Go to qualitypolicing.com

Tag: Baltimore

  • Baltimore’s Bealefeld Calls It Quits

    After 31 years on the force and 5 years at the top, Baltimore Police Commissioner Fred Bealefeld announced his resignation. I wish him well. Certainly Bealefeld was the best police commissioner Baltimore has seen in the past 18 years (I can’t talk about the pre-Frazier era). Five years on top may not sound like a long time, but Bealefeld is the longest serving commission since Donald Pomerleau’s epic reign ended in 1981.

    If nothing else, Bealefeld provided some stability to the top of a department that had seen decades of quick-to-come and quick-to-go commissioners (one a felon) who produced little but a massive churning at the top ranks.

    But Bealefeld’s accomplishments are real. Homicides in Baltimore dropped to under 200 for the first time in three decades. Some dismiss this accomplished too quickly by saying crime is going down everywhere and pointing out that Baltimore’s homicide rate is still horribly high. Sure, but crime didn’t have to go down in Baltimore and hadn’t gone down significantly before Bealefeld.

    Equally important, this crime drop occurred while arrest numbers decreased (from 100,000 in 2005 to45,000 in 2011). Time and time again it’s been shown that a policy of mass arrests does not reduce crime, and yet a takes a bold police leader to realize and implement strategies that change a police culture of zero-tolerance and making as many arrests as possible.

    Also significant, Bealefeld partnered with the city’s new State’s Attorney, Gregg Bernstein. Bealefeld boldly (and received flack for) endorsed Bernstein by putting a campaign sign on his lawn. Bealefeld got flack for this, but the controversy gave Bernstein the boost needed to defeat his disastrous long-serving anti-police predecessor, Patricia Jessamy.

    Peter Hermann, Julie Scharper, and Justin Fenton give a fuller story in the Baltimore Sun.

  • Baltimore City Hall

    Baltimore City Hall

    Circa 1900. Courtesy of Shorpy.

  • “Only in Baltimore”?

    That’s not true. But this kind of thing does seem to happen all too often in Mob City.

    Justin Fenton writes in the Sun:

    At first, the video of a man being beaten and stripped in downtown Baltimore appeared to be just another tantalizing shock clip for the Internet. But in recent days, thanks to social media users as far away as California, it could prove instrumental in solving the case.

    Police have made no arrests in last month’s attack, but they said tips were flooding in about the identity of the man shown punching a disoriented victim before others ripped off his clothes, took his belongings and humiliated him on the sidewalk outside a city courthouse.

    In this case the victim is white and drunk. The attackers are all (best I can tell) African American.

  • Gathering a City Jury

    Baltimore City tries to increase jury attendance. Currently only 27 percent of those summonsed actually show up. In one more rural counties in Maryland, the show-up rate 99%. Because, you know, it’s a duty and you’re not supposed to have a choice.

    From the Sun:

    Technically, the law allows for a fine of up to $1,000 and 60 days in jail, but both punishments are unheard of.
    …
    About 20,000 Baltimore summonses have gone out for dates through May 14, and the cumulative response rate to the questionnaire is about 60 percent, up from about 20 percent under the old system.

    I’ve never served on a jury. I suspect my police background doesn’t go over well with defense attorneys.

  • Cures Malaria

    Cures Malaria

    There’s a great picture of Baltimore’ harbor from 1903 over at Shorpy.

  • William Hackley, Baltimore police officer, Historian

    Retired Baltimore Police Officer and amateur historian William Hackley passed away.

    Were it not for Officer Hackley, so much of the history of the BPD would be lost to time.

    I never met him, though I think I contributed a few pictures to his website. Give it a look (and get ready for some old-school website music or turn off the sound). There’s a lot there.

    While Officer Hackley will win no awards for website design, he more than made up for that with his knowledge of, dedication to, and love of the men and women, past and present, of the Baltimore City Police Department.

    Rest in peace.

    2014 update: The website moved. Now it’s here: http://baltimorecitypolicehistory.com/citypolice.

  • “Moskos, your thoughts!”

    “Moskos, your thoughts!”

    There were many periods of silence in the police academy. The environment didn’t exactly encourage free and independent thinking.

    During these awkward moments, Agent Cassidy, when he was in the room, was fond of bellowing out, often apropos of nothing, “Moskos, your thoughts!” Thirteen years later, these might be most (only?) remembered words from the academy class of 99-5.

    David Simon writes about Cassidy in the Sun (unfortunately, it seems, behind their new pay wall). You can’t say “if it weren’t for bad luck, Cassidy would have no luck at all.” He’s had his share of good luck. He’s alive, right? But he’s had more that many people’s share of rotten luck as well.

    Now Cassidy has end-state liver cirrhosis. Seems he got Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion after being shot. He needs a new liver. Cassidy was shot in 1987 trying to apprehend a man wanted for partially blinding an old man who had the gumption to tell the bastard to stop beating a girl. Cassidy pulled up on a corner and tried to take him in. There was a fight. Cassidy doesn’t remember the rest, because he took a couple of bullets from a .357, one at point blank range to the forehead. But for some reason Cassidy didn’t die, though he did lose 100 percent of his sight, smell, and taste.

    Cassidy went on with life, had kids, learned to get by with a guide dog, went to work, got a masters degree, and began teaching law class in the police academy. (Then, outside of shooting and driving, the onlywell-taught class in the Baltimore police academy. He said he wanted his kids to see him go to work everyday.)

    Cassidy’s shooter was later arrested and (barely) convicted. Seems most of the fine city jury had no opinion and simply wanted to go home (I had forgotten these details):

    A college student training to be a special education teacher, the young juror, allied with an older woman, fought a pitched battle to bring the rest of the jury around. It was a transforming experience, so much so that years later, that juror would be a Baltimore City prosecutor, her life changed by the experience in that jury room.

    It would be another 12 years, during my time on the force, after the killing of Officer Kevon Malik Gavin, before a city jury would actually be stupid enough to let a cop-killer walk free.

    Because of the Cassidy shooting, tactics in Baltimore changed. We wait for backup (right?) before putting the cuffs on a suspect. We don’t put people against walls they can push off of and spin around on us. Also, we’re inspired by Cassidy’s life and more thankful for some abilities we are all too quick to take for granted.

    “You know what I would have done differently?,” Cassidy says in a video in his memorable staccato delivery, “Very simple. I would have taken that day off. Right?”

    From the FOP Lodge #3:

    Another ‘Signal 13’ goes out for Police Agent Gene Cassidy who was shot in 1987.

    Baltimore City FOP Lodge 3 is holding a Blood Drive/Liver Donor Information at the FOP Hall on Monday, March 19th from 11:00am-6:00pm. This Blood Drive is in Honor of all Injured Police Officers, Firefighters, Medics and our Military Personnel serving the United States overseas. Come out and support one of our own heroes – Gene Cassidy of the Western District.

    Here’s me with Agent Cassidy and my parents, on the day of my graduation from the police academy, April 14, 2000.

  • Trouble in the Eastern

    Off-duty officer accused of some pretty bad stuff. From the Sun:

    Law enforcement sources say the .22-caliber rifle believed to have been used in the shooting was found inside his personal vehicle. Two boys, ages 12 and 13, have been charged with involuntary manslaughter; the officer has not been charged with any crime.

    So much bad going on here. I got no special insight. But if you do, let me know.

  • PTSD in the BPD

    An article by Peter Hermann in the Sun on an important but little talked about subject, the effect on police of police-involved shootings:

    Union leaders say city police do a good job of providing counseling to officers in the immediate aftermath of a shooting, but fall short in recognizing long-term psychological effects. Psychiatrists and police officials interviewed all caution that each shooting is different, as is the reaction of each officer.

    One active-duty officer, Andrew W. Gotwols Jr., said he was never offered help after he shot and killed two people nine months apart in 2006 and 2007. He still has nightmares that “guys are trying to shoot and kill me, and that I’m trying to shoot and kill them.”

    And a retired police commander who was one of the officers involved in the 2005 shooting with Willard said he suffers no ill effects from the incident, but added that after a time, “you start thinking, ‘There’s another close call, hopefully I can make it through my career without running out of luck.’”

    My own experience in the aftermath of a horrible cop-on-cop car crash (in which a friend of mine was nearly killed) was that a shrink was made available to me and others on scene. I didn’t feel the need to use the services. That was that. (My friend was lucky to live, and never policed again.)

    I will vouch for the fact that as a cop, work/anxiety dreams are never fun. Now, as a professor, I just have the occasional dream of not being able to get to class on time. It’s laughable compared to the dreams I would sometimes have as a cop, always involving guns and danger. (Of course everything about my job can sometimes be laughable compared to what I had to as a Baltimore cop. Anyway… work-related dreams are something I do not miss about policing–just one of the reasons teaching is better.)

  • 30-1 caught

    The original suspect from New Years, who escaped when another guy sucker-punched the arresting officer, was caught.