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Baltimore Police Department

The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) is the municipal police department of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Dating back to 1784, the BPD, consisting of 2,935 employees in 2020, is organized into nine districts covering 80.9 square miles (210 km2) of land and 11.1 square miles (29 km2) of waterways. The department is sometimes referred to as the Baltimore City Police Department to distinguish it from the Baltimore County Police Department.

"Baltimore Police" redirects here. For the county police, see Baltimore County Police Department. For the county sheriff's office, see Baltimore County Sheriff's Office.

Baltimore Police Department

Baltimore Police Department

BPD

Semper Paratus, Semper Fideles, Ever on the Watch
Ever Ready, Ever Faithful, Ever on the Watch

1784 (1784)

2,935 (2020)[1]

$536 million (2020)[1]

Baltimore, Maryland, United States

80.95 square miles (209.7 km2)

602,495 (2018)

Bishop L. Robinson, Sr. Police Administration Building
601 E Fayette St Baltimore, Maryland 21202

2,514 (2017)[2]

  • Richard Worley, Commissioner
  • Vacant, Deputy Commissioner – Operations Bureau
  • Brian Nadeau, Deputy Commissioner – Public Integrity Bureau
  • Eric Melancon, Deputy Commissioner – Compliance Bureau
  • Sheree Briscoe, Deputy Commissioner – Administrative Bureau

1-Central
2-Southeast
3-Eastern
4-Northeast
5-Northern
6-Northwest
7-Western
8-Southwest
9-Southern

Chevrolet Suburbans, Tahoes, Caprices, Ford Taurus Interceptors, Utility Interceptors, Explorers, Escapes, Mustangs and Harley-Davidson Police Motorcycles, Toyota Tundra, Ford F150

2x Eurocopter EC 120 called Foxtrot

12

History[edit]

Foundation to the 1840s[edit]

The first attempt to establish professional policing in Baltimore was in 1784, nearly 60 years after the founding of the colonial town and eight years after United States independence. The city authorized a night watch and a force of day constables to enforce town laws. Nightwatchman George Workner was the first law enforcement officer to be killed in the city; he was stabbed during an escape attempt by nine inmates at Baltimore City Jail on March 14, 1808.[3]


The department was founded in its current form (with uniforms and firearms) in 1853 by the Maryland state legislature "to provide for a better security for life and property in the City of Baltimore". The state did not give the city the power to run its own police affairs. The early decades of the department were marked by internal political conflict over split loyalties. In 1857 the police were reorganized by Mayor Thomas Swann and new men were recruited; many came from Know Nothing gangs in the city and maintained loyalties to former leaders.[4] The first BPD officer to die in the line of duty was Sergeant William Jourdan, who was shot and killed by an unknown gunman during the first city council elections on October 14, 1857.[5][6]


In 1861, during the U.S. Civil War, the police department was taken over by the federal government after police helped push pro-U.S. and pro-Confederate rioters into a full-out armed confrontation in the Baltimore riot of 1861. The U.S. military ran the police department until 1862, when they turned authority back to the state legislature.


The department introduced call boxes in 1885, the Bertillon identification system in 1896, and radio communications in 1933.

The 1930s to the Civil Rights era[edit]

The first African American officer hired by the department was a woman: Violet Hill Whyte, in 1937.[7] The first black male officers (Walter T. Eubanks Jr., Harry S. Scott, Milton Gardner, and J. Hiram Butler Jr.) were hired the year after. They were all assigned to plainclothes duty to work undercover.[8] In 1943, African Americans were allowed to wear police uniforms, and by 1950 there were 50 black officers in the department.[8]


African American officers at this point were barred from using squad cars, hit a ceiling in promotion and were limited to patrolling black neighbourhoods or assignments in the Narcotics Division or as undercover officers.[9] They were subjected to racial harassment from both white coworkers (including the use of racial slurs during roll call[10]) and African American residents (including degrading racial graffiti). Bishop L. Robinson and Edward J. Tilghman were two black police officers during this period; both later served as police commissioner.[9] Local Republican politician Marse Callaway played a significant role in increasing the number of African American officers.In 1962, Patrolman Henry Smith Jr. was the first African American officer to die in the line of duty; he was shot breaking up a dice game on North Milton Avenue.[11]

Legal Affairs Section

Charles Howard, 1860–1863

Nicholas L. Wood, 1862–1864

Samuel Hindes, 1864–1866

James Young, 1866–1867

LeFevre Jarrett, 1867–1870

John W. Davis, 1870–1871

William H.B. Fusselbaugh, 1871–1881

1881–1887

George Colton

Edson M. Schryver, 1887–1897

Daniel C. Heddinger, 1897–1900

1900–1904

George M. Upshur

George R. Willis, 1904–1908

Sherlock Swann, 1908–1910

John B.A. Wheltle, 1910–1912

1912–1913

Morris A. Soper

James McEvoy, 1913–1914

Daniel C. Ammidon, 1914–1916

1916–1920

Lawrason Riggs

1920–1937 (First Solo Commissioner. Prior to Charles Gaither, the department had a Board of Commissioners, with three or more commissioners on a panel)

Charles D. Gaither

William Lawson, 1937–1938

Robert F. Stanton, 1938–1943

Hamilton R. Atkinson, 1943–1949

Beverly Ober, 1949–1955

James M. Hepbron, 1955–1961

Bernard Schmidt, 1961–1966

1966–1981

Donald D. Pomerleau

1981–1984

Frank J. Battaglia

1984–1987 (first African American commissioner)[21]

Bishop L. Robinson

Edward J. Tilghman, 1987–1989

Edward V. Woods, 1989–1993

Thomas C. Frazier, 1994–1999

Ronald L. Daniel, 2000

2000–2002

Edward T. Norris

2003–2004

Kevin P. Clark

2004–2007

Leonard D. Hamm

2007–2012

Frederick H. Bealefeld III

September 2012 – July 2015

Anthony W. Batts

Kevin Davis, July, 2015 – January 2018

Darryl D. DeSousa, January 2018 – May 2018

Gary Tuggle, May 2018 – March 2019

March 12, 2019 – June 12, 2023

Michael S. Harrison

June 12, 2023 —

Richard Worley

Notable incidents[edit]

Police Commissioner James M. Hepbron[edit]

Commissioner James M. Hepbron was subject to a hearing on February 19, 1959, led by Jerome Robinson, Democratic State Delegate for the fourth district.[57] Delegate Robinson had a long history of challenging wiretapping and search warrants, as he believed the practice unconstitutional, against Federal law and a violation of the natural rights of the citizen. In the 90-day public hearing and investigation, Robinson stated that the commissioner "demonstrate[d] lack of a sense of propriety and in several respects a lack of comprehension on the part of the commissioner of the nature of his duties, the functions of the department, and the obligations to the citizenry"[57] During the public hearing Hepbron incessantly left the hearing and/or refused to answer specifications against him.


During the hearing, Robinson urged the commissioner to resign in the public interest. Robinson wrote, "it is obvious that he has outlived his position. His administration has produced continuing deterioration and the demoralization of the department".[58]


The charges against Hepbron included:

The BPD was portrayed in the television series Homicide: Life on the Street produced by David Simon, a former The Baltimore Sun reporter. The show ran for seven seasons and spawned a TV movie titled Homicide: The Movie. The series was based on the Simon book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, expanded from his crime news stories in The Baltimore Sun. At times, there has also been crossover in stories and characters from Law & Order and Homicide: Life on the Street.

NBC

The original series The Wire (also produced and created by David Simon) features the department extensively, portraying it as a dysfunctional organization whose effectiveness is often impaired by personal vendettas and office politics.

HBO

, a documentary film, follows members of the Baltimore Police's Homicide Unit as they try and solve cold cases. It also looks at the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of tiny crime scene dioramas that the Baltimore police famously use for training in forensics.[110] These training dioramas provided inspiration for The Miniature Killer, a recurring character in the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Of Dolls and Murder

The 2018 film follows the BPD and others on the frontline during three years of unparalleled violence in the city.

Charm City

Crime in Baltimore

List of law enforcement agencies in Maryland

Fenton, Justin. 2021. We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption. Random House.

Folsom, de Francias. Our Police: A History of the Baltimore Force from the First Watchman to the Latest Appointee (1888). A detailed (532 pages + roster of officers) contemporary account of the police force in nineteenth-century Baltimore.

Melton, Tracy Matthew. Hanging Henry Gambrill: The Violent Career of Baltimore's Plug Uglies, 1854–1860 (2005). Describes how the response to deadly gang violence led to the development of a professional police force in Baltimore during the election violence and riots in the 1850s under the "" extremist political party, which later resulted in the City itself and the then Mayor Thomas Swann reorganizing and creating the modern department in 1853/1857, and then later the General Assembly of Maryland (state legislature) putting the Baltimore City Board of Police Commissioners and Marshal of Police (Chief, later Police Commissioner) under appointive authority of the Governor of Maryland which lasted into the 1990s.

Know Nothings

Baltimore City Police website

Baltimore City Police history

Baltimore City Police Frequencies

Baltimore City Police History

Organizational chart

CitiStat website

Archived 2011-05-22 at the Wayback Machine from The Baltimore Sun

William and King article

survey from the United States Department of Justice

Local Police Departments 2000

from Infoplease.com

Top 50 U.S. cities by population

from the Officer Down Memorial Page.

List of Baltimore City Police Officers killed in the line of duty

FOP Lodge 3 site