There is no question that Baltimore police district commanders and their deputies work tirelessly. Many are are up at 6 or earlier and at work well past midnight. They deal with irate residents, even more irate bosses at police headquarters on Fayette Street and meddling politicians across the street at City Hall. They're high enough on the command chain to talk to the commissioner and elected leaders yet low enough to talk with the teens crowding the corner.

Two weekends ago, I was driving home from a Saturday night party (it was 1:30 Sunday morning), and I turned up Battery Avenue adjacent to Federal Hill Park when I saw headlights coming straight at me. Odd, I thought, as this was a one-way street, and I was pretty confident I was headed in the right direction. The lights belonged to a marked police SUV -- the kind the district majors drive -- and I thought it must be Scott L. Bloodsworth, the commander of the Southern District. He was slowing next to some teens who were out near the park, and I thought, wow, he's out on a weekend driving around at 1:30 in the morning clearing a park. It's been many months since two people were killed here, and he hasn't forgotten his promise to provide extra patrols, even if it's him.

Later that week, I confirmed it was indeed Bloodsworth behind the wheel. He drives home through his district. I thought about that this morning after the revelation that the deputy major of the Eastern District, Don A. Lioi, got suspended as part of an investigation into whether he had improper contact with a community leader wanted on a domestic violence warrant. The warrant never was served, and the man later was charged with killing his wife by stabbing her on North Avenue outside the district courthouse. An off-duty police officer driving by shot and wounded the suspect.

I had met Lioi back in October shortly after I started writing my column and blog. He and Maj. Melvin Russell were facing an angry crowd of residents who didn't like a new policy of e-mailing police with tips about drug dealers. They wanted face-to-face meetings to continue. This didn't sit well with people who, for one thing, didn't have e-mail and were part of the department's efforts to restore community policing after years of enduring mass arrests.

Lioi won praise that night from a resident who had spotted him at a drug corner. She had called him on his cell phone to complain about Preston and Aisquith streets, and Lioi went there. "I had to see what you guys are telling me is going on," he said.

I was impressed. In all the years covering police in the mid to late 1990s, only a select few had the cell phone numbers of police commanders. Yet here were Lioi and Russell handing out their numbers on business cards to everyone in the room and encouraging them to call no matter what the hour. Bloodsworth the others do the same.

The next month, on Election Day, Russell invited me on a community walk through Barclay. The man leading the exercise was Cleaven Williams, who along with his son and a group of police officers marched through the troubled neighborhood handing out fliers and talking with people. That was Nov. 4.

The warrant for Williams' arrest was issued five days later. Yet for some reason it was never served. Williams did try to surrender once but officials couldn't find the paperwork. We've already reported that Eastern District officers asked that they, not a special task force, serve the paperwork because they knew Williams. The family of his victim complained that Williams, who is now charged with first-degree murder, threatened his wife -- read more in a compelling story by Baltimore Sun reporter Melissa Harris -- telling her it would be useless to call police because he knew them all. When she was killed Nov. 17, it appeared there was a procedural problem with the warrant, but there was certainly enough to raise further questions.

The police did keep on it, and according to Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton's story today, we learned that Lioi had been text-messaging Williams. It's unclear whether Williams was warned or tipped off about the warrant, or whether police did not serve it on purpose, but homicide detectives were irate that Lioi never told them about his contacts.

We've seen an unusual amount of internal turmoil in the police department these past few weeks. Also today, we learn that internal charges were filed against two white homicide detectives who allegedly ordered a black colleague to look at KKK Web sites. And earlier this month, we learned that a lawyer handling police discrimination cases has a private office and has represented some of the very people her own police have arrested. There are lawsuits going through the system from cops who feel wrongly fired over all sorts of other allegations.

But those are mere distractions compared to the investigation into Lioi, which is not an internal matter but one of grave consequence for the way our city is policed. At the same time, the department is trying to find innovative ways to serve 41,000 outstanding arrest warrants, a city police commander is being accused of being in routine contact with a suspected violent offender, a person who should've been handcuffed, not chatted with like a teenager in a mall.

We don't need cops forcing other cops to view objectionable Web sites, for fear that what they do behind office doors reflects how they handle themselves in public. But that's grown men with guns playing college frat house games. We certainly don't need cops playing text-message games with citizens who are wanted on charges involving violence.