City police are investigating why on-duty marine and helicopter officers helped a Baltimore County state delegate propose to his girlfriend by pretending to raid a boat the couple were aboard, a department spokesman said Monday.
Officers boarded the boat, owned by a friend of Del. Jon S. Cardin, on Aug. 7 in the Inner Harbor. As the helicopter Foxtrot hovered overhead, adding to the sense of tension, one report says officers pretended to search the vessel and even had the woman thinking she was about to be handcuffed before the delegate got on one knee and proposed.
Megan Homer said "yes."
Baltimore police officials did not find the account of the pretend raid amusing or charming.
Police said they are investigating what appears to be a misuse of police resources at a time when the budget-strapped department is begging for private donations to keep its horseback unit running and is immersed in investigating the latest violence at the Inner Harbor - a double shooting inside the Light Street Pavilion at Harborplace over the weekend. Residents and visitors have complained that police presence is thin at best.
"Definitely there was some poor judgment exercised by some officers," said Anthony Guglielmi, the Police Department's chief spokesman. "The Police Department is not in the business of renting out the helicopter and the boats for bachelor parties and birthdays. We're in the business of upholding public safety in Baltimore."
Del. Curtis S. "Curt" Anderson, D-Baltimore and chairman of the city delegation to Annapolis, said he is appalled by the apparent indiscretion and angry that officers both in the air and on the water diverted from their primary mission of protecting citizens against crime.
"How in the world did he get something like that?" Anderson said of Cardin, also a Democrat. "If I wanted to do this myself, I wouldn't have the first clue as to how to get that accomplished. This is totally astonishing that a state delegate, especially one from Baltimore County, could commandeer the forces of the Baltimore City Police Department like that. It's a big waste of the city's money if that actually happened."
Cardin, an attorney who represents Northwest Baltimore and is the nephew of U.S. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, did not return several calls Monday.
