Latest news with #BaltimorePoliceDepartment
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Baltimore Police Department hiring more officers to cut down on overtime, commissioner says
The Baltimore Police Department has made strides to address the vacancies contributing to excessive officer overtime, Commissioner Richard Worley told members of the Baltimore City Council Tuesday night. Recent staffing shortages have forced first responders across Baltimore to work copious amounts of overtime, taking a toll on both employee morale and city budgets. BPD spent $64 million on overtime in the 2024 calendar year, and the city's total overtime burden could reach $150 million in 2025, a May 22 hearing revealed. Clearly expecting the council to grill him on the issue on Tuesday, Worley touted BPD's hiring efforts. The commissioner said his department has hired 47 new sworn officers, bringing its total to 2,023 after dipping below 2,000 officers last October. He also noted that applications for new officers are up 22% from last year. BPD currently has 492 vacancies, but expects about 150 potential officers to graduate from its police academy by the end of 2025. An expansive ad campaign to recruit new officers from within the city is now in effect and will further boost recruitment, Worley said. 'By the early part of next year, I think we're going to be up close to where we only have about 350 vacancies, and it continues on that trend. In three or four years, we'll be up where we should be, which is 2,500 [sworn officers],' Workley said. City Council President Zeke Cohen asked Worley how many of the 492 vacant positions had not been filled in at least 18 months. The commissioner replied it was the 'majority' of them. He said his more aggressive approach to boosting staffing would be 'different' from previous Commissioner Michael Harrison. 'He was my mentor, but I have a different opinion,' Worley said of Harrison. 'I think we will fill these positions within the next three to five years. Because right now, by the end of the year, I think we're gonna have 100 more cops than we have now.' With the department about 80% staffed, the total number of overtime hours worked by BPD employees is expected to drop to 898,000 this year from 914,000 last year. The implementation of stricter overtime request approvals via the human resources software Workday has also helped manage the overload, Worley and Deputy BPD Commissioner Kevin Jones said. The department's proposed $614 million budget for the 2026 fiscal year is a 3.57% increase over fiscal 2025 levels. A decline in state funding from $42.34 million last year to $36.83 million this year has prompted the city to pull considerably more from its operating budget for the police department. The 'Criminal Investigation Division' and 'Compliance Bureau' services received the largest increases, getting about $9.5 million and $7.5 million more than in fiscal 2025, respectively. Anticipated 'Police Patrol' expenses dipped slightly from about $226.5 million last year to $224.5 million this year. Despite the decrease, this service includes $4.2 million more in allocated funds for sworn overtime expenses than was seen in fiscal 2025. Have a news tip? Contact Carson Swick at cswick@
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Yahoo
Authorities respond to explosion in Baltimore
MARYLAND () — Officials with the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) responded to an explosion that happened on Memorial Day. Details remain limited, however, BPD confirmed with DC News Now that an explosion happened at 12:40 p.m. in the 400 block of South Gilmore Street. Black bear spotted in Langley Park area on Memorial Day No other information was available as of 1:35 p.m. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Post
14-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
An ode to cop creativity — how colorful characters with bold ideas made New York City safe
'Back from the Brink,' Peter Moskos' new book chronicling New York City's remarkable 1990s crime drop, revives something largely absent from national discourse in recent years: the voice of cops. It packs a powerful — and desperately timely — message for New Yorkers in 2025: Don't believe the 'experts' and academics who tell you police don't reduce crime. Indeed, as we careen toward June's mayoral primary, public safety remains Gothamites' top concern. Yet many candidates still advocate what the 1990s turnaround debunked, as Moskos writes: 'the dominant sociological 'root cause' concept of crime, dismissive of any positive role of policing.' Moskos critically reminds us social issues like 'job creation, income maintenance, medical care, housing, education, drugs, and firearms' did not change majorly in the 1990s — 'in fact, poverty increased.' Yet the Big Apple slashed its murder rate by 20% for five consecutive years, beginning in 1994, even while the city's 'jail population began a decades-long decline in 1992.' 8 Peter Moskos with his new book, 'Back from the Brink: Inside the NYPD and New York City's Extraordinary 1990s Crime Drop' (Oxford University Press). Peter Moskos How? Not through introducing an army of social-service 'alternatives' to policing and prosecution, as socialist Zohran Mamdani and a rainbow of other Democratic candidates advocate. Instead, police leaders were given support 'to try new ideas' and a fresh policing philosophy was adopted, 'one focused on reducing crime, fear of crime, and disorder.' The book's genius is in providing a veritable oral history (recounted in cop-ese) of this experimentation and revolution from the inside. It moves chronologically from the chaos of the city's gritty, violent 1970s and 1980s to the restored order of the early 2000s, the transformation unfolding through interviews with police officers — and a handful of other key players — who witnessed it firsthand. That compelling, on-the-ground format is no surprise coming from Moskos, a sociologist who became a Baltimore Police Department beat cop as research for his Harvard doctorate. His first book, 'Cop in the Hood,' drew on that experience to illuminate the realities of narcotics enforcement in some of America's toughest neighborhoods. 8 New York City subways were out of control in the 1970s. AP The voices in 'Back from the Brink' ring with authenticity. Many interviewees begin by describing how they grew up and what led them to join the NYPD, offering a wide spectrum of backgrounds and motivations. Whether raised in families of addicts or professors, each officer brings a distinct perspective — and a personal stake — in the work of protecting the city. The story opens in the 1970s NYPD disarray, when mass layoffs fostered officers' deep resentment and a sense of betrayal. As the city staggered through the crime-plagued 1980s and into the early 1990s, crises like the crack epidemic and the Crown Heights riot exposed the department's lack of a clear understanding of the challenges it faced and an effective strategy for addressing them. 8 Graffiti was a subway scourge before cops made quality-of-life issues a priority. AP But big changes were brewing; the chaos underground proved a powerful motivator. 'Vigilante' straphanger Bernie Goetz in 1984 shot four black teens who'd asked him for money — thrusting the extremes of subway crime and rider fear into the national spotlight. Surveys showed beggars had intimidated nearly two-thirds of passengers into giving money, and close to 1,000 homeless people were living in the subway system. As then-NYC Transit Authority President David Gunn put it: 'It's really important on our agenda that we continue to create the impression that someone is in control down there.' Moskos recounts the NYCTA issuing a 1989 code of conduct that now reads like a Karen's checklist — but starkly illustrates just how unruly the subway had become. Pamphlets like 'Introducing Operations Enforcement' announced the agency's new mission: to 'restore a safe, civil environment.' This drive became part of a broader revolution: basing public-safety goals on not arrest numbers but restoring everyday citizens' sense of safety. 8 Moskos signs copies of his new book at Astoria's Irish Whiskey Bar. Hannah E. Meyers Vincent Del Castillo, who served as transit police chief during the campaign to rid the subways of graffiti, recalls Gunn wanted more than arrests — he wanted visible results. 'Eventually we got the message,' Del Castillo said. 'That began a policy where no train would go into service if it had any graffiti at all.' Police creativity played a crucial role — such as coating freshly cleaned trains in hot wax, allowing graffiti to be quickly steamed off. Many graffiti artists, frustrated by seeing their elaborate work melted away almost instantly, eventually gave up. That kind of imaginative policing is a central theme of Moskos' book. No one embodied it more vividly than the gritty and flamboyant Jack Maple, a senior NYPD executive under Mayor Rudy Giuliani's first police commissioner, William Bratton. (Bratton would return as Gotham's top cop during Mayor Bill de Blasio's first term; Maple died in 2001.) Known for his Homburg hats, spats and relentless dedication, Maple recruited what he called 'Jack's broken toys' — officers willing to go undercover as prostitutes or billionaires to catch criminals in the act. 8 Maple's creative policing helped revive New York. Wikipedia Maple sketched his four-step crime-control strategy on a napkin over drinks at a legendary restaurant. 'I'm sitting in Elaine's,' he once told Moskos, 'and you know when you have just enough to drink, you can concentrate on one thing?' He jotted down his keys to reducing crime: timely, accurate intelligence; rapid deployment; effective tactics; and follow-up. Backed by other unconventional thinkers in the department, his formula became the foundation for NYPD's CompStat crime-tracking system — now a global model for data-driven policing. Maple — like many of the book's figures — underscores a vital truth: Real progress often comes from those on the ground who observe problems firsthand and have the creativity and drive to solve them. 8 A 1975 'survival guide' for New York visitors was blunt about the city's crime. Back from the Brink / NYPD Many interviewees reference George Kelling and James Q. Wilson's landmark 1982 Atlantic article, 'Broken Windows,' which famously argued visible signs of disorder — like broken windows, graffiti and public intoxication — create an environment of neglect that invites more serious crime. The core insight was behavioral: When minor infractions go unchecked, both criminals and residents begin to assume no one is in charge. Grounded in fieldwork and frontline observations, the revolutionary essay became a cornerstone of New York's 1990s crime turnaround after Bratton operationalized the theory into a citywide strategy. Under his leadership, police began cracking down on quality-of-life offenses — fare evasion, public drinking, aggressive panhandling and vandalism, among others — on the theory restoring order would deter more serious crime. 8 Broken-windows theory turned around a deteriorated Bryant Park, seen here in 1983. Bryant Park Corporation Businessman and civic leader Daniel Biederman, who transformed Midtown's Bryant Park from a dangerous no-go zone into a celebrated urban oasis, told his wife on the drive home from a New Hampshire mountain-climbing trip: 'I just read something so incredible and so on target for New York City.' He applied the theory to park management by establishing clear behavioral standards: 'There are seven things I don't want going on here. This is my version of Broken Windows.' His list: loud radios, public spitting or cursing, harassing women, smoking, feeding pigeons and letting kids sit on balustrades (they fall and bonk their heads!). Simply having guards enforce the rules proved so effective, the park hasn't needed its own dedicated police. 'Unless it's dastardly, nobody gets arrested ever,' Biederman says. 'Back from the Brink' recounts other small but effective interventions — like piping in classical music at the Port Authority Bus Terminal — that helped restore order and drive out chronic loiterers. 8 Astoria's Irish Whiskey Bar hosted a reading by some of Moskos' interviewees, including former NYPD Chief of Department Louis Anemone (in white shirt and dark jacket, center right). Hannah E. Meyers Fittingly, the book's launch took place at a Queens dive bar, where the redheaded tapster spoke in a thick Irish brogue. Moskos opened the evening with a moment of silence for late key players in New York's revival — figures like George Kelling and Jack Maple. 'Back from the Brink' is a remarkable tribute. It shows how unconventional thinkers, novel ideas, a few drinks and a lot of grit can produce real, lasting progress. Hannah E. Meyers is a fellow and the director of policing and public safety at the Manhattan Institute.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Yahoo
Baltimore reports lowest monthly homicides in city's recorded history
BALTIMORE — In April, the city of Baltimore saw the lowest number of monthly homicides in its modern history. After a historic decrease in the number of homicides in 2024, the downward trend has continued into this year, and in April, Baltimore recorded just five homicides, according to the Baltimore Police Department. This is the lowest number of monthly homicides in the city since it started recording the data in 1970. 'This is progress, but we aren't stopping to celebrate,' Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said in a post on X. 'Five homicides in April is still five too many — and we will continue to use all tools at our disposal to prevent violence and save lives.' Of the five homicides in April, four were instances of gun violence. All of the victims were Black men. In a statement released Thursday, Scott attributed the city's decrease in violent crime to the work of the Baltimore Police Department, as well as the community violence interruption programs in Baltimore and Maryland State government. 'While there is still much work to be done, these numbers show that we're moving in the right direction, together,' said Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley in a statement. Not only has Baltimore's number of homicides and non-fatal shootings fallen by 31.6% and 27.1%, respectively, but the city's homicide clearance rate has increased nearly 10%, currently sitting at 76.9%. _____
Daily Mail
01-05-2025
- Daily Mail
America's murder capital has record-low homicides for April
The Maryland city once known as America's murder capital reached a record-breaking drop in homicides. There were only five homicides in Baltimore throughout April, Mayor Brandon Scott announced on Thursday. That is the fewest ever recorded in a single month for the city since officials started keeping records in 1970. Charm City was once home to some of the country's highest crime rates, earning it the title of America's 'murder capital' and a reputation as the crime-ridden city portrayed in HBO 's hit series 'The Wire.' Through the end of April, homicides are down 31.6 percent and nonfatal shootings are down 27.1 percent compared to last year. The city recorded its lowest homicide rate in nearly 15 years in 2024, with 201 homicides marking a dramatic 12 percent decrease from 2023 and a staggering 41 percent drop from 2021 levels. 'This continued progress is a direct result of our comprehensive violence prevention plan, and all who are working in partnership to reduce violence in Baltimore,' Scott said. 'That includes the men and women of the Baltimore Police Department, the entire community violence intervention ecosystem, the Attorney General, the State's Attorney, and most importantly, the people of Baltimore. 'This is progress, but we aren't stopping to celebrate. Five homicides in April is still five too many - and we will continue to use all tools at our disposal to prevent violence and save lives. Baltimore deserves nothing less.' Maryland as a whole is becoming safer too, with statewide homicides falling from 519 in 2023 to 455 in 2024, while violent crimes plummeted from 1,190 to 891 during the same period. A recent report from U.S. News & World Report no longer included Baltimore among the most dangerous places in America. The digital media company released its Most Dangerous Places in the U.S. 2024-2025 list and normally Baltimore would be in the Top 25 but this year it didn't make the cut. The list is compiled based on a city's murder and property crime rates per 100,000 people. While Baltimore still ranks among cities with high murder rates per 100,000 people, experts point to major progress. Karen Herren, executive director of Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence, credits the improvement to a coordinated approach. 'There is not one simple solution to gun violence, or we would have figured it out a long time ago. There are a lot of different pieces, and those pieces have to start working in tandem, which I think is partially what we are seeing,' Herren said to WYPR. The Justice Department has attributed the success in reducing crime to specialized teams focused on firearm crimes and repeat violent offenders. 'I'm very proud of the leadership that this office's public servants have shown in coordinating law enforcement and community efforts throughout Maryland and beyond to protect our nation and promote safer communities,' U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron. 'We will continue to be a force-multiplier for the work of our various federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, and community-based partners.' Baltimore has dramatically reinvented itself with a new identity as an up-and-coming hotspot for luxury hotels and foodie hotspots. Where 'The Wire' depicted abandoned row houses and open-air drug markets, visitors today might be more likely to find craft cocktail bars, waterfront developments and Michelin-quality restaurants. Kelly Harris, a Maryland-based Realtor and real estate investor, has witnessed the city's evolution up close. 'Baltimore's housing market has grown steadily over the last three to five years, with average home prices increasing nearly 20 to 30 percent in key neighborhoods,' Harris told the
