Morgan State campus police chief unarrests student

My computer spell checker says there is no such word as unarrest. Sheesh. Gadi Decter's article in this morning's Sun created more questions than it answered in Buz's mind. At each level, the incident could have been handle much better.

The campus security consultant in me wonders:

• Why the student did not pay, if her card showed zero balance. Entitled, perhaps?
• Why there was no balance in her card's account. A Morgan computer glitch perhaps?
• Why the cafeteria manager called the campus police. Previous instructions from her bosses perhaps?
• Why the officer who was called decided to arrest. A crime anywhere else, perhaps?
• Why the student still refused to pay. Busy talking on her cell phone, perhaps? Or was it FTP?
• Why the officer did not call for his supervisor before deciding to arrest. Felt it unnecessary, perhaps? (By the way, I'm wondering how many Morgan students are arrested by the Campus Police during a typical month.)
• Why the officer had not been trained that arresting students was a last resort. Perhaps someone didn't think of it.
• Why the Chief got involved. She was the daughter of a Very Important Person, perhaps.
• Why the student was not just "Investigated and Released". {If my job was on the line, I'd show up and pay the $6.50.} We guess the resulting Resisting Arrest charge perhaps. 
• Why the Chief or school didn't just speak to the State's Attorney after making payment and have the case dismissed before court? Cases are nolle prossed all the time. 
• Why were the reports destroyed and altered. Always a bad move, Perhaps.

Identity Theft in a careless world

I sometimes wonder what is the tremendous need to have all that information out there and that these companies, and government agencies are in such a rush to have it all at their fingertips. We constantly hear about some dum-dum taking his government or company laptop home with him, leaving it in his car or around the house and having it stolen. Ok. Then we find out that they have 8 zillion clients on the laptop always with social security numbers and dates of birth and sometimes addresses, too. Sheesh, think they might soon add all your credit card numbers?

Now, when Buz was in the service ( a couple of years ago), compartmentalization was practiced: you tried never to have all the information in one place, and if needed it was very secure indeed. So the consultant wonders why organizations always insist on having both birth dates and social #'s in the same place--often unencrypted. Like, can't they create an account number of some kind which is only good there, and if they have to, look up dob in one place, and social in another?

Then we just got a mailing from the Blue Cross Dental affiliate reporting that all of our info was openly displayed on a website that anyone could look at. Ugh. Why? Don't the computer types drink a lot of coffee or something? Doesn't anyone review their own work anymore?

Re-locating to Baltimore? Consider your security along with other factors.

Relocation to Baltimore: I've been reading lots of posts on the City-Data forum site-many of which are from people re-locating to Baltimore from out of town for jobs at Hopkins and other major employers, and expressing some concerns for security. Some of the responses are a bit disconcerting. If the person expresses concerns about his/her safety, I don't think it's wise to tell them the entire city is wonderful, and they can go walking about this neighborhood or that at any time of the day or night. 

I don't know who sponsors the site, but it appears to be affected with unbridled civic boosterism and a willingness to attract people to neighborhoods in which they probably will feel uncomfortable. Now, I know there are good neighborhoods in Baltimore where the trade offs of pluses outweigh the negatives.  But Baltimore is still one of the highest crime cities in the country, and many persons living in safer areas need to be careful in where they live here.

Many relocating professionals would do well to employ the services of an independent relocation consultant to help them weigh the positives and negatives of any particular location.

And they have to weigh any potential risks of crime discomfort against other factors, such as the cost of rent, schools, quality of apartment, etc., not to mention commute times, and closeness to desirable areas.

Club Choices for Sale!

It appears that Club Choices is for sale for $25 million. The ad states that it has 3 unique licenses-the only night club in Maryland to do so: Adult Entertainment License (strippers, etc.?), an after hours license (hmmm. not much good happens after midnight, Brian Billick told the Ravens last spring), and a regular ole Baltimore City Liquor License.

Sounds like the perfect spot for Buz to open up his Vice Mall: Inside, anything goes: strip club, deprecations of all kinds, fights to the death, prostitution, all drugs ala Hampsterdam, and of course slots. Buz will be in charge of security and happily pay taxes on it to support education, horse, racing, etc, blah blah blah. He predicts that it will be so successful that Magna Entertainment will not have to have slots anywhere else. And the ad says that zoning will allow building up to 80 stories: the world's first high-rise Vice Mall! Just imagine: no new taxes for the next 10 years for the already wealthiest state in the country. Conventions, here we come.......Get in on it! 

"Crime Decline" in Charm City

Well, so far, it seems Baltimore is hanging on to its "low crime" start of the year. We had the lowest number of homicides in January in many years. Is the criminal justice system turning around? Or is this some wretched pure randomness? We'll see. The criminals, it appears, are just starting to prepare for their "spring offensive".  Though the numbers are down, there are plenty of violent incidents still out there.

We can speculate that Commissioner Bealefeld is following some of the policy prescriptions of David Kennedy, whom I heard speak at Friends School last fall. Fred Bealefeld was there to listen--though he left about halfway through (accompanied by Adam Walinsky of Police Corps fame.)

Kennedy is famous for his implementation of the Boston CeaseFire Project--which dropped their homicides dramatically. (They went crazy last year when their murders crept back up to 60). His key points were: that there are only a small number of extremely active, extremely violent individuals (i.e., more than 35 arrests) who lead violent groups. And unless these individuals are brought under control, violent crime will be difficult to reduce.

"Sales People" on ListServes

Recently one of my colleagues on a Campus Law Enforcement List Serve bemoaned the fact that "sales people" troll the list serve and somehow look for clients, thereby are harassing him, and he is tired of it. (I'm paraphrasing here.) Another person chimed in agreeing wholeheartedly. A third person exclaimed "Dito! Dito!" (his spelling).

 

Well, gee, the person did not give any evidence of the abusive behavior, if any, of this sales person or in fact what they were  selling. And, gee, he could politely say he is not interested, and hang up, or ignore the letter, or ignore the email.

And: news flash for members of the list serve: the "contractors, vendors, and sales people" would not be on the list serve unless your association gave them access. And these "associate members" , like me, pay big bucks to be such. I doubt IACLEA's management would agree to kick them off the List Serve.

Living is selling. Many small business people, like myself, subscribe to professional organizations in order to keep up with what's going on in the field, and yes, to get leads for possible business. If you notice, McDonald's, Pepsi, and your local car dealer never stop advertising.

But perhaps these folks are in secure, stable, employment making big bucks so that they'll never need to retire or start a second career, or, even start a business where they have to sell something. So, Buz understands, and asks for their compassion--at least a little. On the other hand, the consultant has compassion for them, too, since unwanted sales attempt can be annoying.

Burglars ripping and running

It's come to my attention, that, apparently, a lot ob burglars simply take the siren of your residential alarm and rip it off the wall--to shut the darn thing up. A resident of Mt. Washington just told Buz about this happening during a burglary at his home a while back.  Apparently, this was done recently at several burglaries during the recent wave of B&E's in Pigtown. The consultant recommends that prevention against burglaries be a defense in depth. Alarms have to be supplemented with good doors, windows, locks, and lighting systems. One will not be able to deny them entrance completely and indefinitely, but the object is to deter, delay, and detect their intrusion.

Many burglars, research has shown, shy away from houses which have alarms, but, of course, it is unknown how high this percentage is. But most hard-core burglars will know that they have a window of 5 to perhaps 15 minutes before arrival of police. The siren is only useful at times. So, it's important that alarms be such that the intrusion is detected pretty early, and your locks or grates keep the perpetrators out so long that they don't want to risk apprehension or simply give up and go somewhere else.