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."