Police Corruption

After assurances by Mayor Edward Rendell of Philadelphia that the city would consider new ideas to fight corruption in the Police Department, two civil rights organizations and 10 other plaintiffs have agreed to delay filing a federal lawsuit seeking reforms to combat police corruption and abuse.Stefan Presser, the legal director for the Philadelphia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the lawsuit was to have been filed yesterday.But after meeting on Tuesday with the mayor, Police Commissioner Richard Neal and city legal advisers, the plaintiffs said they were willing to wait while city officials considered recommendations for change in the Police Department.

Two brothers whose Rosedale auto body shop became the focus of a federal investigation into widespread corruption in the Baltimore Police Department were sentenced to prison Wednesday. Hernan Alexis Moreno, 32, of Rosedale and Edwin Javier Mejia, 29, of Middle River received prison terms of 33 months and two years, respectively, for paying officers to bring them business. The kickbacks scheme was uncovered last year. Their sentences conclude a federal case that sullied the reputation of the Police Department, implicating roughly 60 officers and resulting in 15 being sentenced in federal court to prison terms between eight and 42 months.

The indicted police officers sit in federal court every day but have never spoken to the men and women who will decide their fates. For two weeks, detectives William A. King and Antonio L. Murray have watched silently as jurors absorbed hour upon hour of the officers' conversations that were secretly recorded by the FBI. Federal prosecutors say wiretaps show how King and Murray masterminded an illegal drug-dealing operation, nicknamed "grinding," that...

Whoever Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake had chosen to replace retired Baltimore City Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III would have had a tough act to follow. But in Anthony Batts, who comes to Baltimore after a 30-year career in California that included stints as police chief in Long Beach and Oakland, the mayor may have found a leader whose skills and experience match Baltimore's needs. If Mr. Batts can build on the solid accomplishments of his able predecessor, he will find a warm welcome in this city.

MEXICO CITY -- Officer Erika Alcaraz walks up to cabbie Reynaldo Lazcano just as he is taking on a passenger on Avenida Tasquena.On this 15-yard stretch of this major thoroughfare, no fewer than four signs prohibit the taking on and unloading of passengers. Yet somehow Lazcano finds it in himself to argue strenuously that he didn't know this was an infraction.So, as Alcaraz writes up the ticket, an enraged Lazcano writes down Alcaraz's name and badge number, promising to report her behavior to her superiors.

Trying to defuse an ugly fight between them, Baltimore police and prosecutors have tentatively agreed to the establishment of a special unit to handle police corruption cases, city officials said yesterday. Key to the agreement is the removal of prosecutor Elizabeth A. Ritter from her role as chief of the division in the state's attorney's office that handles police misconduct cases, police and City Hall sources said. The city has agreed to give State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy funds for the new unit as long as a different prosecutor takes over the cases, according to three sources.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III announced his resignation Thursday, ending a 31-year career on the force that included overseeing a steep decline in the murder rate — but left him exhausted by the pressures of the job. His departure — scheduled for Aug. 1 — stunned some city officials and triggered a nationwide search for a new leader to run the nation's eighth-largest police department. "While I am saddened to announce his retirement, I respect his decision to retire after decades of service to spend more time with his family," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement.

Baltimore police have substantially reduced a backlog of internal affairs investigations and are changing the focus of police corruption probes, officials said last week. The department is also planning to add detectives to the unit that conducts integrity tests and is refining how those checks are conducted to more carefully target possible police corruption. "We were going fishing," Police Commissioner Kevin P. Clark said of the past internal investigations. "We're not fishing. ... My approach is totally different."

"Night Falls on Manhattan," a drama ostensibly about police corruption and situational ethics, leaks credibility like a birthday balloon with a pinprick.The punctures are delivered by a plot that is implausible, characters who are caricatures and twists you can spot a subway stop away. By its climax, "Night Falls on Manhattan" doesn't have a prayer of delivering any appreciable pop at all.Who would believe that director and screenwriter Sidney Lumet, whose credits include "Twelve Angry Men" and "The Verdict," could make a movie so lacking in authority?

A chief prosecutor has been named for the new police corruption unit in the city state's attorney's office, closing another chapter in a bitter feud between city law enforcement agencies and the mayor. The appointment of A. Thomas Krehely Jr., a former prosecutor with the state agency that investigates public officials, comes after Mayor Martin O'Malley and Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris sharply criticized State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy and her office's handling of police misconduct cases this past winter.

Cynthia Gross' first interaction with Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III came at a community meeting about seven months ago, when she stood up to complain about officers being overly aggressive. In a room full of stone-faced officers, you could hear a pin drop, she recalled. That night, Bealefeld offered to walk through her East Baltimore neighborhood with her to talk through her concerns. "I was complaining," she said of that meeting. "I wasn't a fan. But he's a man of his word, and we were able to work with him. " During his five-year tenure leading the city force, Bealefeld emphasized community relations, attending sometimes three neighborhood walks per week and trying to repair the Police Department's image.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III announced his resignation Thursday, ending a 31-year career on the force that included overseeing a steep decline in the murder rate — but left him exhausted by the pressures of the job. His departure — scheduled for Aug. 1 — stunned some city officials and triggered a nationwide search for a new leader to run the nation's eighth-largest police department. "While I am saddened to announce his retirement, I respect his decision to retire after decades of service to spend more time with his family," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement.

A Baltimore police officer has been charged with attempted theft of groceries at a Northeast Baltimore store after a cashier — the officer's daughter — rang up items for her at reduced prices, police said Saturday. "We demand, we expect more from the people who wear this badge," Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. The officer is facing both an internal investigation and a criminal summons. The charge comes within days of the department's suspending John A. Ward, 32, a four-year veteran of the force.

A Baltimore police officer has been suspended for his "conduct" in the aftermath of the shooting of a 13-year-old girl, and after the weapon police suspect was used in the crime was found in his personal vehicle, according to law enforcement sources. Police investigators believe the off-duty officer, whose name was not released, was in a relationship with a relative of one of the juvenile suspects charged Monday with involuntary manslaughter, sources said. Investigators are trying to determine whether he advised the juveniles after the shooting occurred.

YEKATERINBURG, Russia -- Kirill Formanchuk, like almost everyone who drives in Russia, was used to being pulled over by the police and cited for seemingly trumped-up infractions. Yet instead of resigning himself to paying a bribe, he turned traffic stops into roadside tribunals, interrogating officers about their grasp of the law, recording the events and filing formal complaints about them. There are 28 million cars now, three to four times more than at the end of communism in 1991, experts estimate.

Police and prosecutors could have put Stephon Wallace in prison for years, after they say he was caught with 18 baggies of crack cocaine last year. But the Baltimore state's attorney's office dropped the charges when the arresting officers got into trouble themselves - indicted in a corruption case that crippled a squad in the Southwestern District. So instead of prison, Wallace - who was already on "double probation" for separate handgun and drug violations - was handed his freedom. Months later, police said, Wallace, a suspected member of a Bloods gang, fatally shot Sheldon Lee Anderson Jr. in the face on Edmondson Avenue.

Baltimore's top prosecutor rebutted yesterday recent criticism by city judges about how her office handles evidence in criminal cases, saying their reading of the law is "inaccurate." State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy said at a City Council hearing that the judges - not her lawyers - need to learn the law about the exchange of evidence, known as discovery. Her statements were immediately rejected by the judge who oversees the criminal docket. "Judges are inaccurate," Jessamy told the council members at a hearing on relations between police and prosecutors.

A Christmas Eve burglary and ransacking of a secret Baltimore police Internal Affairs office has top department officials worried that sensitive investigations involving police misconduct were compromised. Sources said that several files were rifled, including one involving Officer Brian L. Sewell, who was charged in October with falsely arresting a man on drug charges after an undercover sting run by detectives working out of the office. His trial is pending. The break-in occurred at a nondescript city-owned building in Essex that is described as the inner sanctum for fighting departmental corruption.

The indicted police officers sit in federal court every day but have never spoken to the men and women who will decide their fates. For two weeks, detectives William A. King and Antonio L. Murray have watched silently as jurors absorbed hour upon hour of the officers' conversations that were secretly recorded by the FBI. Federal prosecutors say wiretaps show how King and Murray masterminded an illegal drug-dealing operation, nicknamed "grinding," that...

Baltimore police have substantially reduced a backlog of internal affairs investigations and are changing the focus of police corruption probes, officials said last week. The department is also planning to add detectives to the unit that conducts integrity tests and is refining how those checks are conducted to more carefully target possible police corruption. "We were going fishing," Police Commissioner Kevin P. Clark said of the past internal investigations. "We're not fishing. ... My approach is totally different."