Maj. Wendell M. France took over the crime-weary Eastern District police station a month ago and promised more aggressive patrols in the city's most violent and drug-torn neighborhoods.
Yesterday, the former homicide commander showed what he meant. Angry and frustrated by more than 150 people who police said gathered about noon to buy drugs and refused to leave, France sent in his troops.
Twenty-seven were arrested. Most, police said, had been accustomed to only warnings for loitering. "We decided that is not the way it's going to work," France said. "It's a new day over here."
France took over the district command one month ago from Maj. Odis L. Sistrunk Jr., a popular leader whose departure sparked protests from community leaders. Sistrunk was moved, a top commander said, because the district's homicide rate was consistently the highest in the city.
Loiterers, France said, are a constant problem. "We've got priests calling -- they can't sleep at night," he said. "I've got nuns over on Brentwood Avenue who can't walk to the school they teach at. I'm not going to have it."
France doesn't mince words -- either about the amount of crime or about his role in solving it. "In East Baltimore," he said, "we are the last frontier before we are overrun."
Yesterday, frustrated police said enough was enough. On Bethel Street, just north of East Oliver Street, scores of people packed a street where vacant homes strewn with debris far outnumber those where people live.
Lt. Glenn Williams swarmed in with 20 officers. They arrested 27 people on charges of loitering and failure to obey police.
The suspects were escorted out of the Eastern District station in handcuffs and put into three waiting police vans. Four television cameras recorded the prisoner parade -- helping spread the word that even a trivial offense can bring notoriety.
Williams said the crowd of people was waiting to buy drugs. Dealers have a new technique in which they wait for a large group to gather, then quickly sell to everyone before closing up shop -- repeating the exercise every half-hour in an attempt to deceive undercover police into thinking no transactions are occurring.
Police use the laws forbidding loitering in a "drug-free zone" -- areas around churches and schools -- to stop and search people and to disrupt drug deals. But the charges rarely are prosecuted, because some judges have questioned the constitutionality of setting up a designated area where people are forbidden from hanging out.
