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

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!

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!

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

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

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!

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

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.