This letter was sent out June 23rd. Only Northern District Police bothered with an answer and sadly it was a "We know you're frustrated. We only do the policy given to us." Sad, ineffectual.
Helllloooooo??? Sheeeeiiillllaaaa???? Any body home? Or at least anybody home that might actually have a plan of action and is willing and gutsy enough to fire Hamm before the election? Or are you all more concerned about getting elected than stopping murders. Well "Girls" in the Mayor's House... congrats. You've proved you are exactly like the men your replaced. I'm disgusted.
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To:
Ms. Angela Fraser, Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods (and so Mayor Sheila Dixon), Baltimore
Ms. Mary Pat Clarke, District Councilperson, 14th District, Baltimore
Major Michael Pristoop, Northern District Police Command, Baltimore
Officer Douglas Gibson, Northern District Police Community liaison, Baltimore
Can you please provide any more information on the murder of George Wilson at the corner of Ellerslie and Gorsuch Streets June 22? Specifically motive? Criminal element involvement (deliberate or just “wrong place wrong time” - not that that makes **any** life more expendable). Are there any things we can be looking out for (a car, a description of a person etc.)
And what follows is an angry, frustrated citizen diatribe... But someone needs to say it since Hamm and Dixon seem oblivious to action and more concerned about elections....
Finally, and this is directed more perhaps to Major Pristoop, given what continues to be an escalation of events in the city, what is Northern doing in terms of deployment to solve this problem. This is the third murder within 3 blocks of our house in less than 2 years. Add to that multiple shootings and the violent nature of Better Waverly, while hardly rivaling worse off sections of the city, is hardly doing well.
Over and over again we have heard the drum beat of “community policing” and officers walking the “beat”. Not once in TWO YEARS have I EVER seen a police officer WALK down our street. But what’s really frightening is people like Commissioner Hamm’s (at least appearance of) a lack of leadership and putting the foot to the asses of people like detectives who want to be desk jockeys rather than put a face to police in the streets and then comments like those of Deputy Commissioner Fred Bealefeld on the Mark Steiner show last week (WYPR, NPR in Baltimore) . This is particularly disturbing to hear him show surprise that he “learned” so much from walking the beat in a neighborhood. He said, and I quote:
“I learned more... in those eight hours walking that foot post than I have learned in the past five months of all the Comstat processes we have.”
DUH!!!! I mean, oh my God – HOW out of touch can he, Hamm and all the others “at the top” with the reality of the streets that he is actually surprised by this. I wanted to FIRE HIM when he said it. It’s MIND BOGGLING that that could be such a surprise. And especially when residents have been clamoring for more police presence in terms of footpatrols and community policing for YEARS and all of a sudden there’s this “revelation” by the second in command that it’s useful. That’s sad. Very, very sad. And ridiculous. But worse still is the reluctance of people like Commissioner Hamm to see it through in an expedited fashion and to hold ALL of BPD responsible. And the same goes for Mayor Dixon (Ms. Fraser I hope you’ll share this with her – as a resident I’m am so tired of hearing “the communities need to help solve the problem”. NO. We’ve done enough. She needs to LEAD, not put it off onto communities because it’s an election year. So if Comm. Hamm isn’t going to make it happen, and Mayor Dixon won’t make the detectives walk, or permit the filling of vacant positions, then who will?
To drive the point home one more sad comment on where we really stand on this whole issue: Bealefeld shared another sad comment – he prefaced his experience of “walking foot post” with the meeting of a woman that he stopped and engaged and she said to him “Do you know who you’re talking to – I’m the mother of the young man who was murdered - I’m the reason you’re here”. I can’t think of policing going more sad than that. Only after the fact do the uppers in command come to understand that community policing is the thing (NOT helicopters and pod cameras, the latter he also admits are a stain on communities – though I believe they can be of interim usefulness myself).
Please let us know what we can do to make your case to the City to get what you need. Dixon’s mantra of “community involvement” is only half the answer – and we’re already doing more than enough – please don’t have to show up in our neighborhood because someone was murdered here, meeting someone who’s the mother or father, sister, brother or uncle of some murdered child. Please help us help you get the pressures on the people that are going to get community policing ACTUALLY happening NOW – not six months from now (it’s already been six months since this steady increase in crime has begun).
Detroit they were saying in the same or earlier show has basically given up. Accepted crime and killing as part of daily life. And I remember when 8 years ago I lived in Ann Arbor, outside Detroit, safely sequestered away, much like those here in Roland Park, Federal Hill, and Baltimore County, that it was horrifying that people could get so blasé about killing. Reactions and inactions like those of Hamm and comments like those from Bealefeld tell me we’re well on the way to exhaustion and acceptance. But the citizens are not ready to accept this yet. Please GET ON THE STREET. I know I’m preaching much to the choir perhaps so let the members in the pews know what the choir needs to raise the volume and drive the devil out.
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