Baltimore mayor talks crime
Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon spent yesterday talking about crime. At left, in a photo taken by the Baltimore Sun's Monica Lopossay, she's pinning a ribbon on an officer to recognize last year's 20-year low in murders. Just before this ceremony, she visited students at a West Baltimore high school to talk about violence. She walked into the auditorium at Augusta Fells Savage Insitute of Visual Arts and looked for light. There wasn't any. The lights didn't work and nobody apparently checked them before the city's chief executive arrived yesterday afternoon.
She tried the stage but she couldn't see the audience with only seven small emergency lights illuminated. She sought out Tim Tooten, WBAL-TV's education reporter, but even the lights of four cameras couldn't help much.
So Dixon climbed down from the stage to "have a conversation" with the students who had come to see her speak about violence. It was the first of three police-related events for the mayor yesterday, back-to-back-to back events at the West Baltimore school, police headquarters where she honored cops for last year's 20-year homicide low and the Central District station on East Baltimore Street where she announced a public campaign to curb car break-ins.
She found a loud group of students at Augusta Savage; as she pleaded for the students to calm down, the principal, Michael Manning, fretted about the lights but would only say, "They're not working" as he rushed back and forth. The mayor worked the crowd, her first words, "Can we do something about the lights please."
Manning had to interrupt his own introduction of the mayor to calm the crowd, at one point counting back from 10 and threatening to throw out anybody who was still talking when he reached zero. When the crowd finally quieted, Manning said the mayor was here to "hear about where we are and where we're going."
Finally, Dixon took center stage.
"I came by here today because I know how important education is, and I know you know how important education is. We are making great strides in Baltimore City public schools. It is because of what you are doing in the classroom, because of what you are doing with outside activities, that we're seeing great results. We want to see you succeed. We want you to be successful in what you want to do in life, to reach your potential. There are seniors here who want to go on to colleges next year, there is a young man who wants to go into carpentry and start his own business. But what we don't want to see happen is that we're not doing the best that we can. And one thing that we have got to focus on is the violence that is happening in some of your schools. And I know it's not a majority, it's a minority. I want to ask a simple question. One, what can we do together to eliminate the violence so we can feel safe, we can focus on education ... and we can accomplish our goals."
Dixon praised teachers and administrators who she said "have contributed to your success" but she noted, "There are some small things that need to change in how we interact with each other, how we deal with each other."
The mayor, noting the television cameras and media, told the students they were there because of what had happened last week -- a stabbing outside the school on the basketball court -- and asked, "How many times have they been here because you get positive grades? ... If it's something bad that happens, a negative that takes away from your school, that's why they're here. So we're going to ignore the cameras." (See Baltimore Sun's Sara Neufeld's Inside Ed blog for more on this).
Unfortunately, that was difficult -- the cameras provided the only light.
Dixon then took questions. She had the kids come up to the front and stand with her -- there was no second microphone. "What can we do to provide you with a safe environment, to help you deal with the conflicts that we all have to deal with?"
The mayor asked kids where they worked over the summer. One student said Recreation and Parks; another said a rec center but couldn't remember the name. Many students didn't like the fact that the high school shares a complex with a middle/elementary school. One girl complained that her volleyball practice at gym class was interrupted because the kids at the other school had to come in. None scored any points complaining about uniforms.
"I think uniforms are the best things you could have at school," Dixon said to loud boos. "Wait, wait, wait, that's just my personal opinion. You don't have to worry about what you're going to wear, you don't have to compare yourself to somebody else, there are so many factors, you save money for your family. ... That's my personal opinion."
Another student said, "We need money, more money, so we can have school trips and not have the ratty books..." She went on to complain about school conditions, and the mayor agreed.
"We have not built a new school in Baltimore City in over 40 years" and she talked of hope for more funds "to modernize our schools. We're in agreement. We've got to put more money into textbook and materials. We should have money to go on trips and do other things."
A young man told Dixon, "We need better protection."
The mayor quizzed him on his future plans. He said he wanted to go to college.
"So you applying to school?" she asked.
"So you took the SAT? How did you do?"
"Alright."
"You need to take it a couple of times," the mayor told him.
Dixon then summed up his question: "So you're saying you need better protection when you come to school? How many school police officers are in this school?"
Manning, the principal, answered: "We have two."
"They have two," the mayor repeated.
After leaving, the mayor found herself in the hallway chatting with Dominique Brunson, a 17-year-old senior who said he wants to graduate but almost didn't make it because of a confrontation with a Crips gang member at the beginning of the year. He said he "bumped into him and didn't apologize" and that prompted a challenge to fight.
But the principal, Manning, and one of the school's two police officrs quickly intervened and worked out a truce. "I didn't want to fight," Brunson told the mayor, his armed draped around her shoulder. He said the problems are outside the school, not inside. "This school is chilled," he said.
For more on the mayor's day on crime:
From there, Dixon sped to Police Headquarters where in another auditorium she met 230 officers on a violence crime task force that is being credited with helping reduce murders in some of the city's most violent neighborhoods.
Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III told the officers that they are a central part of his and the mayor's crime fighting strategy of community engagement, community partnership and targeting violent offenders. He noted the ribbons -- in reality pins -- are important.
"I've heard this, people will say in mixed company, 'Ah that doesn't mean anything to me, ah that's not such a big deal. There are very few officers who don't wear every single ribbon and know exactly why they got them."
Bealefeld said that back when he was a sergeant and had a silver badge, his son saw a gold badge and said, "Dad, can you get one of those? I said, you know what, I can get one of those, and I challenged myself to do better. ... He also looked at the jacket and he would eye these ribbons and he would say, 'Dad, what did you get that one for?' And I would tell him the story. ... Some day your child is going to look at your jacket and say, 'Dad, what did you get that for?' And I want you to tell them, you served the itizens of this city."
Dixon urged the officers to ingore the media who have concentrated on a spike of slayings this year -- all but forgetting the 20-year low mark set last year, and told them to "stay focused. ... Your input and involvement has really made Baltimore safer."
Bealefeld singled one one officer at the ceremony -- Detective Steven Mahan. The 14-year veteran got crushed between two cars last year in Waverly during a drug investigation. He said doctors at Maryland Shock Trauma Center warned that he might lose a leg.
"Not only did this young man not lose his leg," the commissioner said, "but he had it bolted back together and he worked hard, not just to be able to stand and play with his kid, or do his chores around the house, but to come back and be a city cop."
Bealefeld noted that when he was on the street New Year's Eve, and ended up holding a gunman at gunpoint, "I was in a house in West Baltimore and called for back up and one of the first faces that I saw was Detective Steve Mahan -- I think that spirit that serves this city exemplifies the best in all of us."
Categories: Confronting crime, Top brass
Comments
Peter-
Let's just hope that Mayor Dixon's efforts to address the problems of students is genuine and not for PR relationships. It's an abonimable shame that we even need to have one officer at each city school. Community concerns should be focused on getting our city school system back to a point where teachers and administrators can handle all the behavioral problems at their respective schools. Develop stringent rules of appropriate behavior that the studens must adhere to. Extricate the young men and women who are not interested in education, give them guidelines as to how they can re-enter the school system, and then the school police will eventually not be needed. What kind of learning environments have we created where police patrol the halls?
Posted by: patrick lynch | February 18, 2009 5:57 PM
Ask Bill Henry what he thinks about the budget's spending on Recreation and Parks and how it might relate to crime in and out of the schools. He's a pretty sharp guy.
Posted by: Evan | February 19, 2009 11:08 AM
Well, if we got lights that worked and a Mayor who did this the other 364 days of the year when cameras weren't there, we might be onto something. Or maybe just 64 other days of the year. Or once a week? No one would care about Sheila getting some extra gift cards on the sly if she was doing her job well otherwise. Not that she's doing any worse than any other mayor in recent years. Just a continuation of a long line of mediocrity and apathy.
Posted by: Bmore! | February 19, 2009 1:53 PM