Call it the war of competing crime plans. Or the battle of the police policy.
Monday witnessed a flurry of crime proposals in Baltimore, from a City Hall hearing to ensure agencies are coordinating efforts to reduce violence, to police-commissioner-turned-radio-host Ed Norris offering his own vision for fighting crime.
Unveiling a seven-point proposal late Monday evening, Norris called for replacing the Commissioner Leonard Hamm, an audit of city crime statistics, raising officer salaries to the same level as competing jurisdictions and redeploying resources. Norris said the city should use a plan that has worked before.
“I just took a couple of points from my comprehensive plan in hopes that city leaders will listen,” he said.
Norris said the first step to effective crime fighting was getting the facts.
“If you truly don?t know the crime picture, how do you deploy your resources?”
Norris said there are several key elements of any effective crime-fighting strategy.
“You need accurate timely intelligence, rapid deployment, and relentless follow-up and assessment,” he said.
Meanwhile, City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake held a hearing at City Hall Monday evening to ensure better cooperation among city agencies in fighting crime.
“We need a unified strategy,” said Blake, as she heard testimony from the officials including Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein and Cheryl Goldstein, director of the Mayor?s Office of Criminal Justice.
Today Mayor Sheila Dixon will hold closed-door meetings with regular patrol officers at police headquarters. Dixon?s spokesman Anthony McCarthy said the mayor wanted to ensure that all city officers understood her crime plan.
Norris is expected to present the specifics of his plan at a news conference at the WHFS studio at noon.
