When commanders in the Baltimore Police Department's Southwest District draw up their staffing charts, Officers Frank Friend Jr., Gary Schaekel and Steffon Scott are routinely placed among a shift of seven officers and a supervisor tasked with protecting miles of the Gwynns Falls Trail that wind through Leakin Park.
That's their assignment on paper. But in practice, the officers are known as the district's "fireman squad" - roaming high-crime areas in surrounding neighborhoods and "putting out the fires" for the district commander, Maj. Anthony Brown.
Advocates for the trail say it's a diminishing priority for not only the Police Department, but also for the city as a whole. Next week, the Department of Recreation and Parks plans to lay off two employees who worked as a trail manager and naturalist at an office in the park, leaving the trail without any dedicated staff. They fear that the city is turning its back on the park and the trail, which cost $15 million and took 10 years to build.
"The Gwynns Falls Trail is an economic engine for the city - a good force for the city, if it's done right," said William F. Eberhart Jr., chairman of the Gwynns Falls Trail Council. "But one of the questions is always, 'Is it safe?' I think people need to perceive that it's safe, particularly if we're trying to get people from outside the area."
The Gwynns Falls Trail connects more than 30 neighborhoods and 2,000 acres of parkland, starting near Franklintown and following the Gwynns Falls stream valley to the Inner Harbor and the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River. It passes near Orianda Mansion, the summer home of 19th-century railroad magnate and inventor Thomas Winans, but also some of the city's grittier neighborhoods.
"I think the budget cuts for the city have definitely had an impact on the budget for recreation and parks, and they have to make decisions about their priorities," said Jo Orser, president of the Friends of Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park. "I think there could have been better decisions made."
Eberhart and Orser stressed that the trail is safe, but they say a police presence is necessary to ensure it stays that way. Brown, the district commander, said two officers regularly patrol the trails and noted the presence of park rangers, but he said the level of crime there doesn't merit a full squad of officers, even though staffing sheets continue to reflect that seven officers are assigned there.
