Since taking over as Baltimore?s police commissioner in July, Frederick Bealefeld has presided over a period of noticeable crime reduction in one of America?s most violent cities. In January, the city?s homicide tally was half of 2007?s figure. The Examiner recently interviewed Bealefeld about his strategies.
Q There were only 14 homicides in Baltimore City in January. That?s the lowest figure in almost three decades.
A I attribute it to the fact that a lot of people in this city were engaged. Our relationship with the state?s attorney?s office is clearly an improvement. Morale is clearly an improvement. We?re doing a better job on guns. Do you know what we were doing before July? We were talking about guns. We were talking about bad guys with guns and criminal records and lamenting this and that. We stopped lamenting and starting doing something about it.
Q There are several new anti-gun initiatives ? GunStat, the Gun Offender Registry and the Gun Tracing Task Force ? implemented by Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon. Some have criticized them as silly or useless, but how are they actually working out?
AThe Gun Tracing Task Force wasn?t in existence until a few months ago, and already we?re getting results. The GTTF has gone around to all these gun stores and voluntarily got their cooperation to keep logs of who they?re selling to. This week they did a house of a prohibited person and we got a .357 magnum, over five pounds of marijuana and over $10,000 in cash. Nice hit, right?
Q How about the Gun Offender Registry?
A We?re the second city in the country to have it, after New York. Everybody pooh-poohs that: ?Oh, what?s the big deal?? Do you know where the offices of the Gun Offender Registry are? In the same building as parole and probation. Do you know the beauty of that? They go across the hall and say, ?This cat who?s on probation for a gun offense, he?s not there.? Now we have him on a parole violation. Almost 50 percent of our 140 homicide suspects last year have prior gun offenses. If I had saved 70 murders last year, you wouldn?t be writing about the January results, you?d be writing about the kick-ass year we had in record reduction of homicides.
Q What about GunStat, the statistical tracking of gun offenders?
A When we started GunStat, you know who was over there? Me, a couple people from the mayor?s office and [Johns Hopkins criminologist] Dan Webster. You want to know who is there now? The U.S. Attorney?s Office, a bunch of folks from the state?s attorney?s office, P&P, AG?s Office. There?s people coming out of your ears at GunStat now. When you start having success, people are more inclined to get involved. You got to come back to the mayor. People had such a lark at her notion of a ?holistic approach? to crime fighting. Whether you use holistic or comprehensive, the reality is if you?re one-dimensional, how effective are you going to be?
Q Do you believe you can keep the homicide rate at half of last year?s?
A I?m hoping I have zero or one [homicides] in February. We?re going against a tough number: 17. Somebody said to me back in December, when we were on a good pace, ?Ah, it?s the weather. You?re getting a lot of cold weather.? People are calling it a blip. People have a lot of adjectives to describe what?s going on here. Here?s the thing about January. There?s been a lot of cold Januarys in 30 years. There?s been a lot of dag-gone cold days. I?m very cautiously optimistic. We?ve made a good start.
Q For many years, Baltimore has had one of the highest arrest rates in the country. But you?ve recently reduced the number of arrests. Why is that?
A We can?t arrest 200,000 people. We?ve got to make our discretionary enforcement time count and mean something. Does the frequency of arrest interrupt or impede the ability of somebody to commit a homicide or nonfatal shooting? You look at these guys who are suspects and you see they were arrested a number of times for petty offenses. The real key is not the frequency of arrest, but getting them on good charges.
Q You mentioned visiting the gun offenders? homes to report them to parole and probation if they?re not at the right address. How important is that strategy?
A Not everybody is going to go to jail. It is after all a very overtaxed criminal justice system. You can say we?d wish it was like Baltimore County, but we?ve got to deal with the realities of the situation.
When Commissioner Ed Norris came here, I thought it was a brilliant stroke to do the [Warrant Apprehension Task Force], which prioritized the baddest of the bad. Very few of these guys are unknown to the system. Some judge gave him a crazy suspended sentence. He?s on parole or probation. That?s the guy you want to get on the offense. Maybe we don?t need to do a wiretap and invest all this heavy lifting. Maybe all we need to do is knock on that guy?s door and find out the address he gave them is a vacant lot.
Q How?s the budget situation this year?
A We?ve spent less on overtime this fiscal year than we did in the past fiscal year and we?re constantly looking to cut that down. We?re not going to compromise enforcement operations and investigative operations.
We?veeconomized in a lot of other areas so we don?t impact the crime fighting. The results speak for themselves. Crime is going down.
