BEALEFELD URGES MORE EFFORT TO FIGHT VIOLENT CRIME

New Police Commissioner Questions Policies on Drugs, Arrests

The City Council is to vote tonight to approve Frederick H. Bealefeld
III as Baltimore's 36th police commissioner since 1850, and the first
under the administration of Mayor Sheila Dixon.

The 45-year-old began his law enforcement career a quarter-century
ago in Baltimore and has worked under 10 commissioners.

With Baltimore on the verge of recording 300 homicides in a year for
the first time since 1999, Bealefeld faces a daunting challenge.
Violent crime, drugs, gangs and witness intimidation threaten to
undermine recent improvements in public safety that have sparked a
resurgence in many neighborhoods.

Here are excerpts from a 45-minute interview with Bealefeld, during
which he questioned how the drug war is being fought and policies of
predecessors that led to thousands of questionable arrests:

Fighting drugs: Can anyone in this country say the war on drugs has
been a success? If they can, I really don't know who they are. ...
We've had victories here and there. But have we solved the drug
problem in America?

We can't be overwhelmed by the notion of drug enforcement. The fact
of the matter is old strategies, a drug arrest, in the scheme of
things, was ranked as high as some other arrests, because the problem
was mounted so high on our radar screen. Drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs.
So cops, a lot of these guys came through their careers thinking,
"Man, I got to attack this drug problem ... " We can't do that and
give burglars and car thieves and robbers a pass.

That's where we've not been very successful in the past. We've made
this drug problem, this drug war, over top of everything else. I
would trade a huge swath of those drug arrests for violent criminals,
putting violent criminals in jail.

Violent crime: The suspect in a recent homicide case has a conviction
in 1997 for attempted murder and a handgun violation. He got 10 years
for it. I know he didn't do 10 years. We are not surprised by too
many of these guys, in so much as they've had prior contacts with law
enforcement.

You're dealing with a great degree of apathy, you're dealing with a
great degree of people who have bought into this whole "stop
snitching" culture. I mean, this really is ground zero for stop
snitching, right?

Here's where I think Fred Bealefeld is different. You know, 105,000
people arrested in 2005. I mean, try to get your mind around that. In
a city of 640,000 population, it's mind-boggling. Did we really
accomplish a lot doing that? What we have to say, in partnership with
everyone else in the system: We're focused on the catalyst for violence.

We're not going to overburden [Central Booking] with a whole bunch of
arrests for arrests' sake. We're going be much more strategic about
it, we're going to be much more focused. We're bringing ... these
arrests because it's helping to solve the problem. The state's
attorney's office, this is where we want to devote our energy. Judges
and court commissioners, go through your lists, a guy who has a
history of handgun violence, we want to get him off the streets.

Drug treatment: I can tell you this ... without trepidation: We need
real investments - and there have been incremental investments -
there needs to be real, real work on drug treatment in this city.
That has to be done. And we need to come to grips with that. We need
real treatment programs, and they have to be effective. That is as
important as holding me accountable for arresting more drug
offenders. It can't be one or the other

We can't lose sight of the single biggest thing affecting this city,
and that is this culture of violence. We will do drug enforcement. We
will look at murders. We will look at thefts. We will do that. But we
have to move a comprehensive strategy on focusing on violent
offenders. You have to admit there's a gang situation here, and then
you have to develop strategies to move forward on that. You have to
recognize there's a mindset about carrying guns in this city.

Police "stop and frisk" strategy, a tactic now curtailed after
complaints it led to illegal detentions and thousands of unnecessary
arrests that were never prosecuted: I want officers to engage people.
You can't say, "I want you to increase stop and frisks," because stop
and frisk is based on probable cause. ... The first step really is to
get their rear ends out of police cars and on the streets talking to
folks. We have to break out of this going to call to call to call.

The fact of the matter is we're handling over a million calls for
service in a year. Over a million. If we're going to be effective, we
can't just go and stamp out a fire.

Suspicions that crime is not being accurately reported: One
perception right now is this whole notion of cops not taking reports,
and it runs all the way from someone being lazy to people's belief
that it's some kind systemic internal secret order to get erasers out
and do away with crime.

That undermines the effectiveness of a police force. If the community
doesn't have faith in us to police ourselves, we won't get
cooperation in shooting cases, we won't get cooperation on homicide
cases, we won't get people to partner with us on citizen patrol
walks. We can't engage the community if they don't believe we're legitimate.

On the police commissioners Bealefeld has worked for: I think [Edward
T.] Norris was a hell of a cop, a really good cop. I don't think he
really understood Baltimore, but a great cop nonetheless. One of the
lessons I learned from him is this whole notion of squares in squares
and rounds in rounds. If you made staffing decisions on the basis of
popularity, you're doomed to failure. If you make staffing decisions
and promotion decisions on people's abilities alone, that's the key
ingredient to success.

I thought that Norris was a very visible leader. I think that's
important not just to the patrol officers, but I think it's important
to the community, too.

The other person I would like to steal a little bit from is Bishop
Robinson. He stayed focused on communities in Baltimore, and he
focused on the whole problem, not just the drug problem. Bishop
Robinson took over the Police Department really at the beginning of
the explosion of the drug war. He wasn't panicked. He was very
focused. Everyone knew where we were going, we knew what the mission was.