My first inkling that Mayor Sheila Dixon had a different crime strategy than her immediate predecessor came when I saw the foot patrolmen on Garrison Avenue, between Beaufort and Elmer avenues.
Before Dixon addressed reporters at a news conference Monday, I talked briefly with Baltimore Police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm about foot patrolmen, at long last, coming to that part of Garrison Avenue.
"The neighborhood knucklehead contingent seems to be absent," I told Hamm.
"Yeah, but these guys usually just move to another area," Hamm answered. "Now they've moved to Spaulding [Avenue]. So now the patrols are on Spaulding."
Judge for yourself how plugged in Hamm is to what's happening on the streets: Here's a commissioner who, once he hears the streets Garrison, Beaufort and Elmer avenues, knows not only where they are, but where the drug dealers who used to work them have now moved.
That Hamm knows this shows he's one fine police commissioner, my past criticism of him notwithstanding. That Dixon has authorized the use of foot patrolmen shows that she must be listening to somebody when she attends community meetings.
Whether or not the most recent crime strategy Dixon and Hamm unveiled Monday will be effective is quite another matter. Dixon sounded a recurring theme that there is no "quick fix" when it comes to fighting crime in Baltimore. Nothing illustrates that better than the neighborhood that contains Garrison, Beaufort, Elmer and Spaulding avenues.
In 1982, some uniformed Baltimore police officers tried to arrest a Jamaican immigrant who was allegedly selling marijuana at the corner of Belvedere and Elmer avenues. The alleged drug dealer, Rupert E. Campbell, fled from the cops, eventually crashing through the plate-glass window of the front door of a home on Spaulding Avenue.
Officers followed Campbell inside. After a brief struggle, Campbell was subdued and died of cardiac arrest at Sinai Hospital. Some witnesses claimed they saw police beating Campbell. A woman who lived in the house said one officer pressed his foot down on Campbell's throat before he went into cardiac arrest, according to articles that appeared in The Sun.
The result was a mini-insurrection in the vicinity of the neighborhood bordered by Belvedere Avenue on the north, Garrison on the south, Elmer on the east and Beaufort on the west. Baltimore police swooped in seven days later, searched a dozen homes and made 29 arrests. The neighborhood was split into pro-police and anti-police camps, but one thing couldn't be denied: The catalyst for the events was the undeniable fact of drug dealing at the corner of Belvedere and Elmer avenues.
