The long road to police reform in Baltimore

The long road to police reform in Baltimore

City police chiefs have been promising a shakeup since the 1970s.

The year was 1975. Verda and Henry Welcome invited a small group to their home near Druid Hill Park to discuss crime in Baltimore. She had been mugged near her church. Fortunately, her injuries were minor. Although crime in West Baltimore had become common, this victim was not. In 1974 Senator Welcome had become the first black woman to be elected to the Maryland State Senate, and by 1974 her legislative accomplishments were renowned. City Police Commissioner Donald Pomerlau sent two officers to attend the meeting.

The commissioner recommended hiring more officers to patrol the community. Senator Welcome was not certain. She had information that almost 90 percent of police work involved in traffic duty and observed that, in her community, most of that activity involved ticketing for minor offenses that had the appearance of quota work, especially since police were paid overtime for traffic court. Could the police be more effective by focusing on violent crime?

Henry Welcome asked about the effectiveness of foot patrols. He had an impression that every time The Sun reported a spike in crime, the police introduced a new plan for foot patrols or police in cars. They even talked about more police on horseback. Did the police ever evaluate their methods? He explained that, as a physician, he could use a new method only if it had been rigorously evaluated.

At the next meeting, the commissioner's representatives reported that Mr. Pomerlau thought the senator's ideas fully aligned with work from an internal police committee he had already formed to study better utilization of police resources, and he had committees to evaluate every aspect of his department and its programs. Meanwhile, until the studies were completed, he would assign more patrols to her neighborhood area.

Senator and Dr. Welcome were pleased with the outcome of their meetings and the responsiveness of Commissioner Pomerlau. Yet they both predicted that it would take 20 years to see the full benefit of the commissioner's changes. About 10 years later I asked Frank Battaglia, who replaced Mr. Pomerlau in 1981, about the status to those changes. Commissioner Battaglia smiled and told me that Mr. Pomerlau had committees studying everything just to make sure nothing changed.

The Welcomes probably were not the first to recognize that accountability and transparency were needed for effective police work in Baltimore. Yet had their counsel regarding slow but effective changes been adopted in 1975, we may not be having the Freddie Gray trials 40 years later.

M. Guarnieri