buzoncrime

City needs better quality of life, not flashy events

2011-08-24T10:12:00.000-04:00

Buz wonders: how much police resources are going to be drawn from the districts in order to support this event. How many specialized units will be forced to take their days off the week before or after, or both, in order to work this "cute" event?

And what about police, fire, EMS, and sanitation overtime? Oh, I had read that the race folks will pay the city the first $500K for services for this event. Um, I hope so. But, it's "free" money, isn't it? So, maybe city deployments should be all overtime?!

Buz hopes that Baltimore Racing Development comes through on its "bond" to pay us poor schmucks whose leaders fell for this charade.

City needs better quality of life, not flashy events

Nonprofit and churches need to think 'bout security

2011-06-24T17:24:00.002-04:00

Buz published this article on a church security site not too long ago:

http://churchsecurityconsultant.com/?p=339#.TgT2XK8N3pk.twitter

Odds and Ends from scraps of thought re: crime and police and security in Baltimore

2010-11-11T12:49:00.007-05:00

Buz has not posted for a while since he's been a busy beaver with several security-related projects. However, there's been a lot going on in the crime/police/security world in Baltimore (and everywhere else, too).

So, some random, eclectic thoughts:

Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police members are voting on a new contract offer today. This is the first offer that I can ever remember, after 30 years working on the city police force, that the city offered a reduction in pay (in this case 1.95%). In exchange, the officers get 5 more days off in 2012. Part of ongoing strife between the city and FOP.
A small nonprofit Christian school in Hamilton got broken into, and all of their recently purchased (from a grant) computers were stolen, along with a lot of other items. Wonder why they think it's an "inside job"? Large scale computer room thefts associated with burglaries are not unusual. We can think of several, all unsolved: Bryn Mawr, Boys Latin, UMBC, a lawyer's office in Mt. Washington, et al. And I agree: in most cases, there is at least some inside connection, if only with information.
Recently, a whole tractor trailer loaded with new laptops bound for a Wal-Mart was stolen from a trucking company in Southeast Baltimore. The tractor was found not too far away, in Rosedale. The empty trailer was found a the Maryland House rest stop on I95. Betcha some insurance company is upset. Buz drove around the site and saw only very modest security arrangements. The Christmas season has begun! (This case almost certainly involved inside info!)
Speaking of non profits, I once wrote a letter to the head of a foundation, announcing the kickoff of my security consulting business. He wrote a nice letter back, saying he couldn't think of anybody who might use my services. Yet, like the nonprofit school mentioned above, many grant recipients get money to buy computers an other things, but have scant security measures in place to protect the foundation's investment. Nonprofits are especially vulnerable, me thinks, to criminal activity of all kinds.
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations was supposed to have received a report from Johns Hopkins Hospital by now discussing the incident recently where a patient was shot and killed, and the shooter, her son, took his own life. I wonder what Hopkins' Risk Management wrote as to what processes they will put in place to see that an incident like this is not repeated. The Joint Commission only rarely gets involved in crime issues--mostly medical issues--but in this case a patient died. Magnetometers to check for firearms at Hopkins and most hospitals would be difficult to implement, costly, and of dubious effectiveness.
Your consultant recently was mentioned on the Mt. Washington list serve as a resource for people wanting to better secure their homes against burglaries. As a result Buz performed 3 residential security audits for homeowners in that beautiful community. Everybody was really nice and easy to work with!
Over the last year, we've made presentations to community associations on this very subject, home burglaries, including folks in Rodgers Forge and Bellona-Gittings in North Baltimore.
One doctor who works and teaches at Hopkins medicine had his house broken into and almost all his lectures were on the laptop which was stolen during the burglary. However, he said the police were very nice, and spent several hours processing the scene. And detectives came to his house almost every night during the next week to check on him and followup for any new leads or information. Well done!

Ruminations on the shooting at Hopkins Hospital--a watershed event for hospital security?

2010-09-28T20:19:00.007-04:00

Buz followed closely the shooting of a surgeon at the world-famous Johns Hopkins Hospital as it unfolded via Twitter and news reports.

So, he has some random, eclectic, and iconoclastic thoughts: mostly, of course, from the safety of hindsight, but also with an interest in security matters. Hopkins has a special place for me since I am a native Baltimoron, my mom worked there fro more than 20 years, and she died there holding my hand, and I worked there, briefly, in security, during the winter of 2004-2005.

Oddly enough, the shooter and I had some things in common: like him, I spent the last couple of nights in the hospital, one or two overnight, to be by my mother's bedside during the last couple of days of her life.
And, like him, I was armed, being a member of the Bmore Po-leece.
And though a doctor came and told me the day before (I still remember his face, but not his name), that medicine had nothing further to offer her and the end was near, I differed from the shooter inasmuch I didn't even think of shooting anybody. And though he seemed nervous, I thanked the doc, and appreciated that he didn't sugarcoat anything. In fact, she died the next day.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, I was working home at this computer when I saw a tweet coming over that a doctor was shot at JHH. Immediately, Justine Fenton and Peter Hermann began making crime tweets and reports, along with lots of otehr people.
Of course, initially, neither Hopkins staff nor the police knew what they were dealing with and many institutions have been haunted with the specter of Columbine and Virginia Tech.
However, we followed tapes of the 911 calls, and a number of calls were received pinpointing the location of the shooting and even the building and floor. (We wish the 911 Communications Assistants were not so abrupt and demanding when at the end of the call they said: what's your name!? Um, couldn't you, ladies, say it a bit more nicer than that?
We wish the shift commander, when the call went out over police radio, and several Eastern units announced they were responding, didn't say: what was that call? I know, lieutenants are in meetings and busy and stuff, perhaps preparing for Comstat. But wold have loved to have heard, instead: "I'm en route; units advise what you have asap".
Nevertheless, on the police channel, Eastern District units were on the scene of the correct building, on the correct floor, and were broadcasting the exact room number of where the shooter was, and that they had the floor in and the room covered---in about 3 minutes and a half after the call went out!
All the rest was hurry up and wait, as, unbeknownst to everyone, the suicidal/homicidal patent's son, immediately after shooting the doc, went into mom's room, shot her in the head, and then himself, and lay there for 2 hours, while he bled to death.
As with most incidents of this nature, the drama was over and done with quickly. But the officially mandated military-like, cover-all-bases drama went on for several hours, with the arrival of SWAT teams (including one from Baltimore County?!) [Research on school shootings, for example, shows that the vast majority are over and done in less than 15 minutes--usually with the shooter(s) killing themselves. Columbine's killings actually were over and done in 14 minutes, I believe.]
When the police's Mr. Data finally entered the room, it was clear what had happened hours ago.
These things can be very chaotic to manage and control from a command perspective. Just managing responding police and fire units, crowd control, evacuation, and traffic control, not to mention possible contingencies and exigencies, can be mind-boggling.
Buz doesn't think so much of Columbine, as he does of Mumbai--and that's the possibility departments must think about.
But it was good practice in emergency management for Hopkins and BPD, in an environment where realistic practice tests are hard to carry out.
Why the Baltimore County SWAT team? Are we in the city so short of personnel in that area? Is the depth of our units so low?!
Missing out of the main coverage of the story was: what happened to the doctor after he was shot and collapsed on the floor after dumb-dumb went into the room and did himself? Who were the hero or heroes at grave risks to themselves who got the doc on a stretcher/gurney, and then, somehow got him down to the ER, no doubt with assistance of JHH security and other staff. Buz would like to really hear more about him/her/them! Why'd they do it? Weren't they afraid? (I heard one of the them was a medical sales rep of some kind: no commission for that gig, though).
It was interesting hearing my old boss from both SED and JHH address the press mob after the incident and hearing him responds to questions, particularly the question about use of metal detectors. His answer was well thought and reasonable.
Wonder what other two hospitals that he knows of in the country have metal detectors. Why? How big are they? How do they manage them? Ah, questions, questions.
I was really pleased that right after this incident Police Commissioner Bealefeld chaired a meeting of security personnel and others and coached them on updating their emergency plans.
The Sun then comes out with an editorial saying Hopkins should "do some research" and learn what works best at keeping guns out and managing crowds. And they chastised the Security Director because, they would say, that airports handle a lot more people, per day, than the hospital does. Well, yes, but your tax dollars are paying for both the TSA guards doing the checking and the MDtA Police at the airport--who are both regularly present and heavily armed.
Buz has stood, on a number of afternoons and evenings at the main Wolfe Street entrance to the hospital--in the evening, and it can be chaotic with lots of people coming in and leaving every moment. Including Hopkins employees who either don't display their badge till asked or have it turned with the back displayed--and then still have to be asked to see it. It will take a whole culture change to switch to metal detectors and a lot more staff, believe!

The State's Attorney's election: what was at stake?

2010-09-20T20:03:00.002-04:00

It's a bright new day in Baltimore. Gregg Bernstein, a white Jewish guy, won the State's Attorney's election, despite running in a city which is 65% African-American. And, in one of life's ironies, his incumbent opponent conceded on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur--the day of Atonement.

So, what was at stake, and what was it portending for Baltimore's future? Well, if Ms. Jessamy, the incumbent, had won, we would have gotten at least 4 more years of criminal "processing". Many, but not all, serious crimes were treated as paperwork to be processed. If one believed Page Croyder, a former State's Attorney, she had no interest in the war room--a regular meeting where, supposedly, the players in the criminal justice system came together to try to figure out how to combat these dangerous, repeated criminals which were destroying neighborhoods in our city and our poor, beleaguered city's reputation.

Buz also put a sign for Bernstein in the front yard of his North Baltimore row house, since he is not the police commissioner, he was able to do it without any controversy. I voted for (along with my beautiful wife) Bernstein, and supported him, because, in addition to the factors above:

Ms. Jessamy always seemed to be in a nasty, killer/attack mode. She looked like she was not a nice person and not easy to deal with.
And though I have compassion for her coming of age during the civil rights movement, with her, as with Faulkner, the past never seemed to be dead--it wasn't even past. She seemed to believe that all defendants were victims of society and police mistreatment. That the police must cross all the T's and dot all the i's, or she would not proceed. She did this in the face of overwhelming evidence that hardened, nasty criminals would most often target black people with vicious crimes, and intimidation--discounting the safety of the people she was sworn to protect.
She publicly announced how many "servings" of illegal drugs would have to be possessed by a defendant before she would proceed with charges of felony distributing--even if the drugs were sold to an undercover police officer or an informant. If you didn't have or sell x number, well, it was simple possession. And all the druggies, and their lawyers, knew it.
Her posturing, through her spokeswoman, about the police making thousands of illegal arrests when, in fact, the arrests met the standard of probable cause (mostly), but the State's Attorney's office created the new category of "abated by arrest", did not prosecute a legal arrest, but felt the arrest and brief incarceration took care of the matter. The result: the vast majority of people arrested for crimes of disorder, leaving our city feeling unsafe and out of control, now believed they were "victims" of an evil, out-of-control, racist, police force. When her office was just managing the numbers, she made a goblin and enemy out of the cops--instead of ne'er do wells who mess things up for Baltimore's law-abiding residents--by dealing drugs, drinking, fighting, creating disturbances, littering, and urinating on the street.
She has never gotten along with any police commissioner--except, perhaps, to some extent with Lenny Hamm. All the rest were enemies--filled with incompetent staff.
She did not fire, or even publicly chastise, her spokeswoman, Margaret Burns, for her insensitive remarks around the plea-bargain of the killers of Zach Sowers. "he was sleeping like a baby" and "he may have hit his head on the bumper of a car". Extremely insensitive remarks, which had to be listened to by the victim's wife and family. (Now, poor ole Buz will go out on a limb and say that, in this case, he actually agreed with the plea bargain, because the state did not have much evidence at all, and we'd rather get a conviction for something than nothing at all--but Burns didn't say that.)
That she seemed to take no responsibility at all for the shortcomings of the criminal justice system in Baltimore--unlike the police commissioner, who often said we've got to work harder.
She assumed no leadership role in try to fix Baltimore's broken criminal justice system; "everything all right; we're doing a fine job!" seemed to be all she was saying. Most Baltimorons like me and the ones I talked to didn't seem to agree.

Baltimore and its future: crime and the attack on bicyclists

2010-08-20T11:44:00.004-04:00

The future of Baltimore is in bicycling, and in walking.

Or it would be except for the horrific news of attacks on bicycle riders in Baltimore's northern neighborhoods, especially near where Stephen Pitcairn was stabbed to death in a heartbreaking robbery heard by his mother hundreds of miles away.

First there was Dan Rodricks' piece on an attack on a cyclist during the day near the Baltimore Streetcar Museum. A lot can be said about that story, not the least of which was the slow and uninspired police response, both on the 911 operator, the officer, and most importantly how the police force is structured to respond to crime from law abiding citizens. (Betcha, 23-1, if I said my armored car just got held up and I'm following it on Falls Road, the response might have been a little better). It's nice that the guy who got pelted with stones was able to use some moral suasion to pester the kids into shaking his hand (some of them, anyway). Buz isn't sure about that's staying power. They learn to "bank" people for fun and power in their neighborhood, but it's usually someone we never hear about. [By the way, I wonder what that police report looks like, when the officer eventually did find the victim--if any report was even written-heh, heh, since, actually, the kids committed an attempted armed robbery.]

Then we learn about folks being attacked as they ride their bikes through the "red zone" between North Avenue and lower Charles Village. Groups of guys knock riders off their bikes, and one of them grabs the bike from the fallen victim, and rides off. This has happened even during the evening commute hour.

Our city's future and livelihood as a livable urban space is dependent on young persons, young professionals, artists, hipsters, and even good ole bike riders like yours truly getting out of their cars and riding to work or school or just around town. Our future depends on bicycling.

Yep, riding bikes. Nobody seems to get this yet. And our city leaders are all wrapped up in patting themselves on the back for looking backward and sponsoring the past: the silly Grand Prix race in downtown Baltimore. (Nascar has been losing attendance at many venues.)

Wouldn't it have been wonderful instead, if our leaders looked to the future and took the coming end of fossil fuels, global warming and the oil spill in the Gulf seriously? Many well-educated young professionals get it: they choose local, organic, they recycle and they bicycle and walk.

Can you imagine the leadership shown if Baltimore dedicated itself to being truly bicycle and pedestrian friendly for that week, and making an effort to make cycling to and from work a priority all the time? Instead we pander to corporate interests, desperate to get any hunk of money from them, which will never cover the city's costs to put on the event. Desperate for few more bucks for the hotels and minimum wage jobs many offer. For a week. For a city with one of the highest asthma and allergy rates in the country, one of the highest air polluted cities in the country, and a downtown already choked with traffic on weekends when really nothing is going on, and which has one of the longest average commutes in the country. Noise, pollution, street closings for people trying to get to work for weeks in advance, and after, oh, and yeah, sure, eventually we'll go swimming in the harbor. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of police and fire overtime needed for the event, as well--in this fiscally broke city.

But the bike robberies might get a few arrests, then they'll be forgotten. The message the city is sending: who cares about bikes and safe walking and stuff: let's all go to cars and race: it's great. Um, yeah, it's about as exciting as watching paint dry--till there's these great crashes and explosions. So, like Preakness, the city evolves into being an entertainment place for a few days, with lots of partying, drinking, out-of-towners having "fun", etc. But the city's real problems basically get unaddressed, because they're too hard.

There's a lot of anger out there between the "haves" and "have-nots", and it often leads to violence. There's little or no manufacturing jobs out there, and a large chunk of the city is a no-go zone, where an internal civil war rages over the "game", and the anger pops loose--mostly on weekends. One judge told me a couple of years ago, regarding our broken criminal justice "system", "the criminals aren't afraid of us anymore". He was meaning us in general--the taxpayers.

So, despite what you may have thought about former Mayor Dixon, she did have a vision of clean and green for the city, and was an avid bicyclist herself. As John Lennon might have said, Imagine: closing downtown streets, not for a car race, but for bicycling and walking, in an effort to get folks moving, healthy, and combating obesity, and doing it often, and using it as a marketing and selling point in conjunction with the city's other strengths. An effort to bring the city to a more human scale, where we get to chat and wave at each other and therefore become safer. Instead, we get 200mph cars racing each other downtown, and the bike robberies and "bankings" continue.

Mayor says more cops!

2010-07-22T21:36:00.005-04:00

Just heard on the news tonite the Baltimore's Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake is going to hire 100 new police officers by the end of this year, and 300 by the end of next year.

Hmm.. Maybe next year is an election year?!

When I was in graduate school, I took a course in Municipal Financial Planning taught by an adjunct, Mr. Lloyd Jones, who was then the budget director of Baltimore. He said, among many other things, : you, as a political official don't mess with the boys in blue, police and fire, or the teachers. Woe be unto the politician that does and wants to get elected.

Well, yes, but the rank and file think the our Mayor SRB has messed with them plenty (Buz doesn't totally agree, but gets the unions' point).

But perhaps she fully believes that the city will dramatically win the lawsuit the unions have lodged against the city because of the pension. Or, the announcement will simply keep the wolves from the door till after the election. Or the economy will suddenly get tremendously better. Who knows?

Police layoffs in Oakland, California: can it happen here and will it? !

2010-07-15T11:56:00.003-04:00

Two things made Buz's eyebrows go up yesterday, and got him wondering and thinking (thinking is always dangerous!). One was that the FOP has assessed an extra deduction on both active and retired officers in order to support the lawsuit against the city (the irony was not lost on me).

The other was that the city of Oakland, California is laying off 80 police officers, because the city is broke, and you guessed it, pension issues.

Now, mind you, Oakland only has a authorized strength of 800; so the layoffs represent 10% of the force. And IT IS NOT A LOW CRIME CITY. A police force of 800 in a city of 400,000 residents?! Baltimore has a force of 3000 in a city of 650,000 residents.

Will the city next year be forced to lay off lot of cops here?

So, the FOPs treasury cannot now afford to pay the only winners in this situation: the lawyers for the FOP and firefighters who are charging $100,000 per week. Will they win? I dunno (a technical term). Of course, they've assured their clients that they will win.

But what happens if they win? What taxes will the mayor raise to pay for a decade of her predecessors malfeasance in funding the pension? She'll never get a property tax increase thru city council; she couldn't even get a 4-cent bottle tax. So, what programs will be therefore cut?

Which agencies?

I guess we shall see, but I wouldn't want to be on probation next spring.

While Buz is not a great negotiator, his gut wishes that our union head would stop publicly calling the mayor "a liar"--even if he really thinks she is. Say it to each other in private, and remember: she's a politician, and conditions change. And perhaps saying that police and fire are going to turn their backs on the mayor and city council is a hard-nosed negotiating tactic, but I would be loath to say something like that. Because I painfully remember the police strike of 1974.

Fund raiser for hit and run victim!

2010-06-25T18:20:00.005-04:00

These irresponsible drivers out there aren't happy that they speed, yell on their cell phone, and drink. When they hit someone, they don't stop; they keep on going. It drives Buz crazy!

But a recent hit and run really hit close--in a way.

My wife and I had just interviewed a nice, artistic young woman who was self-employed a painter for a modest job at our beautiful row house in Hampden which we rent out. We both liked her, and her price looked like it was going to be reasonable, but then we never heard from her.

After several attempts to contact, she finally phoned us from the hospital. She had just finished an assignment in Homeland, and was getting into her small pickup truck, when: BAM! She and her truck got struck by a blue GMC pickup, knocking her into the air. She suffered a fractured pelvis, and her leg was fractured in several places. A roofer working nearby saw it, but could not get the tag number. Quick response from Baltimore City fire/ems units probably saved her life, as she was going in and out of consciousness in the ambo.

The hit and run clown has never been located. Why don't these cowards stop?! Probably for a lot of reasons: knew it was their fault, and didn't want it "on their record"; drunk or drugged (not in Baltimore, eh?); no license; license suspended or revoked, etc., etc.

But anyway:

She, Miki Scholtes, is now preparing to get well enough to go home, but her friends have gotten together to have a fund-raiser on her behalf:

TOMORROW, SATURDAY, JUNE 26TH, AND THE WINDUP SPACE, 12 W. NORTH AVENUE, 3 BANDS FOR 10 BUCKS ADMISSION. THEY HOPE TO RAISE ENOUGH TO MAKE HER CAR PAYMENTS AND INSURANCE, SO THAT once she's healed, she can get back to work to support herself. Read more details here.

There's also going to be a raffle with some great stuff. Buz encourages all to go, if they like cool bands, or cool stuff.

Police and their body armor: wish they wouldn't do that!

2010-05-28T17:53:00.003-04:00

The other night we saw a near to us drug raid in one of the rowhouses near Buz's humble abode. There were about 6-8 plainclothes police officers with the usual assortment of t-shirts, badges around their necks, short, etc.

But what alarmed poor, old-school Buz was the open wearing of the soft body armor over their street clothes, dark blue (for poor visibility, I guess), but the words "police" in big white letters. Obviously, the manufacutrer vendor thought they should be worn on drug raid, just, you know, like on television. So, this shows the criminals and everybody that they're wearing soft body armor (it's a no-no to call them bullett proof!). I wish they wouldn't do that!

These cops and the commanders that buy this stuff have really gotten comlacent. When it's widely "advertised" that the main part of the body is protected, you are inculcating into the criminals mind that he should just shoot you in the head. During my career many officer were shot and killed in the head; I won't bother to name them. Oh, I know, It won't happen to me!

Um, as far as I know, polce general orders still require officers to wear their body armor while on duty at all times. The uniformed folks have to!

The alarm people are back: alarming!

2010-05-21T16:26:00.003-04:00

Just received a comment from an old post (it's the last in a series of comments) about door-to-door sales of alarms. I'm posting it since they are back again, claiming to work for GE, which makes products for many alarm companies. When you ask them for a brochure, or business card, they won't have one: you have to wonder how they stay in business.

Please see: http://buzoncrime.blogspot.com/2008/06/alarm-sales-in-neighborhood.html

Buz wonders if they are licensed to do alarms in Maryland. I wonder if anyone has ever tested one of their alarms, or been broken into. How do you like the "service". Hate to say it, but that residential industry has sort of evolved into a racket (this is not my original thought). Nobody wants to upgrade your alarm; they only want to sell you a new system

Preakness and the Running of the Drunks

2010-05-14T19:45:00.003-04:00

Buz looks back on Preakness, which is tomorrow, with a mixture of shaking my head, disdain, and skepticism. I'm told it's all about the money; and that's nice, but you have to wonder if it is really worth it sometimes, as the city and the racing "industry" loses all moral authority regarding the infield.

If tomorrow is as hot and humid as today was, the drinking will be heavy, and the trouble will be brewing.

When I was promoted to Captain in 1990 ( I know, I know, a couple of years ago), I was sent to be the deputy commander of the Northwestern District, where Pimlico is located. But it was in August, so I missed the Preakness that year. I later learned that 1990 was one of the worst years we had as far as policing the neighborhoods around the track went. Officers would attempt arrests by themselves, not realizing that one knucklehead was often with a pack of others--all drunk, rowdy, and feeling that all rules were dismissed for the day. (they just came from the infield, so who could blame them). The officer would then get attacked as the friends tried to release and liberate their arrested friend. As other officers responded to the call for assistance, they often couldn't get thru because of the traffic, so they abandoned their cars and ran several blocks, thus causing even more traffic chaos with the police cars blocking the street. There were assaults, several arrests, and chaos lasting the remainder of the day.

In '91, I was asked to plan the district's deployment for the neighborhoods surrounding the track on Preakness day, and was able to create a plan for using the Northwestern cops in a more planned, sensible and strategic manner. I'm modestly proud to say the in the remaining 5 years I was at NWD, problems were minimal, and arrests were a handful. I left right after the 1995 Preakness to go downtown to spearhead the privatization of the fire and police medical services.

But, I remember thinking: Why is the city providing several hundred police to the Pimlico Infield on behalf of a private firm, not to support horse racing, but instead to subsidize drunken brawls, anti-women behavior, racist actions by semi-thugs, and under age drinking?

I remember one year at a planning meeting, where a high-ranking police official asked that black officers not be stationed around the music stage, since they were the special targets of beer-can throwers. The favorite sport of the day (someone said there was a horse race?) was taking a can of beer, popping the top, and when almost full, throwing it at someone/anyone. It didn't have to be a cop. Everyone between the thrower and the target would get beer on them! And when it hit you it hurt! Wow! Where could you hope to ever find such fun!

One Tactical sergeant told me one year that "they shut us down; we lost the stage.": the music at the stage couldn't continue since so many beer cans were being thrown. So, the music stopped. The show did not go on.

No real, legitimate bar in their right mind, thinking of liability, would tolerate or allow such behavior--much less allow folks to bring their own beer in. No security consultant worth their salt, I don't think, would recommend such behavior be encouraged.

Of course, with cops working in squads of 1 sergeant with 8-12 officers, and dozens of officers assigned to the infield at one time, they would go in en masse, as a group, and grab trouble makers and escort them thru the infield tunnel and deposit them outside the track where Northwestern personnel would "persuade" them to leave the area. The police on the infield did not have sufficient personnel to make arrests, so unless the "patron" assaulted an officer, he was simply thrown out. Needless to say we weren't surprised when there was the incident when cops removed their badges and name tags and engaged in a bit of use of force.

I suggested, one year, to the high-ranking official of the track--since there was so much concern over the fighting, that they simply forbid bringing in outside drinks, but sell booze themselves. He dismissed my idea (circa 1992) offhand, saying you know, the sports clubs, fraternities, and teams then wouldn't come; however, we will raise the infield price. Oh.

I was also really pleased the Ed Norris, told Pimlico officials, finally: ya gotta deal with the infield yourselves; we're phasing our involvement out.

Last year, I didn't find a video of the infield worth mentioning. I did however, see plenty the year before during the running of the urinals. And it appeared the private security force was a bit over matched, and not really wanting to get into it with these muscled, sweaty steroid-enhanced drunks. We'll see how they do this year.

The police respond: burglary is not decriminalized! And: correction: they never said: "We're too busy"!

2010-04-09T17:06:00.008-04:00

Well, I got a surprise after posting my last blog when I reported the travails of a lawyer-friend whose offices in Mt. Washington were visited by some of our local burglars on one of their night-time missions. Ya'll can read the posting just before this one, but the key point is that my friend's keys to his storage unit and the code were stolen during the burglary.

He quickly called and had the code changed after discovering this the next morning.

But the dirt bags came there and tried to get into the parking lot of the storage facility using the wrong code: security cameras captured his car tag number, the tattoo on his arm, and his face. He and some buddies also came back a different day when that storage place was having an auction. They are also on camera then. They wandered around the yard looking at stuff and eyed and tried the doors, but did not get into the building.

My friend gave all this information to the police. I recalled that he said they went back and forth about who was going to got out to get the tape, etc., INDICATING IN CONTEXT THAT THEY WERE REALLY BUSY.

So, I got an email from someone in the Deputy Commissioner for Operations office. The "Deputy" as the person who holds that position is known, is in charge of day to day operations in the police department. His radio call sign is "Unit 2"--thus he is directly under the Police Commissioner (our Mencken-like, straight-talkin', ice hockey playin' top cop).

This official quoted my humble blog posting and said that he/they wanted to follow up on this case and endeavor to give the victim some resolution and perhaps a more favorable impression of the BPD.

So, I followed up with my friend to make sure he was ok with that, and he surprised me by saying "sure; I'd like to help them get these guys." So, despite insurance having paid for most of the stolen computers and some of the damage, he welcomed the additional inquiry by the police. My pal did have one correction to my blog posting, those: NOBODY FROM THE POLICE ACTUALLY SAID:"WE'RE TOO BUSY". He agreed with me that in context of everything that was going on with crime, etc., in the police department, the general impression he got was that they were too busy. However, nobody actually said that, and all the dealings with the original reporting officer, the detectives, and the crime lab tech were positive and professional and courteous. They just never followed up on the tip of the camera film.

In fact, the last the lawyer heard from them was last summer on July 24th, when the office manager got a call and said that someone from the Cyber Crimes Unit was going out to the storage place and make a disc of the relevant film. After that, utter silence.

So, I emailed the Deputy's office back and said come on out and gave the address/phone number and name of the office manager, etc.

The Deputy's office assured me that there would be no "witch hunt" or "blame game" regarding this incident--in response to my concern about that. They were well aware that the district detective units were often overwhelmed with cases--particularly Northern District, which showed fully 20% of the city's burglaries.

They have (at least until the recent shootings) created a burglary detail, while using officers from other areas in the city to cover patrol posts. And they have made a couple burglary arrests. The department agreed that something like a video or tag number in a burglary case can be invaluable, because often in burglaries there is so little evidence or clues to go on.

However, now that two shootings on Greenmount resulting in deaths have occurred in the past week, and one farther up on York Road a bit earlier, Buz suspects that the hunt for the burglars has been supplanted by the heavy police presence in the Waverly area.

Thoughts and observations about crime and security around Town

2010-03-01T11:09:00.006-05:00

Some thoughts on the past year as a security consultant and observer of crime in the Baltimore area:

Commissioner Bealefeld and his crew deserve a lot of credit on murders and other crimes in Baltimore this past year.
When I was in the hot tub and my favorite gym ( and Michael Phelps's), a woman asked me: so, why is crime down this past year? My answer: I didn't know. (ha, that's an honest answer, isn't it?). But seriously, who knows? The crimes that have been reported, of course, are way down from previous years, especially murders. But why? Commish Bealefeld would say that it his strategy of "targeting bad guys with guns". Perhaps. And perhaps all these guys who used to have guns were doing other crimes too. But crime is down, generally, throughout most of the country. Is this a statistical artifact? Or is it really down, or is this just a lull in the reported numbers? Or is there an "issue in measurement?"
The heavy snowfall helped a lot in keeping the numbers down the first couple of months of the year. And though the department says that "similar" weather in the 95-96 winter had almost double the number of homicides, no storms compared to what we've had in the last 3 weeks could be called similar. Normally we get 18.5 inches a season of snow. This season, so far, we've had 80 inches! And some of Baltimore's biggest snow storms have been in March.
We're really glad to hear that the Police Commissioner is going to focus more attention on robberies. I've always thought that that is the crime that's the most important as a reflection of a city's safety. It usually occurs in public, is stranger-to-stranger, and places victims in immediate fear of serious injury or death.
During '09 one had to wonder, though, if burglary wasn't decriminalized in the city. Several of the private schools were broken into during the winter and lots of electronic stuff was taken. To my knowledge, no arrests were made and nothing was recovered.
One lawyer friend had his offices broken into, and the thuggies spent a lot of time there. They took the keys to a rental storage unit nearby where he had stuff. Fortunately, he discovered this and changed the codes. However, the security cameras captured the thieves (or their friends) as they were trying to get into the place using the wrong code at the barrier gate. They got the tag number of the car, a guy's face, and his tattoo on his arm. All this info was given to the city police: "we're too busy". They, the detectives, never followed up, no arrests were made, and no property was recovered.
The Rodgers Forge neighborhood in Baltimore county was hit with a wave of burglaries in the latter part of 09 (thankfully, they seemed to have stopped for the time being). They even asked yours truly if he would come and speak to them about securing their homes better. And I did: my talk at Rodgers Forge Elementary School, with 25-30 residents, lasted about an hour and a half, including question and answer session. And I got one homeowner who asked for a modest security audit out of that.
The weirdest thing: for more than a year I was on a yahoo listserve in a North Baltimore community reading their thoughts about crime and other suspicious things in the area near Belvedere Square. I asked to come onto the list serve, and the moderator allowed me to come on, apparently learning about my background. So, I "lurked" on the talk forum for more than a year. Neither she nor they ever asked for my thoughts about anything related to crime or any advice. I never posted. But once, on this blog, I posted something she said the police said (which sounded a bit ridiculous, but after all, she said the cops said it), and I attributed to the group without naming them directly. She kicked me off the forum for "violating the sacred confidentiality of the the yahoo talk forum"! Needless to say I was dumbfounded since I did not mention the name of the group, or anyone in it, nor did I identify even the user names they use. Nevertheless, she said I endangered the "crime-fighting effectiveness" of the group. Oh.
But that wasn't good enough for this mean-spirited person. Apparently, she is on several listserves/talk forums. When she saw that Rodgers Forge had invited me to speak about burglary prevention, she sent a nasty unsolicited email basically saying that I could not be trusted! They had me speak anyway.
The burglaries in Rodgers Forge seemed to have stopped for the time being. I've noticed a huge trend throughout the northern border of the city, along with greater Towson, Rodgers Forge, Cedarcroft, Parkville, etc. Buz wonders if burglary is now legalized.
The cops and firefighters have decided to sue the city to demand their full pensions as promised to them---though the city says it can't afford it and doesn't have the money. Stand by for more budget-cutting all you friends of Foxtrot and the pretty horses.
Note to College Park students: if, after a basketball game, you decide to go to Route 1 for some action, please go the other way when riot-equipped police are coming at you. If you get clobbered by an implement of some kind, it means you are too close to the "action". If you get arrested, no whining. You have been advised!

Twas the night before New Year's and all thru the city...........

2010-01-02T17:48:00.005-05:00

On the day before New Year's Eve, Buz went to one of his favorite local eateries, the Subway sandwich shop in Hampden. Usually, one can get a good front-row seat of the street action in Hampden's Falls road while you dine in the "dining room."

I think that all of the good folks who work there are Nepalese, one of who used to be my neighbor. So, as my sandwiches were being made, I told her about the Baltimore custom or tradition of shooting guns off at midnight on New Year's. She said, "you're kidding, right?". Unfortunately, not.

Now, I grew up in Baltimore, first in Perkins Homes, then in Fells Point, and in Butcher's Hill, but I had never noticed (or remember) this phenomenon. I didn't see or hear of this until, when in the Air Force, I visited a buddy in Grand Forks, and at midnight on New Year's, he took out his trusty shotgun and fired several rounds off into the air.

Many of you probably read Peter Hermann's piece in the Sun about this issue. Early on in my time in the police department, I attended roll call one New Year's Eve in the Western District, and the sergeant giving roll call said (paraphrasing, since it's been a couple of years ago, at least): for those of you who haven't worked a New Year's before, when midnight approaches, make yourselves scarce. Get the fuck off the streets. Go behind a school, factory, or under a railroad bridge. Your pretty cars with those funny bubble-gum machines make great targets for payback to the cops.

Though I thought these directions unusual, I did not really find them weird; they seemed imbued with common sense and experience. In my short time in the Western then ( a little over a year), I learned the truth to the saying: "a policeman's lot is not a happy one". Coming out of college after a 4-year's in the Air Force, and being recruited as an idealistic yet somewhat naive young person, I was shocked at the antipathy that the police received from the "community"--although perhaps I really shouldn't have been. That uniform and badge mean little, especially when some tough guy wants to stick it up your ass. Being nice isn't what it's all about. Although, it's nice to be nice when you can.

Anyway, more than 10 years later as a sergeant in the Southwestern, I found myself, on New Year's Eve giving the same admonition to my squad--make yourselves invisible at 12- with the caveat that they should still handle calls for service if it was safe to do so.

As it got close to midnight, I drove my marked patrol car around to the rear of Edmondson High School which sits high on a rise on the western edge of the city affording good views of downtown at night, figuring I'd watch the fireworks downtown. Ha! As soon as midnight hit, there were fireworks all around me, except they weren't fireworks! I thought I was in downtown Beirut! Guns were going off all around me as the dispatcher wished us all Happy New Year.

Darn, wouldn't ya know one of my guys was driving down Collins Avenue and saw a dude firing in the air, and decided to go after him in a house ala Bealefeld; of course he called for help and of course the whole squad came flying ignoring the flying bullets. We got the guy and the gun, but it was a bit uncomfortable for a while.

Were we derelict in our duty, those of us making "ourselves scarce". Well, no, it was just a matter of survival for us poor schmucks in patrol. These were the days when there were no extra 1000 police on the street going after people with guns. If anything, there far less police on the street, because we always operated on minimal strength on the big holidays. As many people were given time off as possible. Only when O'Malley came into office with Norris did there materialize any effort to attack the NYE gun problem.

Buz gets dispersed!

2009-12-17T17:51:00.002-05:00

Buz read with interest all the hullabaloo about the community activist and leader in Union Square who got arrested, then unarrested, then got cited in a beef with one of the Southern District boys in blue. Basically, he calls the police, they come, then the stories diverge. Ultimately, he's told to go in his house or get locked up. Now, he being a good law-abiding citizen and all, knows that he doesn't have to, especially if he's not doing anything wrong, and he's standing on his own porch.

Well, the officer would see about that!

Now, look, we weren't there, and all we know is what we read, but usually there's two sides to a story; sorry, officer, that's the best i can do here. As far as the gentleman/landlord/community supporter of the police goes, Buz detects a whiff of "don't you know who I am".

Well, here's my little story--summed up sorta twitter style:

Buz sees a police car with its lights flashing a couple blocks away from his house.

Another police car comes rolling up, lights also flashing, blocks intersection.

Nosey ole Buz goes up to see what going on.

2nd officer has three tough-looking guys sitting on the curb, while 1st officer has 4th tough-looking guy giving some info while he's in his car.

Buz asks elderly black lady in another car if she's ok; she says the other car hit her, but she's ok, just thirsty.

I ask if she wants me to get some water for her; she says no, her friend's on the way.

2nd officer, tough, fit young guy comes over: "do you live around here, sir"?

Yes, says me.

Are you involved with this accident?

No, says me.

Well, says officer, I need you to leave the area. This is an accident investigation!

Oh.

Now, Buz could have left the old lady, stood up way on the sidewalk out of the way, and said: I'm not interfering, I have every right to stand on this public street and watch!

Did we do that?!

No!

There's little doubt in Buz's pea brain that this officer would have ignored all the tough guys, and arrested Buz, who was wearing a nice polo shirt (tucked in his nice khaki pants), sporting no tattoos, and not wearing any baseball caps--sideways or otherwise. He may even have enjoyed using the Tazer and rubbing it in at Central Booking.

Moral of story: ya can't fight city hall in the person of the cop on the beat, whether he's right or not--unless...............well, unless you want to end up like Mr. Taylor of Union Square.

Or, to paraphrase Peter Moskos, the Bmore cop turned Ph.D., you don't have to respect him, or agree with him, but you must obey him.

So, Buz, who spent nearly 30 years in the Baltimore Police Department, gets dispersed. Yeah, his arrest might have been dropped and illegal, but who wants to visit Central Booking, the 7th outer circle of hell?

So, the district commander, and the department was placed in an awkward position by this aggressive officer. They cannot openly criticize him, because the "arrestee" may sue. But betcha (4-1), this officer doesn't get a gravy special unit job anytime soon. And, yeah, we're amazed at how aggressive the Baltimore Police are after having gone to that fancy, schmancy, Adam Walinsky training this year, and we're hoping that same aggressiveness is keeping the crime down this year. But maybe a nuance or two, guys?

Let's lock up! A Christmas season crime alert

2009-11-30T14:45:00.004-05:00

Buz has read in the Messenger, a local paper which covers North Baltimore, that the community of Medfield has been victimized by a "cat burglar" (the type which comes in stealthily in the middle of the night when you're home and asleep). Both occurred on the 17th of November--a Tuesday. One was in the 1400 block of Medfield Avenue, between 1230am and 7am, suspect climbed thru an unlocked rear window on the 2nd floor and took two purses. The other was in the 1400 blk. W. 41st Street; entry was gained, again, thru an unlocked rear window; resident awoke and saw the man at 3:20am; he dropped two watches, but escaped with some jewelry. I guess we can all get a little complacent about our low crime rate in our neighborhood of a high-crime city. However, these two are a wake-up call that we need to be vigilant about how someone can get into the rear of our houses.

A surprising number of burglaries occur through unlocked windows and doors (in some areas/cases as much as a quarter). Criminals thrive on a lack of security consciousness on the part of their potential victims.

I can't tell you how many times that I've traveled (or even in the city), and discovered that people don't lock their doors. Oh, we've never had a problem. Um, so, you're hoping to have one?

Now, people can be forgiven for not locking their upstairs windows, but if you don't, please be cognizant of how easy (or hard) it will be for someone to climb up there: are there good handholds and places to grab for an athletic risk-taking druggie? Don't think about whether you could do it; could a skinny, athletic tree climber/roofer type assistant do it. If yes, lock your window near to where they could get up. No guarantee, but it will go a long way.

Buz had predicted hung jury, but now..............

2009-11-17T17:03:00.003-05:00

Over the last several months Buz has been pondering the upcoming trial of our beautiful, fit mayor, Madam Sheila Dixon.

Buz had a strong hunch: ain't no Baltimore City jury gonna convict her for nuthin'. (Please forgive the street lingo, sometimes a habit is hard to break). The reason: it only takes one juror to hold out and say that they are not going to vote to convict. They can give any reason to why they have reasonable doubt and/or why they don't believe one or more of the state's witnesses. Perhaps in a perfect world, we wish it weren't so, but it is. Thus I predicted a hung jury. And if the state retries her, another hung jury.

So, as part of my research, I pestered 4 judges (one retired) in my travels and asked them whether or not they agreed with me. Three out of 4 agreed that Buz is quite likely correct in his assessment of a likely outcome. One judge took the Warren Brown approach: that juries do not like stealing from the poor. While we agree with that in general, and that is possible, this is not a typical case. This is a mayor who is very popular in the community, and many people think that, other than this ethical taint, she is doing a good job and appoints good department heads (except all those folks on the Internet sites who want her burned alive at the stake or crucified; oops, wait a minute, isn't that Frank Reid's take? Oh, never mind).

One of my interviewees did go a step further though, based on his experience: he said that if one or two strong African American males step up and argue for conviction, they could convince the rest of the jury to go along. He has seen this happen in several cases. We're not sure that would happen in this case.

One high Baltimore executive interviewed in buz's gym said that he might not vote for conviction, and probably a lot of white people wouldn't either. He said that he would weigh the evidence, but, at the end of the day, he might say: yeah, what she did was wrong, but I'm not going to find her guilty of a crime here. She's suffered enough humiliation.

The beautiful woman who cuts Buz's hair in her Hampden shop said, for example, this is bullshit; they've spent 10 times the money chasing after her than what they said she stole.

But now, a new revelation: the state lost all courage and is refusing to call the affable Mr. Lipscomb to the stand. I'm sure I know why: the defense was just licking it's chops ready to cross-examine him and destroy him on the stand. Can you imagine the questions they would ask? And, even more, can you imagine the image he and his answers would represent in the mind of jurors? Um, Mr. Lipscomb, how many LLCs are you involved with? Why so many?, etc.etc.

So, now, the jury is left with what? Your consultant (who doesn't do jury consulting) can just imagine the jury thinking: is that all there was? Some gift cards left at city hall, the our lady mayor might have used one or more of? But she never acknowledged them or ever thanked him for them--even though she was later with him at a small party. And why is a developer, who wears a beard, and a suit coat with no tie, and builds fancy, schmancy condos out of old grain silos (costing zillions of $$) leaving gift cards for the mayor? Like, what sort of favors does he want? Like, why didn't he say: sure, I'll give gift cards to Goodwill, Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, and Beans & Bread. Nah, I'll drop em off at city hall with the mayor's name on em; they'll, you know, get where they belong.

Now, Buz really, really thinks, not only hung jury, but a good chance of outright acquittal.

Drunk drivers and the killing of the Hopkins Student

2009-10-27T12:44:00.004-04:00

Buz has been following the story of the numbnuts who wandered around the city last week, scaring the beejesus out of everybody, both before and after he hit a Hopkins student, left the scene, did not render aid, and she later died.

We shook our head in dismay, but hardly in surprise. More than 30 years ago, I used to go to traffic court a lot, and had arrested a fair number of drunk drivers myself. I was amazed at how many of the offenders in court were repeat offenders. And I began to realize how weak the Maryland law is on boozehounds. It eventually dawned on me that fines, license suspensions/revocations and the threat of jail does not deter and does not punish these folks.

Ya don't need a license to drive, you only need a set of car keys. So, the only real way to stop them is to, for some period of time, take their car away--on the first offense, and longer on subsequent offenses. Of course, I know: it might be someone else's car they are driving, and there may be "hardship" in the family. tough. Gotta do the time if you're gonna do the crime. And it has to be combined with jail, or the threat of jail, along with some kind of treatment for his alcohol problem. Not to mention the lack of responsibility problems these folks have.

Jail and treatment work for some folks, but not for many. Time after time, people who get convicted for drunk driving charges simply continue driving.

Only jail and seizing their car, or the car they were driving would stop them.

In this latest case: more questions arise than are answered:

Why was he out on only $100,000 bail while he was awaiting trial?
Didn't the jurist who set the bail have any concern for public safety (unlike the distinguished her honor Nancy Shugar)?
Who paid the bail?
Did he put up a house he owned?
Did a relative put up a house?
Or did one of our bondsmen offer him a get out of jail 1% bail, financing the other $9K, so poor little drunkard could go home to have another one on us.
Who's car was he driving?
How did he get tags?
Who insured that vehicle?

The sad truth is all of us are complicit in some small way in that Hopkins student's death: our ambivalence toward drinking; our legislature full of wine-drinking defense attorneys; our love of Ravens and tailgating (betcha they're not drinking Pepsi out there); our ignoring people driving away from Ravens games with beers in their hand; our night clubs offering deals to get you drunk as a skunk before you go back to the dorm; judges and MVA officials who fall for sob stories, and the drinkers themselves, who love the taste and their high--but don't want to take any responsibility for what they do drunk (everybody wants to get to heaven, but nobody wants to die). The list could go on for a while.

Crime Tip of the Day: Keep your eyes and ears open when entering convenience stores

2009-10-25T16:03:00.003-04:00

Buz went into the Royal Farms Store in the area of his palatial residence on the border of Hampden and Medfield on 41st Street. They have the nicest staff there of all the Farm Stores!

While waiting for his decidedly unhealthy chicken dinner to be put together, your consultant chatted about possible job openings for his nonprofit clients.

The pretty gal who was waiting on me said "sure, they're hiring, but it's a dangerous job"! Whaddaya mean, we said. She said that she was working there about 5 weeks ago when two guys with guns came in and robbed the place. She said that though they didn't hurt her or take any of her personal belongings, they really scared her. Now, this gal does not look like the type who scares easily. She told me that it was about 7pm. I said, wow, it was still light out back then. She said: "I know, people are just crazy".

And we had also just read about the Dunkin Donuts, just up the block on 41st Street also getting robbed recently--about 2pm on a Sunday afternoon. But I'm not really surprised; police uniformed patrol has been cut to the bone. And betcha (2-1), it even worse on Sunday afternoons during the "season".

I have read the working in a convenience store is one of the leading causes of injuries or death for women: while being killed in robberies (or hurt during them). So, her anecdotal evidence was buttressed by national statistics. {Also read recently where another Royal Farms employee had hot chocolate thrown in her face by a robber.} Unfortunately, we must have compassion for the poor employees in these circumstances who have to take these job, at which, while the pay is competitive, come with certain risks by nasty thugs.

So, your consultant urges dear readers: before going into any convenience type or chain store, take a peek inside before you go in: this is especially important for fast food joints, convenience stores, and places open all night or late. If something doesn't feel right, or you feel uncomfortable for some reason, don't go in. I know, I know, it's probably not gonna be obvious, but, still, look.

As we're getting close to Halloween (a sacred sacrament day in some neighborhoods), the weather, especially in the evening is getting colder and the hoods are coming up and on. And the hoods of the other kind are coming out with their hoods up, making them hard to see and recognize. Alas, holdup season is probably getting ready to gear up.

The highest crime time of the year is generally the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Cold weather, shopping, and hoods and bulky coats work together to make it a challenging time for crime prevention.

Crime Tip of the Day: Keep your bikes inside where there are no windows!

2009-10-06T21:14:00.004-04:00

Buz took his trusty bike to Joe's Bike Shop in Mt. Washington the other day for a tuneup, new tire, and new odometer. While he was there, we chatted with a gal who mentioned that she was shopping for a new bike, since hers had just gotten stolen at her place in Charles Village.

She related how she kept her bike outside on her deck at her palatial CV property, but it was chained and locked to her deck. And lo and behold she came out to look for it, and it was gone!

The chain was still there, but the suspect(s) literally took her deck apart in order to get at the bike, after climbing over a high fence to get to it.

Well, I'm pretty sure the walls in Charles Village are no match for the athletic burglars who live in and near there. And usually, most walls have handholds and grips where miscreants can boost themselves and climb up the wall. Most of these so-called privacy fences and walls only provide a modest measure of security.

The next point is that bikes are, in the city that drives, a very often-stolen commodity for some reason, particularly around the Hopkins campus. If bikes are seen outside visible anywhere, these strange bike criminals will move heaven and earth to get to them. I know of one case in Roland Park, where several bikes were in a shed, but the shed had a glass casement style window, with very secure locking system. Nevertheless, the crooks came and used tools, made a bit of noise, but literally pried the entire window out of its frame (not even trying to defeat the lock), climbed thru the window and passed the 4 bikes out and vanished. (The shed's door remained locked). It really took a lot of work!

Buz always is amazed at the mechanical skill and virtuosity that these burglars possess. You have to wonder why they never put those skills to use in decent jobs, instead of turning into thieves and ne'er-do-wells.

However, for us poor law-abiding folks: if you don't want your bike to fall into the possession of one of Baltimore's bike-stealing rings: you must keep it inside, and inside means in the house. If you can only put it/them in a shed, the shed MUST NOT have windows, where the bike can be seen. The best bet is to put it into the house and away from windows. I give credit for this tip to the owner of the defunct Horizon Cycles on York Road, Marty, from whom I bought his last Bianchi, before he went out of business. (Marty also said that he did not buy any used bikes, because that simply created a stolen bike market). {Oh, you mean like pawnshops and EBay and Craigslist?}

Oh, and be sure to write the serial number down somewhere, in the unfortunate case where your bike might get stolen. The Baltimore police recover hundreds of bikes (mostly abandoned, but some with suspects and some of victims), and most do not have any reports on file of being stolen.

[by the way, the staff at Joe's were nowhere as nasty and look-down-their-noses-if-you're-not-a-world-class-bike-racer as they used to be, but when they install an odometer for ya, and you ask where the booklet is, you shouldn't get the "don't know, whaddaya need it for, we installed, you can find it on the Internet" look. Just a mild beef.]

Hopkins Slasher, Kennedy Krieger hand and bag Shooting, Police crotch shooting: The Crisis of Crime in Baltimore

2009-09-15T21:45:00.003-04:00

There have been a lot of disheartening stories about crime in Baltimore this year, but 3 are linked in Buz's iconoclastic mind: the shooting of 2 Kennedy Krieger Institute employees shot as they left work recently, not even victims or involved, but the errant shots of an angry, violent thuggy-wuggy dad who never grew up, and didn't believe in calling the cops (one of the gals was not actually shot as her handbag and contents deflected the round); the shooting by an off-duty officer of another thuggy-wuggy who, at gunpoint tried to force the officer to the floor in his own home (sources tell us that the bad guy was shot twice in his penis); and the killing of the career criminal burglar by the Hopkins undergrad this morning.

While the stats show that crime is "down" to many year lows, one has to wonder if the system of measurement is faulty. And though we are pleased that the commish and his team are doing a good job keeping murders down, along with nonfatal shootings, we have to wonder if police intervention in a private civil war is actually having the unexpected side effect of causing other criminals in other areas to be bold and not expect to get caught. And of course, with the economy still in shambles, things will probably get worse before they get better.

I wonder about the criminal justice system, not just the police, and how many, many repeat offenders are out there, who may have been stopped much earlier in their careers with proper interventions or prison.

Our police patrol force has been cut to the bone: each district has, at last check, been assigned 160 officers, for around the clock coverage--no matter how large the district or how bad its problems: the thinking is : the Violent Crimes Impact Division will take care of it. We hope

The perils of a small business in Baltimore

2009-08-26T21:37:00.003-04:00

Buz has learned through experience that most small businesses in Baltimore (and probably in most big cities) will eventually be victimized by crime, particularly robbed physically using force or threat of force, or broken into--burglarized.

Recently spoke to an attorney who told me that his office was in a "zero" crime happening very quiet and peaceful area of North Baltimore. In June his office was broken into overnight, the perpetrators wearing gloves. They took several desktop computers and several laptop computers, and various other electronics and various other valuable property. It was not just the theft of the machines which were a modest financial hit, but like many small business owners, sensitive personal information for his clients/customers were on the machines. He also learned that the keys to a storage locker nearby were taken, along with the pass code.

He called the storage place, and had the pass code to get into the yard and building changed. But, lo and behold, here they come up to the gate on camera and pushed and entered and fooled around with the key pad trying to get into the storage unit yard. Were these guys bold or what?

Now, the camera at the storage place got a pretty good picture of the driver's face, his tattoo, and best of all the tag number of the car. Sounds like enough for a search warrant to me. And, the storage firm had an auction that day of stuff from units that had not paid rent. These auctions allow anyone to come into the yard to look at the stuff for sale. These guys were on camera coming back, wandering around, but couldn't get into the building (the padlock on the storage unit had been changed, but......)

Despite the film being held for them, the city burglary unit detectives still (burglary happened in June) have not gotten around to following up. Now, we know their job is mostly pushing paper and "clearing" cases on paper, but here's one which not only might be solved, but these guys, if arrested, might lead to solving other cases in North Baltimore--big commercial burglaries. Wonder what's up? And why no movement here. Lawyer friend is very frustrated.

A cynic's review of recent crime news

2009-08-12T11:41:00.004-04:00

Despite the huge drop in crime, we are experiencing, there seems to be an unending amount of crime news these days. The curmudgeon has some comments:

The story about the police horses seems to have taken just about the entire hour of Peter Hermann's time on WYPR yesterday. Um, it didn't really seem a lot like journalism; more like an ode to the wonder of the pretty, beautiful horsies, brave officers on top of them and the wonder of it all. Only one caller had an objection, bravely averring that officers on horseback are too distant and formidable.
Well, Buz wonders if the Mounted Unit is subjected to the same sorts of scrutiny which other units are at the now famous Compstat. I mean, it's only a handful of officers, a very small unit, but we just wonder: how many arrests have Mounted officers made in, say, the last year? Tickets? Any? Guns seized?
OK: I know, they are a "different" kind of elite unit, sort of like the honor guard, but cost a lot more: food, housing, 24/7 attention, vets, and that's not even counting the special equipment for the riders, and the salary and benefits of the hostlers and riders.
Of course, it's the commissioner's department. I would imagine that he has a great deal of discretion when it comes to budget cutting that's needed. So, perhaps if he really wants to keep the unit, he could by giving up something else. I'm not sure "they" out there somewhere could make him give up the unit, as long as he gave up the same amount of money. It's just that one has to be able to justify it under "public relations", or "crowd control capability" or something. But the idea of the public helping fund it is a nice try.
I think horse units are nice, they're great if deployed in a coherent mission, but I don't see it here. Anti-drug? Crowd Control ? (at night, too?) Traffic? Anti-crime? Public Relations? Not clear. They are probably capable of any of those things, but have significant downsides: they are not an around the clock, all weather deployment; they have to be rested frequently, and fed; the officer cannot sit there and take your report; he/she will have some difficulty in detaining a suspect who doesn't want to be detained; the horse unit runs high risks operating after dark in heavy motor traffic areas (especially with irresponsible and drunken and texting drivers; the unit is not easily and cost-effectively deployed outside of the downtown riding area (figure about an hour to load and another hour to off-load cutting into your deployment time), et al, etc. In any event, there's only a handful left.
The idea of having a nonprofit collect funds for the Mounted Unit is interesting and ironic. It cannot be a one-time thing, as any director of a nonprofit will tell you. If the development director of a nonprofit is unable to raise funds or get grants for ongoing operations, the nonprofit will cease to exist. Few donors want to contribute operating expenses. The irony here is that the former PAL program, when rolled out by Commissioner Frazier, was in fact a 501(c)3 full nonprofit. It was unable to raise enough money by fundraising or grants, and it essentially went out of business, even before it got euthanized this year--even though it initially had grant funding and several business supporters. But if you can't keep the money rolling, you're out of business. It has to be an ongoing thing.
Saw the police surveillance video of the SWD shooting of little Raven. The film is so bad, one could argue either way: at times it looks like he's got a monitor on, and other times he doesn't. In any event, the camera is so poor that one cannot recognize the face of the shooter. And this whole business with Juvenile Services and their monitoring is nonsensical.
Of course, from a security perspective, it just shows, once again, that cameras do not PREVENT crime in many cases: everyone knew there were cameras up there on that pole, but after a while, miscreants sorta know: they are not working, or monitored, or have such poor quality they won't show, or just aren't looking at me. And, once again, they are often of little value in CAPTURE, if the quality is so bad--unless they are actually being monitored, and have a force available to immediately respond. (like downtown, or institutions with a security force).
Loved (?) not right word, but was fascinated by the story of the latest breakdown of police discipline wherein a police sergeant handcuffed a homicide detective during a "dispute". One wonders, with all these bad PR things happening to the city department, if maybe they all should be assigned to the Mounted unit or something. Seriously, what is wrong with these people? Apparently, they have been infected with Aggravated John Wayne Syndrome. This syndrome is giving real, dedicated, decent officers a bad name. Seriously, there's something wrong with this picture. I mean I know policing the city is tough, but............One thing the commissioner needs to do though (perhaps the FOP might agree, but probably not): when an officer is involved in a "strange incident", e.g. silly testimony, silly video watching, crazy accidents, handcuffing people (or each other), taking people for "rides" and dropping them off, visiting a project and getting shot "on your lunch break", being accused of rape, shooting at cars off duty, pointing guns at people off duty, the list goes on, the officer(s) involved need to be taken down to Mercy for a drug test. I know it sounds weird, but the fire department is much more rigorous about this stuff.
On the sad death of a woman just driving down the street by the worthless, "erratic" clown fleeing the Regional Auto Theft Task Force: oops, he wasn't fleeing, he was driving because he got scared and saw police. There's almost certainly gonna be a lawsuit here; and if a supervisor ordered the chase to cease, as they say, and it continued (with ANY evidence to that), there's going to be heavy liability for the city or county or whoever.
In all the hullabaloo over the umpteen people shot on Ashland, the two young man murdered the same night on Conkling street have received almost no notice--like it didn't even happen. Whassap with that?

Crime news is rampant !

2009-07-19T16:47:00.000-04:00

Wow! There has been so much news about crime lately, the Buz cannot seem to keep up. Been away working hard consulting recently, so posting has been not recent.

I was however, intrigued about how the department former Internal Affairs attorney (not sure about her exact title), is threatening to pull away the curtain on the cesspool which is Internal Affairs, according to her attorney, the famous Warren Brown.

Some thoughts on this:

When Buz first heard "cesspool", his silly mind actually thought that maybe Mr. Brown (a fine member of the bar, by the way), was referring to his own swimming pool in Ashburton, when a gentleman was shot in his car in the back of Mr. Brown's house. The injured driver accelerated, and the car smashed thru the wall into Warren's swimming pool. Now, that's a cesspool! {Buz respects Warren Brown, and was glad that nobody was injured in his family; I believe the victim died, though.}
During her little news conference, she did not really cite any specifics except some generalities about her supervisor "tampering" with her cases. She did cite the strange case of the KKK websites, and the prosecution of Terry Love, and the alleged Southwestern District rape case--which have been widely written about in InvestigativeVoice.com.
She mentions people who have had charges modified and plead guilty to lesser charges, etc. Buz wonders if she ever engaged in plea bargaining when she was a prosecutor for all those years.
She also mentioned that the Commissioner did not follow trial board recommendations at times. Well, that's his prerogative as commissioner; he can't change the verdict, but he can do anything he wants with the punishment, as long as he justifies it.
And yeah, there seems to be a lot of problems with discipline and disciplinary processes in the police department here (and probably elsewhere), but you know, you are not going to eliminate discretion completely: you can only structure it and make it be justified--which this department has tried to do. To believe and argue that all discipline should be somehow standardized strikes me as naive. A lot depends on the exact nature of the offense, the offender's record, and the degree of culpability and intent. There are few exact matches. Now, if you have mean and nasty and bad people, no discipline system will be fair. At least the commissioner is saying:ok, we're gonna settle these cases and move on.
The real cesspool is what's inside the minds of most of Mr. Brown's clients. He makes his living defending people accused of murder and other heinous crimes in Baltimore.

On the shooting of the Western District officers yesterday: why was only one officer present on a domestic violence call? And when he called the suspect on the cellphone, why did he ask him to come back to meet him? To chat about it? To "get this all straightened out"? To arrest him? Now, clearly, the suspect thought that it was going to be the latter, probably because he'd been arrested in other domestic violence cases before. Perhaps the officer should have called for another unit to meet him, with the suspect on the way. Not criticizing, just would like to have some more details. In any event, two officers should have been dispatched on a domestic violence or disorderly call; it may not have made a difference, but it may have caused Mr. Tough Guy to not try to be so tough. Or was he really looking for suicide by police?

Sometimes, I think that the website Investigative Voice is determined to convince its readers that the Baltimore Police Department is an unusual hotbed of racism, sexism, KKK members, and what...............? We just don't think it's like that. Was the Baltimore Police Department a racist organization in the past? Absolutely. Are there racists still working there? Probably. Is it a place full of vicious racists? I don't think so. (in fact, the last stat I saw was that 44% of the officers are other than Caucasian). And we have had several black commissioners: Bishop Robinson, Tilghman, Eddie Woods, and other high-ranking command staff. Your consultant thinks that over time, the people actually working out on the street pretty much get along and work together, no matter who they are: and it's us against the criminals. The hard part is dealing with the petty internal politics and backbiting, and touting of your buddies, and sucking up, and badmouthing others who are not part of your clique.

Of course, like most citizens, we are distressed to see all the bad press the cops get for doing stupid stuff. And we wish they were more disciplined. But we also hope that when we read stories, that there is a measure of balance and judgment, and considering of sources, and context. The average officer out there, patrolling right now, deserves a fair shake and nothing less. Let's not make their job out there harder.

Buz gets jury duty

2009-07-16T12:51:00.006-04:00

Well, Buz, like all good citizens in Baltimore got his jury duty summons a while back, and kinda felt relieved: his number was 900. Wow! I thought: very unlikely to be called, since it used to be that if your number was higher than 600, you were saved by the night-before phone call which told you not to come.

Well, were we wrong! Saw a judge at the gym over the weekend, and he said that they often go well into the 900s, but he thought that many judges were not around in this Baltimore July. (Of course, he didn't bother to add that not many jurors were likely to be around in this Baltimore July.)

Alas, our luck ran out. The recording said that jurors with the numbers up to and including 900 must report. Dang! (Why do we all hate jury duty?) But like a good soldier, Buz had made up his mind to go ahead and make the best of it. So, he took some real paper newspapers, the book about the Columbine massacre, and an Alan Furst novel (if you haven't read Alan Furst, you're missing great reading).

So, the next thing to do was to figure out how to best get there. And guess what: the MTA Maryland has a great web site, where you can plug in your starting location, ending location, time you want to arrive, and it uses all-powerful google to tell you what bus, where and when.

So, I plugged in 4300 Roland Avenue, near the water tower, and 100 St. Paul Street; it told me the bus would be at University and Somerset at 737am, arriving across from the courthouse at 8am or so. The bus arrived at 7:38 am. Is this a great transit system, or what!

My adventure:

The bus ride was a piece of cake (of course, it was the #61, coming down Roland Avenue from Lake). I didn't have the hassle of driving and looking for a place to park, or walking from the parking place to the courthouse (and paying for the parking,either).
It was a new bus and had like 7 or 8 security cameras in the ceiling. No rioting kids, no problem, but the bus got very crowded as it wound its way down St. Paul to the downtown area. $3.50 got me an all day pass, and I got off right across the street from the Clarence Mitchell courthouse. Did not wear my tie this time: too hot, and I got selected for a civil case despite it. (No criminal cases for Buz).
Very long line of jurors waiting to get thru security; it looked as though all 900 decided to show up to see the movie. So we went across from the courthuse to a little snack shop to get some unhealthy snacks (and brew!) to hold us over as we waited in the line. Saw a high-ranking sheriff in there that I knew from back in the day in the pd. Asked him how it was going, and was he keeping up on all the discipline problems in BPD. He said, interestingly, it's the same in his organization: guys going around doing stupid stuff, getting into trouble. He also said a lot of sheriff deputies left for greener pastures, found out they're not greener, want to come back, but couldn't because of the hiring freeze.
As we were waiting to go thru the scanner into the courthouse, a huge deputy said: "Ladies and Gentlemen: be mindful of what's in your pockets! Be mindful of what's in your pockets!" Huh? Wha...? Is he into some kind of yoga meditation or something? A new kind of court & pocket mindfulness? I know being mindful and in the present moment is healthy, but in my pocket? Does he think I might have a gun or knife in my pocket? The lady behind me said it: somebody emptied their pocket, and there was weed. Buz didn't notice that, but wondered: what do they do if someone has weed? : lock him/her up (do they credit them with jury duty?); confiscate the weed, continue on for your jury duty (we'll give it back to you when you're done--then lock you up); keep the weed, and pretend it didn't happen; throw it down the court house toilet, or what? Just wonderin'.
Buz was impressed by the cross section of Baltimoreans who came to jury duty: these are the taxpaying (for the most part), law abiding (for the most part), good citizens here to do their civic duty. It's actually, in its own way, impressive to watch. I know, I know: the OJ case and all. But I subscribe to what the attorney Bob Verderaime told me long ago: most jurors try to do the right thing most of the time.
The quiet room was very quiet; it was amazing how the people there actually abide by the rules and don't talk much, and whisper when they do. The main sound heard all day was the "bing" when emails came into people's laptops.
Buz was coming back from the water cooler when he noticed Baltimore Brew on this woman's laptop, on which she had been furiously typing all morning. www.baltimorebrew.com is her website, and she is Fern Shen, a former Evening Sun and Washington Post reporter who writes in a positive vein about Baltimore stuff. (I guess my reader who things the city should be burned to the ground won't like that site.) So, we whispered a bit, and I introduced myself; she had read my humble blog from time to time, and it's always good to put a face to the writing.
Anyway, groups were called, went, came back, and I learned a big murder trial was going to start somewhere in the building; that's why they summoned so many. Since I was 900, i didn't even go to a court room by lunch time.
For lunch, I went to Au Bon Pain in the old Alex Brown building, er, old Deutsche Bank building, and now it's named something else. But they still had all the traders coming down from upstairs, to get sustenance while they were hard at work practicing banker gangsterism, ruining the economy, and trading worthless pieces of paper with each other. Oh, and making a lot of money, too. However, all the traders were nice and well-dressed, and it's a nice place to eat.
Back to court and called for a case. A civil case: two white guys, maybe around 60, in suits, get into a road rage fight in Cockeysville(?), and one severely injures the other. HUH? Cockeysville?! Your consultant couldn't help but wonder why the case was moved to Baltimore City: certainly not to get a jury of their peers. Perhaps they knew all the judges in the county, know what I'm sayin? Perhaps one of them felt he couldn't get a fair trial because he was a well-known big-shot. Who knows!?
Of course, Buz did not get selected for this jury. He had been in a couple civil cases in the line of duty as a police officer. No lawyer is gonna take the risk of having him on the jury. However, Fern did get selected! We're hoping to hear a full report of the vicious beating one of these county residents sustained, and the jury's verdict.
Upon rejection, back to the quiet room for a little quiet. We were dismissed at 4; it was over for another year.
Buz made his way up to Charles Street to wait for the northbound #61 to take him back to the water tower on Roland. What an interesting, fascinating vibrant thing it was to sit in the shade and watch the city evening rush hour evolve. Even saw a woman bicyclist in heels with helmet and dress riding up Charles; nobody was getting banked (except down at the old Alex Brown building). And it was really interesting taking the bus, and being able to look out the window, noticing things one rarely did when one has to watch the traffic and lights and other cars. This bus was an older clunker and every bump banged and clanged; only 4 security cameras in the ceiling, none in the way back where all the good guys hang out. Was glad the woman who was talking out loud to herself and everybody else got off. Was glad that the people who were boorishly talking on their cellphones got off eventually.
Noticed a lot of security in this late afternoon around the JHU Homewood campus, guards on bikes posted up and a HopCop or two in their Honda CRVs.
Up to Somerset and University, exited the rear door as directed by the lovely computer voice, one of my neighbors holding the door for me. And on to the Wine Underground to get a cool, refreshing beverage in order to recover from this onerous task.

Weekend incident in Hampden, little reporting, and a negative to our democracy

2009-07-05T16:45:00.004-04:00

Buz was struck how the recent incident in Hampden received next to no news scrutiny. Last Sunday night: several dozen police, many streets blocked off, not only to cars, but also to pedestrians, hundreds of residents watching, bunches of them "trapped" in their houses, armed dangerous man in his house with or without hostages, tear gas, police shooting the street lights out, helicopter circling overhead---all for hours.

And nary a peep in the Sun, except a 13-second blurb from its media "partner" WJZ. Oh, and a small piece in the Messenger by Adam Bednar.

Why? Not because people weren't interested: Buz's little blog posting about the incident got more comments than he has ever had before. And it drew a wide range of comments about the incident. I suppose this is the advantage of "web 2.0", but we'd really like to hear more details about the incident: the basics of what really happened, unearthed by a professional reporter, an official statement from the police, what happened during the standoff, what were the charges against what suspect, etc., etc., etc.: did he make bail, what is the bail, what is the trial date,and so forth.

But, nada: all the reporters were off, because the Sun doesn't have enough money to pay them to work on Saturdays, Sunday, holidays, etc. So, just using this as an example, whatever happens on weekends, stays on weekends, just between the police and the thugs and what little the neighbors learn among each other and the few neighborhood bloggers out there.

It's the coming wave. Wal-Mart first featured the race to the bottom, now we're feeling the results of Wall Street's race to the bottom; the democracy suffers from lack of information for its citizens to know about what's going on, and perhaps maybe we would've got a Tweet if we were on Twitter..............but only if the police felt we should. (The Sun had always been a profitable paper, but Craigslist and Wall Street combined to make that not matter). So, of course, we don't need the Sun: we can find out all we need to know on line. Maybe.

Barricade Situation in Hampden!

2009-06-28T21:26:00.003-04:00

Buz has just returned from visiting an ongoing barricade situation in the 3600 blk. of Paine Street in Hampden. Details are sketchy, but police have all of 36th Street closed from Chestnut Avenue to Roland Avenue--almost all of that closed to pedestrians, as well as cars. Elm Avenue and 36th Street has been established as the command post. Several command vehicles are there, plus 2 emergency services trucks, and a big black van serving as the headquarters of the negotiators. EMS personnel and a fire truck from the Hampden station were standing by just in case.

Major Ross Buzzoro, the district commander was there in his civvies (he gets no extra money for coming in on Sunday night to oversee the festivities).

It appears that one old Hampden man, who has an affection for cool, refreshing beverages, and in his spare time maintains Redman's Hall on Hickory, was being picked on by some neighborhood punks. He skirmished with several of them. We heard several people say that the kids in the area are nasty and out of control. Anyway, one of the fathers of the punks apparently intervened ready to beat the old man up. The old guy supposedly went into the house, got a gun and a machete to even things up a bit.

Depending on who you spoke to, the inebriated gent waved the gun around and barricaded himself in the house, or grabbed one of the kids and made him come into the house with him--creating a hostage situation. I was unable to determine which it was, but police were in no hurry to force the issue, apparently.

A full squad of SWAT/QRT members was present and were surrounding the house. As three new SWAT officers arrived in an unmarked car and suited up in full regalia and went toward the scene, a few loud pops were heard! Shots? Tear gas? Nope. At an inopportune moment, some dumb-dumb not too far away, in an area filled with cops and tension decided to shoot off his illegal fireworks. {I say his, because the overwhelming majority of women are too smart to do this kind of stupid stuff.}

The event provoked a kind of Hampden street scene, with The Avenue closed to traffic. People were sitting on the middle of the street, walking dogs and kids, talking and gawking. Frazier's on the Avenue had a band, and though they were inside and the doors were closed, they were so loud it created a strange atmosphere out on the street. Buz couldn't help but notice, though how some of the "original" Hampden young adults/teenagers could barely talk intelligible English, as they talked to each other or on their cell phones. It was sort of a guttural street mumbling, more of a series of animated grunts, with "yeah", and "you know" sprinkled heavily. Buz thought he heard one ordering some drugs on the phone, and another smoking a joint. Oh, well, I guess they're not really worried about their SAT scores anyway. It's the street that's where it's at, you know? Jobs? Whassat? We can always go work in a warehouse somewhere, ya' know? But, Baltimore is a great city, with lots of different people, and Buz hopes the situation is resolved peacefully with the old guy getting a month's vacation on Fallsway.

Maurading, Disorderly Crowds and the Disconnect with Compstat

2009-06-16T20:03:00.004-04:00

Buz watched and read with interest how the many reports of ordinary common folks getting smacked upside the head seemed to conflict with the stats showing crime in the city is down dramatically (except murders and larcenies, the latter up a lot).

Trouble is, the commissioner talked about the drop in crime and got pre-emptily defensive, apparently because he had previously heard criticism of "fuzzy math". And, in fact, he and the stats are widely disbelieved by many people in the city who don't feel safe.

There are lots of reasons for this, not to mention the fact that the Baltimore Police have a real PR problem, which Mr. Guglielmi cannot solve. Police are seen by many citizens as aggressive (unnecessarily), profane, arbitrary, and insensitive, not to mention bureaucratic. Also, Buz has heard from many citizens the downside of the Compstat process: police don't wanna take the report, and citizens don't bother reporting.

But the overriding factor I think, is this: there are two things that police do (sometimes forgotten by the police Compstat hysteria and the mania for numbers, by the press, often by th citizens themselves): they fight crime, and they maintain order. Crime fighting is measured by the reported crimes sent to the FBI under Uniform Crime Reporting guidelines, specifically so-called "Part I" crimes of murder, rape, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, arson, and larceny. They represent a measurable crime rate, and are most discussed at Compstat. [Apparently, our top leaders are also entranced with drug calls, deploying officers where the most 911 calls for druggies-in-progress come in.]

However, order maintenance is not able to be clearly measured. Disorderly gangs of kids going around banking people for fun are hardly measured at all, in fact, are probably not even really reported unless someone is seriously injured. These incidents are probably rarely even worthy of police attention, and even if an arrest is made, it is for disorderly conduct or common assault, worthy of only disdain by the command staff, not a mention at Compstat, I'll betcha (23-1). Uniformed officers were once the backbone of the department, and many saw their jobs as nipping this kind of stuff in the bud. Baltimore once prided itself with a significant, compared to other cities, police presence on the street, and a quick and significant response to calls for service regarding maintaining order. But the uniformed patrol force (except in the last couple of weeks) has been regarded over the last few years, as Sam Zell might have put it, mere "overhead". Something you gotta do for appearances, you know: the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment "proved" patrol is "worthless". So, over the years, Baltimore consistently reduced its patrol posts, first on midnight shift, then on all shifts, because, well they were considered, um, BS. The real work was done by drug cops, ripping and running, taking down street dealers, and building cases against big offenders with guns and stuff. Calls for service in most districts were back up at the start of the shift, and nobody cared. The cops were burned out, late, and preferred not to write reports (boring stuff), when they could roll to the next gun call. Everyone was the enemy, if they got in the way of the stat. If you got enough stats, as a young "go-getter", you could get to go to the Violent Crime Impact Division and not have to wear that silly uniform again for a while, but you'd go to court when you could, and if lucky, you might get on a federal task force, and get a take-home car.

The citizens know some of this: when they call the police to report a crime, sometimes there is no followup, calls for service take forever, and there does not seem to be a significant police presence. Sometimes the police are borderline rude, and try to talk you out of making a report. Everyone you know has been victimized, and now people are worried about getting "jumped" in certain areas they thought were ok.

So, crime is down, but disorder is up and Compstat is askew with the public perception. Quality policing is not measured by Management by Objectives criteria. So, I feel for the commish: he's doing a good job in many ways, especially in keeping some crimes down or steady, but nobody seems to believe him.

The bankings will continue until morale improves!

2009-06-02T12:50:00.010-04:00

Buz has been following the various posts on Peter Hermann's blog about the "random attacks" (also known as "banking" here in Baltimore, as in we just banked that no-good "mf", got him good, too. Ha ha.)

And there was huge front page coverage in the Sunday edition of the Sun, with the headline City on Guard, or something like that.

An earlier post I made on Baltimore Crime blog under Random Attacks, elicited a response from Matthew who got banked while walking home on Lombard Street, just a couple blocks east of the Harbor, and not far from his home. And a number of comments on other blogs have posted about attacks on them or that they have witnessed, including Tom who wrote about the banking of a dude on the light rail.

Is this the end of the Baltimore we knew, or is it the same old thing, but now it is widely reported because of the Internet?

In the short term, there will be a huge police presence downtown around the harbor, and in the Market Place area, but what will happen in the long term? Will banking just go away, as it gets into summer and the youngsters get tired of it? Or will there be an "Incident" of some kind, like Berhard Goetz a number of years ago, or will someone be killed? Or will it, hopefully drift out of fashion.

The first couple of Sundays will be the true test: will the kids challenge the cops with their new show of force? We'll see what happens. Usually a heavy manpower show-of-force before something happens does deter rowdy behavior to some extent. But the uniformed force is understaffed and cannot be everywhere.

Buz thought Peter Hermann's piece on Sunday, the 31st was superb. However, I don't think the caption under the picture is correct. Tourists and diners will not be, as Councilman Cole hopes, "coexisting" or sharing the sidewalks with roaming gangs of teenagers. Eventually, there won't be any tourists or diners, if it becomes too scary. Of course, the city and the mayor and the commish all recognize that and will do their best by having a heavy police presence-at least in the Inner Harbor area.

Now, it may be possible to create an "everyday Preakness infield" atmosphere (I hear that really draws tourists!), or a version of Marid Gras (but I thought we had that on the Block every night!), but I am not sure a majority of our citizens want to live with those either.

Some more random eclectic thoughts about this crisis:

My dear wife thought the Sun was sensationalizing this whole thing with how they layed-the front page out and the headline: all to sell more papers. But I think the story is an important one.
One lady wrote to the Sun's editors that she has talked to several officers who said the morale on the police force was very low because of little backing and little prosecution, and little punishment. Hmmmmmm. Perhaps if morale improves, the banking will stop?
Ah, the Suite Ultralounge, hopefully ready to be put out of its moneymaking business. Those in the security consulting field know all to well that clubs like this typically do not ask for any guidance or advice from professionals, if at all, until it is too late, and they end up shooting themselves in their wallets. Of course, many of them don't care, they're in it to make as much money as they can, as quickly as they can, by pouring as much alcohol into folks as they can sell, until too much trouble happens. If they get shut down, so be it, they can always look for another place.
OOOOOh. Somebody is going to get an ass-chewing! A kid got banked yesterday outside the Maryland Science Center at the Inner Harbor. Probably someone did not get the word from the Commish that none of this stuff is supposed to go on at the Inner Harbor; certainly the kids from Digital Harbor didn't read it or watch TV. Oh, I know, those kids didn't do it! I remember last year or the year before when there was a banking of numerous pedestrians along the promenade and Donny Moses, the police spokesman said that their uniforms showed that they were from Digital Harbor. Oh, the principal said: you have no proof; our kids are good kids, they don't do stuff like that! Moses, when questioned on TV, stood by his statement: the uniforms matched those of the only high school nearby.
We wish the mayor or some popular elected or selected public figure would show some outrage publicly. Ray Lewis, I know you wanted to help and I know it's off season, so you're relaxing your sore muscles and counting your money, but like, maybe you can say something, or maybe go out on patrol or something with some of the other Ravens. Don't worry: I don't think the kids will attack you.
We wish Peter Hermann will tell us about the 4 Canadian naval officers who were attacked. Now, Buz remembers that a Canadian destroyer docked at Fells Point 2 or 3 weeks ago, and he is sure that sailors will sometimes by sailors, know what I'm saying? But officers? I dunno (a technical term). Like, were they drunk, causing trouble, or did they just get banked? We'd like to know!
Have you all noticed how many guys now carry a semi-concealed folded knife on a clasp in their pocket or belt? I guess that's sort of a way of proving that it is not concealed, so an arrest would be questionable? Even good guys like my neighbor do it; of course, he's in construction, but....... So, my worry is that eventually one of these guys is going to pull out this knife or box cutter, slash or stab, even kill one of these kids, and there will be all sorts of conniptions to pay.
We noticed a lot of these attacked persons had the temerity to venture out and about when packs of hooky-playing school kids were looking for something to do. Not to mention right after school when the crowd mentality takes over. Bad move; these kids own the streets then.

It looks like this will be a continuing story, now that crime is down, but we're number one (will there by a parade, escorted by hundreds of dirt-bikes, with traffickers throwing out red-tops from floats?) Now, could it be that the stat-driven Comp Stat has outlived its usefulness? Or should we just begin a Bank Stat?

It's gonna be a busy weekend!

2009-05-15T14:49:00.002-04:00

It's Friday again in Baltimore (happens every week!). Hopefully we'll survive, but there are gonna be a lot of issues for our harried police force to deal with, in addition to Preakness Day itself.

Buz noticed that 2 of Peter Hermann's blogs recently got a huge number of comments, compared to other postings he has made. Both concerned attacks on people which were basically unprovoked in highly heretofore nice areas of downtown. First the Inner Harbor, then Mount Vernon, around that fancy bottle club which rents space in the first floor area of the Belvedere Hotel. So, apparently, when the gendarmes beefed up their presence around the harbor (and earlier than that the 'entertainment' district), our young people outflanked them at the Belvedere area.

So, tonite the Preakness parade will kick off and go along Pratt Street and end at Market Place--just where Iguana Cantina will be having its weekend party for the college folks going back home soon.
And, since the Ultra Lounge at the Belvedere had its Circuit Court appeal over the revocation of its liquor license, and the judge hasn't ruled yet on whether their due process "rights" were violated (who cares about responsibilities?), my guess is the club will be going as strong as ever to make as much moolah (a technical term) as they can before the hammer comes down. So, kids of all ages: come on down and get hammered! This offer is good both on Saturday and Sunday. Of course, if the judge rules against them, they could probably stay open while it goes to the court of Special Appeals [wouldn't want their rights to be violated, would we?]. Depends on how much money they are willing to pay their fancy, schmancy lawyer--of course paying the attorney is sort of a fine in itself.
And, of course, there is the Preakness itself: a chance of a lifetime, for one to practice open drunkenness, misogynist behavior to the max, risk behavior, and throwing beer cans (oh, they hurt!) at people you may or may not know. Oops, no beer cans this year, guys, unless ya can somehow smuggle them in. Oh, and you can get hammered for only $1 a beer between 8 and 11 am. Betcha, 28-1, that still makes it easy to get drunk by noon. Heh heh. (Not this boy, though).
Oh, and back to Market Place, where Power Plant Live is having a Preakness substitution event, where the booze will be cheap on Saturday all day (huh; nobody complains when they don't let you bring your coolers in here; like, why not?)
And the good citizens of Mount Washington are kinda worried that some young drinkers won't get the word, come up to the gate, get refused entrance because of their coolers full of beer, and will decide to tailgate somewhere in the neighborhood.

Anyway, we hope the police department will have the elite corps of Violent Crime Impact Division put on uniforms, cut their hair, and be out there maintaining order instead of doing street rips and jump-outs; maybe we'll have a bit more peaceful weekend. Here's hoping Laura Vozella will wear her edgiest outfit and go out on the infield and see what's going on and report from the eye of the storm--which is supposed to be much more peaceful this year. We'll see.

Stalking and college and the crisis at Wesleyan

2009-05-11T12:48:00.005-04:00

Buz read with interest the article in the New York Times about the Wesleyan student who was stalked, after first meeting her attacker almost two years ago, and killed when he found her working in a cafe near the Wesleyan campus.

Though many of the folks in higher education security really worry about what to do about an "active shooter" on campus (most shooters shoot their one victim and run), it is often overlooked that a much more frequent occurrence on or near college campuses are the lesser-known crimes against women: stalking, harassment, date rape, forcible rape, and various other assaults against women.

Of course, in this case, there was a potential that this killer could have turned into becoming an active shooter since the police found his journal in his car where he threatened to go onto a shooting spree at Wesleyan. (buz wonders if they got a search warrant for the car, since Baltimore's prosecutors may well have tossed the charges if they did not--though it was on private property and "exigent circumstances" existed.)

This discovery, as one can imagine, caused a virtual panic on the campus.

The story begins a couple of years ago when both the victim and the goof were taking a summer course at NYU. Apparently, they became friendly, if not friends, but the extent of the friendship is not known at this time. But then came a big turning point; the gal went away for a long weekend. When she came back, he was angry, demanding to know where she had been and who she had been with, what she was doing, etc. The situation deteriorated quickly into nasty email, and possibly phone calls, voicmails, etc. At one point she notified staff at NYU and the New York City Police interviewed her at least once. But a big deal is made in the articles that she declined to prosecute. But what was the point? From my reading, it appeared that he had already dropped out of the course (merely a summer course, anyhow), she was on her way back to Wesleyan, and he was on his way off to who knows where. So, even if she "pressed charges", and procured a warrant for his arrest, he and she were already gone or soon leaving the New York City area. And I don't think New York is going to extradite for stalking.

Immediately, I wondered: how did he find her after a couple of years?

Ah, my lovely wife said: "Betcha she is on Facebook". And sure enough: she was. And on something called livejournal.com, too. So, our best guess is that she was tracked down thru postings on one of these or other websites, and she probably mentioned that she works at the Red and Black Bookstore also.

So, what's to be done to protect women from these nut-jobs?

Thoughts and observations about crime and security around Town

2009-04-27T13:47:00.005-04:00

Just a few thoughts related to recent meanderings around Baltimore and notions of crime, security, and safety:

Buz likes to eat at the Subway sandwich shop on Falls Road, near 37th Street, sitting by one of the windows looking out onto the street in beautiful downtown Hampden, hon. And we saw Hampden's version of Citizens On Patrol. Only it was JOP: Junkies on Patrol! Up and down, back and forth; wandering aimlessly all day long, some of the gals looking longingly at guys in passing cars.
Before I went into the shop a guy stopped before entering, and went "putoooo", as he spit on the sidewalk in front of and before he went into a food store. Nice. But as I was sitting in there eating, watching the JOPs, a guy in a big pickup swung his head out his window, and went "plottch", as a big gob of spit went flying out into the street. Um, public health, anyone? As the swine flu starts to hit bigger, many people will whine and complain, but simple measures like not spitting on a public street will go a long way toward slowing the spread. Baltimore was once one of the hardest hit cities by the spread of tuberculosis, and outlawed spitting on the sidewalks with a city ordinance because of this. Needless to say, ignorance is bliss, and one can see a lot of spitting almost everywhere you look. Like, why? Kinda holding onto that tough guy image, I guess. And since a large number of folks in Bmore never finished high school, they didn't learn much about health and stuff like that.
Your consultant ran into an officer who used to work for him in Northwest a few years back. He said that the Inner Harbor areas are, as John reported to us, staffed with lots of recent academy graduates, as well as cops detailed from the Tactical Section and other places. He and I also expressed amusement that the Pimlico race course in trying to market the infield as a "family event" this year. You gotta be kidding!
At this writing, haven't heard much about the reported stabbing and kid/gang fights going on around the Inner Harbor over the weekend; it really hurts when the Sun has no staff working over the weekends because of Wall Street.
Buz noticed that Pimlico's infield security staff last year didn't seem to really have control of some situations, and didn't really want to get into it with some of these muscular drunks out there fighting, "playing", wrestling, etc. He was told that they had gotten a black eye for some of the action nationally posted on YouTube. It's really hard to believe that Pimlico's insurance company didn't have something to do with the new rule: no outside liquor allowed to be brought in. And in a city with such huge substance abuse issues, it's hard to believe the amount of publicity given to guzzling booze, drunkenness, and general irresponsibility which goes on and has gone on for years in the Infield. At least the city police aren't providing hundreds of officers (some of whom get hurt) to enable this "party".
We noticed that Holly G in Mount Washington had a security "riot screen" barrier in addition to wire mesh installed in one of their doors. Guess the window smashers were out that way too.
Recently Grind-On Cafe had its window smashed and lost substantial stuff of value, also.

But, of course, since crime is "down", we don't have to worry about any of that.

Peter Hermann's article on police pat-downs, etc.

2009-04-20T14:08:00.000-04:00

President Rosslyn to Commander of Battlestar Gallactica: "The war is over: we lost."

Buz read with interest Peter Hermann's article a while back on how police came into a hardware store in Southwest Baltimore, made a guy go outside, "pat him down", find nothing, and just let him go back inside and go about his business. It was treated and accepted as just the "code of the streets" and how it supposedly applies to police stops in high-crime areas. I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I'll betcha plenty of defense attorneys out there had nice smiles on their faces, just thinking about the stat-driven police force which has them wandering around (in Southwestern District-home of the famous Flex Squad, no less), jacking people up because they think they might be dirty.

Dragging a guy out of the store and patting him down?

Patting down (searching?) the store owner who was taking out trash?

Um, okay, stop and frisk. Terry vs. Ohio? Wonder if that is still taught in the police academy.

We now get a little more insight into why the State's Attorney's Office drops so many cases without charges, in Baltimore City. And how, though this guy didn't seem to mind much (after all, what could he do?), many males in Bmore object to being summarily stopped, frisked, having their pockets gone into, and pants pulled down in public {though they may be wearing 3 pairs of pants in the winter}. Does anyone think about: "The fire next time?"

And I'm pretty certain the store owner minded being stopped and patted down while taking trash out behind his own place.

While all of us are glad crime is "down", except for murders, of course, Buz wonders if police would be better served that instead of stats, they were patrolling, looking for guys where the evidence was already there; preventing and looking for burglaries; preventing, responding to and looking for robbery and theft suspects. I know, I'm starting to sound like Peter Moskos, but you just gotta wonder: is jacking up people for little or no reason because you think they might be dirty, really a good use of your community relations if you don't find anything, or good use of your time if you do?

April is the cruelest month

2009-04-19T15:11:00.005-04:00

Buz had an occasion earlier this week to journey to Emmitsburg, Maryland, home of the campus of Mt. St. Mary's University, a small Catholic liberal arts school in the Catoctin mountains close to Pennsylvania.

Buz thought he had been picked up and dropped in heaven! And the presence of Catholic priests walking around in their black outfits with white collars added to this thought.

He was struck about how idyllic and peaceful and serene the campus looked, and he remembered that not too long ago someone had fired a shot thru the window of a dorm room there on the campus. (Frederick County, where MSM is located, is a mostly rural/suburban area with lots of woods). And, a few weeks later, gunshots were heard in the vicinity of the school, and were heard again as the unarmed campus safety staff responded to check it out. In both cases the school activated its version of an emergency notification system, keeping students informed about what was going on. (they were grateful!). Of course, there has not been a public determination by anyone who fired the shot(s), and whether they were the same person(s), or whether the school was targeted in any way. MSMary's, like most colleges in the U.S., has a small, generally unarmed, campus safety force, and relies on the local police force or state police to respond to dangerous, serious incidents.

Your consultant's thoughts turned to April. Today, April 20th, will be the tenth anniversary of the attack on that high school community by two of its own students. And just last week passed the second anniversary of the Virginia Tech "massacre"--32 killed by one of its own, who never felt part of the VT scene. Buz is pretty sure that the availability of an emergency notification system, such as used at Mt. St. Mary's, would probably have not made much, if any, difference at either Columbine or the home of the Hokies. Though updates to students might have helped a little. Other than that electronic innovation, and school "Thereat Assessment Teams", not much has changed in the American landscape of security against mass killings. It's still pretty easy for any crazy or semi-crazy or just plain upset person to get a gun around about anywhere.

Just this month:

Three police officers were killed at one time in Pittsburgh by a nut-job with a rifle.
Thirteen people were killed in an immigrant center in upstate New York by another nut-job, who blocked a rear door with his car to maximize death from his "going postal".
A family in Washington State was killed when dad thought mom was fooling around; if he couldn't have her exclusively, nobody else would. Oh, might as well kill the kids, too.
And a guy in Frederick County, ironically not too far from MSM, killed his wife and kids and himself because he felt like it.
This list can probably go on.
And, of course Columbine occurred in April; a new book has come out about that mass killing, vigorously researched by a Salon reporter, Dave Cullen. Buz hasn't read that book yet, but it apparently has a lot of new info challenging many long-held assumptions about that incident.
And, of course Virginia Tech occurred in April; apparently, not much happened in VT response to nut cases, despite the occurrence of Columbine a number of years before.
Oh, and just before April began, a parolee in Oakland, California shot and killed 4 police officers on the same day: 2 initially, then 2 members of the SWAT team later, shooting and killing them right thru a house wall.

Policy prescriptions, anyone?

Hundreds of colleges and universities have spent millions of dollars on "emergency notification systems", which now include text message and email alerts, as well as sirens on campus to alert people on campus to "significant threats to the campus community". And, apparently, the latest department of Education rules under the Clery Act require them to have some sort of notification system. Most high schools, however, don't have such systems, except the time-honored public address system, and the ole fire alarm. While better than nothing, these systems largely ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room: the Secret Service study of school shootings (though somewhat dated now), estimates the vast majority are over in 2-4 minutes. The actual Columbine shooting of others was over in less than 15 minutes, though it took some time later for them to decide to kill themselves. Those involved, police, students, etc., thought it went on much longer, because no one at the time new that the cowards had already killed themselves. Police are now trained to respond immediately, as soon as practical, to get into the school (or wherever) to try to stop the shooting. Usually, it will already be too late.

By the way, Columbine High School did have an on site "School Resource Officer", an armed, unifomed police officer on duty at the school, but he was driven away from the school, along with another colleague, by the heavily armed students.

Many schools and colleges are trying to create "threat assessment teams" for figuring out what to do with loony students who scare others. This is the only real answer: to separate disturbed and distressed students from the rest of the campus, at least temporarily, to find out more about them, and to try to learn if they have firearms, if possible. And to have a way for students to alert campus authorities to potentially dangerous folks. [Of course, none of that worked at Virginia Tech, where teachers repeatedly tried to get help for future gunman Cho, but he kept falling thru the cracks, since VT, like most schools then-and probably now-do not have the mechanisms to deal with people like him.]

Some thoughts on recent crime/security news--and Easter Sunday rant

2009-04-12T12:59:00.003-04:00

Cham reports that she believes a wave of Oxycontin use will sweep the city this summer. See her comment on Baltimorecrime.blogspot.com. As this deep recession evolves into a depression, I guess people don't want to feel any pain.
One of Buz's job seeking clients at his part-time job expressed concern about working shift work at a plant at Park Circle. Though he lives within walking distance and is "in recovery" from the drug world, he said his neighborhood in "not safe" because of all the "young hoppers" hanging out in the streets of lower Park Heights.
The newest coffee house/cafe in Lauraville/Hamilton got broken into last week by bad guys who threw a cinder block through its glass door; heavy $$ losses resulted. Buz admires small business entrepreneurs who take risks by opening their dream business. All too often, though, many small businesses get robbed physically, get broken into, or their employees steal them blind.
My favorite liquor store near the Roland Park water tower got held up again--the third time in as many years. So far no one's been hurt there. A nearby liquor store clerk told Buz: huh, I dare them to come in here and try that! They'll be sorry! Hmmmmmm. Sounds like a guy who'd be dear to Sebastian's heart.
Everyone is a bit buoyed because the stock market went up a a bit this week. Don't get your hopes up too high, folks. Really, not much in the fundamentals of the economy have changed lately. We just see some bottom-feeders snatching up some cheap stuff. The banksters still wanta do what they want to do (take big risks and get big commissions), and when things go bad, they want the government (us) to bail them out. And they'll do it again! Of course, they want to have it both ways: they want the government to give 'em the money to help 'em out, but don't want the government to tell them what to do. {Omighosh! that would be "nationalization"}.
And did you all see that Larry Summers, former Prez of Harvard, and one of the O-man's economic big shots made for working one day a week at one of the big hedge funds? Like millions for his advice and stuff. Sheesh. and this is from a guy who thinks women can't do science. Did he really mean lying, cheating, and stealing? Ooops, I mean finance. Look, these bank guys have been lying, cheating, and stealing to each other for so long, it's hardly a surprise that none of them trust each other now. And until that happens and/or the gumment buys all their zombie stuff, not much is gonna change anytime soon.
Speaking of hedge funds: Buz has learned that the University of Maryland and its Assistant Football Coach are running their own little hedge fund! That is, UM has guaranteed that it will pay him 1 million bucks if he IS NOT selected by them to be the Head Football Coach when the current paragon of physical fitness finally decides to retire. And he'll get no less than $2.5 million per year for leading this mostly mediocre team of "student athletes". We're very glad that Maryland's values are in the right place.
The city has decided to "double down" its bet on the survival of the Senator. A few weeks ago, they were going to loan the beleaguered movie house $300K, but now they're (we're) gonna spend more than $600K to buy the mortgage--this less than a week when a study group concluded that turning the place into a nonprofit would not be fiscally do-able. HMmmmmm. How 'bout a real big nightclub like the ones on Market Place and Fed Hill and the Point. Strategically situated between Towson U. and Loyola and Hopkins, and not far from Morgan, it would immediately be $$$$ successful. And the kids from Towson and Loyola wouldn't have to drive! Since the Preakness is apparently so important, we could build a retractable roof and have Preakness there every Saturday--year round. [horse races? what horse races? you mean running drunkenly across the portapots while your "friends" throw beer cans at you in between their throwing up?!] Seriously, Preakness day was/is the only day of the year that Pimlico actually made money.
And, seriously, the city is probably worried that if the Senator is bought by the "wrong" kind of "investor", or, worse, is left empty, it places at risk all those neighborhoods at the top of York Road, many of which have seen crime and blight drift into their area from time to time recently.
Osama bin Laden is probably laughing his butt off at the U.S.: "hey, we thought we did good, knocking down the Twin Towers. We couldn't hold a candle to what they are doing to themselves! Killing police 3 and 4 at a time. Not a single martyr needed. Killing lots of people a bunch at a time in upstate New York, and Washington, and all over. They completely destroyed the U.S. and world economy without us zealots lifting a finger. Oh, and they're selling guns to our Mexican narco friends that are used to kill hundreds of police and soldiers so their country can smoke weed and do coke that the narco-trafficantes bring into the U.S. Oh, and I forgot, heroin, too. Oh, and I forgot, they also destroyed their own auto industry. Sheesh what can we do to them? Oh, well, might as well go ahead and de-stabilize Pakistan."
Buz has mixed feelings about the demise of PAL, but whatever you may have thought about Frazier, he was kinda on the right track here.

Companies with Thieves

2009-04-04T18:45:00.003-04:00

Buz has learned that in the security consulting field, it is usually estimated that about 70-80% of theft from most firms is assisted or done by employees.

A couple Thursdays ago, I saw a good example of it in action--just by pure happenstance-which only confirms the estimate above.

And these jerks have good jobs making good money.

Your consultant was sitting on the back lot of the Rotunda, happily getting ready to dig into an unhealthy MickeyD's breakfast sandwich. We had pulled up into the parking lot just a few spaces away from a food service delivery truck, which features frozen Italian products like pizza and such. Kinda thought he was taking a break or straightening out his truck. Then, a beer distributor's truck pulls up between my auto and the food truck. The driver got out and while walking over to the food truck, slowly, get staring at me in a vaguely menacing way. At one point, I looked back, wondering WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

He walked over to the rear of the food truck, and still kept looking at me every now and then. Then old street Buz kicked in: the look was one of guilt and a fear I might notice something! Oh, I see what's gonna go down! (After all, why would the beer truck pull up on the back lot of the Rotunda; there's no liquor sold there.)

Sure enough, the food driver pulls beer driver into the back of his truck; I hear some stuff being moved around. Then, sure enough, the food driver jumps down with a whole bunch of frozen food in his hands, chatting with beer guy, this time both looking at me suspiciously and a bit angrily (what are you doing here?). They walk between the two trucks out of my sight; I hear the beer truck rollup doors being moved. Sheesh.

It became quite clear: the food guy is giving or selling some of his company's product to the beer guy at an arranged meet, probably in exchange for some beer. I guess they would be glad that Buz wasn't a private investigator hired by either company. As I finished eating and began driving away, the Beer guy gave me a final dirty look. Hey, bro, if you ain't doing anything stupid, you wouldn't have to worry about me, would you?

Just think a minute: these two clowns both have good jobs, almost certainly CDL drivers, making good money. A lot of people in this country would give so much to make the kind of money they do. Yet, they risk it all for a quick grab of a few goodies from their trucks: goodies which don't belong to them; we all pay the price for "shrinkage" at the store.

Betcha they're both stealing a lot more from their companies than even I saw or could guess

(2-1). Betcha, 3-1, one or both could not pass a CDL drug test.

It's just a sad commentary on human nature.

Sometimes I fear..................

2009-03-28T17:52:00.007-04:00

Sometimes I fear for the future of our city. Oh, Buz knows crime is "down", and everything is all right, but...........We couldn't help but wonder, after looking at some of the events involving our "future": our young people.

An offshoot of the Bloods street gang (I think, for some reason, a whole bunch of people around here are enamored of the Bloods), called the Bounty Hunters, lured a member to a motel on Reisterstown Road. They then beat him, stabbed him til he stopped moving, then rolled him up into a rug. They carried him to a car and put him in the trunk. When they got to a little-used service road in Leakin Park, they took him out, and when he started to move, they beat him and stabbed some more till he stopped moving. Then they poured gasoline on him and set him afire--essentially burning him alive. And the VAST MAJORITY OF THE SUSPECTS ARRESTED FOR THIS ARE TEENAGE GIRLS! One of them, when she was arrested, had all kinds of red clothing on her. And one of the girls had been attending cooking school in Atlanta. [So much for the excuse that she was "forced" to join the gang because of the 'hood she lived in]. Sheesh.
Your consultant then reads some of the comments of the readers of the new internet site investigative voice.com and is astonished to see how many thug/gang members read, comment/and justify/excuse/enable this behavior.
Then we had the 17-year-old boy who "vacantly" testified that a couple of years ago, when he was 15, he shot and killed at point-blank range a person who had never done anything to him, in fact a person he had never met. All to carry out a "mission" ordered by his bunky, who was currently incarcerated at the time. Mission accomplished! This kid murdered a state's witness to a murder; now he is pleading guilty in federal court in exchange for his testimony getting him no more than 40 years. Well, I'm glad I won't be around when he gets out and starts thinking about his next mission. {And of course, the person who ordered would have done it himself instead of ordering an adolescent to do it---gutless coward!}
And then he had the 14-year-old who shot and killed a pizza delivery driver--and to learn mom whine and complain that he is being held on no bail in an adult facility. One has compassion for mom, but he will actually be held in a wing with other adolescents. We wonder: after police questioned him several times, did she ever question him? Did she ask him about the cell phone, about where he was the night of the murder. Did she know he carried a gun? Did she search his room? Who knows?
And then there was the report in the Baltimore Sun about the percentage of students in the state's high schools who have not passed the High School Assessments yet. When you scan the list of city schools, all but the city's selective high schools are at nearly 50%. And none of the surrounding counties have any schools even close to that. The school honchos say not to worry: there's be only a handful which won't pass and won't graduate. Buz hopes that is true, but: these test are only at the 10th grade level. And for the rest of their lives these kids will have to take some test to get into college, for some jobs, to get into the service, etc. Oh, but they can do a project instead--because they are kids who just have trouble taking tests. Well, I guess there are kids like that, but we have to wonder how rigorous these "projects" really are to prove they can master the material. But, hey, at least these kids are still in school. Look at some of the schools on the list and see how few seniors there are. It's generally believed that about 50% of kids entering as freshman drop out before their senior graduation in city public schools, and that number rises to about 75% for African-American males.

These are just some reasons I fear to the future of our fine city sometimes.

Notes on local crime and security in Balitmore

2009-03-14T17:50:00.005-04:00

The Charles Village Community Benefits District is pretty much done with their attempts to create a more secure neighborhood thru a neighborhood community safety team. For a variety of reasons, that model doesn't work very well there. Plus, the Benefits District is pretty much out of money for that sort of thing. So, it appears that they're going to move to a more Harbel-like model: a "community relations director" who'll be the link between the 4 neighborhoods and the police, and other city and state agencies. This person may also attempt to organize a better, more effective citizens-on-patrol. Buz thinks even that may be difficult in some to the areas of the Benefits District, but we'll see.
We journeyed down onto the Hopkins Homewood campus the other day and ran into Ed Skrodzki, the Executive Director of Safety and Security there. I just think he's doing a great job since he took over several years ago: we saw evidence of security everywhere. And Hopkins was rated #1 in the country for higher education security after a survey by Readers' Digest for its policies, procedures, and practices related to security factors they judged. In fact, the campus itself is very safe; most of the trouble happens in the areas off campus. (Loyola in Maryland came out #14 in that study; Hopkins and Loyola were the only two schools in Maryland in the top 100.
While we were there, we went into the Barnes & Noble to hear the kickoff talk commemorating the publishing of her new novel by Laura Lippman; a wonderful speaker, who described how the book is sort of inspired by the power of memory along with a true Baltimore case of a women who refused to reveal what happened to her missing child. We picked up a copy; we're a great fan of Laura's, a native Baltimorean-who lives in South Baltimore (not Federal Hill, Riverside Park, or Locust Point; South Baltimore).
The strange case of Annie McCann continues to baffle. Your consultant is especially intrigued by the tale of the teenager whose print was found on her car: that they saw a white guy pull up and leave the car. They decided to steal the car, but first pulled out Annie's body, so they could go joyriding in the car for a while. Apparently, finding a dead girl in the car didn't slow down their ardor for the ride around the 'hood. Your consultant cannot believe this B.S. One thing I've learned after many years of dealing with miscreants, drug-users, and thugs: they are invariably deceptive, untrustworthy, deceitful, manipulative and so full of B.S. that sometimes even they lose track of the real story. Unfortunately, the case is not even being ruled a murder by the medical examiner! I know that Sean Jones, the lead detective (only detective now?) is a great cop and a bold investigator, but he appears to not have many leads worth working on here. And, of course, Baltimore's murders continue. Buz wonders: given the exact same set of evidence regarding her body and the circumstances of her death, what would the Medical Examiners of our nearby states declare the cause of death to be? And what do they think of Maryland's huge number of undetermined causes of death? Do we have so many more druggies than, say, Pennsylvania? By the way, why do you think that kid's print was in the police department's database? Not for being on the honor roll at school, we can assure you.
My dear friend, Michael Cantor, has re-invigorated the website for his self-defense training, and provides a low-key, non-combative, and non-aggressive training for defusing potentially violent situations. Mike is also the owner of Salamander Books on the Avenue in downtown Hampden, Merlin, hon. If you stop in, he'll have some good stuff for you to browse thru and can answer any questions about his self-defense and awareness training. Or you can look at his website at pasida.com.
We hope Buz is wrong, but with warm weather just around the corner, we are waiting for the criminals to begin their spring offensive to take back "their" streets for having fun and doing drugs, and fighting, and carrying-on and stuff.

Window-smashing: it's more common than you think

2009-03-05T16:47:00.005-05:00

Buz has read several accounts recently of businesses (and some homes) being broken into using the handy/dandy nearby rock. Thug-burglars simply find something nearby and smash a vulnerable window. Recently a fancy, schmancy jeans store in the Mt. Washington Village neighborhood here in Baltimore reportedly lost almost $100K in merchandise when their nice plate glass window was smashed and their store was essentially looted. Of course, they may not always use a rock. But businesses with merchandise and plate glass windows often learn their lessons the hard way (don't we all, though?).

And a business in Hampden along Chestnut was recently broken into similarly--this time it was definitely not a rock, but the thief somehow removed the mail slot close to the door lock, reached in and unlocked the door. Sometimes, this happens to residences too: you'd be surprised how many folks have a great deadbolt lock, but it's locked with a handle, and right next to a window which is easily broken. Burglar breaks glass, reaches in, and let himself in. Most residences typically don't have plate glass windows, though, and most occupants are home at night.

I remember several years ago the Princeton Sports on Falls Road got their windows smashed and lost a bunch of expensive bikes before they left before the police arrived.

Alarms aren't often enough. Of course, if you lost $100K in merchandise, you probably didn't have a working alarm or weren't using it (you'd be surprised how many folks have stopped using their alarms not only because of the expensive monthly monitoring charges, but false alarm charges from their jurisdiction.) Even a dumb burglar figures he's got a good 5 minutes before the gendarmes arrive. So, dear readers, your defense must be in depth.

Take a look at Princeton now: "riot screens" of metal behind the glass-in addition to alarms.

Even the gentleman who owns the fine men's clothing store in Lake-Falls Village has thick security screens as well as alarms and lighting and good solid locks.

David Simon and the not-naming of the police who kill

2009-03-01T19:39:00.012-05:00

Buz is still reeling from reading the David Simon piece, which is the cover story in this week's City paper concerning the new police department policy of not naming police officers who fatally use force on anyone--except at the Commissioner's Discretion. He also writes a piece on March 1st on Washingtonpost.com. It was quite embarrasing to read that he, once one of the few reporters who supported the police is now ostracizing this "once proud" department and calling the policy "cowardly". We have a number of thoughts about this situation, sometimes some of them in conflict. So, we'd like to share some random, iconoclastic thoughts with readers, and maybe some feedback will come:

I touched somewhat on bewilderment as to how or why this policy evolved in a previous post. All evidence points to the arrival of Anthony Guglielmi as the police department spokesperson. The policy was announced soon after he arrived in that position. If in fact he is the genesis, he has done the Commissioner a disservice. He apparently is tone deaf in the struggle the department has had in getting and holding public support.
Of course, part of the reason could simply be that this is an idea which has gotten into the heads of the rank and file, and is reacted to as wonderful by the Fraternal Order of Police. It's an "idea whose time has come." Ideas are powerful, and they don't necessarily have to have any rational logic. The are in effect, "a solution walking around to find a problem".
The Commissioner probably felt he had to throw the FOP a bone, since they are still pissed off at him for revoking their ability to work off-duty in bars and nightclubs, thereby curtailing some $$$ for them and their opportunity to look at pretty women and get paid for it.
I remember that a year or two ago I read that Baltimore County, in an agreement with its FOP, started a policy of only giving the first name of officers who in the line of duty fatalize somebody. It was not announced until after the first fatality occurred and got little notice and no hue and outcry. It's interesting, your humble consultant thinks, tht the city police arre scrutinized and everything and every fault is published or TVed. But in the counties, hardly any foible is ever reported on (of course now hardly any reporters are left to report on anything anywhere-especially in the counties, and the paper is named the Baltimore Sun).
Buz noted that the FBI, New York City Police, and Philadelphia Police, along with several others also have not naming policies, and he wonders how that affects reporting on those agencies, if at all.
We note that 911 call-takers do not use their names, and only give numbers; this has been in effect for many years. (But 311 operators give a name, supposedly their real name(?).)
Buz notes that Ravens cheerleaders also only give their first name to prevent harassment from weirdos. (Of course, they are not armed + with arrest authority+3,000 colleagues as David Simon points out for police.) [Of course, also, the most famous Ravens cheerleader did give her name as a (?) fitness/publicity/personal achievement thing--Molly Shattuck.]
From a policy making point of view, the Commissioner just could have implemented it quietly til the first fatality occurred. And he could have simply left the officers' names off of the face sheet of the report and written a followup with all the information including officers' names. They used to do this for bank tellers' names to give them some breathing room from aggressive reporters initially.
A better public policy would be to simply withhold an officer's name on a case-by-case basis should evidence of a threat surface. It's not clear at all what this policy is supposed to in reality accomplish. Surely, the people who were on the scene of the incident and witnessed it know who the officer is (though some may not know his/her name). And, in any case, if the incident makes it to court, opposing counsel have the right to know all of the witnesses against their client--and the name of a defendant officer if they decide to sue.
It is observed by your writer that many police have, at the very least, an antipathy towards reporters who second-guess policing. This has gone on for many years, and many reporters are viewed by police as "the enemy". I suppose this is the final revenge of the cops against the press. And it's a shame; as Rodney King said, Can't we all just get along. As an avid newspaper reader for more than 50 years, I feel it's important for a citizen to get the news about crime regularly and in depth.
I think TV news are the big culprits here, though. When we worked in Police Communications many years ago, often a call would go out on the air for an assist or a shooting. Not less than a minute would pass when young TV reporters would burn up the phone lines asking what is going on. Um, we don't have any units on the scene yet. It's easy to imagine them calling an officer's wife for comment after hubby shoots someone. (Of course, it then would be the department's fault for giving his name out so soon.)

Whew. I could go on and on, about different aspects of this, but I am sure some past Public Information Officers of the department are not in agreement with this policy. Their role should be a cooperative, reasonably friendly, and understanding working relationship with the press. Mike Bass and Regina Averalla come to mind.

Bits of crime and security news from Baltimore

2009-02-27T14:47:00.003-05:00

Some recent stuff about crime and security around Baltimore

Anna Sowers has announced that the fundraiser to be held at Pazo on Sunday has sold out. It's to benefit the Johns Hopkins brain trauma research center, and to help folks like her husband Zach who was beaten unconscious and died of his injuries several months later during a robbery in "Patterson Park". See www.zachsowers.com. {No visible thongs, please!}
Interestingly, the woman who had her house foreclosed on and became a "poster gal" for Acorn lived very close to where the Sowers bought their house during their years of hope in Baltimore after getting married and deciding to settle down here.
It's Buz's sense that the area just north of the Creative Alliance (the old Patterson movie theater) is struggling to hold on. The criminal activity is splashing down from Baltimore street towards the south and Canton. Of course, the collapse of the economy and the housing market have not helped. A friend at the gym told me that his brother bought a house a couple of years ago in "Patterson Park", "near Canton" , but got transferred to Atlanta. Alas, he didn't get rid of it fast enough: now "bad people" have moved in and around the area, and he can't sell it or even rent it. He had one tenant for a while, but after they left, no one has even looked at it in 6 months.
The lack of desirability for young professionals for living in Baltimore strikes us as somewhat alarming. In my little relocation consulting business, none of my last 5 clients rented in the city. And all were folks who the city desperately needs: fairly young, professional, and well-paid. We looked at a couple of city places on our tours, but they eventually all rented in Howard, Baltimore, or Anne Arundel counties. Now, full disclosure, it wasn't all because of concern for security or crime, but they loomed as large factors--as well as the schools.
John Bergbower, a retired Baltimore Police major, and his crew at John Hopkins Medical Institutions are owed a debt of gratitude from all of us for coordinating the arrest of the Hopkins' Patient Services Clerk who stole the identity of a patient suffering from kidney failure, and might possibly be in danger of dying. Guantanamo Bay should be kept open to house persons like her, along with John Thain and Bernie Madoff. They should be made to listen to Andy Harris/Frank Kratovil ads for 23 hours a day til they confess and are reformed, and declared "rehabilitated". Sorta like Patuxent used to be. (Re: Defective Delinquents)
Can you imagine how much identity theft goes on at other places, especially hospitals, that don't have dedicated investigative units, like Hopkins does? And, most of it is never detected as to the source. It's these clowns who have good jobs (that many people would die for), get greedy, and think that they can go on a spending spree. Oh, and think they're never going to get caught. We celebrate when one does get caught! [By the way, does anyone else notice that thieves and criminals always use their stolen money for goodies, like flat screen TVs, fancy cars, jewelry, and such---not to pay the BGE bill or put food on the table?]
We see the president of the FOP is still pursuing the Commissioner on getting cops in uniform to work at bars and nightclubs. Wonder what's up with that? Are our police having trouble putting food on the table? Are they missing the pretty women that much? They are really pissed at him about this. Maybe this is why he acceded to their desires to keep them secret when they shoot and kill. Just to placate them a bit.
Buz has noticed the Mad River Grille in Federal Hill had a "cattle call", oops, open house for their search for new bouncers at their fine establishment. Hmmm. Wonder why they've had turnover. Could it be getting too rough there without the Off-Duty Cops right outside the door at 2am? (by the way, Buz thinks they're security was pretty good, even without the cops).
And all the bars at Cordish's Power Plant Live are looking fro security too (along with a bunch of other positions).
And Buz is still reeling at David Simon's blast at the city police in the current issue of city paper for not revealing the names of officers who kill people. But, David, they're still reporting on city cops who get arrested for stealing stuff, and get fired for beating people up and stuff.
Wow! That woman police officer opened up on that guy who had her in a headlock after a sergeant shot the guy; she shot him 10-15 times; I'll betcha she was pissed! I guess it's a good thing he was already dead: can you imagine A. Dwight Petit getting hold of her in a legal headlock concerning excessive use of force? It's a strange case on a number of different levels.

Whew! there's so much going on, there isn't time to write about it all! Comments, please ! ?!

The mayor's lecture (her crime tip of the day) [probably not the last lecture]

2009-02-20T15:43:00.006-05:00

Buz read with interest a recent most by Baltimore's pre-eminent crime blogger on her blog, Baltimorecrime.blogspot.com, concerning the mayor and Police Commissioner's news conference about the huge number of larceny-from-autos in Bmore Towne. My favorite poster titled her blog with something about how our beautiful and fit mayor is trying to drive taxpaying citizens out of Baltimore. My thoughts, strange and iconoclastic as they might be:

She and the commish were doing nothing more than, say, a security director at a college or university might say or do when a similar crime wave occurs on a campus. Or when they are addressing the incoming Freshman class.
And, well, it's not really the same thing as taking all your valuables upstairs in your house or bolting your TV to the floor. It's about keeping yourself from being a victim.
Closing your curtains at night, and taking your wallet, purse, and cellphone upstairs with you might not be a bad idea, though. Sorry, we wish it weren't considered necessary or prudent. But the dum-dum druggie-wuggies are always looking for a quick smash and grab. They know (or think) us educated people aren't going to chase them. For the most part, they're right.
Like, shouldn't we be warned or told there is a problem, with some ways on keeping from becoming a victim?
I remember when the Virginia Tech thing went down: everybody whined afterward that the police didn't "announce" or "notify" the community of the potential problem on campus. (Though the police thought that they simply had a domestic murder, and in fact had a suspect in custody) {The killer had already been taken into custody by police on a previous occasion for psych evaluation.}
Ok; I can see where one might think we're being blamed. I choose to look at it as us being warned: the criminals are out there prowling around; protect your property. Unfortunately, to use a basketball metaphor, the criminal bench in Baltimore is deeper than the police/criminal justice bench. There are many copies!
Why wasn't Sydnor in jail? Who knows? These guys all get "credits" from the moment they walk in the hoosegow, in addition to good behavior credits. The brains down at the General Assembly call them "diminution credits"-sort of a form of derivatives and structured investment vehicles for jail, I guess.
The truth is: there aren't enough prisons to hold all our criminals for full sentences; the citizens of the wealthiest state in the country don't wanna pay for nothin'. So, we know have diminution credits, good behavior time, parole, and probation.
Truth is and has been: the policy priority of the city is stopping/preventing murders and shootings. This latest emphasis on larceny-from-auto is a welcome event. Let's move from there to robbery!
I recently spoke to a Goucher senior who is one of the few of that clan who live off campus--in Charles Village, no less (next to downtown, CV has to be the world's epicenter for larceny-from-auto). She told me that last week her car window was smashed and the miscreant pawed around and thru the high level of trash she had in the car. She had nothing of value in the car. What's up with that!? We guess that in the Village, the propensity for finding a goody in a random vehicle is so high that it pays to just pick em and smash. Perhaps a Hopkins statistician could work out the algorithm in a perp's mind on this. Or perhaps he thought he saw something. Or perhaps he saw her cig lighter was missing: aha, electronic device! Or perhaps the car glass repair place needed some business. Your consultant says: I dunno. (a technical term).
But the sad truth is: criminal activity in Baltimore, unlike some places, is "legitimized", or excuses made for, and a weak, overwhelmed criminal justice system struggles to deal with it.
In the meantime, the city and its law-abiding inhabitants suffer.
All we can do is to minimize our own risk by taking all of our goodies out of the car, or putting them in our trunk BEFORE leaving to go to our destination, NOT after arriving at our destination.
By the way, Buz is really, really amazed at how many people leave valuable stuff in their cars, though of course no one deserves to be victimized. It's like, well, college! We all went to our safe, protected, pretty, rural, isolated campuses and nobody ever locked their doors or anything! And, now, somebody stole my stuff!! I don't get it. I guess Baltimore is really successful at projecting this wonderful image of beauty and inspired architecture, and sophisticated urban-ness, and stuff. So, really, the mayor should be bragging about what a great place this is, how safe it feels, and it's great that people perceive that Bmore is the safest city in America. Now, let's stop locking our doors, and go out on foot wherever and jog with headphones on by ourselves. And read! Um, I think I'll lock my doors to my house tonight.

The fights: City versus Mervo:scary school days

2009-02-16T17:39:00.005-05:00

Buz has read with interest Sara Neufeld's article and blog in the Sun about the fights between kids who "attend" Mervo and "attend" City College here in Baltimore. Some commenters think that it's nothing and shouldn't even have been reported. Sorry: I disagree.

It seems that these weren't really "fights" at all: merely group attacks on lone students who appeared to be associated with the Other School. (Rodney King: "can't we all just get along"?) Typically, these cowards find a student who is alone and attack as a group. It appears that a group of City students did just that--injuring a Mervo student. Did they attack him because he did something to them or were they just out to find somebody to "bank"? Then, later, a group of Mervo students went to beat up on a City student.
City and Mervo are supposed to be two of the city's elite high schools, where students have to apply to get in and somehow be screened before being accepted. Wonder how Dr. Alonso's new policy will apply if the "investigation" finds a group of City students were the attackers/instigators here. We wonder if they would be expelled and sent to their zoned high school? He has recently stated that students in these schools couldn't be kicked out under standards used in the past. The schools are supposed to "work with" these students and not just flunk them out. Wonder if assaults perpetrated off school grounds mean anything. [We think Dr. Alonso is a great guy, but if the city's select high schools (City, Poly, Western, School for the Arts, Carver, Dunbar and yes, Mervo) evolve to be just like any other of the city's high schools, the middle class in the city, who are committed to public schools, will just move out.]
We're glad the School Police intervened; perhaps that will put an end to it. Usually warm weather brings a rash of this stuff out, and this is not a good premonition of spring.
There was a really a scary post by someone claiming to be a teacher at Mervo. Apparently the hall walkers and druggies and gamblers are running amok there. When Buz worked at Walbrook a number of years ago, there were often lots, perhaps dozens, of hall walkers on many days (kids who check into school, but cut one or more or all of their classes, but not the "hundreds" cited by this teacher. I remember there was a disturbance at Mervo last year where a teacher was taken to the hospital. At Walbrook it was not unusual to have fires set in trash cans or in bathrooms {the school was never evacuated and staff put the fires out.}
Since City's swimming pool (like others at high schools in the city) is not usable, City's swim team has been going up to Mervo to use its pool. Since the heavy street action has occurred, a decision has been made that the team will simply not practice at Mervo since the season is almost over.
Several posters on Sara's blog indicate that they think this is no big deal, just kids fighting. Your consultant thinks this is a big deal, because these two schools are important in our city. City is surrounded to the east and south by the neighborhood of Coldstream-Harford-Montebello (CHUM), recently one of the most violent in the city last year, and so far this year. A young adult was recently found shot to death just on the edge of campus on a recent weekend. Last year a student in the Baltimore Algebra Project was murdered at a bus stop just off campus. And to the north of Mervo is the Northwood shopping center, which has struggled with street crime, the scene of Councilman Harris' murder. So, this tit-for-tat violence could very easily get out of hand. Neighborhood non-student youth could become involved.
An acquaintance was robbed on school property last year as he left the building after a sports meeting. Though several attackers were arrested, he declined to press charges, since "they know what I look like, and where I go to school."
Buz believes that far too little is done to separate violent bullies from the school population. He believes that bullying, harassment, fights, other violence, potential violence and having to travel thru the neighborhoods on Others' Turf is what is a big factor in causing a lot of kids to drop out of school. Of course, we know there are lots of other factors, but this is the biggie-in my humble opinion.

Legalization:public policy to come?

2009-02-09T11:06:00.004-05:00

Buz read the article in the Sun about the idea being tried abroad about giving free heroin to drug addicts in the same week as the Michael Phelps and A-Rod stories broke. And he wondered about the multiple levels of thought occurring about these disparate, yet related events and how, if at all, they might relate to the idea: "oh, why don't we just legalize it!"

We think it's a complicated issue, but the biggie is this: Baltimore, or Maryland, or even the United States, could not unilaterally legalize or even "decriminalize" (what's the dif?) alone. Pretty much, all, if not most, of other countries would have to agree and do the same. When people talk about Prohibition, the key element which seems to me is missing is: almost all the other countries of the world remained "wet", while the U.S. tried to go it alone with being dry.

And, unlike booze, the responsibility for policing what are now "illegal substances" would fall on the private sector, even more than they do now. Drunk employees are easily detected at work (usually, if they show up). Drugged employees are not easily detected, except for those whose lifestyle causes absenteeism, lateness, carelessness, and criminal behavior (not just the criminal possession, either).

The fact is that even now, a large percentage of employers, if not a majority, test for illegal drugs for cause, before hiring, or sometimes even randomly. And Buz detects a growing trend in this direction. He and his fellow security consultants typically urge businesses to do so. Since the majority of thefts from businesses occur via your silent partners in the business (your own employees), this is one way of screening your staff, not only against theft, but with regard to getting reliable and safe workers. And in industry, if you get hurt on the job, you will almost universally be asked to take a drug test; test positive: good luck on you workers' comp claim.

So, while I hear a lot of people saying: we should just legalize it, as a public policy, it would be very difficult to implement (of course, in some cities, like Baltimore, marijuana use is all but decriminalized now). Students of public policy, particularly those in medical fields, are going to have a hard time implementing any kind of legalization here in the near future, Prez O's autobiography notwithstanding. It's a complicated issue, and isn't that simple.

Car break-ins: something not really discussed

2009-02-04T11:06:00.003-05:00

Buz read with interest the recent Peter Hermann columns on car break-ins in Baltimore--no doubt a crime which is both widespread and really, really damages Baltimore's economic development and viability as a place to shop and do business.

We read:

complaints about the police: the lack of patrol; their slow or no appearance, the "failure" to take fingerprints or look at the cameras, etc.
complaints about the judges and their supposed lack of enforcing the law, with minimal sentences for the guilty thieves, etc.,
complaints about the lack of drug treatment for the poor thieves, so they can stop themselves from going out to steal again, etc. (Drug treatment is not like going to the doctor and taking a pill: it's a long process of psycho-social personal change and lifestyle).
complaints about the poor security in the parking garages, where the poor drug-infested thieves are forced to prowl to feed their tummies and bloodstream with food and other goodies, etc. (parking garages are always high-risk security environments).

But here's the thing I found missing from the articles and letters and posts I read: um, who buys all these nice things that Mr. Sydnor and his drugged buddies steal by smashing your car windows? Huh? Anybody? If there was no market for stolen stuff, the thieves wouldn't steal your stuff. So where does it all go? Nobody seems interested in following up on this aspect. My guess is that the local gendarmes don't really spend a lot of time thinking about this or learning about where the larceny-from-auto clowns take their stuff to get money for it. I wonder how many get arrested for larceny-from-auto each year in this town? Probably very few. And I wonder how many, if any, are interviewed with a view toward learning where they sell their stuff. Oh, I know, they might be interviewed as to who is selling drugs, or who is murdering someone, maybe. Remember, the policy priority of the city is to stop murders and shootings.

There's a "nice" store a Northern Parkway and Harford Road with a sign or two which boldly exclaim: "We buy anything of value". Hmmmmmmm.

Oh, and it's no accident that most of the folks working the counter at the pawnshop on Greenmount openly wear guns on their side. Maybe because they don't deal with only nice people.

So, when Baltimorons go shopping for stuff do they go to pawn shops or stores that sell anything valuable, or do they buy stuff off the street (hey, buddy, want a cheap GPS?), or in the rest room of a bar [or even right int the bar?]. For folks who do that, if they look in the mirror, they may see some parts of the crime problem which are the most intractable.

Leave Michael alone!

2009-02-01T14:42:00.000-05:00

Buz just wishes that the certain members of the media-the gossip clowns-would just leave Michael Phelps alone. The latest brouhaha features a picture of him taking a drag on a bong.

It was first published by one of those infamous British gossip tabloids and I first saw it on Gawker.

Jeeez. Whoever was with Michael in that room and took that picture (probably on a cellphone) has done a tremendous disloyalty to him for what..................? money? fame? a thrill? And just think, Mike thought that whoever he was with were friends of his.

Now, Buz is no advocate of lots of wacky weed smoking (we have enough drugs already, thank you), he smells a whiff of hypocrisy by whoever took and sold the picture, and by the whole sanctimonious reaction of people who are "aghast", when marijuana is widely available almost anywhere, and apparently easily obtained by young people.

Buz to Michael:

ya gotta be careful about what friends you hang out with (you need at least one different friend),
and if you're you (Mr. Michael Phelps) and bonging grass or hash, you must assume you have no friends while you're doing that.

We wish it weren't so, but it is. Wonder how much the bum got paid for giving the picture to the tabloid. And since the weed is still illegal in most places, people who are into that world are by nature deceptive, manipulative, and not trustworthy in that arena. We wish they would stop snitching.

Of course, this incident could spark a whole new conversation about whether or not drugs in general, or wackkkky weed in particular should be legalized. But betcha (2-1), it ain't gonna happen soon. Barbara Tuchman was so right when she said that in general politicians must cater to the right.

And a special curse goes out to the paparazzi and the gossip papers and gossip columnists. One section of Guantanamo should be reserved for them. I think that movie stars, athletes, and political leaders all deserve a modicum of privacy in their personal lives.

By the way, Buz has heard from an informed source that the whole business of bringing home the Las Vegas gal to meet mom for thanksgiving did not happen. And Michael has never worked out at the MAC in Inner Harbor East, with or without a bodyguard. So, it appears that my source and Laura Vozella's sources are somewhat in disagreement. Wonder who's right?

A Case Study of Public Policymaking: not naming the cops

2009-01-29T12:59:00.000-05:00

Buz has followed with interest the new policy of the Baltimore Police Department in not, generally, releasing the names of officers who shoot or kill citizens.

As a student of public policy, Buz wonders: how did this policy, of all the things to worry about, come to the fore? What brought it onto the agenda? Why? How many officers were threatened because of shooting suspects?

It appears to have been introduced by a new player walking onto the stage: the department's new Public Information Officer. He said, it mimics policies from other big city departments, including New York and Boston, as well as the FBI. And Commissioner Bealefeld himself gave a reasonable explanation of his concerns in a later interview, talking about how the press contacted a wounded officer's kin shortly after the event.

And he said that there were 23 threats against officers last year.

However, the press is outraged. And councilman (future mayoral candidate?) Young is outraged. Other council members are outraged.

Now we don't know where Mr. Guglielmi hails from, but it appears that he did not settle into his new job for very long before igniting this controversy, if in fact he was the genesis of this policy. It does, however, appear that he was not terribly sensitive to the political situation surrounding the police and this community. After a year basking in the praise of reducing homicides, was this the right time to start this New Policy? I dunno (a technical term). I am wondering what other students of public policy making think.

WWRD ! ?: What Would Ray Do !?

2009-01-19T15:49:00.000-05:00

Buz was very interested to read in Laura Vozella's column in the Sun recently that during the height of the winter violence several weeks ago, Ray Lewis had gone to police headquarters to offer whatever help he could to stem the attraction of gangs and gang violence among young people in Baltimore, and in general to stem and stop some of the violence.

I think that anyone can, in their life, contribute somehow to something of a redemption. Apparently, Ray believes his time is now.

It sound as though the article indicated the police had not decided on what the best way to use Ray's fine offer of assistance. We've come up with a few ideas, though they are more in the arena of prevention, rather that policing. But here are some things Ray could do:

Visit the House of Ruth, and hear first hand about the issue of violence toward women from battered ones themselves. Ray could take a stand against partner-on-partner violence, and would have a lot of credibility since he has been engaged in a very violent sport. He could speak to the batterers, and tell them to get themselves together and respect other human beings, that is the women they supposedly love.
Ray could offer to fund, through a foundation, additional housing for battered women attempting to escape from circumstances of male privilege, anger, and frustration taken out on women--in the name of power and control. House of Ruth has to turn away lots of women and children each year who are trying to get away from the clutches of their "loved" ones.
He could visit the Juvenile Justice Center on Gay Street and speak to the young people there ; find out why they're there; and suggest to them a better way. Offer them a free ticket to a Ravens game if they don't get arrested for three years, and 4 tickets for graduating from high school.
Ray could hook up with Colonel Richard Hite of the police department's community relations section, and walk along (he could bring the rest of the team) with Hite's effort's to get people "out of the game". He could offer to hire as many as could qualify for his restaurant. He might have enough employees to open a second or third restaurant.
He could partner with Dan Rodricks and ask each PSL holder who owns a business to hire one ex-offender--just one.
We think he could meet with Dr. Ben Carson and visit neighborhood high schools (not Poly or City), and talk about the limits of athletics and the hope which lies in academics and science, and how gang stuff is ultimately stupid stuff.
Ray would make a great Big Brother to some kid who's headed for a life of crime (Ray is pretty big, you know). And it doesn't take a genius to figure out which kids are headed for a wild ride of criminal behavior.
Ray could take his bodyguards and all his teammates and visit Viva House in southwest Baltimore, help serve a meal, and get a good look of the other Baltimore which is almost in sight of the Ravens Stadium. Hear some stories. Then, before they leave, Ray and his guys (except the poor underpaid bodyguards) could each leave an envelope with 40 $100 bills for Willa Bickham and Brendan Walsh to put in their checking accounts--and, no, they don't have to pay any of the Ravens' credit card bills.
Ray could roll up to that guy on the corner of President and Lombard street who's missing 3 limbs (recently pictured in the city paper), put him in his car, rent him an apartment, hire a social worker, and try to keep him from begging on our city's streets.
Ray could hook up with former police commissioner Frazier, and find out what's up with the Police Athletic League, and why it essentially went out of business as a 501c3, and find out how it made an effort to establish a connection between cops and kids, and keep kids safe in some real bad neighborhoods.
Ray could go up to Pimlico and talk to the guys who are smashing the poor lady's windows out as reported by Peter Hermann--because they thought she was "snitching" on their nefarious activities. Ray and his guys could tell these thugs to, in language of the locker room, "leave the lady alone."
He could film a "start snitching" video, featuring NFL touchdown dances before they were banned. In conjunction with that, he could start a Start Snitching hot line, where folks could call in and snitch on murderers and rapists, and guys carrying guns on the street robbing law-abiding people. In the video, Ray would urge gang members to be cool and help people out instead of knocking people out--or Ray might knock them out. Ray could even staff the line himself sometimes; just think: you could call the line with information about crime and spend some time chatting with Ray: sublime! {But ya gotta have info, though!}
Ray could help expand the Safe Street initiative by talking to guys in certain neighborhoods who have beefs to cool it, to keep from getting penalized. Just like he did on the field. Keep your emotions in check.
Ray could fund a full college or technical school scholarship for one student every year who graduated from a city neighborhood high school, starting with Reginald Lewis High School this year, then add a school every year--but not one of the city's elite high schools. Dr. Alonso could help him thru this process.
Ray could consult with Hathaway Ferebee of the Safe & Sound Campaign, and learn what that group is doing to keep kids from joining gangs, and what he can do to lend a hand. It would not take a lot of his money, relatively, and his presence at some events would lend enormous credibility.
He could escort a rape victim to court, so that she would not be intimidated by the suspect's friends and relatives.

Your consultant hopes this enough to get him started, but I'm sure many readers will have additional ideas.

Updated/More Ups and Downs of crime, policing, and security in Baltimore for 2008

2009-01-11T14:45:00.000-05:00

Baltimore's crime/security situation in 2008 was filled with a lot of downs, bu only a couple of ups. In reflecting back on the year just passed, Buz has come up with some significant things of note, which I invite readers to agree or disagree with.

The website spotcrime.com came into its own as a viable web alternative to the city's crime mapping site. Both have their limitations, because, for some reason, the gendarmes don't like to give out crime info. Some ideas on why can be found on an earlier blog posting.
Though the city ended with a modest drop in murders, true a whole busload of less people killed, it is too early to tell if the drop is sustainable or means very much. Baltimore still remains a very high crime city, and the stats other than murders and nonfatal shootings were pretty much similar to a year ago.
Newcomers to Baltimore are getting much less likely to want to live in even the hip areas of the city as in past years. Many young professionals are not even considering the city, despite my best efforts. They would rather sit in their car in traffic, than have to deal with "street stuff".
The Northeastern District of the city showed a huge increase in robberies, and for a time led the city in robbery. The shocking Ken Harris murder, it aftermath, and the long quest for suspects only epitomized the downturn for this area of the city.
Pit bulls are now often seen as the "prestige" dog to have with thugs, wanna-be thugs, and plain ole young people. But it scared me though, when I was going to get something to eat walking down Harford Road, that an unleashed pit bull, accompanied by an ignorant teenager, was crossing my path, and kept turning around looking at me, as though we were something to eat. Um, leashes, please, folks.
Speaking of leashes, your consultant rode his bike last summer to Robert E. Lee Park, and was shocked to find dozens and dozens of lawbreakers having taken over the park. Gang members? No, dog lovers, who were allowing their animals to run freely "as god intended," one said. Forget the leash laws! Who cares if the park had to be shut down for more than a year because the poop level in the grass was so high that the health department deemed it unsafe for kids to play in the grass! And the city spent thousand and thousand of dollar repairing the turf. No doggie bags were seen by your scared bike-rider. It's really interesting in actually seeing how some people want to pick and choose what laws they believe should be followed, and yet are critical of other kinds of people who violate different kinds of laws.
The amount of prostitution is really very noticeable in several parts of the city, more so than it had been in the past, in your consultant's most humble opinion: though the Baltimore John Watch crew has claimed they're "winning" the battle against prostitution in Pigtown, we wonder. Perhaps it has just moved up to Wilkens Avenue, which is technically not in Pigtown. Buzz recently came home from a trip to Charlottesville using Route 1, and it took him 4 minutes to see his first prostitute after entering the city. Before turning north on Fulton to head home, he saw 3 more. And Harford Road in Hamilton/Parkville border areas is starting to see an uptick, particularly between Northern Parkway and the city line; but recently on a Saturday they were going at it in a car on a Non-profit's lot in Hamilton til interrupted. The guy even argued: why do i have to leave? Go ahead, call the cops! And of course, Falls Road in Hampden always draws stares from the gals if you're a single guy driving down the street.
Cell phones and other mobile devices have so proliferated that they have now, in Buz's humble opinion, come to rival drunken driving as a hazard on the road. When, in the past of my career's earliest days, I saw a person going very slowly or tailgating and then not, and weaving, i thought it was a drunk driver; but now (except for early morning drinking hours) it's just as likely to be a person yakking or yelling or dialling a cell phone. Betcha: 2-1, the gal who killed the Howard County officer who stepped out to wave her car down was looking at her phone or texting instead of driving. Hope her call was important.
The biggest "UP" of the year was the drop in killings. At one point, during a community meeting in, I believe, October, the Northern district commander averred that the department may have less than 200 murders in 'o8. The end of homicide as we've known it! then came November:yuck. A wave of violence started in November, continued into December, and now in January of the new year, we've had just about one or so a day, though commish & co. are hoping it's just a "spike". Who knows!?
Baltimore crime blog has gotten its millionth look; it is the best source of a quick summary of crime news from a variety o;f sources, for those of us in the field who wish to keep up on such things--with a few snarky comments thrown in their from time to time by the author and the readers. Keep up the good work, MJB!
Citizens in the Old Homeland and Bellona Avenue areas have started a yahoo news group so that they can communicate with each other about crime. One of the leaders was a lady who organized a meeting at the Govans library after Homeland refused crime stats to some non-members. Buz is interested in watching this group and its comments, and truly believes that doing something/anything is better than nothing. It is a small, very, very neighborly, neighborhood group. Most citizens-on-patrol groups like this tend to be very hard to start up and extremely hard to keep going. Best of luck. They call their group: Citizens Teaming Against Crime.
One of the main watershed events in crime of the year was the death of Zach Sower and efforts of his widow, Anna, to bring attention and focus to this issue of violent crime in the city, as well as her evolution from being a victim to, sadly, somehow, as City Paper puts it, the Antihero. I believe that this robbery, beating, and death struck a huge blow to the city's revitalization efforts among the young professionals who have tried to make their homes here, particularly in the Canton/Patterson Park areas. And the folks who work at Hopkins. You know, we begin to realize more and more, if Hopkins suddenly vanished, the city would virtually collapse. Your consultant, who also assist with relocation to Baltimore as one of his gigs, has seen a tremendous drop-off of young professionals who know longer want the word urban associated with that title. They'll prefer to look in Anne Arundel, Columbia, or north of the City, whereas in the past they only wanted to look for rentals in Baltimore's Fells Point, Canton, and Federal Hill.
Anna's quest to strike at criminality ran into a certain, I dunno, ambivalence, policy all over the place, mistrust, and misplaced agendas. To the point that she has given up. Criminal activity north and east of Patterson Park has moved south, and the areas south of Baltimore Street have become less desirable.
The State's Attorney's spokeswoman "Misquoting" to a reporter were a watershed of insensitivity and in-your-face we don't care attitude perceived by many crime victims. We know the prosecutors are not like that; perhaps Ms. Burns could have a story: the Anti-Spokesperson. But, you know, Buz has believed, for a long time, that a community gets the kind of law and order (I wish I could think of a better different term) it believes and and wants.
Baltimore john watch blog was interesting at times, if not somewhat repetitive and dispiriting. It is good that somebody is doing something to hold the "sketchy" parts of the city together--at some risks to themselves. So, here's hats off to Sebastian and others like him in the city, who are trying to stem the tide of crime, disorder, and lawlessness, and to keep our city holding on. Like most crime, street walking ladies are both a symptom and a cause of community breakdown.
Peter Hermann, of the Baltimore Sun, became an informative paid blogger/reporter, who has given us a lot of insight into various aspects of crime in Baltimore. Welcome back, Peter. (Peter can't be too terribly snarky in his comments, because he still has to operate under the umbrella of the Sun and its standards.)
Exhibit A came and went as a tabloid edition of the Daily Record legal newspaper. I say "went", but it's still out here on the web, just not in print anymore.
Some parts of Baltimore County are now worse than parts of Baltimore City. In a couple of eastern Baltimore County communities, things are so bad that the pizza joints won't deliver to that complex.
The dump-out-of-the-car homicide victims in Federal Hill have not had their cases cleared by Baltimore's famed Homicide unit. And we don't believe the one in Canton recently has been "put down", either. (The first two sound like "business"; the gal in Canton sounds domestic).
The bunch of rapes in Mount Vernon have not been solved either. It is certainly a victory for perception of Balitmore that many, many young people enjoy living downtown, and in the Mt. Vernon area. However, young people often fail to look at the safety of their rental area in general, and their apartment in particular. Risk from crime needs to be considered along with location, cost, and quality of housing.
Fred Bealefeld has really come to the top of his game as Police Commissioner. I was really impressed when he said he wanted his staff (Team Bealefeld) to proceed in a "thoughtful" manner when investigating the murder of ex-City Councilman Ken Harris. At one community meeting about that, he was even willing to assert that somebody's not during their job, when he said he saw no police after sitting in Northwood for an hour and a half. (However, police everywhere are scarce, because patrol is very short in large, busy districts: if Northwood's officer was on a call, and nobody there called, you probably aren't gonna get many police come by).
And the saddest of them all: an elderly woman living alone in Remington (real estate agents probably call her block "Wyman Park) was killed when her home alarm sounded in the early morning hours. And neighbors heard her scream. And everybody cowered in their homes and called 911. And she screamed, and nobody came, and she screamed, the alarm going off. No cops. No neighbors. NO help. Everybody scared. And nobody saw nothing. Cops finally arrived. She's dead. As of the end of 2008, nobody arrested. Right across the street, practically, from the old Public Health Wyman building where Hopkins has offices for the Institute of Policy Studies. Many calls came into the city's 911 call center, but people were asleep at the switch (maybe literally), one Police Communications Assistant disciplined. And the neighbors called the police over and over. Betcha (23-1), in my neighborhood, my neighbors would come running with baseball bats, and if he got away, they would at least have seen him. One time some kids, for "fun"jumped out of a car and loudly banged on my door, and quickly drove away. Two neighborhood women, with kids in tow, and cellphones at the ready, came running up to our house to make sure your consultant was ok. We were, and we thanked them for their bold response.
Finally, for this posting, the guy that lives in the 3800 Block of Hickory Avenue apparently is not for "change". Since the election he's been flying the Confederate battle flag from his porch. I guess he's not going to the inauguration (we hope not, anyway). But apparently, he's got some unresolved issues.

Let's hope there's a more secure 2009 in Bmore.

Crime Tip of the Day: If you're going away for the holidays: Dirtball Waits!

2008-12-20T12:46:00.000-05:00

With apologies to the late, great mystery writer, Tony Hillerman, Buz reports that if you're going away for the holidays, Dirtball Waits. He waits because he knows most young professionals, students, and even some older folk, go away for the holidays. And in some areas, the majority of people will be gone--then he'll strike! The areas closest to schools and universities are the main areas he lurks and waits. A lot of young people make a big deal about loading their cars all up, yelling to their friends and neighbors: "hey, we'll be back the the 26th, the 20th of January or the the 27th of something. Yeah, we're going' up to New Haven, Philly area, New York, etc." He sees the luggage, and gifts, and wishes them well. He might see the wrapped gifts in the hallway, you never can tell; if they leave even briefly, he may have a shot; the doors are not locked securely, as likely as not.

When they're away, he'll scout and wait and be about. He's hoping to leave you a little without. No doubt.

So, if you're going away for the holidays, here are some tips to get you thinking, particularly if you are a student, grad student, post-doc, fellow, or intern, who is going home to see the family for the holiday.

Assume you may be broken into while you're away, as painful as that sounds. Leave no cash or jewelry for him to take; he also likes all electronic stuff. Take your laptop, ipod, itouch, etc., with you. Make sure you have your serial number for your desktop either recorded somewhere or, better send it to cyberspace.
Ideally, you would want a neighbor who is trusted to check on your house at least once a day, to take in your mail, any fliers or newspapers, and turn on or off some lights around the house. However, the less people who know you are going away, the better.
If there are no known viable neighbors, then use a post office vacation card to stop your mail while you're away; any newspapers you get should be stopped as well.
Don't make a big deal about leaving: no tooting of horns, no loud cell phone announcements, have all your luggage stockpiled to load quickly and quietly, the earlier in the morning the better.
Make sure all doors and windows are locked, using all locks. Even if you don't find a neighbor you feel you can ask, perhaps there is one you can at least discreetly mention to ask to keep an eye out.
Of course, if you have an alarm, set it, but make sure your notifications are viable.

Areas at highest risk: Charles Village, Pigtown and other areas near to UM downtown campus, Remington, and heavy student areas of Hamilton and Loch Raven and Towson. Police historically are busy taking burglary reports right after the students come back from vacation. And many campuses are vulnerable because they are historically empty and the dorms are deserted and they have minimal staffing. Smart schools take special measures to ensure security of the unoccupied dorm rooms during these breaks. But not all schools have experienced this problem yet. Take your laptop with you as well as anything special of value that can reasonably be carried.

Good luck! We wish these notices were not necessary. But he waits!

Do you feel safer because of the drop in murders?!

2008-12-16T15:57:00.000-05:00

Someone just today was asking Buz about the sharp drop in murders compared to last year. While there has been an upsurge in homicides in the city since around the first of November, there is still projected to be a 40+ drop from last year. (Buz is predicting we'll end up with about 245 murders this year: he is so Mr. Cynicalpants!).

But your consultant wonders: does the decrease in homicides make you feel safer as you go about your day-to-day business? I dunno; and I'm skeptical.

So, we're wondering if our faithful, nice readers will chime in and let us know: what difference does the drop in homicides mean to you? do you feel safer? do you feel crime is moving in the right direction?

Please let me know!

Perception is everything! Crime does not exist in Baltimore!

2008-12-13T15:38:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, that's a strange headline, isn't it. Well, you would think that that headline is true: that Commish of P0-leece Bealefeld has won the battle against crime and thievery. Why? Well, this week's Messenger newspaper, covering the neighborhoods of North Baltimore, reports on some crimes occurring in less than one week in the area (but don't believe for a minute that this is a comprehensive list).

There are FOUR instances of purses, cash and jewelry taken from cars, in widely separated areas of the Northern District. Plus a purse containing wallet, cell phone, credit cards, and cash taken from an unlocked garage. Plus 3 other incidents in which cell phones, GPS devices, and Ipod were taken from cars. Obviously, people believe the city has little crime, nothing to worry about, and all those headlines and about a crime wave don't apply! Hurray! Perception is everything! People must really BELIEVE, otherwise they would be more worried about their stuff.

SECURITY TIP OF THE DAY: One cannot leave anything of value in your car, if it's visible. And it doesn't help to put your purse under your seat or in your trunk AFTER you arrive at your destination. One should put it in your trunk before leaving for your destination. Dirtball waits and watches; he knows where lots of cars are and where people are tending events or going shopping. He has the area under surveillance. Purses under the seat are a common practice. Dirtball knows and waits. But he really appreciates thoughtfulness (thoughtlessness?) this time of year. His little ones need presents too. Gym bags, dirty, wet stuff notwithstanding, are also much taken along with laptops and briefcases. If you leave it, he's coming to get it.

Crime Tip of the Day: If you're a celebrity---Be afraid......

2008-12-05T14:57:00.000-05:00

Buz was intrigued by two recent articles: one: the Laura Vozella piece about Michael Phelps's trips to Vegas and guess who's coming to dinner; two: the ESPN News piece about how it's been about a year since Sean Taylor was murdered in his home during a home invasion/robbery. And one could include any number of other pieces seen on the news or in the paper about other celebrities, where they live, what they're doing, where they hang out, etc.

Buz advice: Celebrities, you are all in danger.

Since we've now entered the high crime time of the year, combined with hard times, lots of layoffs, and a criminal mindset along with an overwhelmed criminal justice system, all of us, whether we are world class athletes or not need to be extra careful.

The National Football League has a staff of mostly ex-FBI agents to protect the integrity of the game and to oversee security for the league, the teams, and the players--as well as protecting the "brand" of the league (they don't want too many of their players arrested or hurt). The league also assigns a security consultant to each team to look out for player protection. And most teams have their own security directors. Several players have been robbed, including during home invasions, and others have been threatened. A couple have been shot and killed, and one maimed.

So if you're a Raven, an Olympic athlete, a CEO, or just somebody who has their name mentioned a lot, some minor, brief tips:

Try not to let anyone except trusted friends and relatives know where you live. Some celebrities get Secret Service protection. If you don't, minimize the public knowledge of your house, neighborhood, or where you like to go to party or hang out. Especially don't mention or tell anyone in the press: they're sure to publish how neat it is that so and so lives here. Consider renting or having the house in a corporation's name or someone else, so that your name does not appear in the public record.
Make sure you home is secure; good solid locks--at least two on each door; a peep hole to see who's out there; and a solid hotel-style door lock, so it can be opened only party way and still be locked. The alarm systems should be able to be activated when you're home. You're probably safeer in a high-rise and/or a gated community, but don't be lured into a false sense of security even there.
Watch where you go, and use good judgment about who you hang out with. It's probably not a good idea to be closing up the clubs and going to after-hours joints, especially with old friends who've gotten into trouble in the past. Watch people who are overly friendly, want to buy you drinks, or offer you something for nothing.
Try to have someone with you that you can trust to watch your back at public events.
Lower your profile as much as possible, except in your field (or on the field) as necessary.
If you think you are being followed when driving, make three right turns, if they're still back there, you are!
Above all, don't have this sense that oh, it can't happen to me.

Security tip of the day--ATMs

2008-12-04T11:53:00.000-05:00

Buz was going to the bank to get some money at an ATM in order to finance his ravenous appetite for pizza. As he was pulling up, your consultant noticed a man get out of his car at the ATM, leaving the engine running with keys in the ignition and the door to his car open as he did a "quick" visit for some money to the machine.

Now, have realize that this was Roland Park, but come on. I've noticed that many people often have a false sense of confidence: It can't happen here; I don't need to worry; it won't happen to me.

This was the same ATM where a young mom was car-jacked at night and driven around the city for several hours several years ago. Fortunately, though terrified, she still had her cellphone while locked in the trunk of her car. Police were able to home in on her cell and found her car in Clifton Park-abandoned by the robber/abductors. And in front of this same bank, a woman's purse was snatched in Broad Daylight (I love that term!) several months ago.

It only takes a few seconds for a dirt-ball to rob you, then jump into your car and you've-provided him with the means to escape or a second car for his group.

Buz's advice:

Avoid using ATMs at night. Most are well lit, but you'll stand out like a sore thumb. If you must, use one inside somewhere that doesn't have a window. For example, the one in the 3100 block of St. Paul is inside, but anyone can stand outside and watch you get money and see where you put it. Try to use one in Whole Foods at Mt. Washington.
Avoid ATMs in high-crime on the street locations, where the machine is right there outside on the street--unless the guard is present. I don't, for example, recommend using the one at 26th and Charles anytime, unless both your car and the guard is there.
If you're going to use one, survey the area as you approach, either on foot or in your car. Look for people "hanging around"--both in cars or on foot. If you see anyone staring at you, however briefly, consider not engaging in the transaction. Seriously.
Watch out for corners and right angles of buildings, where someone could just be out of your sight.
Don't leave your car running, even for a moment, if you're not in it; and don't leave the door open. It draws attention and puts ideas in people's heads. You'd be surprised how many women leave the rest of their purse on the front seat.
If you do get confronted by a robber, try to make the transaction as quick as an ATM withdrawal--and as pleasant as possible. Do not resist unless you are specially trained or skilled to do so (I don't mean a self-defense class several years ago). Many of these stickup artists are drunk or high, have poor decision-making skills, and are impulsive. They are disinclined to put up with any "disrespect". You can say something like: here, you can have it, that's all I've got.
I would recommend at all costs not getting into their car or your car with them. You may not have an option depending on your situation, but it should certainly be only if you have no other choice.
And of course a lot of people have almost stopped carrying cash altogether so they don't have to visit ATM machines hardly at all.

Let's hear it from the bouncers!

2008-11-21T18:54:00.000-05:00

Buz has already gotten a couple of comments from doormen/bouncers at some of Baltimore nightspots/clubs/bars. He'd like to hear more on how the the big guys are thinking about the withdrawal of approval for cops to work overtime for the clubs. There seems to be a bit of anxiety out there, but your consultant wants to know: how's it going? Can you guys (and, maybe, some gals) handle it? Will the cops come if you call? at all? quickly? Do you guys think some of the officers will work for the bars, anyway, out of uniform--under the table? And, if so, will the on-duty officers wink and nod, and handle stuff for them?

And how did the first "college night" last night go without the boys in blue? I know the cold probably kept the lid on a bit.

Let me know what's going on with nightclub security! You folks, the first line of defense, are in the best position to know.

buzoncrime: A Drive home at night thru Baltimore in Search of a Snack

2008-11-20T12:43:00.000-05:00

This is an old post dedicated to a dear friend and Sun food blogger extraordinaire:

buzoncrime: A Drive home at night thru Baltimore in Search of a Snack

What's with this perp walk stuff?

2008-11-18T16:22:00.000-05:00

From reading some of the comments in the Sun's recent article on the bail review for the alleged Harris killers, poor Buz realized that he was not alone in finding the media-enhanced "perp walk" done to the accused a little unseemly.

Of course, your consultant was delighted in the 2 arrests, but not in the immediate aftermath of perp walk.

It was an especially disappointing end point in an investigation during which the Commissioner used words like "thoughtful" and "professional" in stating how the investigation was proceeding. I know they were under a lot of pressure to solve the case by members of the council and the Harris family. But apparently, certain members of the department[or was it City Hall] conjured up this dog-and-pony show by alerting the media that they were captured and going to be brought thru the front door. Suspects are usually brought in thru the back garage.

Buz has a couple of ideas which members of the Command staff might have instigated this--maybe. And he has always been uncomfortable with perp walks. Suppose the person gets off for some reason. Can they sue for intentional infliction of emotional distress? Too bad they didn't do a perp walk on the guy who texted: "I killed two people today, and one of them was a woman." I least we would have known what that clown looked like. And I am glad they didn't perp walk the folks who were arrested and some tased on the night of Obama's election.

But seriously, a thoughtful person should resist these things: there's a presumption of innocence in this country, last I checked (unless you're at Guantanamo).

Apparently, some members of the department are not aware that there is a strong undercurrent in this city that the Harris murder was given significant more attention, resources, and determination than hardly any other murders get. And only the "connected" have the police on their side.

Lights and sirens? How far? From the arrest scene? from 29th Street? Or were they just waiting around the corner for the show to begin? Even if they were going to have a perp walk, why didn't they just put them in the wagon and quietly drive down there obeying all traffic regulations? Anyone aware of how many auto accidents our police have? And how an emergency vehicle approaching can cause drivers to do abrupt things, including slamming on the brakes and getting creamed in the rear. And not to mention the ratcheting up of tension and stress in the city by unnecessary sirens--we have plenty, thanks.

If the intention was to have good PR, it was a disaster. The same thing could have been accomplished with another press announcement. And, remember, only one of the three was the killer; but the parade left these two bitter and nastier than they were. And the arrest is only the beginning: the third suspect is still out there, and the case has to still go to trial. And the defense has some negotiating advantages here.

The curmudgeon has spoken!

No more police in uniform working for bars/nightclubs!

2008-11-11T15:38:00.000-05:00

Buz is not sure where this business of having uniformed city police officers working outside bars and nightclubs exactly began. When I first came on the police force (a couple of years ago), working around alcohol was strictly forbidden. Then the crack in the policy began when officers were allowed to work, in plainclothes, at various charity functions-to provide security as long as they did not have anything to do with serving alcohol.

Your consultant became aware of the first big deployment of uniformed officers at the 3rd iteration of Hammerjack's when it moved to Guilford Avenue. [At the second Hammerjack's, management more than fulfilled its order-maintenance role. In addition to heavy bouncer/security presence inside, at closing time, everybody had to be out by 2am, there was a trashcan at the exits, any drinks in your hand were grabbed and not allowed outside; once the club was empty, all the security staff (sometimes more than 25) went outside and told people they could not hang around the underpass and to leave the area. They harassed, cajoled, and pestered til you left. They were following to the letter their obligations to the community: this was all observed by us.] We understand that later things got rougher and rougher til the club closed to make way for Ravens Stadium and they opened at their location on Guilford. Sometimes, they would have 10, 15, or even more uniformed city police working "outside" the club, as the club made an explicit business determination to attract the "rough kind of crowd" where the big bucks were to be made. This crowd required the presence of armed, uniformed off-duty police officrs--and lots of them.

Gradually, other bars and nightclubs across town began having them too. One bar owner in Brooklyn had more cops working for him, than working in the surrounding Sector 1 neighborhoods of Southern District-who were working for the city. {It didn't work: that bar had its licensed revoked by the liquor board because of the crowds and violence the owner attracted-deliberately, as a business decision.} Apparently, now many of the clubs in the Market Place and downtown area, as well as in Federal Hill now hire off-duty officers, often several at a time. Because of some problems that have inevitably occurred, the Police Commissioner has ended the authorization for secondary employment at these places effective November 17th. The world will not end, and life will go on.

I know many of my wonderful former colleagues in the department who work these details cannot see it, but there is an inherent conflict of interest in having officers work in licensed beverage outlets such as bars, nightclubs, and strip joints. The police department has the first level of legal oversight of these places, and the economic interests of the owners sometimes conflicts with legal mandates. I mean, c'mon, it's against the law to allow persons under 21 to drink booze and it's against the law to serve persons who become so inebriated that they want to fight and become obnoxious.

At least one club sponsors buses to take dozens of college students (all seniors and 21 of course) directly to their club. They have been banned from the Towson University campus, and have been teh subject of complaints by other neighborhoods where they pick up and drop off these kids, in keeping with their "business model". And if your business model relies on those factors plus attracting a "thug" crowd, as well as an atmosphere of Preakness Infield-like activity, then I guess you would need several armed, uniformed police. Buz thinks you should re-assess your business model and its needs for security.

Ya can't have fights and barroom brawls, with police present, and nobody, including them, sees anything. The commissioner alluded to the combative, rowdy drunks being thrown out of the bar, only to have to be dealt with by the city police. And there have been instances whereby the city has been forced to pay settlements when bar patrons were injured.

In addition to liability, the department has to eat the court time that any of these officers get as a result of assignments there (oh, they're supposed to charge it to their secondary employers; betcha, 23-1, it doesn't happen, because the administrative challenges are too formidable.) The department can also get stuck with sick leave, workers comp, and have the potential for "double dipping". So, while, yes, the business owners are paying the salary of the cops, if anything happens, they want them to put themselves "on duty", in order to take police action with the city carrying any liability.

This reminds Buz of the untenable situation that occurred for many years at the Preakness infield: the city police deploying hundreds of officers (really on duty, though) to referee fights, drunkenness, and brawls often involving dozens. So that a large drunken frat party could occur and the TV stations could have "cute" shots of folks guzzling beer down tubes, etc. Over the years, many officers were injured, and a number of arrests occurred. Well, over the last several years, the city police segued out of doing it; last Preakness was totally security provided by Pimlico race track through its own sources and funding.

However, having taken a position in support of the commissioner, your consultant believes that he has also gotten himself into a conundrum: the patrol shifts in the city are at minimal strength. A few years ago, the department decided, for a variety of reasons, to eliminate one post in each patrol sector in the city on the midnight shift. Then later, the department decided, hey, patrol is worthless, so they then eliminated that same post on the day shift and 4-12 shift as well. So, there was a substantial reduction in the uniformed patrol presence, allowing them to dedicate more staff to specialized police units. Then, under yet another change, they decided to give each district only 160 officers, no matter how geographically large, or how many calls for service, or how much crime or accidents. 160 is it! One friend told me that when he was assigned toe the Northeastern District a number of years ago, they had well over 210 officers.

Violent Crime Impact Division has, depending on who you talk to, 200-300 officers. Betcha, 3-1, the bulk of them work secondary employment at bars/nightclubs. And, the Deputy Commissioner for Operations has not really spent much of his career in patrol; he made his mark in Narcotics stuff.

In the meantime, the poor patrol force, on midnight, has been relying on overtime to fill all its units for the first several hours of the shift. Apparently, there has now been placed a strict limitation on overtime. So, are those units now going to not be staffed, or are the few discretionary units available to the district commanders be called upon to fill 'em? And this overtime conundrum will manifest itself when the bars let out without their police bar-employed babysitters. We'll see. Central and Southern District will be the most affected, because those areas seem to have the most Off-Duties working the clubs. Southeastern also has historically had a problem with post-bar club problems.

When I was a shift commander there, I usually had a district operations foot squad of 6 or so officers there on weekend nights, in addition to our whole patrol squad in Sector One--another 7 or 8. {At that time, none of the bars used off-duty police for security.}

For the guys and gals who want more off-duty overtime, there is plenty: Hopkins (both campuses), MICA, Loyola, Our Daily Bread, et al. And the guys and gals who own bars and clubs must reassess their business models and security situations in light of this new decision. It might require them to tighten up, reduce their income a bit, rethink and pay for security in a different way, and reduce the "socialization of risk" by relying on uniformed police in operating their businesses, but relying on the city when the heavy stuff goes down.

Some new security and crime thoughts

2008-11-02T15:37:00.000-05:00

A few tidbits related to crime, which came to my mind:

Buz ran into a Northern district member, who said, recently, that the robbery problem along Northern's border with the Northeastern district has been pretty bad recently, so they've detailed plainclothes units up in that area.
Your consultant ran into one of the officers working plainclothes: on his t-shirt, there was a logo of a stop-and-frisk, with the words: "real police work in the city". .........Ok, uh-uh. I ain't gonna touch that one.
This robbery problem was accentuated by Major Buzzoro at the community meeting at the Govans library when he talked about the problems just south of there along the east side of York Road, down to Coldspring or so.
As a result of that meeting, I signed up for a neighborhood communications crime group fostered by one of the folks at the meeting. We've noticed, along with spotcrime.com, a real surge in burglaries along that York/Belvedere area, along with some other robberies along York Road, and the "carjacking" at York Road Plaza.
As a result of the Yahoo group's efforts, a bunch of citizens are going to get together at the leader's house tomorrow night for their first "Citizens-On-Patrol" walk, accompanied, this time, by one of Northern District's community relations officers. We're pleased that this tiny taxpayer's group is doing all it can to both alert people about crime, and patrol, and they have sent a letter of concern about a house that got raided on Belvedere for selling the wacky weed, etc.
Halloween in downtown Medfield was pretty quiet and uneventful; haven't heard too much from around town about how it went in other neighborhoods. How did your neighborhood survive during Halloween night?! Buz would like to know!
Did anyone else see Ralph Fridgen(?) on TV--UM's football coach? He was surrounded by city police and school police at the Dunbar-Edmondson game during the brief sports shot I saw. I mean, seriously, were they worried about his safety? Hmmmmm. Maybe. But shouldn't he have a bodyguard detail like the mayor and governor of several University Police? On the other hand, since he make more than a million $ a year, maybe they feel he should hire his own security/bouncers. I just thought it was kinda funny.
Buz noticed the double shooting in the 4600 blk. of Marble Hall over the weekend. Your consultant has noticed that area was where the former Morgan student was murdered last year, and maybe, just maybe, I think the killers of Ken Harris were headed up to that area, running thru the alleys north from Northwood. I hope the cops in Homicide are all over this shooting.

Hooray for Alonso!

2008-10-29T10:59:00.000-04:00

While Buz has sometimes disagreed with Dr. Alonso, CEO of Baltimore's Public Schools, he wholeheartedly agrees with yesterday's plea to stay the course on the Maryland High School Assessments. This is really a crime issue. So many of these kids go through their school years playing around, playing hooky, running the halls, hanging out, and just thinking that it's all a game--like on the streets. There are no consequences. What Dr. Alonso was saying yesterday is: this ain't juvenile court, guys and gals. There are consequences: you won't be pushed thru to graduate.

Buz works part-time as a vocational caseworker at a local nonprofit, where about 70% of the clients are court-awarded. His job is to help them find jobs. It is so sad to see men (they're mostly men) in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who dropped out of school--most will say 10th grade, though they probably weren't doing much by then--and never went back to a GED. Many have several children. Their job prospects are meager and limited-with a few exceptions. They enjoyed the pleasures of running the streets, hanging out with the girls, smoking a little weed, and not going in for all that nerd-like crap. (Peter Moskos says in his book that: "drug dealers get laid".) Well, people make decisioons.

And I know, this all sounds kind of judgmental, and your consultant feels very sorry for the kids who dropped out of school because the school was controlled by punks and thugs, (now gang members), who get their kicks beating up on people who were not them. But the GED route was always an option, even to them. But nobody was able to, or wanted to perhaps, take them aside and say: Ya gotta stop all this street stuff; without an education you'll get nowhere. But the decision to say that were not made; and the decision to finish even a basic education was not made. And now, as adults, the past is never dead--it's not even past. In three years, I've seen dozens of clients who I've urged to get their GED's; to my knowledge, a handful or less have tried.

Good for Dr. Alonso! He's sending the right message to the kids and their parents: school is not a prison; it is not a playground; it is an opportunity. {Posted in the vestibule of the Institute of Notre Dame}.

The Brattton Visit

2008-10-24T19:53:00.000-04:00

Buz attended the talk given last Thursday night at Evergreen by Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton. Your consultant found the talk very intellectually stimulating, but felt a tad uncomfortable with some of the things the Chief was saying--inasmuch as they applied to Baltimore, and some of the things spinning around my poor brain. Peter Hermann in his blog goes over pretty well what Chief Bratton said, so I won't bore my poor readers by repeating. I refer you-all to his blog at baltimoresun.com/news/crime/blog.

I did have a bit of cognitive dissonance, though, having experienced a variety of policing in my growing up in Baltimore and my career: old Baltimore "regular policing"--both pre-Pomerleau, and reform after Pomerleau was Commissioner; and his successors, who basically carried on his systems, "community policing" under Tom Frazier, and the "New York style" policing under Ed Norris--on whose watch I retired. I also am coming up to the end of reading Peter Mosko's book on his stint in the Baltimore Police, most, if not all, of which was under the Norris implementation of the New York/Bratton model--including pro-arrest policies.

Now, let's give Bratton his due: He appears to be a savvy police manager, morale builder, and good administrator; his results speak for themselves. Ex-Commissioner Frazier, chatting with me today said: "Bratton's the real thing." Bratton said that he loves cops, and he loves cities, and really loves being a cop. He then went on to lead us thru a history of policing styles and paradigms, with a bit of criticism here and there. His philosophy was summed up by a somewhat complex version community policing mixed in with Jack Maple's interpretation for policing of the rational decision making principles: 1. timely and accurate intelligence (dots on a computer-generated map); 2. putting cops on dots; 3. sound strategy; and 4. relentless followup. Now, these were supposed to be the cornerstones of the "Compstat" model of doing business. Buz could not help wondering if Bill Bratton would help if he were brought to Baltimore as the Commish. Take a look at Charles Village's reported crime on a map for 90 days, for example, and tell the district commander how to handle that with his limited resources.

But, you know, Baltimore has had Compstat, or its version of it, for years, and perhaps they're doing it "right" now, I dunno. But at the time I left the department(2001), and for some time after, my colleagues in the operational side told me, that it had evolved into a "gotcha" session--whereby commanders who were unpopular or disliked by one of the officials questioning them were asked more and more detailed questions about crimes in their area--til eventually they were stumped: Gotcha! (Buz hopes that they're not still doing this-though he heard that the Deputy Commissioner for Operations got so angry not too long ago that he threw a bunch of papers-hopefully on the floor).

Frankly, I do not expect that a district commander should have to know, study, and memorize every detail of every single crime that occurred since the last Compstat. He/she (they don't have any women district commanders now as far as I know--the starting lineup is in pencil, though) should know patterns, trends, areas of concern, and be able to articulate what actions have been taken to deal with problems, as well as any significant resolutions to incidents. And with each district limited in personnel, it's not clear at all that a whole lot of discretionary resources are available to district commanders to address their problem areas.

It was good to hear Bratton say: I love cities. I love being a police officer. Cops count! Police Matter! I believe that also.

He also said that the first duty of government in a democracy is public safety. I believe that, too. He said police can change citzen behavior, regardless of other situational, demographic, and environmental factors.

As he took us thru the history of the evolution of police management, he, like others, denigrated "rapid response", random patrol, and, of course, 911. So, Buz thought back to the recent community meetings he has attended, reflected on experience, and wondered: what's really happening that's different? Citizens not only don't get rapid response, they claim, often, that they don't get any response. Some say they never see patrolling police, that they don't feel safe, and always have to look over their shoulder. 911 calls are backed up because there aren't any units available to handle them. The notion of response to calls, random patrol, and service to citizens sometimes seems to fall by the wayside. Moskos said it became: "let's go lock up a druggie". Now, maybe it worked in New York, Boston, the NY subways, and to some degree in Los Angeles. But it would be really interesting to have Bratton come here to Baltimore, to see if he gets the same results with this cantankerous criminal justice system. Perhaps Bealefeld is using some to the Bratton techniques to get the murders down to the current level. We're all rooting for him; we all want a safe city. (Bealefeld recently said at the Northwood meeting that no one loves cops more than him. Do I sense a kindred spirit of Bratton's?)

Bratton, in New York, talked about having a "booking bus" when he was Transit Police Chief. Seven out of ten suspects were let go on minor charges after booking; they kept the ones wanted on warrants and having guns. New York has "desk appearance tickets", which means that after you get arrested, fingerprinted, photographed, and checked for warrants, you get a summons for court and are released. He didn't have to contend with a Central Booking which was crushed and brought to its knees by Baltimore police making 100,000 arrest every year for a number of years in a row. Officers were taken out of service writing the reports, the statement of charges, and taking evidence for storage. And while they were doing that, the prosecutors were dropping, stetting, and nolle-prossing those same arrestees left and right. Calls for service were being answered late or not at all, but the cops were racking up lot of overtime with the 9:01am time stamps for court on their meaningless arrests. And many of those who went to trial got postponements, PBJs, suspended sentences, repeated offenses ignored or downplayed, made bail on 1% of money asked, and thought they now had street cred. Of course, Central Booking, for some, was a very unpleasant and de-humanizing day or two. But "changing behavior" of citizens? I don't think so.

Bratton also reported having a huge army of police at his disposal in New York to deal with problem areas. (He admitted to not having that in LA.). He gives the figure of 38,000 police. He doesn't mention the huge increase in police personnel, brought about by the Safe Streets Act enacted before he became Commissioner, bringing that number of police into existence from about 31,000; all New York State residents were taxed to bring about today's safer New York City.

The compstat process seems to focus on the location and number and time of serious crimes. Yet, somehow, to my mind, there seems to be a conflict, with the simultaneous emphasis of quality of life crimes. Police do two almost-different things: fight crime and maintain order thru other types of law enforcement. Compstat aims at fighting crime, but order maintenance, which he lauded back to the old policing era doesn't lend itself to a Compstat model, and other criticism of "old" style of policing. Calls for service to 911, rapid response, and patrolling are most often used to maintain order in a community--there is an overlap with crime-fighting, but the two present a coherent whole of a safe community. When law-abiding citizens call, one used to be believe a cop could be there in 5 minutes or so when something is going on; a patrolling police presence can prevent crime and reassure residents, who can wave and chat with them. A rapid response is needed to maintain order when an assault is going on. Some of these may or may not show "scientifically" to reduce crime sometimes, but borderline illegal stop-and-frisks, lack of discretionary arrests and citations, and lack of followup don't maintain crime-fighting or order in the long run.

There is also a huge difference in the issues Baltimore faces when compared with cities like New York, Boston and LA. Baltimore has a huge percentage of its population belonging to the poverty demographic--much higher than those cities, percentage wise. And Baltimore's known drug addiction issues take a much higher toll on this poverty-stricken town, percentage-wise than those cities. And folks who regularly deal with behavior of addicts know that changing behavior is hard. Bratton believes policing can change behavior; and to some extent, I think he's right, but it also must function in an environment supporting that. One only need to look at the suspects in many serious crimes here in Baltimore just this past year: suspended sentence, released on bail, violation of probation, suspended sentence, time served, probation, etc. Everybody has to be in the game. Yes, police play a big role, and Bill Bratton is the big guy in policing (no doubt a brilliant, forceful, and courageous manager), but he still has to win over the loyalty of his cops and get them and their managers to perform, and get them the resources to do it. And the other players in the system have to be true partners in helping fix the problems.

Another community meeting: Bellona, Old Homeland, part of Govans, Belvedere, Rosebank and part of Homeland

2008-10-16T19:23:00.000-04:00

Retired American General to retired North Vietnamese General: "You know, you never beat us on the field of battle".

Retired North Vietnamese General replied: "That is very true, but it is also irrelevant".

circa, 1978

Police Commissioner and Mayor to Joe the Thug: "You know, we reduced the homicides, that is you guys killing and shooting each other, even non-fatally".

Joe the Thug to Mayor and Commish: "That is very true, but it is also irrelevant".

circa 2008

Buz attended another community meeting this past Tuesday--another in which the citizens were upset and disappointed, somewhat, with our beloved police department. I was interested to see how at both meetings the police department was very proud of its tremendous reduction of the numbers of homicides and, to a lesser degree, the number of non-fatal shootings. And how, yet, one came away from the meetings with the feelings that the citizens had a unspoken (and sometimes spoken) reaction: "like, what's that all got to be with me and the crime problems we face"?

Your consultant thinks it's wonderful that the homicides are down, that the police and other criminal justice authorities are intervening in a "private civil war" [Judge John Prevas] going on in about 4 square miles of the city. In the meanwhile average "citizens" and "taxpayers" (in the Wire's lingo), are very concerned about the large number of robberies, burglaries, and other crimes in their neighborhoods--crimes which the department admits are basically unchanged from last year. Buz has always believed that robberies are the true measure of a community's safety--not murders. Robberies usually occur in a public place, between strangers, and involve force or the threat of using force. Murders, in this city (and most), involve either a domestic tragedy or business operations among people in "the game". (as Omar put it).

Both at this meeting and at Northwood's, and at a meeting of local security officials, police officials expressed grievous concern about the worrisome numbers of assault and robberies occurring in many neighborhoods, including Northeast Baltimore, especially around the Alameda/Loch Raven corridors, Charles Village, and downtown.

Huge numbers of officers are assigned to arrest the big, baddest guys in Eastern, Western, and Northwestern districts, but the nasty up-and-coming young guns and street thugs are able to exact a weary toll on our other neighborhoods. The policy priority clearly is to keep the lid on the murders. Good! But we wish the department could be a bit more balanced about it, that the focus should be, by the press, policymakers, and all the criminal justice players on a safe city overall. The focus on murders numbers driving the system may win the numbers came, but we hope not at the expense of losing the war.

DETAILS OF THE MEETING:

IT WAS held in the meeting room of the Govans library on Tuesday, October 14th at 6:30pm, and it was packed! Standing room only, about 85-95 people, despite not being very well advertised. No mayor or commissioner or state delegates: only one councilman, Bill Henry along with the Northern District commander and a couple of his people. It was sparked by recent crimes along the Bellona Avenue corridor, between York Road and Homeland, and included folks from Old Homeland, Rosebank, Belvedere, and some from Homeland proper.

Poor District Commander Ross Buzzoro had to face a mostly polite, but assertive and concerned and upset crowd of citizens. He seemed rather nervous at times, emphasizing the drop in murders for the district (19-11), and the fair number of serious arrests his people had made. He never really answered, because he didn't really have an answer, as to how the department could notify the community about crimes in the area of their concern. Although the city's crime mapping software has a lot of information, it is not terribly recent: with some exceptions, two weeks old, and does not tell time of offense, method of the offense, point of entry if there was a burglary, suspect information or victim demographics/activity.

The man sitting next to Buz described the robbery of his pregnant wife in their driveway, on a sunny Tuesday morning about 9am, witnessed by a 4-year-old, during which the wife got pushed in the face. Incredibly, this was not included in a year-long list of crimes posted for review in the rear of the room. And, again incredibly, the gentleman said that there had been NO followup by detectives on this incident, and no return of his several calls to detectives.

{Buz hopes this crime did not vanish into the realm of not counting, like the January holdup attempt in Northwood where a bullet fired into a gas station window turned out to be from the same gun used to kill Ken Harris. That crime was "downgraded" to destruction of property and thus not considered worthy of followup by the detectives--and doesn't thus count as a robbery either}.

Another fine citizen announced to the meeting that his house was burglarized on September 4th. Police found no good evidence after a cursory search of his house, and he declared a huge footprint outside the point of entry was not noticed by the crime lab. (could it have been the print of one of the officers there?). But what really ticked him off was that the crime lab took a number of hours to get there, and he couldn't go to sleep til three a.m. And most of that time 5 police officers stood around in his yard laughing, joking, and swapping stories of their girlfriends, and how they buy throwaway cell phones for.................? He also said he made 8 calls to the number he was given to find out about his case from detectives; none were returned by the detectives. He received NO followup on his case at all.

In fairness to the Major (who is a good street cop), none of the detectives who work in his building following up on street robberies or burglaries report to him, but to their bosses downtown--who might possibly revise the crime category by using the standards a defense attorney might use.

Oddly, the Major said several times without prompting, that he knows some of them might be skeptical of police reporting accuracy, but assured them auditing is taking place.

I'm concerned about repeated reports of quality of service, followup, and lack of responsiveness on the part of Baltimore's finest lately, after attending and reading about it at several community meetings. Nobody expects police to stop all crime or be everywhere at all times, but professionalism is hoped for at all times--and including followup and returning phone calls.

Buz thinks that robberies should be the police policy priority, along with making citizens feel that police are taking crimes against law-abiding people seriously, and following up professionally, along with a significant uniformed police presence. I wish the papers and TV would stop counting and harping on the homicide numbers.

Though one person lauded the police, which she said she sees 'all the time', and praised them finding her open door, she was in the minority; in both of these meetings. She even joked that she sees so many cops, that they are lowering property values.

A lot of talk at the meeting concerned email list serves, and crime information on them being traded back and forth among neighbors concerning suspicious people, etc. But it is not clear that the kind of information neighbors are trading would be helpful to the police, unless they were also on the email lists. I doubt the police are "lurking" on any of these lists, and even if they were, there is no clear way for the ones reading the emails to give viable info the officers can use to those that can use it in real time.

All told, the citizens seemed to be not terribly happy leaving the meeting, but not many citizens at meetings like this are.

The Commish was upset about Northwood!

2008-10-10T13:44:00.000-04:00

Buz attended a meeting at the Northeastern District last night, which featured the mayor and the Police Commissioner addressing the mostly, about 85% African-American, homeowners and taxpayers who live in the district and are frustrated about crime--an issue which gained more traction recently with the murder of former Councilman Ken Harris.

I was especially delighted to see the anger and audacity to speak truth about the situation on the part of Commissioner Bealefeld. He also expressed a bit of frustration with the situation. A couple of tidbits from the upset Commish:

Just this past Sunday, in "broad daylight" a woman closing her store in Northwood Plaza was accosted, and forced back into the store, where she was robbed--just four doors down from the Haven!
The Commissioner was upset that, with all the emphasis and "commotion" regarding Northwood, this crime was still able to occur, and during the day. At one point, he practically shouted "someone's not doing their job!" By that he probably meant that the police patrols, and first line supervision, despite the robberies and murders, are not able or willing to do basic police work: patrolling, checking, getting out on foot, etc. (It's systemic problems, along with motivation supervision and training all mixed up here, Commish)
He then revealed that the police have received only two phone call tips regarding Harris's murder, despite all the publicity. He, like me, knows that there are folks out there who know. These guys are out and about in the area, probably in the same neighborhood, smoking weed, drinking, hanging out, not going to work, all the things which constitute 'failure to do right'.
The Commissioner pointed out that he sat in the shopping center for an hour and a half and no officers noticed him: how would they notice any bad guys?

The meeting opened with a re-iteration of desires of the community by Mary Pat Clarke: that an additional patrol sector be created for the Northeastern district, staffed by 3 sergeants and 33 police officers. And the owners of the shopping center be called in on the carpet and required to be in compliance with the PUD (planned unit development)-a thingamajig granting an exception for zoning.

Mary Pat, God bless her: I love her to death: But Buz thinks she was dead wrong in her statement that because the shopping center is private property, the owners need to stop using the city police as their security guards. She compared this to the private property such as Johns Hopkins Homewood campus or Morgan State's campus. One problem: those colleges are open to the public at times, but basically are for the students and faculty and staff. A shopping center by its nature INVITES THE PUBLIC to come shop, browse, and in this case eat and drink there. A strip shopping center is a very public place. And we taxpayers want to be protected there like any public street and we want those businesses to succeed and flourish. It's not like an enclosed mall which is just a very big building--though that too is open to the public.

Actually, using off-duty city police as security in uniform probably would not be a bad idea, because the severity of the criminal element in the area is such that even armed private security guards might not be enough to drive the criminals out and the retail mix there is such that not very well off customers are going to come.

(Buz went to Towson Town Center recently and there were FOUR off-duty county police officers, armed, and in uniform, working for the shopping center. One officer told me that , especially on Fridays they need 4, and sometimes more, to maintain order--in addition to the center's own large private security guard force--gangs he was told.)

The commissioner seemed very reluctant to promise the extra sector concept or any other large amount of additional manpower--not even temporarily. Buz wonders if City Hall is calling the shots here: there's probably a concern that every other district will say "me too".

The mayor and commissioner both lauded the drop in crime and the 4-day, 10-hour shift the Northeastern is using: giving the district more staffing between 9pm and 2am than any other district. It didn't seem to help much in the Harris case nor did it seem to assuage the majority of citizens who spoke last night as being disappointed, if not frustrated with their police service. Northeastern still has only 151 sworn police at NED, just 9 less than authorized strength. (All the districts have 160 officers authorized no matter how big they are, or how busy, or how bad the crime. Eastern, Western, and to some degree Southwestern are supplemented perpetually with Tactical, Traffic, and Violent Crime Impact Division units, though).

The mayor somewhat oddly, during her opening remarks, cited a survey taken by Baltimore's Tourism officials proudly proclaiming that the tourists felt Bmore is a safe city. When one of the citizens interrupted asking, logically, where did those tourists go when they came to town, she was sort of scolded by the mayor, who claimed that the tourists went "everywhere". I guess Mr. Covington at the Haven wishes that busloads of tourists were coming to the Haven to have a cool, refreshing beverage and hear some good jazz-perhaps Big Jesse Yawn. And if they get out of the bus and walk into the club and go directly home, before it gets too late, they probably would feel safe too. Buz will betcha, 24-1, that tour buses rarely come to Northwood Plaza, or Loch Raven Plaza, or Erdman Shopping Center-some of the areas cited by citizens last night.

The mayor did admit that strong home ownership is crucial. And here were African-Americans, living the American dream, buying homes and paying taxes, and I didn't feel comfortable that they really were being listened to.

One gentleman pointed up and down the table and said that they participate in citizens on patrol, and that they call, and that they watch out for their neighborhood 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, that they do everything but lock people up. But: "we're being let down". They said there was little police presence in the Loch Raven community, and that THEY HAD NO CONFIDENCE IN THE DISTRICT COMMANDER--despite the commissioner's vote of confidence for the Major. They have tried us the 311 line, but after 20 questions from the call clerk, the police then take forever to respond; the suspects have long disappeared. Sometimes the police never come ( a common complaint that Buz hears).

One man named Tony from the Belair Edison neighborhood said he is frustrated because when his neighborhood calls for druggies plying their trade, the cops, if they come at all, simply drive by most of the time, sometimes merely glaring at the boys on the stoop. He wishes the supervisors would go on these calls and have the officers get out of their cars, confront and talk to these dealers, and order them to leave and not come back, demand ID, or SOMETHING. He said that he and his neighbors were told (by the police?) to put up no trespassing signs--which many of them have done. But the officers don't enforce them at all and don't question the thugs on the steps where they don't live. (Peter Moskos, in his book about the Eastern District, explains in detail why the police, eventually, stop doing anything about the drug thugs sitting on the stoops.) Buz doesn't think a lot of no trespassing signs or no sitting on step signs is going to help property values much. Poor Tony. He's a real big guy, but I guess since the Dawson and other cases of "don't snitch" have occurred, I guess even he's not going to go out and say anything to them.

Her Honor did say that the district she lives in, Southwestern, is the worst in the city. Ya heard it right from the top!

She also said at one point that she would love, if she could, to just take the shopping center from the owners. Um, yeah, eminent domain: we could have a "mixed use development" with apartments, shops, offices, and condos. Boy have we heard that expression a few times in the last few years!

Oddly enough, there was no one from Morgan there. Your consultant wonders if their Police Chief or anyone from the school was invited, especially since the own the biggest property on the shopping center site--the old Hechinger's building. You would think that since the Plaza is across the street from the university that they would have a dog in this fight. Buz has learned the Morgan police rarely enter the shopping center and don't really even drive around their building. He read on one talk forum that Morgan tells its students not to go there (unable to confirm).

Buz also speculates that these perpetrators probably live just a few blocks north in the heavily rental area near campus, so he wonders if any outreach to the students with the pictures and the one guy's profile widely publicized with the students might gain some calls. The commissioner can lament all he wanted to last night about only two calls, but these were all "citizens" at the meeting. None of them were in the "game". The people who will know these guys are either in the "stop snitching" culture or they may be student neighbors, who aren't even necessarily aware of the crime.

Crime meeting tonite at Northeastern District!

2008-10-09T12:55:00.000-04:00

Buz has learned that there will be a big crime meeting tonight at the Northeastern District Station House. A number of neighborhoods along the Loch Raven corridor have been invited. This is an additional meeting sparked by the recent murder of Ken Harris. Reportedly the mayor will be there, possibly, along with the Commissioner. There is no word on whether or not the Master Crime Downgrader will be in attendance.

I've learned that there has been a sharp increase in robberies lately in the city, and enough to possibly project a increase compared to last year. Info received is that the Northeastern District, along the Loch Raven/Alameda corridors, have been one of the main places of increase--particularly in the area of the Northwood Plaza Shopping Center.

Other areas of the city hit hard recently are: Northern District, especially in Charles Village; and Central District, especially in the "downtown" area.

Many of these robberies are committed by juveniles, according to the police, and as most of us who have been around for a while know, the system is ill-equipped to deal with dangerous juveniles who rob, until multiple offenses are (maybe not even then), or they get popped for armed robbery (or worse) as adults. And if they get caught and "nothing" happens, they keep on doing it, because, hey, it's fun--and of course, ya get money and other stuff out of it.

By the way, the surveillance photos of the three robbers in Northwood clearly show a pretty good side profile of the guy holding a Halloween mask. Really, if anybody sees this who knows this guy, he is really got a readily identifiable profile, so you gotta know it's him. But nobody's saying anything.

The mayor said they're gonna crack down on the rotten, no good shopping centers who allow crime to run rampant in their areas. Hmmmmmmmm. Wonder what she means? Are they going to padlock Northwood Plaza?! And what about cracking down on the thugs? And what about cracking down on downgrading attempt robberies with shots fired to "vandalism"?--which of course, is not investigated.

Mary Pat's idea of another sector for Northeast is a good one, but it probably isn't going to happen: the city's broke. She'll have to settle for that big ole dark and locked RV (oops, police command post), parked in the desultory shopping center.

The brouhaha over crime statistics

2008-10-06T11:53:00.000-04:00

Peter Hermann has an interesting post about a dispute over crime stats and information in the Homeland neighborhood, as well as some interesting comments from his readers.

Buz has often gone to the city police crime mapping site for a lot of useful information regarding crime in the city. He agrees with Peter that we wish they would give us a little more info, like time of day, some comment on method, victim info, suspect info, etc. But it ain't gonna happen.

There are more than 17,000 police departments in the U.S., but only about 100 of them have crime-mapping data available to the public. Why? Well, cost, for one thing: someone has to create the program, keep it running,and update it frequently if not daily. The dirty little secret is that most police departments have little to no money budgeted for that sort of thing (or anything); most police departments in the country are very small--I believe the median size is about 10 officers. The other dirty little secret is: why do it? Very few departments have any real incentive to reveal to citizens the true number and kinds of reports of crime occurring in their midst. That information becomes political fodder for enemies of current political administrations. The police chief who lasts more than three years in the job is doing well, no matter the size of the department. And a jump in crime overall or in a certain place or of a certain type causes all sorts of conniptions (is that a word?) which take deployment and control and direction of the department out of the hands of the chief. The hue and cry goes out!

Take the city's mapping info, for example. They only allow you a look at 2 weeks at a time for the most recent 90-day period. And nothing more recent than about 10-14 days ago. But if you're a computer whiz you can get a look at all 90 days in their database at once. John Galt just did it last week for the area around the Barclay school, showing the crime in and around the Charles Village/Waverly area for the summer. Yikes! There was hardly any white space on the screen!

Your consultant met recently with the fellow who runs spotcrime.com a crime-mapping site for cities, which I looked at a number of times, and in fact, signed up for a crime alert of crimes happening within 3 miles of my house. He gets a feed from both the city police stats and the Sun's blotter reports. Between the two, it gives a better picture. Of course, these are only REPORTED crimes; in certain areas the real crime is much higher--because so many people are involved with drugs that they won't call the police, not to mention the why bother factor. As one judge told me at a wedding on Saturday, "you know, the city police are not very well thought of". I said, "your honor, I believe that's an understatement". And certain jurisdictions don't give him any information, except what he can get in press releases, e. g. Anne Arundel county. But at least for now, that site, combined with the city police site help give a good picture of reported crime in an area.

Two books on the Eastern District

2008-10-03T16:56:00.000-04:00

Buz has gotten hold of two books, both written by persons who spent some time in the famous (infamous?) Eastern District in Baltimore City. Your consultant is slowly making his way throught the two book: one chapter or subchapter in one, juxtaposed with the chapter in the other book. One is by Petter Moskos, who spent a year there while doing research for his Ph.D. The book essentially becomes his dissertation, and gets bogge down by the constant citations, and literature review, though he is trying to bring the literture to bear on his year as "Cop in the Hood". Unfortunately, for us and for Peter one year+ being on the midnight shift in the Eastern is not necessarily representative of police work or even police work in Baltimore. I would argue that working nothing but the midnight shift is not representative.

Of course, Mr. Moskos never saw any brutality or corruption during his 14-month stay.

The other is by Danny Shanahan, a cop who writes about going over the edge and being eventually shot by other police and going to prison. His writing is awful, though some of his vignettes are interesting; the book is not well edited; apparently self-published. It's pretty clear that the picture Daniel Shanahan paints of the Eastern is one of burned out police, bad attitude, some sense of police duty and glory, and almost casual mention of police officers in his squad drinking and sleeping on duty. Even a casual reader would come to learn that a suburban boy brou;ght up in an all-white neighborhood, suddenly thrust into what is almost a third-world country and trying to police it, soon becomes way in over his head. And an amateur psychologist would dedeuce from his writing that eithere he is fooling us, or early on began suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Book review to Continue......................

No Arrest yet!

2008-09-30T16:46:00.000-04:00

It's now been more than a week since former Councilman and community leader Ken Harris was murdered in the Northwood Shopping Center during a holdup of the Haven jazz club. And no arrests have been made.

Buz thinks that all the leads have dried up; nobody's "snitching". He's sure that in addition to these 3 hoodlums, others know about the crime and either suspect strongly or know or can guess that they were involved: girlfriends, street friends, people noticing them throwing a lot of money around, etc. But no info to 5-0. The nasty little secret is that if no one tells them anything, the police don't know anything. People who know are either afraid of the perpetrators or believe they are somehow supportive of these guys, that they didn't really mean to kill anybody, that they needed the money, and they're really good dudes, etc.

I heard a fella call in on the WBAL C4 radio talk show arguing that the city police were "up to something" sinister in this case for some unknown evil political reason or something. And that they shoulda have by now got all those surveillance pictures, and analyzed them and publicized them, etc. Sheesh. That's pretty heavy conspiracy stuff! I'm pretty sure Bealefeld and crew really want to solve this "red ball". It would mean mucho brownie points.

Your consultant guesses (semi-educated-wise) that the fancy-schmancy surveillance cameras for the security of the shopping center lot were: broke; fake; very poor quality; didn't really focus on the scene; or were so bad that they barely could see anything worth publicizing--pick one or all of these, or any combination.

We sincerely hope that somebody is eventually charged with this brutal crime, because as one of our leaders put it right after the event: "this could happen to anybody".

And, Buz doesn't believe that the murder of the Morgan student last year not too far away was not solved either for similar reasons. Perhaps it was, but if so he missed it. (You know, there's just so much violent crime to keep up with.)

Murder in the Northwood Shopping Center--from a police/security perspective

2008-09-26T19:43:00.000-04:00

Buz has a few thoughts about the murder of Ken Harris, though I don't think I ever met him, from the perspective of security:

I wish people would stop using the word "random" when referring to these kinds of crimes. It was only random in the sense that Mr. Harris happened to pick that place to visit at that particular time. Otherwise, it was not "random". These thugs were engaging in a planned robbery of the bar. My sense is that they were waiting for the owner, Covington, to come out so they could jump him and get the proceeds of the day's special event (which they were apparently aware of--meaning at least one of them is from the area, unless there's a "snitch" working or attending the bar). When Harris drove up and left a woman in the car, the wait was over; they could see that he would be coming right out, and the door had to open to let him out to rejoin the woman waiting for him. So it was no more random than the Zach Sowers robbery: a bunch of thugs/criminals (not gentlemen) going around looking, watching and waiting for someone to rob. So, yeah, in that sense, it is correct that "it could happen to anyone".
For you small business owners out there: once your business is robbed, some sort of action to change the environment, or your biz policies, procedures, or practices needs to occur--or the probability of it happening again increases dramatically. Sometimes, small business owners don't want to pay for security personnel or cameras or alarms; but sometimes modest, simple changes might help. If you can't think of any, perhaps a consult with a professional in this area might be useful.
Of course, if you're in a high-crime area, probably not much is going to prevent another robbery from happening, but some actions and equipment might reduce the number.
One elected official said that something has to be done so that our young people had other choices, sort of implying that they didn't have any choice in doing this. But I guess this well-meaning person is suggesting programs that allow our young people, who don't have fathers around, and sometimes not very good mothers, to see and interact with positive role models. You can think what you like about former Commissioner Frazier, but he had the right ideas with his PAL program. Too bad it wasn't supported, and it has essentially become a shadow of its former self and would it could have become.
However, having said that, armed robbery and thuggery don't happen overnight: these individuals tend to be very nasty and sociopaths. Often police and judges and POs know, or can fairly easily predict, who these people are. So, early intervention must take place right away--after their first arrest; someone has to tell them this is wrong and if they can't stay away from THE STREET, they're messing their lives up. Apparently, nobody tells them. But they learn the hard way: when you have 2-3 criminal convictions, it is really difficult to get a job or even an apartment; you have to keep going back to the STREET. So, young people make choices.
The fact that the clowns who committed this robbery took great care to hide their faces probably means that they're from the area. And, of course, they didn't want to be seen by the probably pathetic, cheap security cameras in the shopping center.
Hardened heavy-duty miscreants are not deterred by security cameras; the companies make themselves a lot of money pushing them to businesses, but the truth is that they only have a function as part of a total security program. They probably deter some people, but all ya gotta do is put up a hood or sunglasses (or a Halloween mask), and the cameras are worthless. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: you can see from this lousy camera picture that that can't possibly look anything like my client!
The more days that go by, the less likely this crime is going to be solved anytime soon. (It's been almost a week now.) After a week, the probability of solvability drops off dramatically. Of course, about a year from now, one of these clown will get arrested for something else serious and bingo, his DNA will match.
I really like this guy Bealefeld: he made the notification to the widow of her husband's death himself at 5 am. And he was very careful and close-mouthed about anything he was giving out to the public; I really liked that he said: "we have to be THOUGHTFUL" about how we proceed and release information toe the public. Wow! Thoughtful! I have never heard another high-ranking police official in my 30 years in the business use the word or advocate being "thoughtful". We are lucky to have this guy as commissioner.
There's been a lot of talk about security at the shopping center and who's responsible. Well, I hate to say it, but landlords are probably the most-sued of any business owner, and security is one of those issues they are sued for. I believe the layman's standard is whether the security was "reasonable and adequate". Maybe Donald Wright can help here. The family of the St. Paul's School administrator who was killed in the Towson Town Center parking garage sued earlier this year for that very thing. I haven't heard how that case turned out, or if it has gone to trial yet. ( I understand that Baltimore County is a tough jurisdiction to sue for such a thing and win.)
Clearly, Mary Pat Clarke is right when she says that the Northeastern District needs a substantial increase in police officers. I told a former Deputy Commissioner, more then ten years ago, that Northeastern District need a 4th Sector. (an area covered by a patrol sergeant and squad of officers) The district has had only three sectors and is too busy for that; plus it has experienced a substantial increase in criminal activity the last several years as a result of the demolition of public housing. Please see a recent issue of the Atlantic magazine which discusses the phenomenon of a movement of crime because of housing policies.

These are some of my thoughts from my perspective. I wonder what you-all (a Southern term) think.

Peter Moskos is coming!

2008-09-26T18:56:00.000-04:00

Buz has learned that Peter Moskos is coming to the Baltimore Book Fair this weekend. He'll be here promoting his book covering his year as a patrol officer in the Eastern District. The poor skeptical consultant is anxious to read it, but is a bit jaundiced (is that the right word?) because he wonders how well this could reflect police work in Baltimore since he was only in one district and on the midnite shift at that-for a year or so, and I'm not sure that that includes the academy time.

On the other hand, it's always good to see someone from Baltimore, especially even a rookie cop, finish their Ph.D.

I hope many of my readers will make It down there and chat with him, and tell me what you think.

I heard he got into it with Norris on Norris's show no less, but alas, I missed it. Did anybody out there hear Norris and Moskos and Moskos chatting, and hopefully, politely disagreeing?

Emergency Alerts via Facebook/Myspace?

2008-08-29T16:47:00.000-04:00

Some colleges are experimenting with the idea of having emergency alerts for the campus community posted on Facebook and My Space. The idea is to make social networks interactive, allowing details about disaster to be reported to emergency officials from "on-the-ground", "while it happens", so to speak. This was reported in an article recently in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

But other campus officials feel that this isn't the way to go because the network then could be a conduit for wrong, false, or misleading information-and the posting of rumors- which could make a situation worse and possibly do more harm than good.

Do you think your campus should allow interactive emergency alerts?

Buz has several thoughts on this:

This whole business of schools feeling that they have to "alert" students immediately to a crisis is sort of going ga-ga. It started with Virginia Tech, when the campus police didn't notify the student body that two students had been found shot to death in a dorm. The idea sprung from the prevalence of cell phones, text messages, and email. Like, shouldn't we all have been told, so that................................we'd do : What?! The campus police believed that they had a confined criminal action and even had the suspect in custody. So, what was the point in telling everyone about it, especially since a press release would be done when all the relevant facts were in (of course, they weren't). I suppose that if they thought a wild, deranged killer was on the campus (he would be back soon enough): what would they have told the huge campus to do? Run? Go Home? Go to your rooms and barricade yourselves in? It was not clear then, nor is it clear now, what, if anything could have stopped him from going to the building and opening fire. They had no idea who they were looking for other than to "inform" the campus to "use caution".
Your consultant remembers the case at the College of Notre Dame last year when their new emergency notification system "worked". A woman student reported that she had been abducted and the suspect was on campus and armed. An increasingly strident and alarming number of alerts were sent to the students, at one point causing 8 women to barricade themselves in a bathroom. A huge police response followed as the alarms became more filled with impending danger. It turned out that the woman student made the whole thing up as a result of a dispute with her boyfriend. So, the electronics of the system worked, but the facts didn't warrant the panic. (By the way, betcha, 24-1, the student was NOT expelled from CND. She was probably "counseled".)
Then there was the case at Loyola up the street from CND. An Asian student, looking a bit like the VT guy, engaged in a "social Psychology experiment", as part of a class project, to gauge people's reactions to unusual behavior. So he went into the Loyola dining hall dressed in fatigues, and began talking loudly to no one but himself about injuring people and destroying the school with explosives, etc. Students nearby heard this (as he planned), and called campus police who then called city police (he hadn't planned on this). Buz did not learn of the emergency alerts which went out, and has a lot of respect for Loyola management of their campus police, but can just imagine the alert and the kind of instructions which might have gone out. It turns out that the instructor wanted the students to do minor things to disturb other people, like cutting in line, or invading another's space; it apparently never occurred to her/him that he/she should be thinking of or mentioning VT. And neither, apparently, did the student, who was Asian-looking, and wearing fatigues--just like the Virginia Tech shooter. I guess it's a good thing that Maryland has not been captured by the concealed-carry-on-campus crowd.
And then there was the murder of the student near Morgan several blocks away on Cold Spring Lane. The Morgan Police didn't say much when they activated the emergency notification system, except to say there was a shooting and to "use caution" or some such.

(Of course, these systems are good for sounding the "all clear" once a crisis is over.)

Anyway, schools have spent a lot of money on these systems since VT, but it isn't at all clear that they would be any good in a campus shooting type emergency. By its nature, an emergency is something terrible happening right now. By the time everyone got on their Blackberries and blogged about it, it would probably be rumors and misinformation; it would be good for the administration to report what they know/knew, but that's about all.

From having been involved in several emergencies (many?) during my career, I have learned that information is a precious commodity: it comes fast, furious, and is is often ever-changing and incomplete. The real challenge from the perspective of the command post is: relying only on useful confirmed information, or working to make it reliable as soon as possible. The danger of rumors or "playing around" is high. Of course, during a long-term "emergency", such as Katrina, or a blizzard, an information exchange system might be useful. But, on balance, an authoritative source only would be best. School can and should experiment with it a bit, but one only has to read some of the posts on your newspaper's talk forum to see the danger of allowing open, unmoderated commenting.

Peter Hermann is back!

2008-08-24T21:37:00.000-04:00

When things were just starting to get boring around Bmore, Peter Hermann has come back from his stint in the Middle East to blog about crime in Baltimore. good! The more people talking about crime, better for all. Peter used to be the police/crime reporter in Baltimore. At one point, the Sun brought up from Florida, I think, a hotshot crime reporter named Jim Haner. But something must have happened, because Haner kinda fizzled out and really never did much crime reporting.

Peter at least stayed with it and tried to develop sources and write some good cop stuff. I think he became a little too enamored with Commissioner Thomas Frazier, though, and his stories on Frazier programs became a little too fawning.

His newest blog leads right into the issue of street prostitution here in Bodymore. It's a problem which just doesn't seem to go away. Mostly because enforcement is non-existent and too focused on the ladies. (Not all of whom work in the evening.)

Now, Buz is not sure that legalizing prostitution is a good thing, but he does think, if it is going to be illegal, laws against it must be enforced. The only way to knock it out of a specific neighborhood (it is probably impossible to eliminate it), is very simply to target the Johns. That is, sting operations, using multiple police officers posing as prostitutes, who get solicited for money. The Johns get arrested, and their cars get towed away. Of course, it would be helpful if the judges were on board, and stopped giving PBJs out to some of these clowns. (Or maybe all of these clowns.) In addition, to the decoy squads, uniformed patrol officers, particularly on the midnight shift can easily spot trolling johns. Many of them commit traffic violations, and many have been drinking. If the word gets out that a particular neighborhood, say Pigtown, is having rigorous enforcement, the dum-dumbs might go somewhere else. On the court end of things, a first time arrest for either prostitute of john is indicative, usually, of someone in need of help. Usually, the women are often pathetic creatures, heroin and crack addicts, with no real means of support. Typically, the guys are in it for some sort of macho thrill, and many of them are borderline sickies--at least the ones who cruise the streets looking to pickup "dates".

I think we could learn a lot from countries, such as Holland, where prostitution is legalized--though I cannot think I'd like to have it around my house. Of course, we have it already in Baltimore, not just in Pigtown, but in Hampden, Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, and all up and down Garrison Boulevard and Park Heights. OOps, and I forgot it's around beautiful, wonderful Patterson Park. In fact, walking after dark in Medfield the other day, I got waved at twice by a woman on the other side of the street. Now, of course, she was no real threat, but I felt a mite uncomfortable. Any locations, I leave out?

There is a sex blog dedicated to the sport(?) of trolling for street walkers; just reading it for a few minutes makes you sick. Like, don't these guys have a life? Wouldn't they like a real relationship with a woman instead of this pick up stranger on the street stuff?

Crimes in North Baltimore

2008-08-13T13:02:00.000-04:00

Buz has learned that an employee of Eddie's Supermarket (works in Bakery) was coming home after work on Monday night, August 11th when she stopped for the light at southbound Roland at Coldspring. Two young dudes came out of the bushes near the Women's Club, one armed with a gun, and pulled her out of her car, hitting her in the face with the gun. Fortunately, an officer was waiting for the light across the way, saw it go down, and a short chase ensued. One of the suspects got away, with all of her property, purse, cell, etc. The other was caught. No other details immediately available.

A whole bunch of other crimes were reported in this week's messenger in North Baltimore, including a robbery of a guy who was followed into the Roland Springs development in the early morning hours. Wonder what the backstory is here? (If any)

Also, there were a number of second story burglaries, mostly in the early morning hours, wherein crooks used ladders or fire escapes. You-all can't assume that just because you're on the 2nd floor, you can't be broken into; it often decreases your risk, but isn't foolproof. Buz watched one guy climb the latticework outside the Hickory Heights apartments from ground level to the 2nd floor balcony in less than a minute. When he saw me looking at him, he said, "I live here". I then noticed another person came out of the apartment, looking ok, so I believed him.

An employee of Eddie's also told me about a customer who wanted to report his expensive bike stolen to two of Baltimore's finest. They went "uh, huh, ok". Finally, he said: "aren't you guys going to write anything down?" When he got an equivocating answer, he said: look, I need a police report for my insurance claim, ok? Then the notebook popped out. The Eddie's employee told your consultant that a "high ranking legal person"/customer also told him that a lot of stuff isn't getting reported. Buz wonders if anyone else has similar thoughts along these lines.

Observations of recent crime events

2008-07-28T11:06:00.000-04:00

~A dear friend who lives in Federal Hill reports that the huge police presence in the area after the two homicides has all but disappeared. She hopes that the cops are still around after dark to patrol the park (that rhymes!).

~She and her husband told Buz that at the community meeting held right after the wild shooting spree that the Association Prez held tight reins on the meeting and people could only ask questions of the Boys in Blue-not vent frustration. The brass were being real coy and bureaucratic and noncommittal.

~However, a couple nights later, the Commish came back to a second meeting and was forthright and upfront and down-to-earth: after reports of shots fired during the second murder, they should have gotten out of their car and looked around, especially since one caller was very specific as to where he heard it. (The body was not found till the next morning by the Bodymore, Murdaland jogging body-finding patrol.); and the Commish said that many Southern District units had often (I guess on busy weekend bar-fighting nights) been pulled away to the Inner Harbor/Downtown areas to assist because those po-leece "weren't doing their jobs". Apparently, the people with too much fire-water in them don't "choose civility."

~Your consultant has further learned that the shooter in the first FED Hill murder on Battery Avenue was a white guy. Who woulda thunk!? (poor dumb Buz hadn't heard that one before-and he tries to follow this stuff.) Hmmmmmm. Whaddaya think ? Brooklyn? Pigtown? (Nah, Carol says nobody over there is violent). Oh, I know, maybe he came from the County.

~Both of these murders remain unsolved at this time.

~ Buz read about the death of the Baltimore woman DJ, the creator (?) of the Bmore sound. And though he saw that the death was ruled accidental, ya had to wonder why anyone would dive into their own shallow pool, knowing its depth. And at a party. Your consultant wishes that in all cases like this the blood alcohol level and the presence of illegal drugs would routinely be reported by the medical examiner. Remember the biker policeman who got killed by the on-duty officer at a strip joint? We never heard his blood alchohol level, either. Now, of course, this being Bmore, nobody at parties drinks, smokes weed or does coke. And of course, we know that off-duty police never get drunk, or do any of that other stuff. But Buz just wonders, you know?

~Speaking of the Bmore sound (of course, Buz doesn't do the club scene), I read that it has extremely vulgar lyrics, to the point that even stores that sell this sound, don't play it till late at night (so children don't get to hear it). And it is "in your face" music. And the pictures shown of the DJ gal seemed like she was pretty tough and mean, perhaps ready to fight. Now, I realize that art sometimes imitates reality, and sometimes reality impinges on art, but I wonder to what extent art helps make the reality. (The Wire?!) In this case, plenty of young Baltimoreans are extremely vulgar, and "in your face". Buz wonders how many of them get shot, because they get in the face of the wrong people? And extremely vulgar conduct can sometimes get you arrested, banked, shot, stabbed, or not even considered for a job. And Buz wonders how many high school girls emulate fighting looks-- and how many fights among girls have broken out because of glaring at each other--or is the DJ just reporting on what is? (Like David Simon says he does?) Buz just wonders, you know? Sheesh. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone chose "civility".

~Buz asked the African American custodian at his gym some questions about the club scene. He reported that he works two full-time jobs, and doesn't go to clubs; no sensible person that he knows does, because of the ever-present potential for "shit" to happen.

~Your consultant spoke to one of the many Puerto Rican officers Baltimore recruited to come work here because Baltimore has found it extremely difficult to find people to pass the rigid recruitment standards from its Baltimoron labor force, despite I am so wise's idea of great pay. (Baltimore pays far less than surrounding areas with much worse working conditions and much less community respect and support). This officer seemed extremely intelligent, spoke better English than I did, was friendly, decent, and respectful.

~And an hour later, the bank we were standing in front of on Roland Avenue was the scene of an armed stickup; bank employee heard the victim's screams and got the tag number of the miscreant vehicle. Another Puerto Rican officer, assigned to the Northern, observed and stopped the car at Park Heights and Cold Spring, and effected the arrest.

Recent observations on crime and security, mostly Baltmore area

2008-07-19T15:06:00.000-04:00

~Buz went to Towson Town Center yesterday afternoon, and notice that 4 Baltimore County Police officers were there on duty for the shopping center. All were posted on an upstairs centrally-located position where the center court could be observed. When questioned, one of the officers said that often on Fridays, at closing time 4 officers are needed to supplement the security force. You know, we get a lot of gangs here around closing time. Come on over then; you'll see. Buz declined. {Gosh, I wish we could find some economic development use of all our gangs around here. Maybe, like a private security force, like Blackwater; or maybe a new religion, or maybe a new reality game show.}

~Buz wondered how that suit against the operators of that mall by the family St. Paul's Schools administrator killed there is going: like, what's its status, or has it been settled.

~Interesting that many of the merchants in cross keys are complaining that they don't get a lot of drive-through or walk-through traffic to their stores. Well, you're located in a gated community; most of the stores cannot be seen from Falls Road. Life's full of trade-offs, one of which is often security and accessibility.

~One of my colleagues from Syracuse University on a college security list serve is taking a survey of schools to find of other large schools to find out: a. if they have any or full desk coverage at the entrance to dorms. b. If yes, do student cover the door security, or is it paid professional staff. c. do schools use cameras in residence halls. d. are the doors set up so that only one person at a time can go in. I wonder if any readers can share experiences with these questions at their schools.

~~JHU's web security tips says: (paraphrasing) stay away from groups of older juveniles on the street who you are not familiar with. Take measures to avoid them if you feel suspicious or threatened. Good idea; wonder why it's necessary?

~Getting back to Syracuse, it must be even worse: they recommend walking or jogging or biking in groups of three or more. And don't approach strangers or let them get close to you. Oh, well, guess when next time I'm in Syracuse, I won't ask an Orangeman for directions. The three of them might jump me.

The Sun's article on expungement

2008-07-09T14:12:00.000-04:00

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." ---William Faulkner

Buz read with interest the Sun's story on expungement, and the mention of it by mjb on Baltimore crime blog. Some semi-idiotic ramblings:

For many years in Bmore, when you got arrested on a minor charge, you were held in the police station lockup overnight, and your trial was held the next morning. To be honest, there weren't a heck of a lot of arrests for "humbles", unless that person needed to be arrested and police authority needed to be asserted. In any case, you got your day in court the next morning, and, yes, the Assistant State's Attorney nolle-prossed or stetted plenty of cases. And the judge gave PBJ to plenty of people. The person at least spent overnight in the lockup. I often approached the job with a sort of Zen-like philosophy that I wasn't too worried what happened in court: I made peace with the idea that getting arrested was the most they were going to get, unless............So Buz kinda got it in his mind that the conduct leading to the original arrest was "abated by arrest".
Along came the Police Commissioner Frazier years and he was able to unload prisoner processing and holding to the state: Central Booking was created--supposedly improving "efficiency". Your court date was 30 days away, hanging over your head, and the new courtrooms for the now "newly" independent judges soon became circuses, overflowing with cases. The first waves of "Zebra" operations and the Violent Crime Task Force arrests soon brought the new Central Booking to its knees, holding far more prisoners that it was supposed to.
So, eventually, the idea, the notion of a trial (except for some felonies) went away. Go to any of the courthouses for District Court in the morning. The poor ASA has defendants and their lawyers lined up to "try" their case in less than 2 minutes, or discuss it or something. Judges can take a powder for a while. The first thing the ASA asks: 'who wants a postponement?' A long line ensue by his table. Next: "who wants a jury trial"? another long line. Who want to be given PBJ for a guilty plea?" (This is rarer, since they're offered abatement now.) [Or were]. And, finally, the cases that do go to trial are almost always agreed "statements of facts". Hardly ever does a real trial take place in district court.
So, the huge number of arrests continued thru the term of Police Commissioner Norris, who implemented New York style of policing in Baltimore. Central Booking and the courtrooms were becoming ever more chaotic. So, as a sort of bureaucratic response to an untenable situation, the ASAs assigned (sentenced) to Central Booking simply began reviewing cases and declaring them "abated by arrest." {See, the Electromagnetic Radiation emanating from Buz's brain somehow reached the brains of the ASAs, even though they were separated in time and space, often in years.} On a serious note, they were simply making a judgment that the crime was very minor, and it was not worth the effort to now require them to show up in court, go thru the whole process again, and end up with little or no punishment, and simply clog up the courthouses even more. (Of course, many would not show, leading to arrest warrants, and clogging up the system yet again.)
Buz always took this to be a dismissal of the charges by the state's attorney's office. They were not making, in this case, any judgement as to the legality of the arrest. They were simply saying: "case closed". The ASA is simply saying: ok, you were bad, minor charge, it's over, it was abated by the arrest. Though this may be unheard of anywhere else, it was a strange bureaucratic adjustment to a peculiarly Baltimore situation.
Of course, there was also some percentage of arrests in which it was determined that there was "no probable cause." Those were dismissed in the same way. So, the open question there is how many of all these humble arrests were for really no probable cause or the officers were too careless, lazy, or stupid to actually write something worthwhile. (After a while, they began expecting "abated by arrest", so why bother writing anything hard: the ASA was just going to through it out, anyway. So it became an ever-spiraling self-fulfilling expectation and result.) Or were the ASAs pressured to rigorously declare these to be no probable cause. I always thought no probable cause was a "bad arrest." So, I guess if there's anything illegal, this is where it's at. I just wish they'd never have used my term "abated by arrest". And of course, nobody then cared; no one was minding the store, the only thing that counted was that the arrests continue.
The other "abated by arrest" charges are, in my mind, simply short-circuiting the nolle prosse process of saving the city the time and money of not having these folks come to court.
Your consultant thinks that the vast majority of these arrests were legal. Look, all you gotta do is drive around town, especially in the evening, in many neighborhoods. People are littering with abandon--both little and big littering; drinking on the street, urinating, fighting, being disorderly; riding illegal dirt bikes and ATVs, gambling, drividng like crazy people, etc., etc., etc. Any dummy can get a humble arrest every day. Ya don't have make anything up. And this doesn't even count open drug-dealing and smoking.
So now, we have Joe or Jane the miscreant, who gets locked up for something "minor", and now is shown the door at Central Booking and never has to come to court. They were told that either their case was abated by arrest or had no probable cause. So they left with the feeling that: a.) they didn't do anything wrong; b.) the police were picking on them because..........c.) they were the victim of this evil system because "they" were out to get their poor selves and d.) there's nothing wrong with what they were doing and e.) let's go do it again and you know, these square, chump, punk law-abiders are pretty easy to get over on. And the law is weak, not as smart and tough as me; plus now I got my street cred; I got locked up by the man. No, I am the man. (There is only a bit of irony here in the folks who changed the slogan from Believe to Behave.)
One can easily see the psycho-social leap that is made when a person feels impunity about committing little crimes evolves into committing bigger crimes--because they can. After all, the chumps (the evil system of us) won't do anything.
Buz read the expungement article and the poster guy, who's been in and out of jail for 15 years, and just shakes his dumb head. The expungements granted under the new law are nice: they will probably actually help a very small number of people. The truth of the matter is that for the vast majority of employers, the explanation that the State's Attorney dropped your charges would be good enough (assuming that's all you got). The people in and out of jail many times, though, have larger issues than their humble arrests--which if they have more than one are big red flags in and of themselves. They say: don't hire me; I love street stuff; and I can't learn; lets go be tough and hang on the corner; we can do whatever we want; we know how to get over; rules are for those stupid nerds; those nuisance laws are really a nuisance; I should be able to do whatever I feel like.
Buz sees very few people in his vocational coaching work even convicted of these nuisance laws. They usually nolle prossed. Open container, urinating, and related offenses often are an indication of substance abuse and alcohol issues. Same with possession charges. However, plenty of people can get jobs with these issues, if they deal with their problems sincerely and actually work at it. If you keep doing nuisance crimes, at some point, you are, in fact, a nuisance--no matter what the case results say--to yourself, your family, and the rest of us.
The real problems are with guys (and some gals) who have convictions, often more than one, for assault: employers run the other way. And forget robbery, theft, and burglary convictions. Expungement really is a non-issue for them.

Crime/Security "discoveries" for the week

2008-06-28T10:53:00.000-04:00

Buz realized that there was a whole of crime and security stuff going on in Bmore this week, but he has learned a couple of things and thought about some more things:

I ran into a robbery detective and asked about the investigation of the holdup of the Wine Underground a few weeks ago. He said he didn't know anything; that "Citywide Robbery" unit was handling it. Oh, well, like, don't they tell you anything? Nope. Your consultant was not comforted to learn that the citywide robbery detectives don't ask anything of or tell anything to the district robbery detectives. Buz has never liked this strange breakdown of authority, wherein the detectives are physically housed in district station houses but report to bosses downtown--not to the district commander, who is allegedly responsible for crime in his/her (I don't think there's any "her" district commanders) district. Now we find out that they aren't even talking to each other!
It looks like the State Prosecutor is trying to get Dixon on the same kind of stuff the feds got Norris on.
Buz has learned that a yoga studio was broken into in April. Since the initial report and smearing of fingerprint dust, there has been no followup by detectives. Your consultant wonders if there is a citywide unit which handles commercial burglaries and doesn't talk to the district unit which handles residential burglaries. I sometimes think that burglary is almost decriminalized in Baltimore anyway. If patrol officers don't catch 'em right away, they're probably not going to get caught.
Dirty little secret: patrol officers make the overwhelming number of arrests for serious crimes like burglary and robbery. Detectives do all the followup stuff. Hence, the resentment that patrol officers sometimes feel toward their plainclothes brethren.
Buz took a trip down to the Avenue early yesterday evening to Grano, the new pasta place (great place). The street was lined with thugs and junkies. One group looked like a scene from a George Romero movie. The other group, heavily muscled and thug-like, long white, dirty t-shirts, sweaty, and scary-looking were just hanging around. They weren't bothering anybody--but it was early yet, and they hadn't enough to drink. Both groups were blending in with the smokers of Zissimos bar. Both noticed the marked police car coming down 36th Street with 4 plainclothes "knockers" in it.
Now, we know the merchants were upset when police used poor discretion in moving smokers along after the new law was passed, and they complained to the District Commander, and he said that that was a tough officer assigned usually to Park Heights, and he didn't know how not to enforce the law around white people, so they moved him back to Park Height so he could be mean--or something like that. Well, Buz looked at this crew and thought: you know, they really can't be good for business hanging around like that. But: Hampden merchants: good luck getting the cops to move loiterers now.
Differential law enforcement? Hmmmmmmm.
Betcha here's why Federal Hill curfew wasn't being enforced: 5 years ago: Sir, the park is closed, you'll have to leave. "What! I pay a lot of taxes! You can't tell me what to do! I live here! What's your name! Who's your supervisor?" Later: Sergeant to Officer: what the fuck are you doing? Leave those rich people alone. Ain't you got nothing better to do? You go over west of Hanover Street and shake down some of those mf's with reefer.

Crime and Security in Baltimore: random thoughts

2008-06-22T21:03:00.000-04:00

A lot of crime and security stuff going on in good ole Baltimore:

Two people murdered in Federal Hill in two days. The neighbors are upset! One woman gave the reasons for concern as: this is the "high rent district", we have the Ritz and the new Silo condos, Jenna Bush, etc. In other words, this is unacceptable. Yes, it was a rough weekend in Fed Hill, but the community association Prez, Paul Robinson, kinda summed it up: they're just not immune to the problems occurring in other parts of the city, and the community needs to come together to support the city and the police.
Buz wonders if the thugs are engaging in some sense of eco-sensitivity by not driving all the way out to Leakin Park to drop off their dead. Or could it be the price of gas? Dirty little secret: Federal Hill is very close to high crime areas, Hanover Street is sort of the DMZ. One poster on Sunspot said heavy drug activity emanates from a Section 8 property at William and Warren. Dunno. I didn't see any last time I was in the area, but haven't been in the early morning hours for a while (barhopping is often past your consultant's bedtime at this time).
I'm sure these two cases are "Red Balls" on the board down at Homicide at 601.
Speaking of Homicide, there is an ad on Craigslist business jobs for the Commanding Officer Homicide Section, Baltimore Police. I am not making this up. It was posted June 9th. Perhaps one of my readers or Baltimore Crime readers or John Galt might apply.
Members of campus law enforcement officers have spent all this money on emergency notification systems since V-Tech, but are still puzzling over how and when and who decides to use them. They're great for warning the student body of impeding thunder storms!

The student who graduated alone

2008-06-17T14:52:00.000-04:00

Sheesh. The Sun's front page story about the Annapolis high School student who graduated alone--his classmates graduated without him--raised more questions in Buz's poor mind than the article answered. (from a security perspective of course):

Let's see if I got this right: a "threat" was received which caused school officials to not allow him to graduate with the rest of his class. Was this a reliable, actionable threat or anonymous, akin to a called-in bomb threat?

Were the officials being overly cautious?
Who's in charge here, "anyways"? The thugs or the government-like don't they have police downey there or something? (Of course, here in bmore, thugs can shoot at each other in a wild gunfight, two little kids get shot while swimming; we ain't got no police here, either anyways).
He practiced all season and played games with his football team? Buz guesses no threats were received there?! Probably went out after the games? Under heavy police guard?
Oh, and went to the senior prom, too! Buz guesses no threats, there! Wonder if he went to a pre-prom or after-prom party? In an armored truck under heavy police guard?
And mom said he made amends to the folks he had been fighting with. ok
And he even asked the judge for mercy on the kid that shot him. ok

So, we wonder what's all of that about. Is there more to this story? Buz is very glad that the nasty people threatening the young father of a 3-month-old don't threaten him for real important stuff like playing football and going to the prom. They only threaten his high school graduation. Buz is at least glad he finished high school, and hopes he doesn't get threated at his new trade school or new job.

Random, alternative, Iconoclastic thoughts on the Zach Sowers case

2008-06-15T14:53:00.000-04:00

Buz read with interest the articles about the Zach Sowers case and comments from the States Attorney's office spokesperson.

Some thoughts:

If I ever become a big shot with a fancy, schmancy office and lots of money and stuff, I don't think I'll hire Marty Burns to be my PR person.
I'm sure the comments made by Burns caused tremendous distress to Anna Sowers, and even your consultant found them distressing. Even if she really believed those things, she should have kept her mouth shut. What was the point? The reporter was asking her about Anna's proposed Zach's law. (We never did find out the official State's Attorney position on that, incidentally). Maybe Ms. Burns need to go back on her medication.
Your consultant wonders if Burns was verbalizing some thoughts going through the State's Attorney's office before and/or after the trial, or if she was reflecting the thoughts of her boss, her own thoughts or what.
It sounds more to this experienced cop like the possible arguments the defense attorneys might have thrown out in negotiations for the plea.
Sleeping like a baby? How would she know? Betcha , 3-1, Ms. Burns never went to the hospital and never actually saw Zach.
Comments like hers tend to make people want to leave the city, and wonder why they still live here. This is what the State's Attorney's spokesperson feels/thinks about murder victims and their spouses?!
At the risk of offending my dear readers, I must say that with the limited evidence the state had, both reading reports at the time and now, they got the best deal one could have hoped to get against the defendants. If Anna really wanted her blood to boil, she would have been granted that at a trial for these bums. The defense attorneys would have had a field day: making fools of the evidence and pointing fingers at each other's clients, and making the police, and lab technicians look foolish (whether they were or not); and perhaps helping their client invent some story about how he actually didn't do it and pointing the finger at someone else; one or more of the "flipped" co-defendants of Trayvon could have reneged on their deal or "forgot" crucial details previously agreed to, or said the police tricked or coerced them. The risks of going to trial were enormous--with a possibility one or more would have been acquitted and/or convicted of very minor charges. See the recent article when an attorney told the Sun "nobody flipped". Huh? I thought the other 3 plead guilty and had agreed to testify at trial against the main player-Trayvon Ramos.
We have some solace in knowing that very likely Ramos will serve about 30 of his 40 years sentence. In my work with "ex-offenders", it has been consistently the case that violent criminals serve about 75% of their sentences, before getting out on parole. So, he'll be 47 or so when he gets out, and unlikely to be able to get any kind of decent job or housing on his own. In addition, there will be more younger thugs out there ready to do him like he did Zach, since he'll no longer be so young and "tough", but probably as cowardly as ever. And it is quite likely he'll go back to prison within 3 years of his release (on average 53% do). He is also under a suspended sentence.
And the other thugs will serve about 6 out of their 8 year sentences. And they will all be on parole with suspended sentences. Buz feels a little sorry for the one kid who is in solitary 23 hours a day, when it became common knowledge that he was the one who first broke under police questioning. There's a good chance he'll be beaten or stabbed before he gets released, and may well be murdered after his release. (Of course, all of these guys are prime candidates for getting murdered in Baltimore). Buz feels less sorry, of course, because we know some or all of them were involved in a series of robberies both in the city and county east side. There were probably more than even the cops think, and probably some which weren't reported.
Don't know much about Jessamy; only saw her at community meetings a couple of times many years ago. However, I don't agree, and think it's unethical for anyone to post her home address--much as you disagree with anything about her. [Actually, I don't like the idea of the state putting everything, including your home address on the web anyway. There's plenty of nuts out there; we don't need to make it any easier for them to express their nuttiness].
Regardless of Jessamy herself, your consultant has found the vast overwhelming majority of prosecutors in her office to be dedicated public servants in a thankless job for a community that has a huge thankless component. Often the prosecutor has little to work with, as in the Sowers case. {Testimony of co-defendants is shaky ground on which to try a case, particularly in the city}. From what I read, both at the plea and recently, the state had a strong common-sense case and a strong circumstantial case, but with the wrong jury.................??? Who knows what might have happened? Would the defense have found someone to say they saw him "sleeping like a baby" or that his injuries were not consistent with stomping. Remember, it only takes one juror to be swayed by dumb arguments.
When prosecutors are going for a plea, they almost always discuss it with the victim and/or the victim's family, outlining reasons why, and the risks involved in going to trial. Usually, the family agrees. My understanding is that Anna did not agree. Unfortunately, crime is considered legally to be against the state. In this case, the prosecutors decided to ignore her wishes for a trial and proceeded with a plea bargain, "in the interest of public safety". Part of the bargain would be not to prosecute should Zach die; that's why they were able to get such "long" sentences. So an autopsy was irrelevant at this point; we don't know why Burns is even bringing that up--except, perhaps, to "prove" somehow that the defense attorneys might or might not have been right about the stomping not having occurred? Sheesh. Even if he was just tripped and sustained those injuries, by say, hitting his head on a car bumper, so what. The injuries were caused by the robber-thugs. (Buz doesn't really believe the others just, like, stood around and didn't do anything.)
In any event, Burns needs to get fired, and get the Douche-bag of the Year award for stupid press comments.

Alarm Sales in the neighborhood.

2008-06-08T16:59:00.000-04:00

Both Friday and Saturday, just past, saw the Medfield neighborhood inundated with crews of door-to-door alarm selling guys. Buz thought they were an alarm cult. They all wore fancy white Polo shirts with the words "Pinnacle Security" on them, though some shirts said other things, in addition, like "GE", leading you to believe that they were worked for General Electric.

Now, since Buz used to sell things door-to-door when he was in high school (a couple of years ago!), he has great compassion for people trying to sell stuff that way.

However, these folks raised all sorts of red flags in your consultant's poor pea brain.

After listening to the guy's good pitch a moment [punctuated by lovely pictures of a mom with babies], I was alerted to the fact that "free" had been mentioned several times. They would install an alarm system in-my house for free! Just for putting a sign in my yard! Huh!? Since when is anything that valuable free? He implied it was an offer only for the first three houses in the block or neighborhood (or something), so they could then use us to market to others.

When I asked for his card or brochure, I was bluntly told: we don't have any; we don't work like that. Oh. In other words, one must say yes or no right now. I said no. That was on Friday. {I think that counts as 3 red flags right there!}

On Saturday, another salesman came to the door, to proudly state that several of my neighbors had bought alarms "for free". When I derided this, ands asked him if he were working for free, he said well, the equipment is free. You just pay for the monitoring. Ok, how much is the monitoring. "About 30-something a month". "And you're a very smart guy for saying nothing is free".

Buz later learned that the wireless system installed "for free" for one of my neighbors was in return for a THREE YEAR MONITORING CONTRACT AT $46.99/MONTH! Buz does not think it is wise to lock yourself in that long a contract, nor does he think that price is competitive.

I wonder what others think, and what they pay for their alarms, and what happens if they have to end their contract.

Buz also learned thru searching that there is a site for rating alarm companies, alarmsystemsreview.com. He is unsure what to make of it at this time. But Pinnacle and several companies there had very negative reviews for hard sell tactics and poor service.

Let me know what you think!

Riot in Fells Point!?

2008-06-05T13:48:00.000-04:00

I just got this email from a tourist to our town who was visiting from Rhode Island for the Red Sox series. I wonder if ppatin or any other readers out there have any knowledge of this event in Fells Point, and to what degree this is normal behavior on warm spring/summer weekends.

All thoughts welcome!
Here's what she sent: (As Dave Barry might say, I am not making this up)

"Thank you in advance for reading this Buzz.......man I have, I guess, a strange question for you. Found you on your website in my googling.

I am from Rhode Island. My boyfriend took me to Baltimore this past weekend to see the Red Sox play (awesome games I might add). we stayed at the Admiral Fell Inn at Fells Point. Neither of us had a clue about the high crime rate until we were immersed in it.

Something terrible happened right outside our hotel in the middle of the night - Sat 5/31 - Sun 6/1 - about 2AM.......on the corner of Thames and Broadway. I am totally perplexed because every attempt to find out exactly what happened has turned up nothing - getting obsessed here. I am wondering if it is because it was unsubstantial in the big crime scheme there, or if it is covered up, etc.

I have been to the Baltimore Sun, police blogs, etc - - NOTHING.

It involved MANY people (maybe 100??), SO MANY police - someone (or someoneS) were badly hurt - people there were horrified, even the people who were involved which seemed to be a crowd that was not immune to this type of violence. It as frightening - awakned to screaming and then yelling which lasted forever, it seemed......nearly a riot - at least 50 people fighting in the street (seperate small fights which the police didn't seem to be doing to much about, though their bilyclubs were out and ready throughout!)......went on for quite some time. Hotel guy the next morning just said it was a fight, maybe gangs, and that there was "a lot of blood'. then, nothing.

The problem is this - I am not seeking info out of morbid curiosity. But I need closure from it - it was all so surreal lthat night.....and then I came home on Sunday night and can barely sleep. I am panicky all of a sudden, obviously more traumatized by it than I thought. I never witnessed anything like it. My boyfriend was freaked also. We were actually worried they would try to overtake the hotel!!

How can somethng so awful be unreported to the public????

Can I have information related to it so i can close it out and put it to rest???"

Lisa in Little Rhody

"PS) wonderng if my instincts are on.........I was scared with goosebumps whenever we were on Pratt St.....just terrible vibes there. Am I making sense??"

Be careful who you hire!

2008-06-03T10:51:00.000-04:00

Businesses in Baltimore are cautioned about hiring people who recently worked for the city. The word on the street now is that the "city will hire anyone". Buz knows that that has been true for a while, except for certain positions, such as police and fire. Recent incidents of employees of the city participating in misconduct while working have once again raised the issue of the degree of managerial oversight and discipline exercised over the city work force.

We agree that people in the city need jobs, but don't go abusing your job, violating the public trust, and join the group of people out of work because you can't control yourself. And then whining you can't find a job!

Some of these schemes make you ask the question: is anyone minding the store?

One supervisor from Loch Raven reservoir used a city vehicle to assist in the robbery of a person in East Baltimore--while he was working. Good luck on getting your next job!
A big scheme was going on at the city salt dome on Falls Road that had employees and the security guard involved in offloading stolen water onto private owned vehicles. Hope they all have lots of water to drink at their next jobs! Wonder which security company the guard worked for!?
And apparently city-worker-criminals are still using city vehicles to go out and buy drugs. The police recently arrested a worker from the city's yard at Pulaski Highway who was observed in a group buy-in. Hope he has luck finding his next job!

Funny, this stuff has been going on for years. When Buz worked in one of the city's districts, our drug squad often used an ex-city vehicle for surveillance and buys. Best cover ever!

The city treats it, as councilman Jack Young says, "a health problem". And well it may be. The city usually gives them one chance in rehab, then fires them.

But if you're running a business for profit nowadays, you can't afford to do handholding. You have to look out for YOUR business. Let them get their treatment, but don't you take the risks.

So, if you are one of the nowadays few employers needing to hire new employees, some little tidbits of advice:

Do a criminal background check on all new hires. See if they were honest on their application. It's well worth the money. And you can get a lot of info on Baltimorons for free nowadays. Decide on a case by case basis. There are a few adults who want to change their lives and become good citizens and workers; look for evidence to support that.
Do a drug test before hire. Now, I don't know what you all think about marijuana use, but you should certainly consider that a lot of applicants are smoking weed in many cases. You have to weigh that in the totality of other factors with the applicant. I don't want to have any employee driving my vehicle or train, or on a ladder, though, who tests positive for mj. The general rule of thumb for any other illegal drugs: if they're actively using, they're probably not going to do a good job for you for very long (of course, there's always exceptions). And they're likely to steal from you to assist with their true love's cost, whether booze, coke, or heroin.
Do a driving record check, even if they say they don't drive. It's good if you don't find anything. If you find a record, you might be surprised what's there. (DWI's perhaps?!)
Ask: "Why did you leave your last job?" Have your BS detector activated. Remember, most government jobs are civil service; be especially cautious if the person left for reasons which seem odd before they retired.

Good luck! This list is not all-inclusive. Your hiring needs to be attuned to your industry and your workforce needs.

Get out of my face!

2008-06-01T10:51:00.000-04:00

Buz read with interest Dan Rodricks column today on the travails of an idealistic young man who tried to teach in the Baltimore City Public Schools. To use a sports metaphor, their bench was deeper than his. It seems that the first order of business in teaching kids is "classroom management"--which Buz used to think was a B.S. course. I mean like kids will do kids stuff. But some of the things that column mentioned mirrored Buz's attempt to teach high school kids a couple of classes at Walbrook--allegedly a "magnet" school back then. The class would not stop talking, or throwing things at each other.

Buz and an assistant could not control the classes for even 5 minutes: since what we had to say was not going to be on a test, and we were not their regular teachers, they were not interested. In the school, fights, running the halls, and fires were not uncommon.

The quote "get out of my face" says it all. Buz would never have dreamed to say it to one of my teachers in any of my schools. The kids who say that and throw things at the teacher and talk in class are actually preparing themselves for a life of the streets and the prisons. It's really sad: public education is there and available; a few misfits destroy it for all.

Perhaps the kids should have a smoking break so that they could smoke a couple of blunts and "relax": "it's hard out there". I guess so if you don't even have a high school education or GED.

I'm puzzled why the teacher blames himself, as opposed to the parents, or even the kids themselves, or the schools system. He wants teachers paid $100K a year; that's a good idea. But it sounds as though we would be getting highly-paid prison wardens--at least in some schools.

The Sun recently had an op-ed columnist who reported that the drop-out rates in the city for the Teach for America and Resident Teacher programs were about 85% after 2 years in the system. An MSTA official recently told your consultant that the rate at which new teachers had their contracts not renewed (fired) was about 50% in the city.

The point of all this is that this is where crime begins: the kids learn that they can do whatever they want, say whatever they want, and no one tells them that there are consequences. "Get out of my face" works on the corner, or basketball court, or in jail with other inmates--maybe. Don't try telling that to your new boss, the inquiring cop, or to the judge.