Asked what he would change about the Baltimore County Police Department, Col. Jim Johnson gave a simple response ? nothing.
“We believe that the course we?ve established is efficient and effective in reducing crime,” said Johnson, County Executive Jim Smith?s nominee to replace outgoing Police Chief Terrence Sheridan, who is leaving to become superintendent of the Maryland State Police. “I?d offer up a 31.9 percent decrease in robbery over the last six months. We believe we?re on course. We will stay true to that course.”
Now the chief of the police department?s operations bureau, Johnson, a 1976 graduate of Kenwood High School, has held nearly every post imaginable since starting with the department in 1979.
He?s been a patrol officer in Essex, a sergeant in Dundalk, and a lieutenant in Catonsville and White Marsh. He?s been assigned to the traffic division, commanded Internal Affairs and ranked as a major in the Western Patrol Division and a colonel in Human Resources.
“His resume reads like a road map through the Baltimore County Police Department,” Smith said. “… Thanks in no small part to Col. Johnson?s direction of the operations bureau our county?s crime statistics have steadily declined over the last year.”
For his part, Sheridan will return to an agency he served in for 30 years before taking the position of Baltimore County Police Chief in 1996 under U.S. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, then county executive.
Gov. Martin O?Malley, who selected Sheridan, called outgoing State Police Secretary Thomas Hutchins a “gentleman.”
“Every aspect of government needs to change from time to time,” O?Malley said. “… There are different challenges now affecting the state of Maryland than there were even four or five years ago.”
Sheridan will lead a department with nearly 2,500 employees and a fiscal year 2008 budget of more than $300 million.
“I?m honored and humbled by this selection by the governor,” Sheridan said. “… The state police of today and yesterday will not be the state police of tomorrow.”
Johnson assumes control of a department with 1,902 sworn personnel, 350 civilian employees, and 273 crossing guards.
He will become acting police chief upon Sheridan?s departure, which will take place in the next two weeks. The County Council will have 45 days to confirm Johnson?s nomination after Smith writes him a formal letter of nomination.
