The Sun's Luke Broadwater and Scott Calvert report today:

"The city's budget office revealed at an investigative hearing Tuesday that it has spent $10.4 million over the past three years — an average of about $3.5 million annually — defending the Baltimore Police Department against lawsuits.

Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke called for the hearing over what she called an "especially troubling" trend of the Police Department paying out millions over brutality claims while other parts of the budget, such as recreation centers, suffer cuts.

"Not only do they siphon off scarce funds that could have been used to address other pressing problems in Baltimore, but each judgment also can represent an instance where citizens were avoidably harmed by the actions of officers whose job it is to protect them," Clarke stated in a resolution that called for the hearing.

Police officials testified Tuesday that they have instituted better training for officers, which has reduced brutality complaints, and City Solicitor George Nilson argued that sometimes the city needs to spend more on legal fees to ensure lower settlements or judgments. About 65 percent of the cases against police allege excessive force, officials said."

Read the complete story here.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Top brass
        

Baltimore police are expanding a program aimed at curbing domestic violence, thanks to a $750,000 federal grant, The Sun's Luke Broadwater reported.

The grant will allow a pilot program, called the Domestic Violence Reduction Initiative, in three police districts — Northeastern, Northern and Southern — to be expanded to include the entire city, said Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

"It's a problem that can't be solved by City Hall alone," she said.

The grant would also provide overtime pay for the police department's Family Crimes Unit, which serves warrants and high priority protective orders and meets with victims at their homes. It would also fund a portion of the salary of a city employee who coordinates the program and makes sure officers perform a "lethality assessment" on victims. Officers will also begin conducting a Spanish language version of the lethality assessment.

Read Luke's full story here. 

Posted by Justin Fenton at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall
        

Over the weekend, we reported on how city overtime spending has increased sharply since Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake took office, which officials say coincides with an increase in staffing vacancies.

Efforts to rein in overtime had been a point of pride for police, who contend they have been reducing crime on a leaner budget. Officials projected in January 2010 that they would spend just $14.2 million on overtime, according to figures presented to Rawlings-Blake's transition committee as she prepared to move into mayor's office.

But the department went on to spend $16.7 million that year, a figure that jumped to $23 million the next fiscal year. In the first two months of the current fiscal year, police have spent $5.1 million on overtime, compared with $3.7 million during the same time last year.

City officials said that officers are working more overtime hours because of staffing shortages; the department has nearly 200 vacancies among its sworn strength of about 3,100 officers. In addition to the vacancies, other officers are on medical leave or have been suspended.

"There's a clear correlation between overtime spending and vacancies," Goldstein said.

But even with the increased overtime spending, police officers report that some districts remain short-staffed. And police union President Robert F. Cherry said the rising use of overtime shows the city "doesn't have a long-term plan." He has criticized Rawlings-Blake's proposal to hire hundreds of additional officers, saying he favors a redeployment of existing resources and salary increases for officers already on the payroll.

It was four weeks ago that The Sun asked City Hall for figures on overtime spending for police, after hearing rumblings that spending had increased significantly. I considered this a simple request, given that the city uses an internationally renowned program called "CitiStat" that involves agencies on a biweekly basis feeding in data so officials can monitor spending and efficiency.

The state's Public Information Act technically allows the city to provide data within 30 days, and we were often reminded of this when we called for updates. The Attorney General's Office has this to say on the topic:

"A custodian should not wait the full 30 days to allow or deny access to a record if that amount of time is not needed to respond.  If access is to be granted, the record should be produced for inspection and copying promptly after the written request is evaluated."

Two sources were able to pass along the data within two days, though officials warned me not to use it because it was "not complete" as it included grant funding and reimbursable overtime. That is, the total number being tracked is not city general fund - or taxpayer - spending, but all payroll expenditures in the "overtime" classification, including money that comes from state and federal grants or is paid back by a private or other government agency. They wanted to make sure data that we got was general fund spending only, which is the number we've used when reporting on this topic over the years.

So what did city officials ultimately come up with, 29 days later? Well, the monthly data was the exact same information that they had warned me not to use. They said they were unable to extract out the grant funds and reimbursable money. That's fine, but that's what I had all along. 

What they did come through with was the total general fund overtime spending for fiscal year 2011 and 2010. This was a necessary figure to have, as projections a year earlier had been lower than what it ended up being. In order to compare year over year increases, we needed to compare like data sets. Still, I wasn't able to get a clear response for why the city didn't have annual general fund spending figures offhand and required weeks to get them.

The closest thing to a response was that the CitiStat data, which includes grants and reimbursables, is intended to "provide a thumbnail snapshot of where you are in a given time. With the frequency of our internal meetings, you're watching a barometer, and trying to stay within a range on the barometer."

Meanwhile, the information provided by the sources broke down spending by unit, district and shift:

Continue reading "City police OT spending up and the quest for information" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

UPDATE/CORRECTION: Officials say the mayor misspoke while giving her remarks. Gun seizures are actually slightly down from this point last year.

City police have seized nearly as many guns so far this year than they did last year, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said at a news conference Monday where she reiterated a desire to strengthen criminal penalties for people caught with illegal guns.

Officials laid out about a dozen handguns (right) that they said were similar to those seized over the weekend by police officers conducting car stops, drug surveillance and search warrants. Among those charged was 20-year-old Haymond Burton Jr., who in 2009 was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and got five years in prison for conspiracy to commit second-degree assault.

Burton was found Friday afternoon in a house in the 700 block of Richwood Ave. with a 12-gauge shotgun and 43 baggies of cocaine, said Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III.

"We know there's a culture that exists in our city - drugs and guns," said Rawlings-Blake. "We're doing everything we can to break up that culture."

"We know who's committing these crimes - the same people committing the shootings last year and the year before," she continued. "It's repeat violent offenders, and we're determined to make sure we're making it very difficult for them to continue to pursue those dangerous activities in Baltimore." 

Officials said city police have made 850 gun arrests so far this year, and have taken 1,500 guns off the street.  Rawlings-Blake said she will return to Annapolis for next year's legislative session pushing tougher penalties for illegal gun possession.

"It's not a cause for celebration, it's a call to action. We know more needs to be done," Rawlings-Blake said. 

Posted by Justin Fenton at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime
        

Baltimore City Council President Bernard "Jack" Young said today he will call for an investigative hearing into the effectiveness of a city program that involves fining and potentially placing liens on properties associated with excessive false burglar alarms.

In a press release, Young said that in 2002 city police responded to more than 125,000 burglary alarm calls, 98 percent of which were false. City residents and businesses get two "free" visits from police for false alarms within a one-year period. Starting with the third false alarm, owners are charged an escalating fee that starts at $50 and can climb as high as $2,000. 

"The volume of false alarm calls that our police officers respond to on an annual basis is staggering," Young said in the news release. "We need to make sure that this program, which is intended to free up valuable police resources, is working properly."

But according to the legislation, Young's concern appears to be focused on liens placed on the properties of those who fail to pay. The legislation notes that 10,839 properties have been auctioned off this year for failure to pay taxes and liens - it's unclear how many of those involve liens for unpaid false burglar alarm fines.

"While it is imperative that the city collect money owed, it is also important to ensure that Baltimore City property owners are treated fairly and compassionately in these trying times," the legislation reads.

Young wants the police commissioner, fire chief, housing commissioner and director of finance to appear at the hearing. 

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: City Hall
        

The city Board of Estimates was poised this morning to approve $9.5 million to purchase a new fleet of helicopters for the Baltimore Police Department.

Just 18 months ago, the helicopters, known as Foxtrot, were in danger of being grounded in Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's proposed budget. But the aviation unit was restored, and now the police department is getting a brand new fleet.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the helicopters are "reaching their maximum years of service" and claimed that one of them has the highest number of flight hours of any of its kind in the world. The department could repair the helicopters, but Guglielmi said it's more cost-effective to purchase new ones. 

The helicopters give police a birds-eye view of developing incidents, such as fleeing suspects, car pursuits and traffic situations. Last year Foxtrot was involved with 7,714 calls for service, assisted in 400 arrests, and performed 33,000 "support" missions.

Of the $9.49 million it will cost to replace the Foxtrot units, $2 million will come from the general fund and $1 million will come from asset forfeiture - that is, money seized in drug raids and the like. The city will get a trade-in value of $1.66 million, and will finance the balance, Guglielmi said.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)
Categories: City Hall
        

NEWS ANALYSIS

Baltimore's Fraternal Order of Police lodge says the city doesn't need more cops - it needs to better compensate those it has.

Yesterday, the union released a statement from president Robert F. Cherry saying Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's plan to hire 300 officers "will put scores of inexperienced officers on the street and will not fix Baltimore's crime problem."

"Why not spend a fraction of the taxpayers' money to retain quality veteran officers, whom we have already paid to train, instead of losing them to surrounding jurisdictions after their first five years on the job as we are doing now?  How can we expect to maintain a quality police force when public safety pensions and benefits are no longer competitive and our working conditions are the most dangerous in the state?  Quantity of officers will do little for this city if quality is not a consideration.”

Rawlings-Blake's plan has, in my view, been distorted during this campaign. The city lost a significant amount of officers to retirements and Rawlings-Blake's plan largely holds the line and pledges to fill those spots, given an alternative of cutting them as budget casualties. Yet the political discourse from her opponents in the mayor's race would lead one to believe that Rawlings-Blake added positions to the police budget. It suits the political goals of both the mayor and her opponents: For Rawlings-Blake, it gives voters the impression that she is beefing up the department's ranks to make the city safer, which her challengers can attack as unnecessary and a misplaced priority as rec centers and youth job programs are cut.

Cherry's position is not new - the union has long advocated for better compensation for its current members. But he's making clear that the union is fine with the police department thinning its ranks if it will result in better conditions for the officers already on the payroll.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: City Hall
        

Baltimore Police Commissioner went on the Marc Steiner show on Morgan State University's WEAA-Radio and confronted his critics. Listen to show here.

On police protecting their own: "One of things I've tried to do is avoid all these blanket indictments and over-generalizations. We should be constantly testing and challenging ourselves in the community. What kind of service do we provide or don't we provide? What kind of professionalism do we have?"

He noted the arrests of officers in a towing scandal and reminded people that the department lured them to the training academy under a ruse that their guns needed to be checked and then busted them. He said that despite rumors the arrest plan had been compromised, all but two officers showed, proving to him that the rumors were false. The other two had been out of town.

But he said he felt there were legitimate concerns about what sergeants and lieutenants were doing while officers were directing unsuspecting motorists to a towing company not approved by the city, but one that was paying off cops for the extra business. "If they were really paying attention to their people, why wouldn't they know?" he asked.

Continue reading "Bealefeld defends department on Steiner" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Downtown, Neighborhoods, Police shootings, Top brass
        

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake had some strong words about an elderly woman who was stabbed to death in her Northeast Baltimore home on Wednesday. She talked to The Sun's Justin Fenton at an event to tout more surveillance cameras.

The mayor knows the victim's son, a community activist. Read the story on the slaying here.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Northeast Baltimore
        

On Monday, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake released her campaign's first paid advertisement, a radio commercial focused on crime that begins airing today. In the 60 second ad, she talks about the stabbing of her brother in 2002, and highlights her crime-fighting initiatives, such as her plan to hire officers and efforts to tighten gun laws in Annapolis. The ad appears to overstate the city's current crime picture, however, saying the murder rate is at its lowest point in 26 years though statistics show its at the lowest rate in 23 years.

(UPDATE: A campaign spokeswoman says the 26-year low is a reference to the total number of murders, which is indeed at its lowest point since 1985. She said the word "rate" was used as a colloquial term that voters would identify with. I argued that it's still misleading, though this is also not a gross distortion).

You can listen to the ad here, and here's the text:

“Crime is down in Baltimore. Murder is at its lowest rate in 26 years, but if you or a loved one has been a victim of violence, statistics do not matter. This is Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Like many of you, a family member of mine was a victim of violent crime. It is something you live with everyday of your life. My public safety plan will help make every neighborhood safer. We are locking up criminals with a history of violence. We are fighting for stronger state laws on illegal guns and this year we will hire more new police officers. Every step of the way, we are working with neighborhoods, community activists and religious leaders to make sure those policies protect all our citizens. It won't be easy, but we will never rest until all our neighborhoods are safe. This is Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. I need your help and your vote on September 13 so that every neighborhood in Baltimore is safer.”

Sworn into office 18 months ago, Rawlings-Blake has made public safety a top priority as Mayor. Despite having two years of budget deficits, the Rawlings-Blake Administration has fully funded the police department budget and implemented an aggressive plan to hire hundreds of new police officers.  She’s also worked with elected officials and community leaders to push for stronger state laws for illegal guns and this year."

For more on the candidates' views on crime, click here for The Sun's story from Monday.

City murder rates over the years posted after the jump:

Continue reading "Mayor releases radio ad on crime" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: City Hall
        

National Night Out has become a big community event, getting residents and cops together to take back the streets. Below is a list of events in the city and the counties, scheduled for today, Aug. 2

National Night outs:

Baltimore City

Baltimore County

Harford County

Anne Arundel County

Howard County

I could only find one in Carroll County, in Eldersburg. Here is a link to details. If anyone knows of more here, please let me know and I'll post.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County, Carroll County, City Hall, Confronting crime, East Baltimore, Howard County, Neighborhoods, North Baltimore, Northeast Baltimore, Northwest Baltimore, South Baltimore, Southeast Baltimore, Southwest Baltimore, West Baltimore
        

With 43 days left to the mayoral campaign, one usually hot topic appears to be strangely in the background -- crime.

Reporters Julie Scharper and Justin Fenton visited the Erdman Shopping Center, where a delivery man was killed in a robbery earlier this year, to hear people's thoughts. One man showed off his knife wound and complained that his prison record kept him from finding a job. Another woman said, "All you hear, all day is ambulances and police cars, ambulances and police cars. Somebody got hurt. Somebody got killed."

Northeast Baltimore has become one of the violent police districts, and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake visited this very shopping center just before assuming office. The area hasn't improved much.

Plans to curtail vary among the candidates -- one wants to tax bullets and reduce penalties for marijuhana; another doesn't believe the stats from the the cops and wants an audit; a third wants more drug treatment beds; a fourth wants says more jobs are the key; the mayor wants to hire another 350 officers.

Read Julie's and Justin's full story here.

Read Justin's report on crime in Northeast Baltimore

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Northeast Baltimore
        

From City Hall reporter Julie Scharper, at the Maryland Politics blog:

Mayoral candidate Otis Rolley said he would seek to reduce the penalties for possessing small amounts of marijuana, create a dollar tax on bullets and increase funding for youth recreation and jobs, as part of his plan to fight crime.

Rolley, who is slated to unveil his public safety platform Tuesday, said the city needs a "multi-faceted approach" to cutting cutting.

Rolley said he would increase police hiring and fitness standards and bolster police training, but not increase the size of the force.

"We don't need more cops. We need screened, well-trained, reasonably-compensated police," he said, adding that standards much be increased to prevent some more police department scandals.

Rolley said he would push for state legislation to make carrying a small quantity of marijuana a summary offense -- subject to a citation and fine, but no jail time. Philadelphia and Seattle have similar policies, he said.

"It takes a lot of the burden off of the court system," he said.

For more on Rolley's crime fighting proposals, click here.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: City Hall
        

Challengers to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake seized Tuesday on the Fourth of July violence — including the fatal stabbing of an Alabama man and the shooting of a 4-year-old boy around the fireworks display at the Inner Harbor — saying the incidents highlighted persistent problems that foster a culture of violent crime, The Sun's Julie Scharper reports.

"When you fail to invest in education, when you fail to invest in rec centers, you can't be surprised when you see this kind of violence," former city planning director Otis Rolley said.

Rolley's remarks — along with those of state Sen. Catherine Pugh and former City Councilman Joseph T. "Jody" Landers — came on the final day for candidates to file to register for the city elections. A campaign spokeswoman for Rawlings-Blake declined to respond to their comments.

Pugh, speaking to supporters Tuesday morning after she filed the paperwork to run for mayor, tied the recent attacks to lead poisoning.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 7:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall
        

This week, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced an expansion of the city's crime surveillance camera program, with 30 additional cameras going up in Northeast Baltimore.

Rawlings-Blake, who has largely stuck with the police strategies implemented by Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III under former Mayor Sheila Dixon, has been effusive in her praise of cameras in deterring violence and has directed money toward expansion of its network of cameras. 

The new cameras will go up in a district that is being hit hard by crime this year, prompting the Police Department to designate new violent crime impact zones flooded with plainclothes officers.

"As a long-time supporter of Baltimore's crime camera network, I am very pleased to announce this major expansion of the program in the Northeast District, despite difficult budget constraints," Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. "Our CitiWatch program has been instrumental in supporting the work of the men and women of the Baltimore Police Department to reduce violent crime. The cameras are a force-multiplier that enables us to do more to protect the citizens of Baltimore."

The cameras will be paid for with federal grant funds from the Department of Homeland Security and will be "strategically placed" on North Avenue, Harford Road and Belair Road, around Clifton Park. The mayor's office said 46 new crime cameras have been added to the city's network since Rawlings-Blake took office.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: City Hall, Northeast Baltimore
        

Continue reading "Help wanted: Commander of BPD homicide unit" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

The city police and fire unions have called off plans to picket a national convention of mayors to be held in Baltimore this weekend, instead paying for another billboard over I-83 to display a message to the visiting leaders.

Police union president Robert F. Cherry had said in February that he would draft unions from across the country to press local officials to boycott the U.S. Conference of Mayors, being held for the first time in Baltimore. Mayors who entered the convention would be crossing an official labor union picket line, Cherry had warned.

“Based on the overwhelming response we received from our prior billboard, we feel the best way to get our message across will be to display it for all the visiting mayors to see, clear as day, in black and white,” said Rick Hoffman, President of the International Association of Firefighters Local 734, in a statement released by the unions today.

Cherry said in a statement that the unions didn't want to spoil the event. 

“We want the citizens of Baltimore to know that we stand by our oath to work for the betterment of Baltimore, despite that City Hall has not stood by us,” he said.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall
        

The Sun's Julie Scharper reports that Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III announced at the mayor's Northeast District town hall meeting Thursday night that he has named new commanders for the district.

The move solidifies a district that has battled new challenges in recent years, a problem I'll be writing about in a future story. As of April 16, the district had seen a 20 percent uptick in total crime and leads the city in homicides. 

Maj. Delmar "Sonny" Dickson retired in January, and Deputy Major Darryl DeSousa had been acting major since then. DeSousa was officially given the nod to become the district commander, and his Deputy Major will be Rick Rutherford, who moves from the Western District, Scharper reported.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Northeast Baltimore, Top brass
        

A man who saw kids beating a young puppy last year on the Carroll Park golf course has been given a $3,000 reward for helping police. Robert Widerman's tips help prosecute three juvenile offenders.

Two 10-year-old boys and a 13-year-old boy were arrested in the May attack in which they tied up a young pit bull, beat it with a belt and pelted it with rocks. The attack came as a City Hall Anti-Animal Abuse Task Force concluded its yearlong look at animal cruelty in Baltimore.

Widerman got his reward from the task force, the Snyder Foundation for Animals and the city's animal control office. He was among several golfers who witnessed the attack and tried to save the dog, which later died.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, South Baltimore
        

Baltimore's mayor and police commissioner announced this morning the Hometown Heroes Project, an effort to recruit community members to find people who want to be police officers. It's a renewed attempt to attract more city residents to the 3,000-member force.

"It's a way for someone to give back to their community while making Baltimore a safer place," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake told reporters at a news conference this morning. Residents who sign up will be trained in the recruiting process and procedures.

Last year, despite budget shortfalls exceeding $120 million, the mayor promised to hire up to 400 new police officers. The department had been losing officers to attrition at a faster pace than hiring.

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said that he began his career as a cadet when he was 19 years old. He said part of the program is also to attract cadets who could become future police officers.

Bealefeld started as a cadet in May 1981 on the midnight shift -- he attended community college during the day -- on what was called the "hot desk." His job was handle warrants. He also compared fingerprints of newly arrested suspects to prints on file. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said he used a magnifying glass "It's now what could be considered CSI-like, minus the technology," the spokesman said.

At the news conference, Bealefeld said: "We need to fill 300 positions over the next several months," Bealefeld said. "I've worked my way through the ranks. None of that I think would have been possible without the grounding, experience and start I got here when I was 19 years old." He said that being an officer "is not about car chases. ... What you do every day is help people to be safe, and help people across the city make their lives better. You can't get that experience through a recruitment poster. You really have to live that. ... What we really need are people who are dedicated to service."

Anyone interested in the program is urged to call the Baltimore Police Department recruitment section at 410-396-2340 or visit the department's web site.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

The Baltimore Board of Estimates on Wednesday morning approved $45,000 that the Police Department spent on the funeral of Officer William Torbit, as well as $75,000 requested for the commission appointed to investigate his death.

Torbit was fatally shot by fellow officers in January after responding in plainclothes to a disturbance outside the Select Lounge. Torbit was said to have been overcome by an unruly crowd, and fired his service weapon, killing civilian Sean Gamble. Other officers in the area instinctively returned fire, killing Torbit, according to reports.

[Sun photo by Karl Merton Ferron]

Police officials initially said the investigation into the shooting would take three weeks, but it dragged on for about two months. A police spokesman said a final report was handed to Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III last week, and a task force of experts appointed by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has begun reviewing the findings and will make recommendations.

The Sun's City Hall reporter, Julie Scharper, asked Rawlings-Blake about the expenditures:

Continue reading "City approves spending for officer funeral, shooting investigation" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: City Hall, Downtown, Police shootings, Top brass
        

Because we need some levity on the crime blog from time to time, let's have a caption contest for this photo posted to Twitter by state Sen. Bill Ferguson, showing Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III and City Council President Bernard "Jack" Young at Monday's home opener for the Orioles. As you might recall, Young, who used to head the council's public safety committee, was once the closest thing to a critic that Bealefeld had on the city council, and he openly questioned whether there was a cover-up regarding the city's murder rate. [Edit] They've enjoyed a rosier relationship since Young became council president.

Keep it clean!

Posted by Justin Fenton at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's proposed operating budget, which The Sun reported today would increase spending by 1 percent, includes level funding for police and public safety, and allows the city to follow through with a plan to fill police vacancies, fund crime cameras, and fund youth violence prevention programs, officials say.

Here's the breakdown, based on budget documents:

Continue reading "Mayor's budget: public safety" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Courts and the justice system, Top brass
        

Baltimore Police Deputy Commissioner for Administration Deborah A. Owens was recognized by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake this morning with the Richard Lidinsky Sr. Award of Excellence in Public Service.

Owens, a member of the department since 1989 who is retiring this year, was given the award in a ceremony at City Hall. Officials said the award is handed out by a committee and given to "long-serving city employees who have worked to improve city services and make city government more efficient." There's a $2,500 prize and a plaque is placed in the City Hall rotunda.

[Sun file photo - 2007]

Owens oversees issues of staffing, recruitment and discipline, and has been a trailblazer as the first woman to hold the chief of patrol position and the first to be promoted to deputy commissioner, when Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III made her part of what he refers to as "Team Bealefeld." Here's an article from 2007 that featured Owens interacting with residents for an "Adopt a Block" program.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

Continuing reforms to Baltimore's response to sexual assaults will be steered by a full-time coordinator who for the past six years has overseen residential programs at Howard County's domestic violence center.

Heather Brantner began Monday as coordinator of the Sexual Assault Response Team, a committee of police, prosecutors, medical providers and women's advocates given new purpose after The Baltimore Sun reported last year that the city for years led the country in the percentage of rape cases deemed "unfounded" by detectives.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake ordered an audit that found more than half of the cases investigated over a 20-month period had been misclassified. Officials also identified several other areas for improvement, which Brantner will manage in the newly created position.

Sexual assault and domestic violence "are often intertwined, and I think that coming from a victim-centered approach, I can bring a lot from those past experiences," Brantner said.

Read more here.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Howard County
        

When the U.S. Marshal's Safe Surrender program rolled through Baltimore last summer, the city's law enforcement community jumped at the opportunity to clear their books of old cases. Tens of thousands of people were wanted on old arrest warrants; the amnesty program of seemed a sure way of helping out.

About a 1,000 people took advantage -- coming to a city church (at left, in a photo by The Sun's Kim Hairston) and meeting with prosecutors, who either dropped the cases or got the suspects together with lawyers and in front of a judge for an immediate hearing. It was designed for nonviolent offenders, many with cases so old that witnesses and case files had all but disappeared.

Now, there's a report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that the feds are pulling the plug on the program, which police departments all over the country had joined, resulting in 34,000 fugitive surrenders in 20 cities. Officials told the newspaper that Safe Surrender didn't fit the agency's mission of targeting violent offenders.

For more details:

Continue reading "Safe Surrender program ends" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Crime elsewhere
        

A woman who says she is the ex-girlfriend of former City Council President Lawrence A. Bell III is accusing him of stalking her and repeatedly breaking into her home, court records show.

Bell, a Democrat who spent 12 years on the council and lost the 1999 election for mayor, has been charged with third-degree burglary, theft less than $1,000, telephone harassment and stalking. The charges were filed by Shan Mabry, who said she has known and dated Bell for 20 years.

Reached for comment Thursday night, Bell (seen in this Sun photo from 1999) declined to speak on the record. Mabry could not be reached for comment.

The charges were approved by a District Court commissioner on Sunday, after Mabry, 49, sought a peace order against Bell, 49, for the second time in six months.

Continue reading "Woman accuses former Baltimore city council president of stalking, theft" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall
        

The federal corruption probe accusing officers of taking kickbacks from towing companies involved skirting the city-approved system. But that city system is receiving new scrutiny nonetheless this week, shining a spotlight on an arcane and poorly documented process, reports The Sun's City Hall reporter Julie Scharper:

Baltimore's police commissioner is demanding a review of the decades-old practice of funneling the city's multimillion-dollar towing business to a small circle of companies without requiring them to compete for contracts.

Other city officials, including Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, are also calling for a closer look at the towing system — just days before the contract was scheduled for a two-year renewal.

The companies — known as "medallions" for the police-issued stickers affixed to their trucks — have had a lock on the city's towing business for at least three decades, elbowing out competitors by expanding their fleets to cover more territory. One of the companies forfeited its state business certification two years ago but continued to operate under its exclusive city contract.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall
        

Baltimore police are complaining about cuts to their pay and to their pension, and are loudly protesting City Hall. Baltimore leaders are cheering that they closed a $121 million budget deficit without laying cops off.

They point to New Jersey, where cops by the hundreds have lost their jobs to dire economic times, and police unions there say crime is soaring as a result. Today's Crime Scenes gets into the debate in more detail, and notes the release of the Maryland State Police annual law enforcement salary survey.

In the 1990, Baltimore police officers were among the lowest paid cops in the state, earning starting salaries of about $28,000. An academy graduate in the city now gets $42,290 a year, still in a low tier. They’re ahead of state troopers and cops in Anne Arundel and Charles counties but below police in Baltimore, Howard and Harford counties.

Above, the president of the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police union, Robert F. Cherry, leads a protest outside City Hall. For more details: 

Continue reading "Fighting over police pay" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Crime elsewhere, Top brass
        

Ending weeks of speculation, the Baltimore mayor's office announced a review panel to examine last month's shooting of a plainclothes police officer by his colleagues, and the fatal shooting of another man in the same incident.

The Sun's Justin Fenton provides more details in today's story, which raises some questions. The panel is made up of two former police chiefs and a former U.S. Attorney, but contains no community members.

It's also unclear whether the group will hold public hearings, as has been done in other cities.

Officials say the independent review board will issue a comprehensive report on the circumstances that led to the agency's first fatal police-on-police shooting in more than 80 years, killing Officer William H. Torbit Jr. and civilian Sean Gamble, and make recommendations to improve policies.

"I am grateful for the individuals who have agreed to join this review board to conduct a thorough and independent study of this tragic incident," Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. "Their findings will help us better understand what happened that night and improve training for our officers."

The city homicide unit's investigation into the shooting is still pending, with detectives awaiting final autopsy results from the state medical examiner's office and transcripts of witness interviews, officials say. Part of their report might include a computer re-creation of the incident.

Read the mayor's statement:

Continue reading "Review panel in police shooting set" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Downtown, Police shootings, Top brass
        

UPDATE: Federal authorities say that the case involves 17 city police officers. We're posting the criminal complaint below. Here are some quick highlights from a statement from the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office:

A criminal complaint was filed today charging 17 Baltimore City Police officers and two brothers who own a car repair shop with conspiring to commit extortion in connection with a scheme in which the repair shop owners paid police officers to arrange for their company, rather than a city-authorized company, to tow vehicles from accident scenes and make repairs.

According to the affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, the general pattern of the extortion scheme allegedly consisted of the following: from January 2009 to the present, the BPD Officers were either dispatched by the police department to the scene of an accident, or otherwise showed up at the scene.  Shortly after arriving at the accident scene, the BPD Officer would call Moreno, or use the vehicle owner’s cell phone to call Moreno, and provide Moreno with details about the accident and the damage to the vehicle.

Original post: A dozen or more Baltimore city police officers have been arrested this morning in connection with a federal corruption probe that involves an improper relationship with a Baltimore towing company, sources said.

Multiple sources say the officers are mostly from the Northeast District and many of them are officers who were recruited years ago in a push to bring in Latino officers from Puerto Rico. That information could not immediately be confirmed.

UPDATE at 3:25 p.m.The president of Latino officers association says only 3 of officers charged were recruited during the Puerto Rico initiative. Others were recruited from New York and Maryland, and are of varying nationalities, the association says.

Officials from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Baltimore and the FBI announced that a press conference will be held at 3 p.m. today to discuss the arrests.

-Justin Fenton and Julie Scharper

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (32)
Categories: City Hall, Courts and the justice system, Northeast Baltimore, Top brass
        

Police and city officials have to fight crime on two fronts -- reality and perception. It hardly matters if the crime declines statistically if residents feel unsafe.

And perception can come from various places, such as the media -- shows like The Wire -- or a particular experience. I hear every week from people who think the police helicopter flying over their neighborhood is evidence of decline. One holdup on the block can mean crime is out of control, even if holdups went down 80 percent.

That brings me to Chiara Mapelli, a 15-year-old from Italy. Her family was visiting DC and decided to come up to Baltimore for a few days. But wrong directions on their GPS led them to East Baltimore where she, her sister, mom and dad were, according to her e-mail, "frightened of everything they saw."

I'm presenting her email below, knowing it will spark plenty of debate. I have no idea how they missed the Inner Harbor and ended upon east Lafayette Avenue, or if they actually witnessed three purse snatchings, or a rampant drug trade, or even "prostitution everywhere."

But does it matter? This was this girl's perception of our city and it was enough to send her family speeding back to DC's Georgetown neighborhood. Whether or not her account is accurate, it's doubtful that her next trip to the U.S. will include Baltimore.

Here is her letter:

Continue reading "A wrong turn, and a visitor's dim view of the city" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, East Baltimore, Neighborhoods
        

"He smirked at me."

That's how Baltimore Police Officer Todd Strohman described the gunman just before he
pulled the trigger, putting a bullet into his shoulder, a bullet that will remain inches above his heart for the rest of his life.

The cop had another message for state lawmakers who make up the Senate's Judiciary
Committee contemplating tougher guns laws proposed by the city (see city's website describing proposed legislation): If the proposed laws had been on the books, the person charged with shooting him wouldn't have been on the street.

The audience applauded Strohman and the lawmakers wished him well. There was no sense
in grilling him on the necessity of enhanced gun legislation. The man charged in the crime had served two years of a 12-year sentence for armed robbery (the judge had suspended six of the years) and had been charged with five previous gun crimes. He had gotten out a little more than two weeks before the shooting on North Calvert Street.

"Seventeen days after he gets out, he shoots one of our cops," said Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Barksdale.

See more on the gun hearing:

Continue reading "City, county leaders press for tougher gun laws" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County, City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Crime elsewhere, Kenneth Harris trial, Neighborhoods, Police shootings, Top brass
        

In her second "State of the City" address, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake will propose the creation of a 10-year financial plan for Baltimore, discuss initiatives for recovering drug addicts, and propose restructuring the Baltimore Development Corp., among other initiatives. The Sun's City Hall reporter Julie Scharper will have a full report, but here's text of the speech that focuses specifically on law enforcement and public safety:

"As our schools are making great progress, Baltimore is becoming a safer city to raise a family. In 2010, homicides reached their lowest level since 1985, when William Donald Schaefer was Mayor. Gun homicide is down 13%, juvenile homicides and shootings are down 35%, and overall gun crime is down 16%, that's 498 fewer victims of gun crime than in 2009. 
 
I want to thank all the men and women of the Baltimore Police Department for their continued focus on illegal guns and the violent criminals who use them. In 2010, our police officers took over 2300 illegal guns off the streets.
 
The sad truth is that our Police Department is achieving these record results with one hand tied behind their back because of inadequate state penalties for gun criminals.  Our current laws are weak and support a culture that tolerates illegal, loaded gun possession.

Today, we are joined by three heroes whose story crystallizes the need for tougher state penalties for gun offenders.

Continue reading "Crime excerpts from mayor's State of the City speech" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall
        

Earlier this week, as the city police union continued to speak out about their frustration over wages and benefits, WBAL-TV reported a brow-raising figure: Baltimore is flush with cops, with literally hundreds more per capita on the street than the next highest comparable city. The station reported that Baltimore has 610 officers per 100,000 people, compared to 377 officers per 100,000 people in Detroit and 472 in Philadelphia, and said legislators cited the story in questioning whether the city gets its money's worth.

There appears to be one significant flaw in the numbers, however. The reporting said that Baltimore has 3,900 employees, then translated that into the number of officers per 100,000 people. But "employees" do not equal "officers." As commenters on that first story pointed out, the BPD has hundreds of civilian employees from dispatchers to the crime lab technicians.

According to figures The Sun received from the city last year, Baltimore had 3,100 actual "sworn" officers in 2010. Those are just funded positions; with vacancies, the city has about 2,900. That's down from 3,300 in the early part of the decade, the figures show.

[City and police officials said Friday night that the station's figures were incorrect, but in an email WBAL's news director stood by the report. "She did not overstate the numbers," director Michelle Butt said, saying the station compared like data sets among cities. "Jayne and the WBAL news room continue through their reporting  to raise questions and start debate about the direction of our community."]

Here's the upshot: even using the correct figure, Baltimore sports about 480 officers per 100,000 people, which is still more than the other cities WBAL compared it to, as well as a couple others that I picked out, which raises the question - given the state of the city budget, does Baltimore have too many police officers?

Could it pare back to the levels of Detroit and St. Louis, and focus on issues of compensation? Is public safety getting too much focus here at the expense of other areas of need? Or do we have appropriate staffing given the city's historical struggles with crime and officials' priority of making communities safer? Post your comments below.

For her part, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake told WBAL that there's an argument that "maybe we could do without as many officers," but said that's not what the public wants.

Continue reading "Does Baltimore have too many police officers?" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: City Hall
        

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III were in Annapolis this morning briefing the city delegation on proposals for stricter gun laws.

City officals have been lobbying for years to boost penalties with not much success. Read the legislation -- Senate Bill 240 and Senate Bill 239. This year's proposals, according to the mayor's office:

The first bill would create a minimum sentence of 18 months for all defendants arrested with an illegal, loaded firearm. The second bill would strengthen sentencing options for felons in possession of guns by creating a tougher sentencing range of 5 years minimum to 15 years maximum, giving judges more sentencing options when faced with a repeat gun offender.

Here is a statement from the mayor's office:

Continue reading "Mayor, police commissioner lobby for gun laws" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Top brass
        

The city’s police and fire unions announced plans Monday to picket a national convention of mayors to be held in Baltimore in June, in an effort to force a compromise with Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake over furlough days and pension benefits, The Sun's Julie Scharper reports.

Fraternal Order of Police President Robert F. Cherry (seen at right at a Jan. 7 rally outside City Hall) said he was inviting police and fire unions from across the country to join the protest, which he hoped to spark a “a national discussion about prioritizing public safety.”

The police and firefighters unions have been sparring with Rawlings-Blake since she pushed through an overhaul of their pension system last year that saves the city money but cuts benefits. Tensions increased last month when city officials cut police officers’ pay by nearly 2 percent over the next six months.

A spokesman for Rawlings-Blake said in an emailed statement that it would be “counterproductive to disrupt an event that will generate economic activity and tax revenue to support city services, including police and fire.”

[Picture by Sun photographer Gene Sweeney Jr.]

Continue reading "Baltimore police, fire unions to picket mayor's conference" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: City Hall
        

Baltimore police are still working on their investigation into the Jan. 9 shooting at Select Lounge that left a city officer and 22-year-old civilian dead, officials say.

At a press conference three weeks ago, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said the investigation would take about three weeks, but officials say they are still awaiting an autopsy report. Cindy Feldstein, of the state medical examiner's office, confirmed that a cause and manner of death was promptly identified but that the full report has not been turned over. "We don't provide preliminary reports," Feldstein said, noting that a complete report often takes about a month.

In the meantime, Bealefeld is pushing forward with assembling a panel that will review the department's findings. Aides say that instead of referring the investigation to another agency, city officials want to form a commission of representatives from various organizations to review the case. 

Officer William H. Torbit and Sean Gamble were fatally shot in a melee outside the downtown club. It is believed that Torbit shot Gamble after being overwhelmed in a large crowd, then Torbit was shot by fellow officers who did not realize who he was. The five officers fired a total of 41 rounds. 

Posted by Justin Fenton at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Downtown, Police shootings, Top brass
        

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced today the introduction of bills in Annapolis to strengthen penalties for illegal gun possession and use.

She also introduced a new social media site to keep track of the bills as they wind their way through the legislature and to provide information on efforte to stem gun violence in Baltimore. The site is called Safer City Baltimore.

According to the mayor, the bills would:

One City administration proposal, SB239 HB252 would create a minimum sentence of 18 months for all defendants arrested with an illegal, loaded firearm. The other City administration proposal, SB240/HB241 would strengthen sentencing options for felons in possession of guns by creating a tougher sentencing range of 5 years minimum to 15 years maximum, giving judges more sentencing options when faced with a repeat gun offender.

The mayor and police commissioner on Friday held a news conference to highlight an arrest of a suspected violent gun offender. For more information, here is the text of the mayor's statement on the new bills:

Continue reading "Mayor introduces new gun legislation" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: City Hall
        

Via Balt Tech blogger Gus Sentementes:

Big news today out of Baltimore: the long-anticipated (by this blog) release of data sets by the city has finally arrived.

There's crime data, 311 data, tax data, parking citation data -- and much, much more. The data is available at this site: http://data.baltimorecity.gov/

What's cool about this new site is that it doesn't only allow you to view the data. Programmers and hackers and web geeks can export the data and come up with their own presentation methods for displaying the data.

There's several sets and subsets of crime data over several pages. Paul Smith, co-founder of EveryBlock, uploaded the overall crime data - which covers the time period of Jan. 1 to Nov. 30 - in a sortable Google map found here.

There's much to dissect.

I'm already astonished to see the amount of data points for certain types of crimes, though over the course of an entire year it's not really all that surprising - we've just never seen it like this. The Police Department's archaic crime mapping program, which allowed you to search 14 days at a time going back 90 days - was incredibly frustrating to use and ultimately ignored by the public. Equally surprising are some of the areas that show no crime at all. We'll be analyzing the data in the days to come, but post comments about interesting trends you are seeing.

Here's one quirk Paul already found: At least 170 crimes - including at least one shooting that is supposed to display in Perkins Homes - show up for a seemingly random data point in West Virginia. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program is located in Charleston, W Va., but that's not where this point is showing up. I'm seeking clarification from the city.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: City Hall
        

If the city's most outspoken activists gave Gregg Bernstein a honeymoon period after being sworn in earlier this month as Baltimore's new top prosecutor, it appears to be over.

Two groups of loosely-affiliated community organizations and special interests protested on opposite sides of the Mitchell Courthouse downtown on Monday, accusing Bernstein of being tight-lipped on a racially-charged assault case and criticizing his "unholy" alliance with the Police Department.

On the west side, protesters formed a picket line, invoking the shooting of Officer William H. Torbit Jr. and carrying signs with such incendiary slogans as "Arrogant Racist State's Attorney."

On the east side, people who said they represent black media and civil rights groups called on Bernstein to say more about his office's decision to drop felony assault charges against a member of a Jewish community patrol group.

"'No comment' will not suffice in the African American community," said Hassan Giordano, a blogger, talk show host and campaign consultant.

Bernstein, who defeated 15-year incumbent Patricia C. Jessamy in last year's Democratic primary election, had been supported by Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, who said a better relationship with prosecutors would help keep violent repeat offenders off the street.

Two high-profile and controversial cases are testing his public mettle early.  Read more here.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 5:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: City Hall, Courts and the justice system, Downtown, Northwest Baltimore, Police shootings, Top brass
        

If you haven't got enough of crime this week, check out the Midday with Dan Rodricks show on WYPR (88.1 FM) today at 1 p.m. I'll be on with Dan (also a colleague at The Baltimore Sun) to talk about the busy crime beat.

There's certainly no shortage of subject, and I'm sure the friendly-fire shooting of Officer William H. Torbit will dominate coverage. Among the topics -- the shooting itself and the independent review ordered by the mayor.

Here are just a few of the headlines:

Continue reading "Check out Midday with Dan Rodricks" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Police shootings
        

Amid calls from the public for an independent investigation, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said this week that there would be an independent review of Sunday's shooting that left a veteran officer and a 22-year-old man dead. The city police union is now claiming that her announcement is an attempt to use the tragedy for political gain.

Through a public relations firm, the union sent out this statement:

"Should the current investigation determine that an independent review is warranted, the FOP would fully support such a review at that time.  We, too, want a thorough investigation of this incident to reveal all the facts of that night's events.  However, at this point, this action seems premature.  Mayor Rawlings-Blake should have confidence in her Police Commissioner and the Baltimore City Police Department and give them a chance to conduct an exhaustive investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding this tragedy.  The Baltimore City Police Department has one of the premier homicide units in the nation and a system of checks and balances is already in place, as the independent Baltimore City State's Attorney investigates every police-involved shooting in Baltimore.  The Baltimore City Police Department wants to work closely with the State’s Attorney’s Office to get to the bottom of this occurrence. For Mayor Rawlings-Blake to utilize this tragic incident for political gain is a tragedy in itself."

A spokesman for Rawlings-Blake said he would not have a response to the statement.

Tensions between City Hall and the city's public safety unions have been rising for months. A week ago, the police and fire unions held a press conference outside City Hall denouncing pay cuts and saying Rawlings-Blake wants to take credit for crime reductions while not compensating officers for their work. They also paid for billboards downtown last year that took shots at city officials.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: City Hall, Police shootings
        

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced Wednesday morning that there will be an external review of Sunday’s shooting downtown that injured four people and killed an on-duty officer and unarmed civilian.

Police also ordered late Tuesday that they will require all plainclothes officers in district units to wear uniforms amid a slew of changes pending the completion of the inquiry into the shooting, according to the department’s chief spokesman.

At Wednesday’s Board of Estimates meeting, Rawlings-Blake said she was “very concerned by initial facts that indicate only police weapons were discharged” Sunday outside the Select Lounge in the 400 block of N. Paca St. at officers tried to quell an unruly crowd.

Officer William H. Torbit Jr. was killed by friendly fire when four officers shot at him after seeing him fire his weapon, according to police and sources. Civilian Sean Gamble, 22, was also killed and three women were shot and injured.

“The police investigation and the outside review will help us understand exactly what happened and help us learn from it and make sure that nothing like it happens again,” she said in a statement.

Ryan O’Doherty, a spokesman for the mayor, said officials were reaching out to gauge availability and interest from other agencies and a decision could be made next week.

Meanwhile, police moved to establish a more cohesive policy on how plainclothes officers operate and what they can wear, said the department’s chief spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi. Plainclothes officers will be required to wear uniforms, while detectives in the department’s elite Violent Crimes Impact Section will have to wear identifiable vests or jackets. Commanders are also reviewing how such officers respond to large crowds.

Here's the mayor's full statement:

Continue reading "Police ban plainclothes; external agency to review shooting" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: City Hall, Downtown, Police shootings
        

Since early Sunday, the Sun has written two in-depth accounts of the fatal shooting outside a night club near downtown, but one point seems to be unclear, not only among readers but also some reporters and politicians: Officer William H. Torbit Jr. (seen at right) was on-duty when he responded to help quell the unruly crowd outside of Select Lounge. 

In the summer, the shooting of a Marine by an off-duty officer in Mount Vernon raised questions about whether officers should carry their weapons while consuming alcohol. That is not the case in this shooting - Torbit, a plainclothes officer assigned to the Central District, responded to a distress call from an officer already at the club trying to handle the crowd. His badge was either not visible or ripped off during the melee, according to the account pieced together by sources, police, and witnesses.

That point seems lost among many readers, who posted comments and e-mailed us wanting to know what Torbit's blood alcohol content was and wanting to revisit the off-duty weapon policy.

Sun reporter Jill Rosen sought comment on the shooting from councilmembers Monday, and City Council President Bernard "Jack" Young seemed to think Torbit was working security at the bar:

“With secondary employment, we need to make sure our officers know where officers are at all times — who they are and where they are,” Young said. “Somebody should have recognized him. We should at least be able to identify our own.”

Young said that the police department might consider having officers with second jobs wear something that would identify them as police.

“How can you identify another police officer unless they’re wearing something that says police?” he asked. “I feel this is something we probably could have avoided.”

Not only was Torbit not working secondary employment at Select Lounge, city police officers have been prohibited from moonlighting as bar security for more than two years, when Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III issued a ban. Instead, in key areas such as Power Plant Live and Federal Hill, police have pooled money from businesses to pay uniformed officers to work overtime at the direction of police commanders - not bar owners.

Union president Robert F. Cherry says the union and police commanders have crafted a proposal that would allow officers to resume working second jobs at bars, but he says the proposal has been sitting on Bealefeld's desk for months without a response.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: City Hall, Downtown, Police shootings, South Baltimore
        

NOTE: An earlier posting here on police budgets didn't clearly describe the police pay cuts. Every city employee is seeing a $5 reduction in their checks per pay-period, as part of a plan negotiated with unions last year to contribute to a prescription drug plan. Police officers are seeing an additional 1.95 percent cut in their pay starting later this month.

It comes just after city police announced across-the-board cuts in crime not seen in more than two decades. At left, Robert F. Cherry, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 3, speaks at a rally in front of City Hall to complain about the cuts. Police officers and firefighters are behind him (photo by The Sun's Gene Sweeney Jr.).

Here is the full story, with accusations being hurled back and forth by city and union leaders:

Baltimore police officers got what they described as a stunning note accompanying their biweekly paychecks Friday — a memo from City Hall informing them that their pay will be cut by nearly 2 percent over the next six months.

In addition, the officers along with thousands of other city workers were informed that starting Friday, their checks would be reduced $5 per pay period to share the costs of a prescription drug plan to help close a $121 million budget deficit.

While most city workers were prepared for the $5 reductions, police officers are taking a double hit — the cost of drug plan plus the 1.95 percent pay cut. Spread over six months, that last cut means the average officer will see about $205 less in his monthly pay starting Jan. 21.

In November, officers through their labor union overwhelmingly rejected the city’s one-year contract offer calling for a 2 percent cut in exchange for an extra five vacation days. The Fraternal Order of Police president, Robert F. Cherry, said he proposed a different, multi-year contract with a temporary pay freeze.

But the mayor’s office went to arbitration and won. Now, city leaders say pay cuts for officers that would’ve been spread out of a year have to compacted into six months. And the five extra vacation days are no longer on the table.

“We could’ve spread the pain,” said an aide to the mayor, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “I think the rank-and-file members really deserve better than they got from the union leadership.”

Continue reading "Police see pay cut" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III has been making the media rounds to talk up the crime reduction -- interview with Baltimore Sun, news conference -- and this afternoon he hit the radio talk show circuit, appearing on WYPR's Midday with Dan Rodricks.

Listen to the segment here.

I listened in the car, so no direct quotes, but Bealefeld's main thrust was going after gun offenders, and he talked about a fresh start with new State's Attorney Gregg L. Bernstein and how he hoped to do more with robberies and targeting offenders with firearms.

He assured some callers that he was not about locking everyone up -- his officers are arresting tens of thousands fewer people over the past several years -- but he does not apologize for removing gun offenders from the streets. He said a small number of gunmen are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime in the city.

Continue reading "Police commissioner, mayor talk guns on radio" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

The city councilman who chairs the council's public safety committee has asked the Police Department for a response to a story in the Daily Record about a police misconduct lawsuit that was secretly settled for $200,000 earlier this year, the legal newspaper reported last week.

Councilman James Kraft wants Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III to respond to the article and others about recent settlements, and outline any actions taken to address concerns raised by them. The mayor's office and solicitor's office have already said they stick by their contention that it was the plaintiff's decision to push for confidentiality to settle a claim of wrongful arrest, while the plaintiff's attorney says that is untrue and has provided emails and letters to support his claim.  

Kraft's letter to Bealefeld, meanwhile, seeks clarity on two things police rarely discuss, even when called into council chambers - internal discipline and lawsuits. The response, as spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tells Daily Record reporter in that article, is typically a general overview of the training programs Bealefeld has put in place. We'll see if the council can get any more specifics in this instance. 

Posted by Justin Fenton at 5:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall
        

Baltimore officials hit back Thursday at claims that they pushed for secrecy in a six-figure settlement involving a man mistakenly arrested by city police, providing a document that they say shows the man's lawyer pushed for confidentiality.

But the lawyer responded by releasing other documents that he says prove the city initiated the discussion over privacy, and that his counterproposals were made to protect his client.

City attorneys produced a Feb. 18 letter from Kupferberg in response to their draft agreement in which he suggests replacing their "non-disparagement" clause with a section titled "confidentiality agreement." In e-mail responses, city attorneys said his changes were not possible because the agreement had to go before the Board of Estimates.

"When monies are paid on [the city's] behalf, that fact is subject to public inspection," an attorney for the Police Department, Neal M. Janey, wrote to Kupferberg. "There is nothing we can do about that."

Continue reading "City officials say lawsuit settlement secrecy not their idea" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall
        

In March, Baltimore's five member spending board was poised to take a rare step: approving a settlement payout for an undisclosed amount to an undisclosed recipient.

Under questioning, they revealed the amount to be $200,000, but said the recipient could not be revealed because the plaintiff had demanded confidentiality. All city officials would say was that someone had sued the police department for a "rookie mistake" that had caused that person great shame. "I'm not going to participate in furthering that harm," City Solicitor George Nilson said at the time.

Now comes a story from the Daily Record, which reports that the plaintiff never demanded confidentiality - it was the city that included that clause. And the rookie mistake? A 17-year veteran and longtime member of the sex offense unit arrested the wrong man on child sex abuse charges. Yakov Shapiro, a violinist and teacher from Germantown, spent 40 hours in jail when police were actually looking for a Baltimore man named Yisrael Shapiro.

It took the Daily Record lawyering up to get the city to produce the name of the man's attorney, who spoke at length about the case with reporter Brendan Kearney and said the city's version of why the details were suppressed was all wrong.

Ryan O'Doherty, a spokesman for Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, told The Sun at the time that the plaintiff "demanded confidentiality as part of the settlement agreement. Had we not provided that, the cost of the settlement may very well have been higher." [$200,000 is the maximum liability for a single claimant under the local government torts claim act. Lawyers on both sides say the cap did not apply in this case because Shapiro sued under a federal statute]

"We've attempted to provide as much transparency as possible within the confines" of the settlement, he said in March.

Shapiro's lawyer tells the Daily Record: “They wouldn’t settle it unless there was a gag order. I told them generally I was opposed to those types of things.”

Nilson called it a "he said, she said" situation, and Comptroller Joan Pratt and City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young told Kearney that they stand by their votes. It's worth noting that both Rawlings-Blake and Young have been touting government transparency efforts.

UPDATE: Asked about his March statements and whether the mayor was properly informed about the settlement, O'Doherty sent this statement on behalf of Rawlings-Blake:

"The undeniable truth is that the terms of the settlement, including confidentiality, were agreed to and signed by the plaintiff's attorney.  The settlement was reviewed and approved by the Settlement Committee of the Law department.  The entire Board of Estimates, including three independently elected officials, approved the agreement in the interest of protecting the claimant from further harm. The Solicitor believes that protecting the claimant was an entirely appropriate objective and has no second thoughts."

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: City Hall
        

Tonight at the Baltimore City Council's final meeting of the year, Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young will introduce a resolution calling on state lawmakers to support efforts by Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake to tighten sentencing guidelines for illegal gun possession.

In a press release, Young said he had Thanksgiving dinner with more than a dozen mothers who lost sons to gun violence. "I don't want another mother to have to suffer because their child was gunned down in the streets of this city," he said.

All of the city council's members have signed on to the resolution with the exception of Bill Cole and Rikki Spector, though a spokesman for Young said they still have an opportunity to do so at the council meeting. 

For more on the legislation Rawlings-Blake plans to push in the upcoming legislative session, click here. 

Posted by Justin Fenton at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall
        

Another crime, more questions about why a convicted felon is roaming the streets of Baltimore.

The Sun's Justin Fenton explores the criminal history of Franklin Gross Sr., the 29-year-old charged with shooting a young Baltimore police officer early Saturday on East Baltimore and North Calvert streets. It led to a running gun battle downtown.

Gross had been convicted of handgun possession (five years) and a separate armed robbery (12 years). But as Justin points out, the sentences began in 2006, when he was first arrested, and up to half the time was suspended by the judges.

That combined with "good-time" credits allowed Gross to be released in May, 26 months after he had been sentenced. So that's how he ended up downtown on Saturday, allegedly carrying a gun and spotted by an alert cop. Police said the when the officer confronted him, he pulled out his gun and shot him in the left shoulder.

Justin's story today goes through efforts by city and state lawmakers to tighten gun laws in Annapolis, and effort they vow to continue. 

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Downtown
        

"The Wire" is now part of the curriculum at Johns Hopkins University.

The Sun's Childs Walker describes the course, focusing on one class taught by the show's writer and creator, former Sun reporter David Simon:

Peter Beilenson, an adjunct professor and Howard County's health officer, thought "The Wire" would be a perfect hook to get Hopkins undergraduates thinking about the complex web of problems faced by American cities.

Beilenson, who introduced the class this semester, was not the first person to think of building a college course around "The Wire." But he had one major advantage. As a longtime player in Maryland politics and health policy, he was able to line up many of the people who do the real-world jobs that the show depicted.

To talk about policing, he tapped former Baltimore commissioner Ed Norris (also, conveniently, an actor on the show). For a view of the prosecutor's office? Patricia Jessamy, the outgoing state's attorney. For the big picture on education? Baltimore schools CEO Andrés Alonso.

And for the grand finale? Simon himself.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system
        

The Baltimore police union voted overwhelmingly Thursday to reject a one-year contract that would have reduced wages by nearly 2 percent in exchange for five additional vacation days.

Ninety-five percent of the members of the Fraternal Order of Police voted against the proposal, angered by pay cuts coming on the heels of an overhaul of the public safety pension system implemented by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, union president Robert F. Cherry said.

"It's not just a rejection of the city's best offer," said Cherry. "It's a rejection of the mayor and her inability to respect what these men and women do for the city every day and every night."

Continue reading "City police union overwhelmingly rejects contract" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 9:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall
        

UPDATE: Police just made available the incident report, which states that an officer did not respond to take a report until 6:45 p.m., 12 hours after the theft was discovered and almost four hours after we first inquired. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi calls it a technicality, saying that the mayor's executive protection detail was notified immediately and that it took some time for the case to be turned over to the district.

A satellite radio system was stolen from the vehicle of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s husband last night near their home in North Baltimore, officials confirmed.

The incident occurred Thursday morning, and officials said it appeared that the doors to the vehicle had been left unlocked as there was no damage to the vehicle.

The mayor’s security team was outside the Coldspring home at the time, but Kent Blake’s vehicle was parked out of view, said spokesman Ryan O’Doherty. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that the theft was discovered when Blake got into his car in the morning and realized the equipment was missing.

Officials declined further comment.

Last February, police and the Downtown Partnership launched a public relations campaign aimed at curbing car break-ins, asking people to help by not leaving items of value in their vehicles.

“We just need people to be responsible. Common sense. Secure your valuables,” Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said at the time.

The mayor can take solace in city crime statistics that show larcenies from automobiles this year are down 9 percent. However, they are up 6 percent in the Northern District, where she lives, compared with this time last year.

City officials, including past mayors, have not been immune from crime. In 2003, a 22-year-old homeless man was charged with stealing a gym bag from a truck parked behind the home of then-Mayor Martin O’Malley.

Continue reading "Radio stolen from vehicle of Rawlings-Blake's husband" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, North Baltimore
        

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake today announced that she will seek legislation that would enhance the penalties for illegal gun possession and make the crime a felony.

Speaking before a group of top law enforcement officials, Rawlings-Blake called for a change to state laws that would create a minimum sentence of 18 months and a maximum sentence of 10 years for defendants arrested with an illegal, loaded firearms. The current penalties call for sentences between 30 days and three months years.

Aides say Rawlings-Blake plans a grassroots effort to lobby for the bill - she has been pitching the proposal in meetings with community groups and plans to launch a website and social media efforts to get citizens behind it.

"Too many of these convicted gun offenders are quickly released back into the community and go on to commit other gun crimes," Rawlings-Blake said.

Mayor Sheila Dixon made the same push for an 18-month minimum last year, but Rawlings-Blake's legislation also calls for increasing the maximum to 10 years.

It'll be an uphill battle given how other efforts have fared in the legislature. Circuit Court Judge M. Brooke Murdock said the bench was opposed to legislation establishing mandatory sentences. Key legislators have said the same thing in the past.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall
        

Baltimore's mayor has unveiled a new plan to more quickly deal with the thousands of vacant houses that pockmark the city's landscape, such as at left in this picture by The Sun's Jed Kirschbaum shortly after a fire ravaged a string of vacants in West Baltimore. The houses not only spread blight, but attract crime, and as we recently saw in West Baltimore, can feed the flames of fire consuming entire city blocks.

The Sun's Julie Scharper wrote:

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she would accelerate redevelopment of Baltimore's more than 30,000 vacant properties by cutting bureaucracy and speeding the sales of city-owned properties.

"Vacant houses are more than just an eyesore," Rawlings-Blake said at a Wednesday morning news conference. "Just ask someone who lives next door to one."

Vacant properties constitute one of the city's most pernicious problems, depressing home values and blighting the landscape. Officials have counted 16,000 unoccupied buildings, which harbor vagrants, attract vermin and pose fire hazards. The city owns 10,000 of the vacant properties, on 4,000 of which sit empty structures.

Last month, The Sun's Jessica Anderson brought us to Calhoun Street, where two simultaneous four-alarm arson fires on Sept. 8 destroyed two sides of a city block and taxed the Baltimore Fire Department to the point it needed unprecedented help from neighboring counties. Fire trucks from as far away as Washington responded.

The mayor's plan was already in the words when the fires broke out, but they served as yet another reminder of one of Baltimore's most persistent urban ills, and one that stands out to anyone who drives through these areas.

Here are the mayor's prepared remarks on her plan for vacant houses:

Continue reading "New plan to combat city vacants" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Downtown, East Baltimore, Neighborhoods, North Baltimore, Northeast Baltimore, Northwest Baltimore, South Baltimore, Southeast Baltimore, West Baltimore
        

Last week I wrote about some imminent promotions within the Baltimore Police Department, affecting several top district commander positions, which are some of the primary points of contact for members of the community. Today they became official, and there's one additional move that I hadn't been privvy to. Here's the statement from the police department:

"Late into the evening on Monday, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld met individually with each of the new commanders and outlined he and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's expectations to continue the positive momentum in the crime fight and build upon the public safety accomplishments in Baltimore. The Department will continue its focus on targeting the city's most violent offenders and building upon our collaborative partnerships with the community and our criminal justice partners.

-Maj Anthony Brown - transferred to Special Operations from the Southwest District. 
-Dep Major Eric Russell - promoted to Major and transferred from the Central District to lead the Southwest District.
-Dep Major Margaret Barillaro- promoted to Major and will become the permanent commander of the Southern District.
-Lt Mark Partee- promoted to Dep Major from the Inner Harbor Unit and will be assigned to Central District.
-Lt Dorsey McVicker- promoted to Dep Major from the Central District and will be assigned to Southern District.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

Here are some pictures from today's funeral mass for Baltimore Police Officer Tommy Portz Jr., who was killed last week when his cruiser hit the back of a fire engine. The photos were taken by The Sun's Barbara Haddock Taylor outside The Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in North Baltimore.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, North Baltimore
        

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is seeking mentors to help at risk children. Here is her statement:

Today, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced a new, targeted effort to match adult mentors with children in eight Baltimore neighborhoods with historically higher rates of juvenile crime. The Baltimore City Mentoring Initiative, a public/private partnership between the Mayor’s Office, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Maryland, and other partners, has identified a waiting list of 235 children living in the East Baltimore, McElderry Park, Belair-Edison, Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello, Central Park Heights, Cherry Hill, Harlem Park, and Poppleton communities.

“This is new data-driven approach to mentoring that will first focus on communities in Baltimore where there is an intersection between high of numbers of children on the mentoring waiting list and violent crime,” said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. “This initiative represents a call to action for those that work and live in Baltimore City because our children need adults to step up and volunteer to serve as role models, guides, and friends.”

Continue reading "Mayor seeking mentors for at-risk children" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime
        

Seen parked this morning in the reserved, gated portion in front of City Hall --a burgundy four-door Hyundai Sonata decorated in the back with an Orioles insignia and a yellow ribbon honoring fallen troops.

There was also something else:

An arm was dangling out of the trunk, blood trickling down a white shirt sleeve, the hand limp and nearly touching the pavement. The car belongs to Jim Scales, a 30-year City Hall employee who has runs errands and made coffee for mayors and staff dating back to the Schmoke administration. Mayoral officials told me he likes to get all decked out for Halloween.

"A Halloween enthusiast," a spokesman for the mayor told me.

But my question is whether this display is appropriate in a city that has experienced four murders in the past couple of days, is burying two city police officers, one lost to violence, and is parked near a news conference where the mayor is thanking a big business for donating money to police to combat crime.

I don't want to deprive Scales or anyone else of celebrating Halloween or any other holiday, nor do I want to strip the holiday spirit from City Hall. But for city leaders ever-sensitive about how Baltimore and icrime is portrayed, this display seems oddly inappropriate.

The police commissioner doesn't like it when his cops leave shards of crime scene tape when they leave murder spots because it gives TV cameras something to tape even hours after the body is gone. But it's OK for a City Hall worker to display a fake, bloodied body at the mayor's office?

A spokesman for the mayor noted that City Hall has been getting calls about the day's killings, which include a 16-year-old shot in the head. But Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake declined to address what kind of signal is sent with a body spilling from a trunk of one of her employees' cars parked at City Hall.

But shortly after the news conference on the bikes ended, the mayor's chief spokesman, Ryan O'Doherty sent me this statement: "When it was brought to his attention it was immediately removed and the employee apologized."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Categories: City Hall
        

The exchange over crime during Monday's debate between Gov. Martin O'Malley and Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. rekindled another kind of debate -- that over race, and police and a lock-em-up strategy that resulted in more than 100,000 people in Baltimore in jail.

O'Malley's zero-tolerance program in the 2000s may have, as the then mayor and now governor insists, reduced homicides for the first time in years in Baltimore. But it came at a price we're still paying for -- distrust by citizens of cops, a lawsuit the city was just forced to settle for $870,000 and the installation of a monitor to oversee police practices (see Laura Vozzella's column today for more on the back-and-forth).

My Crime Beat article today explores how this old strategy -- reputed by the current police commissioner, who has lowered homicides even more sharply while arresting far fewer people  -- has resurfaced as a debate topic. It notes the Ehrlich actually understated it when he said the practice resulted in the arrests of one of nine people. The number is one out of six -- more than 108,000 arrests in 2005 -- thousands of which were thrown out by prosecutors who declined to file formal charges because the cases were too weak.

Said Ehrlich:

"You had a lot of folks arrested in Baltimore City, a lot of African-Americans were arrested, one of eight or nine folks in Baltimore City were arrested in your tenure. … I didn't order that, that's for sure. And a lot of people were upset. And it was wrong and a lot of innocent people were arrested and thrown behind bars, and they were let out for no apparent reason, so that's your record, so let's live with it."

O'Malley didn't dispute this other than to say it saved lives. The current mayor's spokesman, Ryan O'Doherty, sent me an e-mail Wednesday night noting, rightly, that murders under O'Malley dropped to under 300 for the first time in a decade:

"Mayor O'Malley presided over massive reductions in violent crime and significant reductions in murder during a time when nobody thought it was possible for Baltimore to begin to turn the corner."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system
        

Baltimore officials announced this morning a grant to fight "bad guys with guns," the city police commissioner's central crime fighting strategy. The Sun's Justin Fenton Julie Scharper covered the event and will have an update.

Meanwhile, here is the statement from the mayor:

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld, III, and Congressman C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger joined representatives from Johns Hopkins University to announce a highly competitive grant award to aid in Baltimore’s fight against gun violence. The $300,000 Smart Policing Grant, one of only six awarded in the nation, will fund Baltimore Police Department’s (BPD) gun suppression efforts and establish the agency’s enforcement program as a national model of best policing practices.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance Smart Policing Grant will assist BPD’s Violent Crime Impact Section in arresting and convicting violent gun offenders through partnerships with state and federal prosecutors and the U.S. Attorney’s EXILE program.

“Reducing gun violence is our number-one public safety priority,” said Mayor Rawlings-Blake. “This year, the BPD has arrested more than 700 individuals on illegal gun possession charges and seized nearly 1,800 illegal guns from city streets. With this additional support from our federal partners, we will continue to enhance our gun suppression strategies.”

“The men and women of the Baltimore Police Department have done a tremendous job putting intense, sustained pressure on criminals using illegal guns,” said Commissioner Bealefeld. “Year-to-date, non-fatal shootings are down 10% and overall gun crime is down 15%.”

For more details:

Continue reading "Baltimore gets grant to fight "bad guys with guns"" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Top brass
        

Baltimore City Councilwoman Helen Holton pleaded no contest to violating campaign finance laws, charges that grew out of the prosecution of former Mayor Sheila Dixon.

The Sun's Julie Scharper reports that Holton had been accused of "exceeding campaign finance limits by asking bakery magnate John Paterakis Sr. and developer Ronald Lipscomb to pay $12,500 to fund a poll during her election campaign."

Julie reports that Holton received probation before judgment, was fined $2,500 and must serve one year of unsupervised probation. The offense is classified as a misdemeanor.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system
        

Race was a theme in the Democratic primary election for Baltimore's top prosecutor, which pit a white upstart against a veteran black state's attorney.

Many pundits speculated that the vote would fall along racial lines, with white residents drawn to Gregg Bernstein's tough on crime message and blacks attracted to Patricia C. Jessamy's call for social programs alongside prosecutions.

But The Baltimore Sun's Tricia Bishop reports that an analysis by the newspaper -- full coverage here -- shows a different conclusion.

Political newcomer Gregg Bernstein garnered support across racial boundaries to unseat a longtime incumbent in this year's contentious — and close — primary election for Baltimore state's attorney, according to a Baltimore Sun analysis of precinct-level data released this week.

Bernstein, a white defense attorney who campaigned on a tough-on-crime message, earned most of the city's white vote, particularly in areas like Canton, where he had wide support. Yet figures show he also took a significant portion of the black vote — from as many as one in three voters in some of the city's most heavily black neighborhoods — as he defeated fellow Democrat Patricia C. Jessamy, who's been Baltimore's top prosecutor for 15 years.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 3:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, State's Attorney Campaign
        

Baltimore police are starting to use Internet video conferencing to get its message out to the media and to the public. The police already use Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to distribute information about crime and the department.

This new endeavor will allow the police to actually broadcast new conferences to your computer. Here is their statement:

the Baltimore Police Department will begin utilizing programs such as Google Video Chat and Skype to communicate directly with members of the public and news media. The new video conferencing capabilities will allow for increased interaction between citizens, journalists and police public information officers so that vital information on crime and police issues can be disseminated in a timely manner.
 
Since March of 2009, the BPD has embraced the use of social networking to foster better relationships with the community. Crime alerts, notable arrests, and even wanted suspects are broadcast in real-time on the department’s Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook pages.  Videos on police and community happenings are posted weekly on YouTube and residents can even subscribe to free text-message alerts about crime in their community through Nixle.  Collectively, the agency reaches more than 25,000 people through its social media applications.
 
“The intelligence detectives receive from the community is vital in our efforts to keep Baltimore safe”, said Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld, III.   “In order to be an effective partner in the crime fight, the BPD has an obligation to keep residents informed of what’s happening in their neighborhoods so that they can actively share information with police.”
 
The motivation behind the department’s move to social media came after Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake challenged city agency heads to use technology to provide a better level of public service to the community.

And here is what it will look like:

Continue reading "Baltimore police turn to video conferencing to get message out" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

The president of the Baltimore police union, Robert Cherry, lashed out at the city's police commissioner who today fired the police offer who three years ago berated a 14-year-old skateboarder at the Inner Harbor.

The incident was capture on video and posted to YouTube (video posted on earlier blog). A police disciplinary panel had acquitted officer Salvatore Rivieri of the most serious charges, using excessive and unnecessary force and discourtesies. The panel instead convicted the officer of administrative charges of failing to file a report and recommended a five-day suspension.

Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld disagreed and upped the punishment to termination. His office declined to comment further. But Cherry had a lot to say:

“It’s outrageous,” Cherry said. “It’s well beyond the punishment that should’ve been meted out. … This is the mechanism to police the police. The trial board is judge and jury. They have seen this video over and over again. Officer Rivieri took the stand and testified and was cross-examined by city lawyers.”

Cherry said that what Bealefeld did was akin to a “jury coming back with a verdict of acquittal and the prosecutor saying, ‘Hell no, put him in the chair and electrocute him.’ That’s what the commissioner just did.”

The union president said that “whether you agree or disagree with Sal’s tactics, he didn’t curse, he didn’t beat this kid. He gave the kid his skateboard back and called his mother.” Cherry also noted that neither Bush nor his mother filed a complaint until seven months after the July 1, 2007 encounter, after the video appeared on YouTube.

“Obviously the trial board saw something different than the police commissioner,” Cherry said.

Cherry later sent this statement:

Continue reading "Police union fights back for fired officer in Harbor incident" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system
        

City officials are planning a news conference in Patterson Park to address growing concerns by Latinos that they are being targeted. The latest victim is Martin Reyes, who was beaten to death with a board. His cousin was shot in the forehead in July.

The attack on Reyes (left) appears to be by a mentally unstable man who has been arrested and charged and told police he hated "Mexicans." All the victims have been Honduran. Police think some of the victims were robbed because they are easy targets -- carry cash, are walking home late at night from work and are scared of immigration.

The Sun's Nick Madigan found this out about Reyes:

Reyes, who had spent most of the past decade in Baltimore, had six children, most of whom remained in Honduras. One daughter was adopted, and another, Norma, lives a few blocks from the room he rented in a rowhouse on Kenwood Avenue. His 35-year-old son-in-law, Pedro Concepción Diaz Aguilar, shared his space.

"When he was in Honduras, he liked to work with cattle and horses, in agriculture," Diaz Aguilar said Monday as he tried to raise money to send Reyes' body home. "And he dealt in grains and beans — wheat, coffee, frijoles — which he'd buy and resell. He'd move a lot of stuff. Here, it was different. We'd work together, remodeling kitchens, making cabinets — laborers' work."

Another Honduran who knew Reyes said he was "calm and humble," and a good friend. "He never interfered with anybody," said Eberto Funez, 42, who has been in East Baltimore for four years. "When he died, he was just coming from visiting a relative, and unfortunately his number came up."

Miguel Gutierrez, 33, said he had known Reyes since he was a child growing up in the same village, San Antonio, in La Paz, near Honduras' border with El Salvador. Gutierrez said he had come to Baltimore six months ago from Houston at Reyes' urging, and had lived with the older man for a time until he found his own place.

"He's known me since I was a baby," Gutierrez said. "He was always a gentleman, and gave me good advice. He'd say I shouldn't go around drinking, and that I shouldn't be out in the streets."

Here's how the suspect, Jermaine Holley, was out of jail at the time of the killing:

Continue reading "Police to address attacks on Latinos" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Neighborhoods, Southeast Baltimore, Top brass
        

Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy is blasting back at the city's police commissioner for putting up a campaign sign on the lawn of his house supporting her challenger in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary.

Jessamy, using her campaign office stationary, called Frederick H. Bealefeld III's foray into politics "unprecedented and inappropriate" and she said the "overt actions by a police commissioner to influence the outcome of an election can only led to divisiveness and distrust in the community."

The two top law enforcement officials -- Jessamy is elected, Bealefeld is appointed -- have feuded for years over policing strategies, quality of arrests and investigations and whether prosecutors are aggressive enough in pursing cases and jailing offenders.

Former federal prosecutor and defense attorney Gregg Bernstein is Jessamy's first serious challenger in eight years and its trying to tap into the frustrations of city crime and repeat offenders graduating to more serious offenses before they get serious prison time.

Jessamy took a swipe at Bealefeld in her statement, suggesting the commissioner is not focused on his job. "It is Mrs. Jessamy's hope that Commissioner Bealefeld will refocus his efforts on apprehending the perpetrators of crimes and assembling evidence to be presented in court and that he will leave the politics to others."

Here is Jessamy's statement:

Continue reading "Jessamy blasts back at Bealefeld for supporting opponent" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (29)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, State's Attorney Campaign, Top brass
        

Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III has thrust himself into a political campaign. It's no secret that he and State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy don't always (or ever) see eye-to-eye, but the top cop has put a sign in his yard (left) supporting her challenger in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary.

(Read Sun police reporter Justin Fenton's full story for more of the political back and forth)

He makes it clear he's doing this as Citizen Bealefeld, not Commissioner Bealefeld, but separating the two is more matter of semantics than reality. Should a top police official interject himself into the political fray? Will it complicate his efforts now, or in the future, should Jessamy win, and Gregg Bernstein loses?

All good questions. Cops in the past have gotten into trouble for wearing their uniforms in political ads, and Bealefeld's not doing this. But he has been increasingly vocal about his disdain for a judicial system (judges, prosecutors, probation officials and others) who continually feed the revolving door justice system in Baltimore.

It goes without fail that Bealefeld's cops arrest a criminal in a particularly horrible crime, as the stabbing of Stephen Pitcairn in Charles Village, and the suspects will have just gotten out of prison on probation for a violent crime for which they served little time.

Bealefeld and commissioners past have battled Jessamy over policing strategies, what arrests are sound and what are not, whether officers with troubled pasts can be put on so-called do-not-testify lists and how thoroughly cases need to be investigated before being charged.

Here is one part of Justin's story today:

Christopher Dreisbach, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education's Division of Public Safety Leadership whose focus includes law enforcement ethics, said Bealefeld as a citizen has a clear right to advocate for a candidate. He said he believes it's also Bealefeld's professional duty to advocate for the best interests of police.

"If they weren't adversarial, there might be a different issue at stake. … But I don't think he's giving anything away at this point," said Dreisbach. "Is he shooting himself in the foot? Possibly, but he has the right to do so, and [the consequences] will be determined down the road."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, State's Attorney Campaign, Top brass
        

I have repeatedly in my Crime Scenes articles talked about how people's fears about crime negate statistics showing people shouldn't be afraid. After all, crime is down to 20 year lows in some categories.

City leaders, then as in the past, love to blame the media for hyping crime beyond proportion. And yes, one sensational crime -- the stabbing of the Hopkins researcher or virtually anything that happens at the Inner Harbor -- can shatter people's peace of mind. The picture at left by The Sun's Justin Fenton is from a recent shooting in East Baltimore of a church caretaker.

The shooting at the Hilton Tuesday night stemmed from a domestic argument confined to a room, but because it happened in one of the city's premier hotels, it gets attention. It can only solidify Baltimore's bad reputation when tourists see police rushing into the hotel and taking someone out on a stretcher and another out in handcuffs.

If you visit another city for the first time and see police swarm the primary shopping street, you might conclude the city is unsafe and you'll never visit again, even if that was the first time something bad happened in the past decade. Similarly, people call the newsroom all the time saying they saw three police cars speed by their house and that's evidence crime is out of control.

It's difficult because fear can't be quantified. And even if the fear is unjustified or irrational, it's still there and still has a negative effect. Combating it is nearly impossible, and citing stats virtually useless.

Today, I wrote about how these same issues were in play 36 years ago. On Sunday, I wrote about how two neighborhoods dealt with separate killings. I also received an e-mail from Ian T. Brennan, one of the spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. This is what he had to say:

Continue reading "City Hall says fear of crime matters" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: City Hall, Neighborhoods
        

This billboard appears to have sprouted up over the weekend in view of City Hall at the mouth of I-83, the latest salvo in the fight over pensions for city police and fire fighters. A spokeswoman for the unions say it will be up throughout the month of August.

Changes in the pension system - which strip more money from the paychecks of officers and firefighters - were made necessary by a deficit in the police and fire retirement fund that could have cost the cash-strapped city $65 million. That problem came as the mayor had to close a $121 million budget shortfall by raising taxes and new fees.

Union officials have filed a federal lawsuit accusing the city of purposely underfunding the pension system and arguing that the changes violate contractual labor agreements.

The mayor's office issued this statement regarding the billboard:

Posted by Justin Fenton at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (26)
Categories: City Hall
        

In today's paper, Sun reporter Julie Scharper pens a feature about a 2002 incident in which Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's brother was stabbed and nearly lost his life. It's an incident that she says shaped her views on crime:

The front door banged open and Stephanie Rawlings-Blake heard her brother scream: "Call the police!"

Rawlings-Blake hurried to the landing of her split-level home that chilly November evening eight years ago. She found her younger brother hunched in the entryway, blood streaming from his neck and back.

"I didn't know what happened," the mayor said Thursday. "I didn't know the circumstances. I picked up the phone and I yanked it so hard I pulled the cord out of the wall."

Her brother survived, and Rawlings-Blake said the incident furthered her resolve to push for stricter penalties for violent criminals.

"We have to be vigilant to make sure that people who should not be walking among us are off the street," she said 

Rawlings-Blake was four years into her tenure with the public defender's office at the time, a position she continued to hold until 2006 when she became a full-time city council president. As mayor, she has largely continued the crime approach pushed by her predecessor Sheila Dixon and her pick for police commissioner, Frederick H. Bealefeld III, while trying to carve out an identity as an advocate for increased use of the newest technology to fight crime.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: City Hall
        

During an appearance in West Baltimore to announce $7 million in public safety funding grants, Gov. Martin O'Malley was asked whether he would be endorsing anyone in the upcoming state's attorney's race.

He stopped short of endorsing her, but offered what sounded like high praise for incumbent Patricia Jessamy, saying their "partnership has never been stronger," that they talk every day, and that her "leadership and performance" has been a big part of crime declines in Baltimore. Specifically pressed if he would endorse her, he replied: "I anticipate - yeah, stayed tuned." Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown also appeared at her birthday fundraiser over the weekend, according to reports.

That's particular notable, as friction between O'Malley and Jessamy is well-documented, and in one his last acts as mayor he increased her salary dramatically - 60 percent, or $83,000, to $225,000 - in what many believed was an attempt to make the position more attractive to potential challengers. When defense attorney Gregg Bernstein announced he would challenge Jessamy in the Democratic primary, Jessamy even accused of O'Malley of putting Bernstein up to it.

I've sought clarity this morning from O'Malley's campaign spokesman, through text, email and phone calls, and haven't heard back.  I will update this post when I do.

Rick Abruzzese, O'Malley's campaign spokesman said in an email: "I think the Governor’s words speak for themselves. And the important thing is that the two of them are working well together and achieving results."

Here's a transcript of O'Malley's remarks, which came right after he said "yes" when asked if Judge John Addison Howard had "dropped the ball" in his handling of suspect John Alexander Wagner:

Continue reading "O'Malley offers praise for Jessamy, stops short of explicit endorsement" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Categories: City Hall, Courts and the justice system, State's Attorney Campaign, West Baltimore
        

Continue reading "Charles Village residents, city officials converge at stabbing site" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 8:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)
Categories: City Hall, Courts and the justice system, Neighborhoods, North Baltimore
        

For anyone interested in dissecting the criminal cases involving the suspects charged in the stabbing of Charles Village resident Stephen Pitcairn, The Sun's Justin Fenton's story today is a must read.

It details how suspects Lavelva Merritt and John Alexander Wagner seems to skate through the criminal justice system, to the point where even Baltimore's mayor questions whether the male suspect should've been out on the street.

In one sense, it's a familiar tale of opportunities lost and thrown away, about a reluctant witness who refused to testify in an earlier robbery and about prosecutors who then ditched the case. Whose fault is that?

Above, in a picture by The Sun's Kenneth K. Lam, Joshua Eicher, part of a street-cleaning crew with the Charles Village Community Benefits District, pauses from his work to look at flowers and birthday cake left at a makeshift memorial in the 2600 block of St. Paul St.

The tragic death of Pitcairn, an aspiring Johns Hopkins research assistant who was working on stem cells and breast cancer, will be felt in Baltimore for years to come. Immediately, it will serve as a reminder of a criminal justice system that if not broken is badly in need of reform. It will provide fodder for what could be a volatile race for state's attorney (see earlier blog to get an idea of the fight ahead).

Here is just a few revelations that Justin's story explores:

•Wagner pleaded guilty to a vicious assault on his then-girlfriend in 2008 and received eight years in prison, but the entire sentence was suspended. He was charged with violating his probation on four occasions, but each time a city judge ordered that the terms of his supervision remain unchanged.

•In April, Wagner was caught on city surveillance cameras robbing a man at a downtown gas station and was arrested at the scene after the victim gave a detailed account and identified his attacker. But the victim later got skittish and refused to cooperate. Prosecutors dropped the case.

•And on July 22, a Baltimore County judge issued an arrest warrant for Wagner for violating his probation in a 2009 car theft conviction. But it was added to a backlog of tens of thousands of unserved warrants.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Neighborhoods, North Baltimore
        

Baltimore leaders just completed a budget in which they raised taxes and fees to close a $121 million shortfall, barely avoiding laying off police officers and eleminating key police programs, such as the helicopter unit.

Barely a few weeks later, the police chief and mayor are announcing hiring 450 new cops.

Huh?

In June, after the brutal budget process that scared many employees (some actually got pink slips) and before changes in the pension system took effect that cost cops more money in contributions in exchange for less benefits, more police officers than expected left the force. The number who quit or retired totaled 42, more than the 17 in June of last year and the 20 in June the year before that.

The union insist many or most of the 42 cops who left did so because of the pension changes; the city insists that is just not true, that only three of the officers are affected by the changes and that the departures fit ever-changing patterns over previous years.

That left the 3,119-member department short 106 officers and Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III sounded an urgent alarm with an interview on Maryland Public Television (which can be heard here).

The news conference Thursday night at a community walk made it seem like the city was getting more cops. In reality, the city is fully funded for 3,119 and these new hires will merely bring the staffing up to it's full potential, factoring in attrition and that the hires are spread out over the next 18 months.

The real key is how the city plans to pay for the academy classes. Just a week ago, cops were lamenting having money for only two or three classes a year, down from the usual five or six. Now all of a sudden they've got money for five or six reaching into the next fiscal year.

Here's the city's statement on the new hires:

Continue reading "City cops to hire 450 officers" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Top brass
        

Baltimore police say 42 officers left the force in June. That's up from 17 who departed in the same month last year, and the 20 who left the year before that. The department is now 106 officers short of its authorized strength of 3,119 sworn positions.

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld, speaking on Maryland Public Television's "Direct Connection" program said his agency can't hire fast enough "to keep up with the attrition rate we're seeing now. We're operating at very conservative staffing levels across all units. The gap is only going to widen."

For more details, see today's story on the issue.

The big question is why did so many cops leave?

The union says it's no coincidence that the exodus occurred in the weeks leading up to changes in their pensions that left them contributing more and getting less -- and upping the years from 20 to 25 need to retire. City Hall says the departures, while unusually high when compared to the most recent years, are not unusual when looking back over the past decade. They say 31 officers left in June 2004, 53 in June 2005 and 41 in June 2007.

I've included charts showing attrition rates and officer departures and you can look at the numbers and decide for yourself. Either way, police are planning more recruitment drives aimed at enticing ex-military types and women, even though they've cut back on academy classes from five or six a year to two or three.

The police union says their threats of an exodus have come true; City Hall says this is just part of a routine pattern.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

From the outset of Wednesday night's city council hearing on police internal discipline and the policy of requiring officers to carry their weapons while off duty, Councilman James Kraft made it clear that no one would be allowed to discuss specifics.

That meant no discussion of why Officer Gahiji Tshamba, charged with murder in an off-duty shooting outside a club, was lightly disciplined by a previous administration and remained on the job after he shot and struck a man while driving drunk in 2005.

What followed was an overly broad discussion of police policies and the department's efforts to curb bad behavior. Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said he is not against making amends to the policy requiring officers to carry their weapons, but said no change would be made without careful deliberation.

"It's not that I'm intractable or I don't listen, but I want to be cautious and deliberative that we get it right and don't mess something up with unintended consequences," he told the councilmembers, noting that he ultimately reversed a decision to withhold the names of officers who shoot or kill citizens.

Robert F. Cherry of the city police union told councilmembers not to be swayed by furor over the Tshamba incident and that officers are expected to put themselves in danger and should be armed. He said a change in policy would "put officers in grave danger and by extension the citizens we are sworn to protect." 

Tyrone Powers, a former FBI agent and professor at Anne Arundel Community College, told the council that there should be a clear ban on officers carrying weapons while consuming alcohol. "There's no training that teaches you how to deal with alcohol and weapons. They never, ever mix," he said. He said officers who know they are going to be drinking or find themselves around alcohol must leave the gun at home or extract themselves from the situation. "That's the burden of policing."

Posted by Justin Fenton at 6:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: City Hall, Police shootings
        

We just received this press release from aides to City Council President Bernard "Jack" Young:

Council President Young also introduced a resolution calling for representatives from the Police Department, State’s Attorney’s Office and Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice to testify before the Council to explain the factors behind Baltimore’s troublingly-high percentage of reported rape cases that eventually become classified as false. The representatives will also detail the steps that must be taken to ensure that rape allegations are thoroughly investigated.

The Sun reported last month that Baltimore leads the country in the percentage of rape cases marked “unfounded” by detectives, police parlance for saying the victims were lying. Moreover, four in 10 calls to 911 for rape don’t generate a report at all.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has already tasked a panel of law enforcement officials and victim advocates to review the department’s policies and procedures, and a team of detectives is expected to review 18 months worth of data. The city also established a hotline for alleged victims to call to report complaints in rape investigations.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 6:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall
        

Baltimore police have as many as five detectives sorting through police reports dating back 18 months to determine whether any were improperly discarded. This comes after police reporter Justin Fenton's investigation in which he found city police "unfound" more rape reports than any other city in the country.

That has led to concern that police were dumping cases or scaring victims out of reporting legitimate crimes. A full scale review is underway and top police officials promise that it will lead not only to the possibility of opening closed cases but longstanding reform in how sexual assault complaints are handled.

Here's some other stories in the package:

Justin's orginal investigation that shows high number of unfounded rape cases.

Rape hotline gets 20 callers in first two days.

Downgrading crimes common through police history.

Top commander opts to retire rather than oversee unit that includes sexual assaults.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

The guns, all 76 of them, covered three tables.

There were cheap 38s, pump-action shot-guns, a few long-guns modified to resemble assault weapons, and a replica of an M-16. There were hunting rifles more appropriate for the wilds of Western Maryland. Tiny guns that could fit in a purse or pocket. Weapons that could belong to a militia.

These are the guns seized by Baltimore police officers in the past 10 days. The photo was taken by The Sun's Gene Sweeney. It shows Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake at the podium, flanked by Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein and ATF Special Agent in Charge Joseph Riel.

Authorities put the guns on display at police headquarters to highlight crime reductions and a surge in weapon seizures that has netted a total of 1,164 illegal firearms this year. Meanwhile, the 99 people killed in the first six months of this year is the fewest killed over the same time frame in the past quarter-century.

Bealefeld stared down at the arsenal displayed before him, the mayor, the federal prosecutor and the local head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

“It certainly is impressive,” he noted, shaking his head. “It’s menacing, threatening.”
But in reality, the city’s top cop was thoroughly unimpressed.

“We’ve all seen tables like this before,” Bealefeld said. “I’ve seen bigger tables. I’ve seen smaller tables. I’ve seen more guns.”

The commissioner basically admitted that the media show timed to the six-month mark of the year was a repeat performance. It proved, he said, “that we still have a hell of a lot of work to do.”

Continue reading "10 days worth of guns ... " »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

Baltimore's police commissioner, the mayor and the state's top federal prosecutor are having a news conference this afternoon to talk about guns. In particular, city cops have seized 1,164 illegal firearms from the streets, including 76 in the past 10 days.

The latest gun arrest came today on Garrison Boulevard in Northwest Baltimore. Police said a search of a house led them to a .38 caliber handgun, drugs and three arrests.

That, says the cop's top spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, has helped bring homicide numbers through the first six months of the year to a 25-year low, with 99 recorded through the month of June.

In addition, police say the 44 nonfatal shootings in June is the lowest number since the department started tracking the figure in the 1970s. Sad though that we can more more than one person shot a day and still set a record low. There have been 190 non-fatal shootings this year.

"This is not a cause for celebration," Guglielmi told me, "but a cause for further action."

Police plan to display all 76 guns seized in the past 10 days at the news conference. It comes on a sad day, however, just hours after 16-year-old Renardo Brown was shot and killed on West North Avenue in Reservoir Hill earlier today.  

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

Baltimore's mayor has just released details of a new sexual assault hotline, an effort by city leaders to address a problem raised in Sunday's Baltimore sun that showed detectives "unfound" more rape complaints than in any other city.

City officials have already announced they will audit rape complaints and reports to ensure that victims aren't being shortchanged. We'll have a complete story up shortly. Meanwhile, here is a statement from the mayor:

Continue reading "Mayor details sexual assault hotline" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Top brass
        

Baltimore authorities are planning a new hotline for women who are victims of sexual assaults. This comes after Sunday's Baltimore Sun report that showed city police lead the nation in "unfounded" rape reports.

Women are complaining that detectives sometimes try to talk women out of filing reports. Officials have already announced they will audit the police department's sexual offense unit. This hotline is one way for victims to talk with someone more sympathetic. Details will be announced later this afternoon.

Here is what we know so far from the mayor's office:

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld are to announce the creation of a new hotline for victims/survivors of rape and sexual assault to connect with services and report past incidents or mistreatment that may have occurred while reporting a crime of sexual assault.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

The first meeting of a task force charged with auditing Baltimore police rape reports is due to meet July 8. This comes after Sunday's Baltimore Sun article that reported city police have one of the highest rates of unfounding rape complaints made by women.

The audit is being led by the mayor's criminal justice head but will involve top police commanders. As chief police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told me, "The commissioner wants to dig deep. We have to work hard to restore public trust in the fact that we're going to investigate these rapes."

The spokeswoman for the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office, Margaret T. Burns, said prosecutors have heard that nurses at Mercy Medical Center, where most sexual assault victims are taken, have complained about strong-armed tactics of detectives who investigate the cases.

The problem is also born out of pressure to reduce crime, at least on paper. Police commanders are under constant pressure to produce good crime stats, and that reaches down to the patrol cops and the detectives. Even if they're not specifically told to find ways to not write reports, and thus count crime, they understand the pressure to keep crime low. The easiest way to do that is to record it, or record it such a way that it doesn't count toward the stats.

Sheldon F. Greenberg, who runs a polic executive training program at Johns Hopkins University, said, "The problem is national, not just in Baltimore. "Police officials have difficulties defining the value of what their people do on a day-to-day basis other than through statistics. They give the politicians what they want — statistics as a way of measuring success."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Top brass
        

Baltimore Police Commissoner Frederick H. Bealefeld today made his first public comments on Justin Fenton's Baltimore Sun story that concludes city police detectives "unfound" more rape reports than another big police department in the country.

According to The Sun's Julie Bykowicz, here is what the commissioner had to say:

"It certainly draws attention to a situation we've been focused on ... " He said the police have been working with women's groups since Jane Doe legislation passed to "bring structure" to the way rapes are investigated. "It's a good opportunity to evaluate our practices."
 
He said he would "evaluate the leadership and officers assigned to the unit" and added, "We are going to try to do our job better," referring to how rapes are categorized and resolved.
 
He also said the story points to a public relations need to build "confidence that reports are taken seriously." If that is not happening, he said, "we need to shake ourselves hard."

Earlier, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake issued this statement on The Sun investigation:

“I am deeply troubled to learn about the high number of unfounded rape complaints and the decline in reported rapes over the past decade. The data shows the critical need to immediately address the issue with a comprehensive review of investigative practices and response. Sadly, rape is one of the most underreported crimes because women are often ashamed and afraid to confront their attackers. We need to do everything in our power to ensure victims of sexual assault feel safe reporting incidents to police. No victim should ever suffer in silence. The Police Department must examine their current practices and work with leading sexual assault experts to develop and implement new best practices that encourage victims to come forward.  Accordingly, I have tasked the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice to take a leadership role with the Sexual Assault Review Team (SART) to oversee the development and implementation of improved Police Department practices.  Commissioner Bealefeld has assured me that the Department is conducting a full audit of unfounded complaints and an internal review of training and investigative practices.”

Posted by Peter Hermann at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

In today's Sun, we explore a troubling trend in sexual assault investigations in Baltimore: The city has for the past four years recorded the highest percentage of rape cases that officers conclude are false or baseless of any city in the country, with more than 30 percent of the cases investigated by detectives each year deemed unfounded.

But the problem in Baltimore may go even deeper. In four of 10 emergency calls that come to police for rapes, officers conclude that there is no need for a further review, so the case never makes it to detectives – a proportion that experts say is disturbingly high.

The increase in unfounded cases comes as the number of total rapes reported by Baltimore police has plunged - from 684 in 1995 to 158 last year, a decline of nearly 80 percent. Nationally, FBI reports show rapes have fallen 8 percent over the same time frame. We're one of five cities that record more homicides than rapes; most peer cities have a ratio of three to five rapes per homicide.

Police initially brushed off our findings, and the commander of the sex offense unit dismissed the high number of cases by saying, "We have a lot of people that are engaged in sexual activity in this city." He also said that the city's various services for women and victims led women to make up stories to take advantage of them.

In an attempt to solicit a more comprehensive response, I submitted various statistics to one of the mayor's aides. As the story was being finalized, I received an unsolicited three-paragraph statement from Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, saying the data showed a "critical need" to review department policies. She said the police commissioner assured her that a full-scale audit would be conducted and she convened an existing task force to study the issue.

In many ways the story raises more questions than it is able to answer. The numbers were so jarring that, coupled with anecdotes from people engaged with victims and a review of dozens of incident reports, they warranted a long look. But serious questions remain about the number of cases unfounded in the field by patrol officers - or how many are recorded as other, lesser crimes.

Some officers told me privately that the many of the "unfounded" 911 calls are false but are just not being "coded" - or classified - correctly. Experts including the former head of sex offense investigations in San Diego said that was essentially impossible. As for the investigations by detectives, is it possible, as current and former officers said, that they simply do a better job investigating than their counterparts in other cities and face a far different class of alleged victims? The comprehensive audit may generate answers.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 8:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

More than two dozen Baltimore police officers received awards on Wednesday for saving lives and performing other heroic acts.

They included Officers Jerome Shaurette and Curtis McMillion (pictured from left to right in the photo by The Sun's Lloyd Fox), who were involved in a wild-west like shootout after responding to a routine domestic call. Both were wounded but managed to returned fire.

Two other officers, Kimberly Hanline and Monica Nashan, were awarded life saving medals for helping save 5-year-old Raven Wyatt, who was shot in the head last summer on South Pulaski Street. She survived, in part because of the work thiese two officers did in performing CPR and holding her near life-less body until paramedics arrived.

After the ceremony, Hanline told me how after work she rushed home to hug her son. "He just looked at me, but he knew that I had cried," she said.

A touching moment you don't often see from cops.

Here is a complete program with details of all the awards (my apologies for the picture): 

Continue reading "Baltimore cops get awards" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

The Baltimore Police Department's zero-tolerance policing practice -- a policy of a past administrations -- is costing the city $870,000 in settlement costs with the NAACP and the ACLU and will result in yet another outside monitor to watch over the cops.

The settlement could be approved this morning by the Board of Estimates, the city's spending board, and will end four years of litigation from people who were arrested for minor crimes and spent hours if not days in jail facing charges prosecutors never planned to pursue.

Funny, because back in 2006, when the suit was filed, here was the city's response, from a former city solicitor:

City Solicitor Ralph S. Tyler said the plaintiffs "will not be able to prove their truly wild allegations. ... The illegal arrests claim rests largely on a false equation. The fact that the state's attorney declines to charge in many cases does not suggest that the arrest was illegal."

The policy of locking up everybody for everything resulted in some years with more than 100,000 arrests, a figure that has dropped significantly under Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, who touts targeted arrests that have led to historic drops in crime.

Today, the ACLU plans a news conference with some of the people arrested on the so-called quality of life crimes. As Justin Fenton points out today, they include a 19-year-old Morgan State University engineer student, a Parkville elementary school teacher, a doctoral candidate in neurobiology from Texas and two Pennsylvania residents visiting Baltimore for a bachelor party.

In 2005, so many people were arrested that judges were forced to release detainees from the detention center because it became impossible to process them with in the 24 hours required by law. Arrests hae dropped from 108,400 in 2005 to 77,600 in 2009.

Here are some of the stories from the people who filed suit, from a 2006 Baltimore Sun article by Julie Bykowicz:

Continue reading "Mass arrest policy of the past haunts cops today" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Top brass
        

It was quite a Friday for police across Maryland, particulary for Baltimore police. It seemed everything happened at once -- with a cop acquitted of manslaughter, another found guilty of civil rights violations, yet another the subject of a manhunt on a first-degree murder charge.

In one courtroom, a Baltimore police officer was acquitted of manslaughter charges in the shooting death of an unarmed man. I'd love to talk to jurors in this case. The officer had tried to move the trial out of the city, arguing that widespread mistrust of police in the city would prevent him from a fair trial. He lost that bid and chose a judge to hear his case, but when a different judge got assigned, one who has been openly critical of the police commissioner, Tommy Sanders opted for a jury instead. Circuit court jurors found him not guilty in less than two hours. What I want to know is whether jurors trusted a cop charged as a criminal more than the cops who tried to put him away?

In another courtroom, this one federal, jurors convicted a city cop of obstruction and civil rights violations in the beating of a handcuffed teenager. Two of his colleagues, who had left the force, pleaded guilty and testified against Gregory M. Mussmacher. that case was brought by the U.S. Justice Department.

Meanwhile, after much public bickering and leaks concerning evidence, police issued an arrest warrant for Gahiji Tshamba, who shot and killed an unarmed former Marine in Mount Vernon a week ago today. City cops are now engaged in a manhunt for one of their own on a first-degree murder charge.

The day started with sad news out Prince George's County, where a Maryland State Police Trooper, 24-year-old Wesley Brown, working an overtime security shift at a restaurant was shot and killed, possibly by a disorderly man he had ejected for not paying his bill.

Meanwhile, Baltimore County police are stymied in trying figure out an apparent cult and police in Anne Arundel County made another arrest in a human trafficking case linked to prostitution, the second in just a matter of days. 

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Crime elsewhere, Top brass
        

So now we know that Baltimore Police Officer Gahiji A. Tshamba, back in 2005, was intoxicated when he shot a man in the foot during a confrontation.

What we don't yet know -- and hopefully answers will come today -- is how Tshamba managed to retain his badge after the incident?

Tshamba, as we all know by now, is the off-duty officer who shot ex-Marine Tyrone Brown (left) six times in Mount Vernon early Saturday after Brown patted the officer's female companion on the buttocks. Brown was joking, his relatives say. Police say an argument grew into a physical altercation that led to the shooting. The victim's sister says there was no fight and that Brown apologized but was taunted by the officer.

Either way, police have been unusually blunt in calling this a troubling shooting and saying they are trying to determine whether Tshamba was intoxicated when he shot 13 tiimes. The officer has refused to make a statement and declined to submit to breath test. He has been put on administrative duties. A police spokesman said detectives have not found any reason to believe the officer's life was in danger.

So that brings us back to September 2005. Details remain sketchy but it appears that Tshamba had been confronted by a group of men who yelled racial slurs. Police said one threw a bottle at him, and another struck his car and then advanced toward him. Tshamba shot one of them in the foot.

Police and prosecutors ruled the shooting justified but disciplined him for being intoxicated on the job. I suppose you can be imparied by alcohol and still be justified in using your weapon -- escaping criminal liability -- but it's hard to imagine keeping a guy on the force under such circumstances.

I'm interested to see what new details surface once police can review his entire file later today.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (48)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Top brass
        

Dirt bikes are again all the rage, with various city officials and others trying to find new ways to combat the problem following two accidents, one of which was fatal.

The Baltimore Sun's Brent Jones examines the scourage and the problems police have given that their next to impossible to chase. Police have tried everything from fliers urging people to turn in others with dirt bikes to following packs around with the helicopter.

Starting Oct. 1, it's illegal for gas station owners to sell to dirt bike riders and the stations must post the laws prohibiting dirt bikes at their pumps. But I bet most teens buy their gas in cans and don't brink the bikes to the pumps, fearing they could easily get confiscated. And police tell me that some gas station owners take kickbacks for selling to dirt bike riders.

The two accidents were horrific. In one, police say a dirt bike went through a red light on South Monroe Street and broadsided a car being driven along West Pratt Street. Police said a passenger on the dirt bike hid the bike and then returned with friends to beat the driver of the car, sending him to Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

Just a few days earlier, police said a motorcyclist was killed when he hit a pole while swerving to avoid hitting a dirt bike, whose driver was carrying an infant.

The problem, which has been with the city for years, is garnering many new complaints but fixing it will not be easy.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime
        

[UPDATE, 5:40 p.m.: Here is Julie's initial report, in which the unions claim the current situation is "not an accident, and 10 years does not a crisis make."]

The city police and fire unions filed a lawsuit today against the city in federal court, alleging the mayor and finance director have for years "breached its contract with its police officers, firefighters and retirees by systematically underfunding" the retirement system. Our City Hall reporter, Julie Scharper, is sifting through the 57-page complaint, but here's the union's press release in the meantime:

"After Bringing Several Solutions to the Negotiating Table, Fire & Police Forced to File Suit Against City

City has violated its contractual obligation

Baltimore, MD—June 3, 2010—Baltimore City has breached its contract with its police officers, firefighters and retirees by systematically underfunding the Fire & Police Employees’ Retirement System (F&P Plan).  As a result of its own actions, the City now claims that it must consider Bill 10-0482 and other legislation that would drastically reduce the benefits already earned by members of the F&P Plan that are guaranteed under Article 22 § 42 of the Baltimore City Code.  The City’s decision to break its promises has forced Baltimore’s police officers, firefighters and retirees to bring this matter before a Federal Judge.

“For more than a year now, the police and fire labor organizations have submitted proposals to address the funding problems of the F&P Plan, to no avail.  Despite filing this lawsuit, the police and fire labor organizations remain committed to continuing discussions with the City,” said Robert Cherry, President of the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police.

Over the past 14 months, the City has ignored numerous attempts by fire and police representatives to negotiate a compromise.  Litigation appears to be the only remaining option.  One of the key issues has been the City’s desire to take away the variable benefit in the F&P Plan, which provides periodic benefit increases for retirees.  Fire and police representatives have offered to negotiate modifications to the variable benefit in exchange for cost of living increases, which would offer the City an immediate savings of $65 million for the end of FY 2010 and long-term savings.
 

Continue reading "Unions sue city, allege "systematic underfunding" of pension system" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Breaking news, City Hall
        

The Baltimore police department has submitted to City Hall a list of 250 officers who would be laid off if the budget gap is not closed, officials said.

The cuts are based on union-mandated requirements that would result in the most recent hires being the first out. The patrol division would be the hardest hit, and the officers who could be laid off include 50 officers recently hired using $10 million in federal stimulus money, which officials say would have to be given back.

Layoffs notices have been sent or are being prepared for other city employees across departments, and fire officials released details on the three city fire companies that face closure if no new funds are found. City officials say they remain hopeful that the plans represent only doomsday scenarios as the council works on new revenue streams.

But police commanders were privately expressing concern about morale; the notices will be going out as officers are being asked to be particularly diligent following an explosion of violence over the weekend that left eight people dead and continued Tuesday with another two killings.

Speaking after an event, Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake said the spate of violence underscored the importance of the city "having every police officer we can on the street. That’s why I’m pushing so hard for the comprehensive revenue package.”

“The City Council has a lot on their plate, but we’re hopeful and optimistic that they will pass the mayor’s revenue package,” Guglielmi said.

In the meantime, police say they have not been hampered by the budget woes. “The mayor made it very clear to the commissioner over the weekend that whatever resources the BPD needed, those would not be hampered,” Guglielmi said.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 7:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said the weekend violence that saw eight people killed and another five wounded in shootings was generally the result of "minor, petty neighborhood disputes that got out of control."

"Some of these things are beyond the control and the scope of [police] deployments," he said. "...They're not easily solved by saying, 'We're going to put a zillion cops on the street.' We have to be smart about our deployments and focus where we can get the maximum returns."

Providing new details about some of the crimes, Bealefeld said a double-homicide in the Southwest District on Sunday stemmed from an argument at a street corner cookout that "devolved into a fight between a 30 year old man and a woman who was at the party and went home and alerted relatives that had access to cheap, semi-automatic weapons and went back to settle the score themselves."

"Two men ended up losing their lives over a stupid argument - some hair-pulling and a minor assault led to two people being dead," Bealefeld said.

Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake said "we have to have the ability to get together, to enjoy ourselves over the holiday without it turning into fights ... arguments that turn into shootings."

"We have to want more for ourselves in our community than this type of lawlessness. It's going to take the community working with our police to make that happen."

Bealefeld said he was more concerned by Sunday's two killings along the Monument Street corridor, where police have focused more resources in the past year. Two men were shot and killed within blocks and over the span of about 45 minutes. Bealefeld indicated one suspect was responsible for both shootings.

"The Monument Street cases certainly have us evaluating what we could have done better," he said. "When you have two street disturbances, two street fights that lead to two deaths in an hour of each other and with one common suspect, there's some breakdowns there."

Continue reading "Bealefeld: Weekend violence stemmed from "petty neighborhood disputes"" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)
Categories: City Hall, East Baltimore, Neighborhoods, Top brass
        

With all the talk about the Baltimore Police Department's internal crime meetings being suspended and then reborn, here's a novel concept out of the once-corrupt New Orleans Police Department: invite the public in.

That's right, open the doors. Talk about transparancy, and then maybe some of of the misgivings Baltimore residents have about cops hiding crime might go away. It would also give the public  valuable insight into just how much the police are really doing to confront crime in their version of Comstat.

Of course, police talk about operational issues that they'd rather keep from criminals and the public, and it remains to be seen whether the police in New Orleans have separate, private meetings to talk about what they can't talk about in front of people and the news media. That could render the public meetings a farce. I also wonder whether police in New Orleans use the meetings to dress-down their top cops the way Baltimore does.

I attended one Comstat meeting in Baltimore -- one of the first they did -- and watched how detectives investigating seemingly unconnected shootings suddenly realized they were looking for the same suspect. I watched as they put dots on a compute map showing 911 calls for drugs and then put more dots on the same map showing where cops were. They weren't in the same place. And that was with old technology.

Comstat uses a dizzying array of computer maps, charts and data to plot crime and guide officers on the street. It's also been criticized for encouraging downgrading crime as commanders struggle to make the numbers, and thus themselves, look good.

I also spent some time in New Orleans, back when Martin O'Malley became mayor, because they  were openly practicing zero-tolerance policing, the kind of strategy O'Malley wanted here but couldn't admit. I was allowed into a Comstat meeting there as well.

Let's see how this New Orleans experiment works. The New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote a story on the first open meeting:

Continue reading "New Orleans opens crime meetings to public" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Crime elsewhere, Top brass
        

Baltimore police on Thursday went before the City Council's budget committee to fend off suggested budget cuts that the commissioner said would set back historic gains made in crime reduction by 10 years.

I have the power point presentation and it's filled with great stats and budget numbers.

Here is a taste of what you'll see by clicking on the above link:

Continue reading "Baltimore police budget and crime stats" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

Update: See below for police answers to questions posed by City Council members.

Thursday's routine budget hearing for the Baltimore Police Department started off anything but routine. First off, chairwoman Belinda Conaway had to take on her critics. The police brass was irked at the questions she sent in advance of the meeting -- most, they felt, had nothing to do with the budget.

Many of the questions dealt with the racial make-up of the force. She wanted to know how many officers had complaints sustained against them. Police were desperate to show off to the City Council glowing crime stats that showed homicides and other crime dropping to historic lows even while they cut back overtime by nearly half.

The numbers are impressive: murder down to a 33-year low; shootings down 31 percent from three years ago; carckings down 20 percent; residential robberies down 17 percent; commericial robberies down 13 percent; assaults down 14 percent. All while making tens of thousands of fewer arrests then past administrations and cutting back on overtime from $31.6 million in 2007 to $14.2 million this year. And now the mayor's proposal is to cut another $16 million from the budget, which could force laying off up to 300 cops and eliminate the helicopter, marine and mounted horse units.

City council members, Bealefeld and the finance chief tussled over the cuts. Finance proposed cutting from detective and other specialized units. The top cop said, "It doesn't work that way. It can't work that way." It's a union shop and that requires last hired, first fired. So the cuts come from the cheaper patrol units, the backbone of the agency, and because those cops make less money then detectives, it would mean not cutting 173 officers as the finance department says but 300 to 350 officers.

Of course, if the mayor's $50 million package of new fees and taxes gets approved by the council, all this back and forth becomes moot. The police department and other agencies would be fully funded again.

Through all this discussion, Conaway managed to at least ask some of her non-budget related questions. But at the onset of the hearing, she blasted police commanders for the leaks of her questions to the media. Why did she want to know how many cops have complaints about race lodged against them? Or want to know the racial makeup of the accident investigation unit? Or how many officers are suspended?

It's a budget issue, Conaway said, listing a series of out-of-court settlements in racial discriminatiion cases, some totaling $500,000, to officers and civilians alike who claimed disparate and unfair treatment. "We cannot afford this," she said. "Year after year after year there is a culture of discrimination in the Police Department, and it is costing the citizens money in out-of-budget revenue."

I posted Conaway's list of questions in an earlier blog. The Police Department has written answers which they promised to give me today. Here they are:

Continue reading "Police budget and (non) budget questions" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 6:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

Later this afternoon, Baltimore police commanders are going before the City Council's budget committee to talk about money. The department is facing a $16 million cut that could eliminate its helicopter unit and up to 300 police officers (the number varies depending on who you talk to).

So you would think the budget committee would want to talk about the budget. Think again.

A series of questions sent to the commissioner to help him prepare for the meeting, however, shows that they want to talk about the racial make-up of the command staff, about rental cars and about how many cops are suspended.

In one question, the lawmakers call citizens constituents. In another, they refer to precincts. In still another, they demand answers about extending a program that ended in January with a new police contract. Politicians, not cops, have constituents. And the city has police districts. Precincts are in the county.

But even those gaffs aside, what gives? When Martin O'Malley was mayor, his top cop had unlimited overtime, unlimited resources and the force busted more than 100,000 people a year. Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III runs a cash-strapped agency with pension problems so severe half the force wants to bolt, doesn't have enough money to feed a police horse, has arrested tens of thousands of fewer people than did past chiefs, and yet homicides and shootings are at 33-year lows.

Police commanders are understanably upset and perplexed. As one told me, "Let's talk about money."

Here's how Robert F. Cherry, the police union president, sees it:

I think that the police department has gone to great lengths over many years to diversify the ranks and I think the issue that should be discussed at the budget hearing is, if anything, a commendation to the commissioner and the entire police department, black and white, male and female, who have brought his city to levels of crime that haven’t beens seen in decades.

I would hope that the council members would who wrote that memo would not be using this budget hearing for poltical grandstanding and instead ask the real question that matter to the homeowners and residents of this city -- how can we further give you the resources, the money and the tools to continue the good fight.

These are tough economic times. I have to give credit. The commissioner's plan is working and it's working because the men and women on the sreet are making it work. These questions arren't the kind of questions that should be asked at a budget hearing. The city's own survey showed the public ranked fire and police one and two in terms of their top priorities.

I would hope the budget committee works hard to give Commissioner Bealefeld the resources he needs to continue cutting cirme. If the police department was a Forturne 500 company in the private sector, police officers on the street would be receiving bonuses for the work they’ve accomplished. We have to draw the line in this thing that everybody needs to share the pain. The bottom line is that public safety is paramount.

The chairwoman of the budget committee told me these questions are all "very relevant" to the police budget. Here's the list. You decide:

Continue reading "Are these really budget questions?" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

The Washington Post Maryland Politics blog had a little fun this week with the governor and a Baltimore murder:

Here at The Washington Post Maryland Politics blog, we don't typically write about crime, especially crime in Baltimore. But when news of the brutal killing of a pregnant woman makes headlines on the same day that Gov. Martin O'Malley is touting the state's lowest crime rate in 35 years, the juxtaposition raises eyebrows.

The Post is talking about the slaying of Betsy Sue Riggin, a 28-year-old food service worker at the city jail who apparently met the love of her life, who happened to be incarcerated at the time. He is now charged with killing her. It has been particularly painful for the Riggin's family, who had been told their daughter met her future husband, and father of her soon-to-be-born baby, at a restaurant salad bar.

They had no idea the circumstances of the relationship until a Baltimore Sun reporter called the day before Mother's Day. Then came revelations that the suspect, who has a long arrest record, had an outstanding warrant that went unserved, despite speeding that process along has been a centerpiece of O'Malley's crime fighting efforts.

The Post blog:

It becomes a statewide political story and gets a mention here if within 24 hours documents show the suspect in the slaying -- and a target of the governor's award-winning crime-prevention effort - should have been locked up at the time his girlfriend and unborn child were killed. Police say the suspect has confessed to the crime.

It also helps if the spokeswoman for Patricia C. Jessamy (D), the Baltimore State's Attorney, tells television reporters that it's unclear why a state parole and probation agent appeared to have failed to file paperwork for a warrant that would have allowed the suspect to be put behind bars before the killing. In other words: why did O'Malley's signature "Violence Prevention Initiative" break down?

Turns out everything worked perfectly in this case. The courts and the state exchange warrant information through the mail, and there's typically a two-week delay. That's all it took for a criminal suspect to stay on the streets and a 28-year-old pregant woman to lose her life.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Top brass
        

Baltimore's new marketing campaign: Find Your Happy Place!

We mocked the old slogan, "The City that Reads," turning it into the "The City that bleeds" -- complete with cops wearing it on T-shirts. I'm not sure that the "Get In On It" campaign produced any riffs on crime.

How about it readers. Give me some ideas on where happy place and crime!

One reader has already posted this to the story comment section:

Yeah, I found my happy place--150 miles away. After eighteen years of crime, parking b.s., high property taxes, and assorted other oddities such as Sheila Dixon, I moved last fall. Don't get me wrong, there were great things, too, like the '96 and '97 Orioles, the restaurants, Center Stage, the BSO, the Book Fair and Flower Mart, but I just couldn't take it any more

Posted by Peter Hermann at 2:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Top brass
        

A task force appointed to review the operations of a government-funded anti-violence program could not substantiate allegations that the group was taking cues from a powerful gang, but found flaws in the oversight of the Safe Streets program and recommends that control be shifted away from the city. Responding to the report, Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake lifted a funding freeze on the programs.

The panel’s report was released the same day an alleged leader of the Black Guerrilla Family, accused of using violence outreach work as a cover for drug-dealing and gang activities, made his first appearance in federal court.

Todd Duncan, 36, pleaded not guilty to heroin conspiracy charges at a brief hearing in US. District Court. Duncan was hired through the Safe Streets process in 2007 when the non-profit Communities Organized to Improve Life was chosen to operate a West Baltimore site. Though the group’s funding was terminated a year later due to non-compliance, COIL continued to perform outreach work independently, officials said.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, East Baltimore, Gangs, South Baltimore, West Baltimore
        

In case you missed it over the weekend, prosecutors said a 19-year-old woman was indicted on charges that she set a fire her apartment last month, severely injuring a firefighter who rescued two people, because she was angry during a domestic fight.

The Baltimore Sun's Jessica Anderson reported that Brittany Katina Garcia was indicted on charges of first-degree arson, seven counts of reckless endangerment and malicious burning. The April 7 fire on Liberty Heights Avenue left Jeffrey Novack of Truck Company 12 recovering from a fractured hip and burns to his arms and hands:

Fire union officials said that Novak went into the apartment building without back up because another engine company was delayed due to rotating closures of fire companies that are being done to save money. It was the latest salvo in this long-running battle between firefighters and the mayor's office. Last year, a man died in a fire that union officials said was due in part because of delays from the closures.

Novack is expected to make a full recovery. Here is the statement from the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office:

Continue reading "Woman indicted in fire that injured firefighter" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime
        

You're not alone if your eyes glaze over when you see the word "pension" in the news reports, but there's a $64 million hole that the city needs to make up in the next two and a half months, and it's the first thing on the mind of every officer I speak to. The Sun's City Hall reporter, Julie Scharper, updated the situation with an article in Monday's edition, and I wanted to link to the article here since it's at the forefront at a burgeoning morale problem.

Scharper reports: A proposed bill "could substantially delay retirement for many police officers, gradually increase the amount that employees must contribute to the pension plan and abolish a compromise reached last year over a lucrative lump-sum payment for those who work more than 20 years." Currently, police and firefighters can retire after 20 years of service regardless of age, but the bill would require employees to be 55 and have 15 years of continuous service before they could be granted full retirement.

This is no minor issue for the cops who work the streets. They look at surrounding jurisdictions, where the pay is higher, the pensions appear safe, and the daily dangers are significantly less, and renew questions about why they are hanging in here. They talk of cashing out, at a discount, years they've built towards retirement to lateral to other agencies where they can retire under the type of agreement they signed up for when joining the BPD. If the proposed pension "fixes" lead to anything resembling a mass exodus, the BPD will have big problems.

Continue reading "The Pension Mess" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: City Hall
        

Baltimore prosecutors have never jumped up and down over police surveillance cameras. And so it should come as no surprise when the city State's Attorney's Office issues a news release touting the conviction of a man involved in a shooting captured on video it is full of hidden digs.

Yes, the video helped prosecutors obtain a guilty plea that sent a man away for 20 years for shooting another man in Park Heights last year. And yes, as prosecutors point out, the camera system helped Baltimore police arrest 759 people last year, of which 207 were found guilty of crimes and another 214 have cases pending in the courts.

And yes, City Hall has indicated that even in tough budget times, it would "fully fund crime cameras which serve as a force multiplier, and are shown to reduce crime and assist prosecutions."

But that is where the praise ends:

Continue reading "Police, prosecutors fight over cameras" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Top brass
        

With all the talk of possibly hundreds of officers being laid off in Baltimore, here's a story out of New York City where Mayor Michael Bloomberg is concerned over an increasingly thinner "thin blue line," as the article puts it.

New York has attracted much attention for its dwindling murder rate, but so far killings are up 22 percent, and shootings and rapes are up as well, the New York Post reports. (Bloomberg notes that even an increase this year is still well below the city's crime levels from a decade ago; NYC's murder rate is about 1/6 of Baltimore's 2009 rate)

Officials believe the NYPD's shrinking manpower is playing a factor. The department had about 41,000 police in 2001, which is down to 35,000 today, the Post reported. The city expects to shed 1,300 officers in the upcoming year through attrition, and is threatening to lay off 3,150 cops if state slashes funding. In Baltimore, though the proposed budget calls for layoffs, Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake is vowing that it will not come to that.

How has Baltimore's sworn strength fluctuated in recent years? Baltimore counts 3,119 sworn officers for fiscal year 2010, down about 6 percent from a high of 3,329 in 2003, according to statistics obtained by The Sun. That's a difference of nearly 200 officers, which is the equivalent of an entire patrol district. The number has been pretty steady under Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III's entire tenure, and crime is down nearly across the board this year. 

Click below for the annual breakdown:

Continue reading "New York City could lose thousands of officers" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: City Hall, Crime elsewhere, Top brass
        

The news was bad enough earlier this week. The Baltimore mayor's proposed budget could mean eliminating up to 200 city police officers, ground the helicopter and the marine unit and permanently stable the horses.

But Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III made a far more dire pronouncement on Thursday (he's at left in a photo by The Sun's Amy Davis). A $16 million cut would actually mean cutting up to 300 police officers. That's because the folks suggesting the cuts picked cops from units such as tactical, where some of the department's most experienced -- and thus highest paid -- officers can be found.

City police are unionized, and that means cuts come from the bottom up. You'd have to fire two rookie cops to meet the salary savings of one veteran. And you wouldn't be eliminating specialized units -- you'd be cutting from patro, the backbone of the department.

Continue reading "City's top cop: budget cuts could destroy progress on crime" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake's proposed budget has done something quite unique - it's got Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, Baltimore City State's Attorney Patricia A. Jessamy and Fraternal Order of Police Robert F. Cherry to agree on something, with each issuing, to varying degree, a rebuke of a budget Rawlings-Blake's people have been scrambling to warn is only a worst-case scenario. 

Union leaders accused the mayor of "posturing" and attempting to frighten residents into accepting new taxes by presenting the doomsday scenario. Cherry said this wasn't what "real leaders" do.

"It's unfair to play games with city employees who are nervous about being laid off," said Cherry. "It's even more disingenuous to play these games with the citizens and taxpayers of Baltimore City who demand real answers from the leaders of the city during these tough times."

Jessamy went a step further, calling Rawlings-Blake's proposal "unconstitutional." She said the city can cut her budget but not instruct her specifically how to do it.  About $1.5 million would be cut from the Baltimore state's attorney's office, including about $800,000 in funding for 14 community outreach positions in the city's District Court. She claimed SRB was the first mayor to try such a manuever and said they were "usurping" her authority.

Bealefeld, as we noted here last week, got out in front of the proposed cuts, saying they were "unconscionable." 

Read full text of Cherry and Jessamy's statement below:

Continue reading "Mayor's proposed budget generating anger" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)
Categories: City Hall, Courts and the justice system, Top brass
        

Budget cuts in Baltimore that threaten 600 jobs also could mean the elmination of Foxtrot, the seemingly omnipresent police helicopter that flies over the city. A department spokesman has said its loss -- it costs the city $4 million a year -- would be "devastating."

This morning, police said the helicopter helped officers arrest suspects in a carjacking in Baltimore County and made it unnecessary for officers on the ground to engage in a high-speed pursuit. The observer in Foxtrot kept track of the car from above.

Here are some details from Baltimore police:

Continue reading "Foxtrot helicopter helps nab carjacking suspects" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
        

The Baltimore Police Department needs to continue exploring redistricting, is "top heavy" and needs to phase out the rank of deputy major, and should disband its neighborhood services unit, according to recommendations made by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's transition committee for public safety.

The report, released today, is notable not only for the recommendations made by the transition committee, but for the "major immediate action items" compiled by the BPD in its own assessment: police leaders want the city to lift a hiring freeze in the crime lab and for 911 personnel, and would like to give district commanders, who in some cases earn less than the lieutenants below them, a pay bump. The agency has in the past boasted about cutting overtime spending significantly, but officials say that additional cuts cannot be sustained and that additional spending would "significantly bolster the crime fighting efforts for the department."

The agency also criticized the city's new approach to budgeting, called Outcome Budgeting, describing the approach a "labor intensive process that leads to arbitrary results" and saying it asks "groups of people who are unqualified in policing" to rank budget proposals.

In a separate assessment, the transition committee recommended that the Mayor's Office on Criminal Justice, which works hand-in-hand with the police department, look to bolster the city's surveillance camera network by wiring in public and private camera systems, and said it should explore the creation of a volunteer program to assist in running the juvenile curfew center.

Here are the transition committee's recommendations, followed by the action items that the BPD submitted. There's little overlap:

Continue reading "Mayor's transition report for the BPD" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 5:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

With Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake's first budget proposal due next week, Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III is getting out in front, saying the target amount the mayor wants to cut from the police budget will force layoffs of up to 300 officers, something he calls "unconscionable."

His comments come with a huge caveat: no one seems to know what exactly Rawlings-Blake's budget proposal actually calls for, other than that she's told members of the council that the department's helicopter, marine and mounted units are on the chopping block. What Bealefeld is saying is that City Hall wants to cut $15 million from his agency and that he can't fathom how his agency can achieve that figure without resorting to layoffs.

Aside from the obvious negatives, laying off cops would be no simple task from a logistical standpoint, given the police union's contract and the fact that the city recently accepted millions in federal funds to hire new officers, funds which would have to be given back. The head of the federal agency that gave them that cash was just in town at BPD headquarters for a press conference to boast about that funding as part of a series of events to promote stimulus spending.

As for what the budget actually calls for? The mayor is holding her cards close to the vest until next week, but her aides are saying that it will represent something of a worst-case scenario as new revenue streams are discussed.

Continue reading "Bealefeld: Proposed cuts mean layoffs of cops" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

UPDATE 3: Here's our updated story, which quotes an email circulated among judges about envelopes containing white powder and bullets. The letter warned the judges to be careful what they touched or ate. "Judges on the Baltimore City Circuit Court have their lives threatened all the time," said Judge M. Brooke Murdock. But "not quite like this. This is pretty dramatic."

ORIGINAL POST: The Associated Press, citing information from the city Police Department, said authorities were investigating a report of white powder found in an envelope. Police said three threatening letters were sent to City Hall and the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse by Priority Mail, and are being investigated by them and U.S. Postal inspectors. Baltimore's City Hall was evacuated for about 40 minutes after a mail clerk found a "suspicious" package and notified authorities, a Fire Department spokesman said. The package was found to be harmless and employees returned to work about 12:40 p.m., Cartwright said.

We'll update as this story develops..

Continue reading "City Hall evacuated; officials receive threatening letters" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall
        

The city Board of Estimates this week approved a secret $200,000 settlement to a person who had sued the Baltimore Police Department, saying the terms and name would be kept confidential to avoid "unfair damage to the career and reputation of the plaintiff." It also keeps the public from knowing just what the police department did to harm this person so severely.

When questioned, officials first said they would provide a range - $100,000 to $250,000 - for the settlement, then later said that the exact figure could be disclosed and was wrongly left off the agenda by the comptroller's office. George Nilson, the city solicitor, provided the amount Friday but said the city agreed not to discuss the details of case. He called the secret nature of the settlement "extreme" but with good reason.

"It was an honest mistake, quite clearly, that resulted in unfortunate and unintended harm to a citizen's reputation," Nilson said. "The community reached a cruelly wrong conclusion about this individual, based on this mistake, and this individual was harmed in personal and professional ways. I'm just not going to participate in furthering that unfortunate harm."

Nilson said in his three years as city solicitor, such a private settlement was a first, and he did not anticipate the city handling future claims in a similar manner. He also said the plaintiff was not a city resident, but he declined to provide additional details, citing the settlement agreement.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: City Hall
        

As part of her plea agreement, former Mayor Sheila Dixon agreed to have items that were seized as evidence during the state prosecutor's investigations auctioned off on eBay. It appears the first of those items is now on the auction block: an XBox 360 game console and Need for Speed video game. But it's so much more than just a video game console, isn't it?

As of this writing, there's been 7 bids, and it's up to $132 bucks. Only 9 days left!  Proceeds go to Youthworks of Baltimore, a summer jobs program Dixon pushed as mayor.

UPDATE: As soon as my colleague Julie Scharper "tweeted" the link (which I quickly "retweeted"), the bids started shooting up. There's now been 16, and it's up to $202.50.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: City Hall
        

Former Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Clark's case will be argued before the state's highest court Friday morning, and you can watch the arguments on a live web cast here. (Say what you will about the state's criminal justice system, but these webcasts and the Maryland Judiciary Case Search database are great tools). Clark was removed from office in 2004 by then-Mayor, now Governor, Martin O'Malley, amid allegations of domestic violence that were later deemed unfounded. After several rounds of lawsuits and appeals, courts have found that he was wrongfully terminated. But he has been denied monetary damages or the ability to be reinstalled as commissioner, and those points will be argued by his attorneys Dwight Pettit and Neal Janey. It will be the second time his attorneys will take the case before the Court of Appeals, which found in his favor last time.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

On Wednesday, a representative from the Baltimore prosecutor's office testified in Annapolis to urge lawmakers to stiffen penalties for gun crimes. In short, law enforcement wants to prevent felons from carrying long guns such as rifles in much the same way they are banned from possessing handguns.

But Steven H. Levin, a former prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office and now a defense lawyer, testified that the five-year mandatory sentence in gun crimes only clogs an already over-crowded courthouse by eliminating any incentive for defendants to plead guilty. Instead, he said those arrested often plead not guilty and take their chances at trial, knowing the pentalty will be the same either way.

And if they plead not guilty, there's a chance federal authorities will take the case, which means even longer sentences.

"Simply put, as the law currently stands, state court defendants charged with possession of a regulated firearm after conviction for a crime of violence or drug felony have very little incentive to accept a plea deal," Levin said in his testimony. "They know that if they go to trial and get convicted, they will receive a sentence of five years. If they plead guilty, they will receive a sentence of five years.  As a result, all too often they plead not guilty. I’m sure the law enforcement officials, local and state prosecutors will say that’s not good for the system.  I will somewhat echo their cries and say it’s not good for the defendants."

Here is Levin's full statement:

Continue reading "Former prosecutor discusses proposed gun laws" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system
        

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said in a radio interview this afternoon that the police department is scaling back the security detail outside of former Mayor Sheila Dixon's house, which the Sun wrote last week remained intact during a blizzard and despite her resignation as part of sentencing for a criminal conviction.

"Like any of the other security details that we're associated with, they have to be phased out, and it has to be done in an appropriate way. You have to evaluate what the security concerns are... that's not an unusual practice. It's not something that's not without precedent," Bealefeld told Ron Smith on WBAL 1090 AM.

In our article, we noted that Mayor Kurt Schomke said his detail remained intact for a few weeks - and his house was promptly burglarized not long after. Sources told me that after the story, and subsequent editorial, appeared in the paper, police altered the deployment. For obvious reasons, I won't get into the specifics, but its fair to say its being scaled back.

"It's a balance," Bealefeld told Smith. "We've altered the way the deployment is conducted, and it's different from what it was. As we progress along, it'll change according to those assessments. It's a matter of transitioning from what she had, to eventually getting and having no security there at all."

Bealefeld also chafed at the notion that last weekend's snow was the reason that crime was muted over the past week. He noted that there was looting in 1979 and "cops got a pinch for that." "This team of people deserve a huge amount of credit for keeping this city functioning during that critical time," he said. "... Their work shouldnt' be cheapened by theories about cold weather and barometric readings."

Of course, as we've noted in this space multiple times, there were six homicides during the first two major snow storms that hit the area this season, including two on the weekend of Feb. 6-7, so it's hard to chalk up the past eight murder-free days solely to the elements.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

City Councilman Bernard C. "Jack" Young has been chairman of the City Council's public safety and health committee since 2007, and next week he is expected to be elevated to City Council president to fill the vacancy created when Stephanie Rawlings-Blake became mayor. Young, an East Baltimore Democrat, has called investigative hearings to grill police about various issues and in January 2009 was escorted out of a commanders meeting. Young addressed his stint on the public safety committee and his relationship with the Police Department in a brief question-and-answer session with the Baltimore Crime Beat.

Q: What were some your accomplishments as the chair of the public safety committee?

A:  Mostly the issues that we focused on were, police shootings, naming officers involved in shootings. There were [also] investigative committees about how they discipline police officers. Transparency with the Police Department has been one of the issues that I've been working on, and I think they're a bit more transparent than they were.

Q:  Do you think the city is on the right track with its public safety strategy?

A:  I think we're pretty much on the right track, with the exception that I think we need to put more focus on community policing. When you have officers on these beats, they get to know their area and their district. That would foster a better working relationship - they know the good, the bad, and they know the ugly. Also, trying to reconnect with our schools so students will not have the attitude that police officers are against us. I heard students say, 'I don't talk to them, all they want to do is lock us up.' Under Officer Hite [Col. Rick Hite, who retired last year], they were starting to look at officers as Officer Friendly again.

Q:  What are some unanswered questions you still have based on your experience leading the public safety committee?

A:  As you know, the homicides. Those homicides stats - we have all these people that are still at the medical examiner, whose deaths have not been ruled, and we need to know so we know whether we have the correct homicide stats. They say crime is down, but most people in the community don't feel crime is down. We want hard, factual numbers.

I continue to support Commissioner Bealefeld. The incident that happened [when he was escorted from the Comstat meeting] is behind me, and it was always behind me. I never exposed it to the media, and I still want to know how it was done.

Q:  You were pretty upset at the time..

A:  I was a little upset. But I really want to work in cooperation with Commissioner Bealefeld and our new mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, to work as partners to come up with priorities.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

Continue reading "Public safety transition committee convenes" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Top brass
        

Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III and incoming mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake will be in Annapolis today to testify about guns and other crime issues.

The Senate Judiciary Proceedings Committee is holding hearings on a broad range of law enforcement issues, including hearing testimony on a bill that would restrict police in strip searching suspects in public.

Bealefeld is to testify on tougher penalties for gun offenders. Bad guys with guns is the top cop's running theme. You might remember that he once busted two guys with guns but even after they pleaded guilty a judge gave them no jail time.

Here's the schedule for the 2 p.m. hearings at 2 East Miller Senate Building, 11 Bladen Street, Annapolis:

Continue reading "Crime day in Annapolis" »

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City Hall, Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Top brass
        

-Nick Madigan writes about a Baltimore County woman who is accused of scamming former classmates at Dundalk High School into thinking she had terminal stomach cancer. Prosecutors say Dina M. Perouty, who was convicted of a mortgage scheme a few years ago in Carroll County, took at least $12,000 from her victims, among them champion skateboarder and Dundalk native Bucky Lasek, who flew Perouty out to California and paid for her to go to Disneyland - one of the things that was apparently on her "bucket list."

-Peter Hermann profiles a bizarre case out of Newark, Del., where a man is believed to have been stealing shoes, pictures of men, and boxer shorts for the past six years. Two-hundred-and-fifty shoes turned up in Maryland on Sunday, in Elkton. In other news, the Newark Police Department's evidence control unit is seeking a grant to buy Gold Bond foot powder in bulk. (No, not really)

-Julie Bykowicz reports that Gov. Martin O'Malley who has proposed reforms to sex offender laws, has activated an advisory board formed four years ago that never met. Former Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., O'Malley's father-in-law, will serve as the chairman. Bykowicz reported the other day that many of the state's laws dealing with sex offenders aren't even being enforced.

-Over at the Investigative Voice, Stephen Janis has been reporting on the unraveling of an apparent scheme in which a convicted sex offender was able to continue to get paid by the city while serving jail time. Officials are exploring whether other Department of Public Works employees helped Dennis McLaughlin forge medical leave slips, the site reports.

-Tricia Bishop reports that attempted murder charges have been thrown out against two Baltimore men accused of trying to kill a former Black Guerrilla Family gang member. The victim changed his story last week. One of the suspects' attorneys had filed a rare appeal to the federal courts for intervention in the case, attempting to get his client freed pending trial.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Baltimore County, City Hall, Courts and the justice system, Crime elsewhere
        

A group of about 30 police officers, elected officials and citizens crowded around the entrance to Arabian Nights, a hookah bar on Light Street in Federal Hill, at about 1 a.m. as Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III asked the owners what they were doing to help the community.

"Here's how I feel," Bealefeld said. "I want you to be successful, I want you to make a million dollars. We also feel you have to be a good neighbor, too."

Bealefeld was handing them a business card to set up a meeting, and one of the members of the crowd spoke up.

"If it's true what I heard [about your business], I don't want you to be successful," she said. "I want you to close."

As she walked away, one of the men asked the other: "Was that the new mayor??"

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake joined the group at 12:30 a.m. to walk through the Federal Hill bar scene, where police have been experimenting with new patrol strategies to counteract the hordes of drunken barhoppers who flood the streets at last call. They get in fights, they yell, they dent cars or urinate on houses. Girls in incredibly short skirts and guys fumbling around for cigarettes looked puzzledly on as our group walked through the area.

Arabian Nights has some unique problems, police and residents say. There was a stabbing there one night during a fight, and the owners locked police out another time as they responded to break up a fight.  

Continue reading "Rawlings-Blake, Bealefeld and citizens patrol Fed Hill bar scene" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)
Categories: City Hall, Neighborhoods
        

A short time ago, Mayor-to-be Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's office sent out a list of people who will sit on her transition committees. Of particular note to this blog is the roster for the "Public Safety and Essential Services" committee, which will be headed by former Police Commissioner Bishop L. Robinson. Police headquarters is named for Robinson, who is in his 80s and was the city's first black police commissioner, holding the post from 1984 to 1987. The committee as a whole is a very diverse group and includes the heads of the police and fire unions, the executive director of the local AFSCME, the city's first black fire chief (and father of talk show host Montel Williams), the head of the downtown partnership, community association leaders, and the head of the NAACP, among others.

Here the full roster:

Public Safety and Essential Services Committee
Co-Chair:  Mr. Bishop L. Robinson, Retired Commissioner, Baltimore Police Department and Former Secretary of Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice.
Co-Chair:  Ms. Nancy Smith, Government Relations Officer, Maryland Food Bank.
• Mr. Ronald Addison, Retired Homeland Security and Emergency Manager Director, Baltimore City.
• Mr. Peter Auchincloss, President, Watermark Corporation.
• Dr. Marvin Cheatham, President, NAACP Baltimore City Branch.
• Det. Robert Cherry, President, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #3, Baltimore City Police Department.
• Ms. Brenda Clayburn, President, City Union of Baltimore (CUB).
• Mr. Tony Dawson, President, Bel-Air/Edison Community Association.
• Mr. Pierce Flanigan, President, Flanigan and Sons.
• Mr. Kirby Fowler, President, Downtown Partnership Baltimore City.
• Mr. Mel Freeman, Executive Director, Citizen Planning and Housing Association.
• Mr. Stephen G. Fugate, President, Baltimore Fire Officers Union, Local 964
• Mr. Edward Gallagher, Director, Department of Finance, Baltimore City.
• Ms. Gladys Gaskins, Director, Department of Human Resources, Baltimore City.
• Mr. Kenneth A. Goon, Associate Engineer and Planner, RKK.
• Mr. Ray Hannah, Protective Security Advisor, United States Department of Homeland Security Region III.
• Mr. Jim Marcinko, Waste Management Recycle America, Area Recycling Operations Director.
• Mr. Richard McCoy, Retired Civil Defense and Emergency Manager Director, Baltimore City.
• Mr. Glenn Middleton, Executive Director, AFSCME Maryland Council 67.
• Mr. Fred Mirmiran, President, Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson.
• V. Rev. Fr. Constantine Moralis, Cathedral Dean, Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation. 
• Rev. Msgr. Damian Nalepa, Saint Gregory the Great Parish.
• Mr. Samuel Redd, Executive Director, Operation Pulse.
• Ms. Mary Roby, Executive Director, Herring Run Watershed Association.
• Mr. Robert Sledgeski, President, Baltimore Fire Fighters Union, Local 734.
• Mr. Hector Torres, President, Prosaber Consulting.
• Mr. Ralph S. Tyler, Chief Legal Counsel, Food and Drug Administration.
• Mr. Ralign T. Wells, Administrator, Maryland Transit Administration.
• Mr. Herman Williams Jr., Retired Chief Baltimore City Fire Department, Chair Board of Directors MECU.
• Mr. Nathan Willner, General Counsel for the Shomrim of Baltimore, Willner & Associates, P.A.

Posted by Justin Fenton at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City Hall
        

Mayor-to-be Stephanie Rawlings-Blake stopped by The Sun's editorial board this morning, and gave some thoughts on policing strategy. Rawlings-Blake has a different perspective as her predecessors, with her background as a former public defender whose day job was helping accused drug dealers, thieves and others beat charges brought by city police.

Here's what she had to say when asked where her crime-philosophy fits in after years of strategies that included community policing and zero-tolerance:

"I worked as a public defender for 10 years, and using that experience helps me understand its got to be somewhere in the middle. When you say zero-tolerance, the problem is you get these abhorrent situations where someone's kid who was home from spring break fro msome college, comes home and was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and gets roughed up by officers that are focusing on keeping the corners clean. It's not a one-size fits all proposition

"You have to focus on keeping corners clean, because people have to feel safe going outside in their community. But to say full-out zero-tolerance ... I don't think that works for the long-term.

She endorsed the current mantra of the Dixon administration and Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III:

"So, if we focus on our most violent offenders, focus on partnerships with the state and federal government - I know for a fact that the work of Project Exile, the federal gun prosecutions change behavior. You work that in with parole and probation - it's not guesswork. People that are shooting and being shot are in the system. And community policing. I spent a lot of time walking with neighborhoods on patrol, and you get a sense of what matters in the community, and you work with police to make sure their standards of public safety are met."

Rawlings-Blake visited roll call in the Eastern District on Monday morning:

"They are the face of public safety for our city. I can come in with grafs graphs and charts about crime reductions, but if people who encounter our offices don't feel that they care about them, the numbers don't mean anything."

Posted by Justin Fenton at 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: City Hall
        

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:

Continue reading "Mayor Rawlings-Blake and police" »

Posted by Justin Fenton at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: City Hall, Police shootings