COL. DANIEL PROMISES CHANGES

Police Will Target Crime, Not Citizens, New Chief Pledges; He Takes Command
Jan. 3; His Goals Include Staff Reorganization, Closing Drug Corners

Col. Ronald L. Daniel was named Baltimore's police commissioner formally
yesterday and immediately promised to begin an aggressive assault on crime
in the city.

At the same time, Daniel said he wanted to reassure residents that a variety
of new policing tactics will be directed against criminals and not
law-abiding citizens.

"There is no need to fear the police," Daniel said in an interview
yesterday. "We will aggressively attack crime, not citizens."

Daniel was introduced as the city's top cop by Mayor Martin O'Malley at a
noon news conference yesterday attended by 100 City Council members, state
legislators, police officers and downtown business leaders. O'Malley called
the appointment the most critical decision of his new administration.

The chief will assume his duties on Jan. 3, hoping to alter the course of
crime-fighting in Baltimore, which has seen more than 300 homicides each
year for the past decade. The pace of killing has made the city the
fourth-deadliest in the nation.

Daniel, a 26-year veteran of the 3,200-member force, said he also plans a
reorganization of the department. He declined to offer many details of the
pending changes, except to say he would reduce the size of the top command
staff. He said 12 or 13 people report directly to the commissioner, and he
hopes to cut that to between five and seven.

The issue of making Baltimore a safer city was very much on his mind as he
accepted the job of commissioner.

Daniel, 50, said he would have no trouble purging 10 open-air drug markets
from city streets in the next six months. O'Malley has promised as much. "I
intend to make that happen," Daniel said in an interview. "We have a plan. I
don't see any problem with shutting down the 10 markets."

He would identify only three of the 10. They are Rose Street and Ashland
Avenue, Fayette and Monroe streets and Harford Road and The Alameda.

During yesterday's ceremony, O'Malley credited the soft-spoken commander,
who once supervised patrols in all nine city police districts, with having
the knowledge of the Baltimore department and streets to earn the respect of
demoralized rank-and-file officers.

"There is no agency more critical to the life of a city," O'Malley said.
"He's an experienced manager and an experienced leader and you can't teach
leadership."

Daniel's ascension to the top policing job in the nation's 16th-largest city
represents a resurrection for the City College graduate, who was exiled two
years ago by former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke for challenging former Police
Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier.

As the city's highest-ranking African-American police officer, Daniel said
at a private 1997 meeting that Frazier should be removed if he failed to
address allegations of "internal racism" in the department. He spent the
last two years working in a little-known city police grant-writing office.

"I believe in patience," Daniel said when asked about the matter yesterday.
"I did what I thought I had to do at the time."

Daniel said he hoped to improve communication within the department as a way
to ease race relations. Improvement would come if "people met, talked and
listened."

"We're going to be one color, which is blue," Daniel added.

Daniel acknowledged that the task of turning around the city's homicide rate
will be daunting. But he asked residents to judge him by his actions, not
his promises.

The city's seventh police commissioner in 20 years will have help. Shortly
after winning the Democratic primary, O'Malley agreed to hire nationally
recognized police consultants who have helped reduce the number of homicides
in cities such as New York, New Orleans and Newark, N.J.

Former New York transit policeman Jack Maple and his partner, John Linder,
have spent the past two months studying the Baltimore department. The two,
who earn $2,000 a day, will help Baltimore implement a crime strategy based
on daily computer mapping of crime.

The plan entails holding weekly meetings to keep police commanders
accountable for reducing lawlessness and locking up violent repeat
offenders. Maple, in town earlier in the week to meet with Daniel, called
him the right choice.

"He still has the fire in the belly," said Maple, who was assistant
commissioner in New York, where homicides dropped from about 2,000 a year to
less than 700.

In response to a question, O'Malley made it known that the consultants will
act in a strictly advisory capacity.

"Our Police Department is not going to be run by consultants," O'Malley
said. "It's going to be run by Commissioner Daniel."

Daniel said he wanted to refrain from using the term "zero tolerance," which
has provoked concerns that it might provoke police brutality and racial
profiling.

Instead, Daniel said he wanted to change the way the department works. There
will be more emphasis on winning convictions and less on just making
arrests, he said. In addition, he intends to embark on citywide drug
investigations -- a form of policing now being done largely by federal
authorities.

The City Council will hold confirmation hearings, considered a formality, on
the appointment of Daniels. The hearings are scheduled for Jan. 24.

Daniel's flap with Frazier is on some minds as he takes over.

"I think everybody's comfortable with it," Donald P. Hutchinson, president
of the Greater Baltimore Committee (http://www.gbc.org) , said of Daniel's
appointment. "I think everybody's willing to give Martin O'Malley the
benefit of the doubt in his appointments, particularly as it pertains to
this issue."

Bishop Douglas Miles, president of the city's Interdenominational
Ministerial Alliance, said any hesitancy over Daniel is to be expected after
such a public falling-out.

"There always has to be some reservation when a lieutenant has publicly gone
against his commander and then expects the loyalty of the department," Miles
said. "I wish him well in what promises to be a very difficult job."

Those who supported Daniel during the controversy viewed yesterday's
announcement as vindication.

"It's a good day and a long time coming," said Sgt. Rick Hite, president of
the Vanguard Justice Society, an organization of 700 black city officers.
"Now we can begin the healing."

At the end of yesterday's news conference, O'Malley asked residents across
the city to stand behind their new police chief.

"He needs your support," O'Malley said. "He needs your prayers."