Baltimore's top law enforcement officials accused a key House of Delegates committee yesterday of disrespecting them and killing a slate of bills that they thought would help control crime in the city.
Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy and top police officials have long grumbled that the House Judiciary Committee is too dominated by defense attorneys, and yesterday those frustrations bubbled to the surface in a meeting of the city's Criminal Justice Coordinating Council.
Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said city officials were "treated pretty rudely" during the most recent legislative session, and City Solicitor George A. Nilson suggested maintaining and sharing a log of House Judiciary Committee members' voting records on bills proposed by law enforcement officials. He also suggested appealing to House Speaker Michael E. Busch to change the committee's makeup.
Bealefeld said that in debating gun control legislation, Judiciary Committee members expressed "lines of reasoning" that were "beyond the absurd."
"Frankly, I thought that by the way we were treated that they thought Baltimore was an island operating separately from the rest of the state," he said.
The committee's chairman, Del. Joseph F. Vallario Jr., a Prince George's County Democrat, could not be reached for comment yesterday. But other members of the committee said the city officials' complaints were overblown.
Del. Luiz R.S. Simmons, a Montgomery County Democrat, said that Mayor Sheila Dixon and Bealefeld took their defeats in the legislature too personally. He said that the failures of gun bills stemmed from geographical differences and the influence of Republicans and conservative Democrats.
"Baltimore obviously has a legitimate agenda, but in many other parts of the state, the embrace of Second Amendment rights is very strong," said Simmons, a criminal defense attorney. "Really, what the city is encountering isn't a personal insult, but a changing balance of power in the state."
Jessamy and Dixon went to Annapolis this year pushing for new legislation to keep people convicted of gun crimes in prison longer and to require anyone who has lost a weapon to report the disappearance to police within three days.
They also returned with proposals that had failed previously, such as a bill to keep rifles and other long-barreled guns out of the hands of felons and domestic abusers.
