Baltimore police officials suddenly ended yesterday a controversial but short-lived initiative that had homicide detectives pausing their investigations to don their uniforms and walk beats
For two weeks, the homicide unit had been included in a police strategy, backed by Mayor Sheila Dixon, to place 85 detectives on the city's most violent streets.
Faced with a staffing shortage and political pressure to rein in overtime spending, police officials had ordered homicide and district detectives to walk foot patrols at least once a week.
"We refuse to still admit how desperately short this agency is," said Paul M. Blair Jr., president of the city's Fraternal Order of Police union. "To take them from homicide was not one of the smart ideas to come out of City Hall."
With the rise in nonfatal shootings and homicides -- 140 people had been killed by yesterday, 18 more than at the corresponding time last year -- Police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm decided yesterday to exempt homicide detectives from foot patrols.
Still on beats last night were the district detectives who investigate burglaries, robberies and nonfatal shootings.
City residents seem to appreciate the foot patrols -- one told a detective that he was "better than a blue-light camera," a police union official said -- and the patrols are a major part of the crime plan that Dixon announced about two months ago.
Robert F. Cherry Jr., a union vice president who is a homicide detective, said the sudden change by the department shows either that Dixon has no crime-fighting plan or that her plan is not working.
"It's amazing how quickly they switched gears with one unit," he said. "The plan, if there is one, is just to get them through three or four months until the election."
Police union officials said they generally support foot patrols but had criticized putting homicide detectives on the patrols, saying it was more of a public relations ploy than a well-thought-out plan.
The homicide detectives grumbled loudly, saying their valuable investigative time was being squeezed.
Cherry said investigators felt that they could not devote adequate time to their cases while going on foot patrols. He was able to speak publicly because he is in the union; homicide detectives were not authorized to talk to reporters.
The arrest rate this year for homicides is 49 percent, a department spokesman said.
