As I was putting together a blog post to address questions regarding whether City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake might seek a shake-up at the Police Department when she takes over as mayor Feb. 4, Rawlings-Blake just answered the question directly during a press conference, saying she will not seek to replace Frederick Bealefeld III with her own appointee. 

Here's what she said:

"Commissioner Bealefeld's numbers speak for themselves. We have made great strides. If you look at the last 10 years of the last century, and the first 10 years of this century, you will see a safer Baltimore, a city where in many communities, when I was graduating from college, you wouldn't walk in those neighborhoods. Now they're some of the biggest rent districts in the city. We've made progress, and I want to protect and work off that momentum."

So the bigger storyline to watch - from a crime perspective - then becomes whether Rawlings-Blake has any policing ideas that she'll move to implement. Mayor Sheila Dixon and Bealefeld, from all public accounts, have been on the same page as far as police strategy, with Dixon never urging Bealefeld to change course or implement rushed policies in response to spikes in crimes. But Rawlings-Blake may have initiatives, large or small, that she wants to install once she inherits the keys to the city.

We know that she's spoken out about crime cameras, including in a letter to the editor to The Sun just this week, saying she wants to "expand and enhance" the city's existing network, and last February summoned Bealefeld to City Hall for a briefing about the effect of overtime spending on the homicide rate (it spiked in November 2008 amid a cutback in overtime spending). She also urged the police department to make better use of text messaging to alert citizens of crime in their neighborhood, something that department moved to do but hasn't made much use of.

Today, I was cleaning up my desk, a semi-annual ritual, and came across a letter that she and Councilman Bernard "Jack" Young sent Bealefeld one year ago today, urging transparency in terms of naming officers who shoot or kill citizens. For decades, police have released the name of officers involved in shootings, but reversed course in late 2007, opting to withhold the names except when, essentially, the officers is deemed to clearly have acted heroically and appropriately. Amid controversy, Dixon ordered Bealefeld to rethink the policy, but nothing has changed. Could Rawlings-Blake order Bealefeld to reverse this policy?

Here's the text of the letter: