry of such shootings to start the year.

Also, on the notion of crime alerts and providing statistics, Bealefeld said he was all about sharing information in new and better ways, but he had serious concerns and in some cases seemed downright paranoid about posting statistics or getting too specific.  Rawlings-Blake said many cities post daily or monthly crime numbers; the department has such data at its fingertips and is shared daily in police stations among commanders. But it has yet to post it online.

Bealefeld said the danger with posting statistics is that things change. He said the department "upgrades" five times as many crimes as it "downgrades," but he said all it takes is one crime being downgraded for the public to become convinced that the department is hiding crimes.

"This police department will not get any credit for" upgrading a crime. "If we change a dot on a map, it would be more damning than opposed to having" provided no information at all, he said. The comment was similar to those he made while discussing the department's use of Twitter, the social networking site, to disseminate breaking information about crime. He said that if police initially believe 6 people have been shot and later determine after an investigation that four people were shot, some will say the police department is "yet again manipulating data."

"We don't want to create problems for ourselves," he said.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Confronting crime, Neighborhoods, Police shootings, Top brass
        

With all the talk of downgrading crime statistics and officers not taking reports, my colleague Justin Fenton stumbled on a new twist -- in Memphis, people are complaining that their police department is too good at recording crime, making the city look worse than people think it really is (at left, a shooting scene on Fayette Street captured by Sun photographer Elizabeth Malby).

In Baltimore, we have the exact opposite problem -- people think the cops are hiding crime and that the city is actually worse than police say it is. See previous articles on the nanny in Bolton Hill who was attacked but recorded as a "police information," which led to the ouster of a district police commander.

According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, their police count just about everything, including thefts under $1,000 in value, which the New York Police Department doesn't. Different standards across the country, despite the FBI's attempt to make all crime reporting uniform, makes all these charts we see rating cities difficult. It's one of the reasons we fall back on the homicide count; it's generally believed that is the most accurate, even if it's one of the least effective ways to measure whether a city is safe.

We of course saw that even murder numbers can be problematic when Detroit under-reported its number to the FBI, putting them ahead of Baltimore for the number one slot in the homicide rate for 2008.

The newspaper article singled out Baltimore:

Other discrepancies surface in cases where several crimes are committed in one incident. While Memphis reports each individual crime, some cities report only the highest offenses -- such as murder.

Baltimore, for example, had 100 more murders than Memphis, yet inexplicably had a lower rate of violent crime.

With a population of 634,549, Baltimore reported 234 murders and 10,080 violent crimes, according to preliminary FBI numbers for 2008. Memphis, with a population of 672,046, had 137 murders, but 12,927 violent crimes.

To me, it doesn't make much sense to count a single incident several times. If someone is robbed, shot and killed, what is it? A robbery, a shooting or a homicide. Can it be all three? And if you count it as three separate crimes, does that make that incident worse than it really is? After all, it's one crime, not three. I would count it as a homicide for statistical purposes but also keep track of motive and means (robbery and shooting).

It's never easy and people will always think the numbers are somehow manipulated.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Shortly after a pit bull was doused with gasoline and set on fire in West Baltimore in late May, I went out with an animal control officer to see people treat their pets in this city. One of the first stops was a house on Patterson Park Avenue, where Wesley Sanders lived. A woman who lived down the street accused his two pit bulls, one named Savage, of attacking her smaller dog.

The animal control officer, Ricky Martin, went into the house and talked with the 30-year-old Sanders, who denied the allegation and emerged with his two dogs who played on his front steps while I videotaped the scene (see above).

That investigation is still pending, but I've learned that less than a month later, on June 25, police raided that very rowhouse and arrested Sanders on charges of selling drugs. According to charging documents, police broke down his front door and found suspected cocaine, a digital scale, a mirror with white residue on it, a sifter with white residue on it, small bags with 1,000 gel caps, used to package drugs, and, between two mattresses, a Taurus .357 Magnum handgun loaded with six bullets. Inside a nightstand of another bedroom, police said they found a ammunition for a .38 caliber revolver.

Police sa that Sanders has been convicted of attempted murder and with selling drugs in Baltimore County. I don't know yet what happened to his two dogs but I'm checking. It does demonstrate just how dangerous a job it is even for animal control officers.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Last week, I asked residents who participated in the Baltimore Police Department's community ride-along program (photo at left from Friday evening right in the Southwestern District) to send me their oberservations. Here are a few:

From Bethany: Thanks for the opportunity to share experiences from the city-wide ride-along. I had the great privilege to ride-along with Western District Officer Vargas Friday afternoon as well as attend the Police Headquarter's Reception. During the ride-along, I peppered the officer with countless questions about his work in my community and found him to be knowledgable, concerned and transparent about the joys and challenges of police work in an urban context. Through the course of the afternoon, I saw this police officer patrol the beat, greet folks in his sector, respond to calls from individuals and organizations within the community in need of assistance, and back-up other officers. I was pleased with the responsiveness and instincts displayed on the ride-along.
 
Following the field experience, our group was transported with three sergeants from the Western District to the reception at Headquarters. This event was a very comprehensive look at police work taking place in the city- through the emergency call center, forensics, camera surveillance, SWAT teams, K-9, etc. Throughout the evening, the Western District sergeants made sure that we were each having a positive experience. Highlights of the reception included hearing Commissioner Bealefield voice support for the role of community groups and advocates in promoting safety and his commitment to attend an upcoming Citizens on Patrol walk in the Western District.
 
Overall, this was an exciting event and a great opportunity to learn more about local police work and city-wide police efforts. I would encourage any city resident to meet and talk first-hand with their local district officers. I have found the folks at the Western District to be very hospitable to community members and interested in working together with concerned citizens. Improved partnerships between the police force and residents are integral to keeping our city safe.

Here is one more:

Continue reading "Riding with cops (part 2)" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Steve Herlth glances out the side window of a police cruiser on Washington Boulevard and sees a group of kids hanging by the side of a liquor store.

"The guy on the bike is dealing right now," he tells the man behind the wheel, Southwestern District Officer Christopher Warren with the Baltimore Police Department.

The officer swung his cruiser through a parking lot and pulled up to the teens. As he pulled up the bicycle rider’s shirt and patted him down, Herlth rolled down the window and stared at the youth. Both lived in the same Morrell Park neighborhood, but this longtime resident who organizes community walks and is a liaison with police wasn’t scared.

"I’ve got to show him I’m not afraid of him," Herlth told me (that's Herlth in the midle of the photo, with Lt. Sean P. Mahoney in the white shirt and Officer Matt Daugherty after police stopped a car and found drug needles).

This was once scene out of many Friday evening and night on the streets of Baltimore, as city cops held one of the biggest community gathering in years. Not only did police open up virtually every office in the downtown headquarters building on Fayette Street, where people could chat with the police commissioner, they invited residents to ride with officers in every district in every corner of the city.

More than 170 people accepted the invitation — young, old, teens, community leaders, curious homeowners. It was more than a meet and greet — it was a chance for people to see how the officers work and confront the very issues they complain about day after day, week after week in phone calls and at community meetings.

"I want engagement on happy terms," Southwestern District Maj. Anthony Brown told me.

For more on the ride:

Continue reading "Cops and residents ride together" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

If anyone wonders what can tie up a Baltimore police district and delay response to other calls, here's one overhead on the scanner on an otherwise quiet Saturday night. Police were trying to deal with a large party that attracted up to 300 people on Seidel Avenue off Bel Air Road in Northeast Baltimore about 9 p.m.

After several cruisers went up there, an officer got on the radio and shouted: "We need every available unit up there." That attracted a pile of cops who struggled for about 15 minutes to get the crowd under control and out of the area.

At one point, an officer said: "We're trying to negotiate" to which another officer, possibly a supervsor, responded, "Tell them to go inside or leave the area. Tell them to shut it down, go inside or leave the area."

I was listening to the scanner in the office and I don't know what kind of party this was, but the police had the helicopter, Foxtrot, fly low. Said an officer: "Have him make an announcement. Everybody has been warned not to loiter. Anybody standing will be arrested."

The air went quiet for a few minutes. At 9:15 p.m., an officer called off the troops, saying: "Seidel looks pretty good right now."

That was good news to the dispatcher who told the officers, "We got 18 calls pending, six are priority one."

A few minutes later, another officer asked over the air, "I'm just curious, how many arrests did we get out of there."

The dispatcher asked and one voice answered, "I know I just took one in."

"That's what I thought," the first officer said. "Incredible."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The turmoil within the Baltimore Police Department's disciplinary unit continues as the trial-board prosecutor who was fired for allegedly botching cases is now firing back, threatening to "pull back the curtain on the cesspool that exists within the Police Department's disciplinary oversight unit."

The official, JoAnne C. Woodson-Branche, whose position was eliminated, which required officials to throw out internal charges against up to 50 officers. Those include cases involving the Southwest District's flex squad unit in which two officers were accused of doing nothing to stop and assault and others were accused of storing drugs in their desks and planting evidence.

In her first public remarks, Woodson-Branche released a statement through her attorney, Warren A. Brown, alleging that she was prevented from pursuing cases by her commander. The lawyer, Brown, is a well known criminal defense attorney who has represented cops and people accusing cops of misconduct. He is not known for keeping his mouth shut.

Problems in the department disciplinary system is an old story but now comes with a new twist. Brown promises more revelations next week. Here is his statement:

Continue reading "Fired police prosecutor fires back" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

Today the Baltimore Police Department is offering residents (who have already signed up) a great opportunity to ride with a cop. Every patrol car in every district should be filled with a so-called ride-along to give residents a chance to see how police do their jobs.

It's a great idea to show the other side, especially since police and crime can dominate neighborhood meetings. Many people complain that when they call the cops, the cops either don't come or simply drive by the problem and don't stop. Today, those people who complain and see how it works first-hand.

Residents are scheduled to hit the streets around 3 p.m. and then attend a reception at Police Headquarters this evening. Myself and Baltimore Sun police reporter Justin Fenton will be out with police and residents, on opposite sides of the city, and we'll report back.

I'd be interested in hearing thoughts from people who participate in this program. You can e-mail me at peter.hermann@baltsun.com and I'll publish as many as I can on the blog.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)