Saving police horses (not just in Baltimore)
The embattled Baltimore Police horse unit is hanging on but still needs more money. As you might remember, the city cut its funds last year in the budget crunch and since then the cops have been soliciting money to keep the mounted unit going. Photo of one of the city horses at left by The Sun's Barbara Haddock Taylor.
They need $150,000 to survive the year. A fund-raising effort has netted $70,698.34. Sheryl Goldstein from the mayor's crime office is emphatic that the mounted unit is not going away. "The Unit is intact and the plan is to keep it that way," she told me.
It turns out that Baltimore's is not the only horse unit in trouble. In Boston, supporters of that department's mounted unit started a Facebook page, called Save the Boston Police Mounted Unit, where it was noted the Boston Red Sox donated $400,000 to the department.
But it seems to have gone for naught -- the 140-year-old Boston Police mounted unit disbanded this summer and the Boston Globe reported the horses were bought by a local sheriff and are now resting comfortably on a farm. Five other horses went to the New York Police Department.
To donate money to help the Baltimore Police Department's mounted unit:
