Comments (0)Catching Up With Baltimore’s Police Commissioner
Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III connects to the Jewish community.
October 30, 2009Phil Jacobs
Justin Tsucalas
Executive Editor
Photographer
Baltimore City Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III was probably grateful for this conversation. After all, he’s been spending time in his office crunching budget numbers and figuring them out with crime statistics.
So here he was, under the weather with a bad cold, drinking one of at least 10 Cokes he said he drinks a day, and talking with leaders of Shomrim, the Jewish all-volunteer public safety group based in Upper Park Heights and Pikesville.
Part of the conversation was to validate details of the Nov. 15 flag football game between Shomrim and the city’s Northwest Police District.
“41-13.”
That was the score of last year’s game won, surprisingly, by Shomrim.
The quotation marks belong to the commissioner.
He remembered last year’s score.
Based on the friendly but stern conversational tempo, one got the feeling that this year, the police had better not be on the short end of that score.
Fact is, they’ve been training lately at the training center at Northern Parkway and Park Heights. The Shomrim “scouts” have checked out their practices.
Commissioner Bealefeld wanted to talk about Shomrim and the benefit that volunteer groups are to the city. Somewhere in the conversation, he spoke about how much it hurt him to know that at times Baltimore’s out-of-town reputation is based more on TV shows such as “The Wire” than on the situation he sees in the streets and neighborhoods.
“It is such a relief to me that there is something like Shomrim out there,” he said from his conference room at police headquarters. “There are good people out there who are willing to pick up the load.”
He then talked about how groups such as Shomrim renew his faith in the community on a regular basis. He recently attended an event for the James Mosher Little League, which is commemorating 50 years of bringing baseball to the children of the inner city. It’s the commitment of volunteers he sees solidifying neighborhoods. He sees a connection between a Jewish group in one part of the city or an African-American group in another part. Everyone wants the same things, he said, safety for their families and an opportunity to make an honest living and come home to a secure home and community.
“I don’t know that the Jewish community is so much different than any other community,” he said. “What I have seen, though, is that the Jewish community has a resolve for partnerships with public safety organizations.
“The Jewish community has a level of involvement,” he continued. “It’s not just about faith or culture. You talk to anyone, a resident or an average community person, and you see in the Jewish community a deep, abiding respect for the work people are doing in public safety. They are so willing to give of themselves. There’s just a philosophical disposition we don’t find sometimes in other parts of the city. When I go up there to the JCC or to the community for a holiday event, even if I don’t know the folks, the Police Department is seen in a much different way than in other parts of the community.”
Baltimore City Councilwoman Rochelle “Rikki” Spector (D-5th), who plans to attend the football game, has nothing but praise for the commissioner.
She said that she is working with Mr. Bealefeld on a project that will use the ballfields behind the former Pimlico Middle School, now the police and fire training center, to bring police and fire trainees into a mentoring relationship with area children. Funds for recreational equipment will hopefully be raised to help facilitate the programming.
“As the councilperson from the 5th District, the commissioner has been very supportive and effective in helping me and my district with resources. We get a lot of volunteer support through groups like Shomrim, Chaverim and the [Northwest] Citizens Patrol. He really pays us back in kind with so many good people to help us. He not only has brought a great presence to the district, but he’s resourceful in getting good programs and recreational equipment for open space behind the school.”
“Thankfully, within our community the gaze of a young boy looking at a police officer tells the story of how the respect for police continues today. Our kids look at the cops on the street as superheroes,” said Nathan Willner, Shomrim’s general counsel, “as they should be. Too often in today’s culture and topsy-turvy world, the police officer is vilified. Shomrim works to enhance the officer-citizen relationship. It is just as important for the police department to know that the community is assisting and appreciating its efforts as it is for the community to know that the police are concerned and sensitive to our needs. Shomrim is both a bridge to and champion of that close police-community relationship, that the Jewish community has enjoyed for many years. The police cannot be everywhere and do everything. It is every community’s civic obligation to step up and take responsibility for the quality of life its neighbors enjoy. Making the neighborhood safer and better is Shomrim’s mission statement.”
Commissioner Bealefeld is on the board of the Baltimore Child Abuse Center. Last Saturday at a fund-raising event, featuring the band Milkshake, he was hard at work as a volunteer supervising the “moon-bounce” for the children.
“Every time I have the opportunity to be in Fred’s presence, he treats everyone he encounters with decency and respect,” said Adam Rosenberg, executive director of BCAC. “He has a concern for how people are doing, how their families are doing.
“For me, working with him at Baltimore Child Abuse Center, I see his commitment and compassion making sure that the children’s lives are made that much better and easier. There’s a general warmth to him. He has fun. The fun side is much in line with the professional side. From the moment he got there to our Milkshake event to the time he left, he wanted to know what he could do to help. He manned the moon-bounce. There’re no airs to Fred Bealefeld.”
For the commissioner, that community extends in a very real way to Israel. As a personal guest of the Baltimore Jewish Council, he was taken to Israel and had the opportunity to meet many of his Israeli counterparts, involved in public safety and security.
“I saw in Israel an unquestioned obedience when it came to the role of public safety,” he said. “The Israeli people just understand public safety and the importance of it to their lives.”
In Israel, he said he saw that because of the very real possibility of terrorism impacting the lives of each citizen, there is almost a natural willingness to provide physical service to the country.
“I have a lot of work to do within the communities to work with the younger detectives and sergeants and to create a future with connection and leadership within the community.
“Within the Jewish community,” he said, “you can’t afford to let your guard down. We have to have our radars up constantly. We just can’t be there for the Jewish community with our presence during the holidays. And that’s why an organization such as Shomrim is so important. Because Shomrim is out there all of the time being vigilant. It’s a 24-hour operation, and it has to be.
“For our connections to the community to be successful, there’s got to be a great deal of relationship building,” he said, “It has to be systematic. We have a disadvantage, and that is that police departments are always changing. Organizations like Shomrim, however, are static. They stay pretty much the same with their principal participants.”
The commissioner said that his department is looking at itself with an organizational critical eye. Are there issues of service duplications? Can there be cooperative efforts extended or improved with various community organizations?
He sees an importance for sure of letting the Jewish community know the police department is there for them. It just doesn’t come down to the placement, however, of the mobile command center on Park Heights Avenue during High Holiday services. It’s that everyday feeling of safety and security that he wants felt in the Jewish community. Again, he pointed to Shomrim as serving a role as “eyes and ears” for his department.
Arthur C. Abramson, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, has worked with the commissioner on a variety of issues, and has taken him to Israel.
“He’s an asset to the Jewish community and to the general community,” said Dr. Abramson.
“He is just someone who we can depend upon, someone when it comes to security issues, is always on top of the situation. We’ve never been denied a request in that regard. When we went to Israel together, he sat, he listened and observed. He was involved in the trip. He is someone who I consider a very special person. The city of Baltimore and the Jewish community are extremely privileged to have him.”
The commissioner referred again to an experience he had in Tel Aviv during Israel’s 60th anniversary. He was in an informal surrounding with young kids, teenagers and adults mingling with public officials. Some of the youths were wearing baseball hats on backward. Others were just chatting away even when adults were speaking.
Then Israel’s national anthem Hatikvah (“The Hope”) was played. And the commissioner noticed everyone was singing.
“For a person not of the Jewish faith, seeing and experiencing that one moment gives you a sense of how deep a love and commitment there is for their homeland. And everyone in the room knows that at the end of the day, there is a battle to be won over terrorism, and they have to win that war.
“At a military base near Tel Aviv, I saw that notion of service. I asked a young soldier about why he would even consider service to his country and he looked at me like I was nuts, like why wouldn’t we serve? I observed a notion of commitment while I was in Israel, and I wondered if we’d all be better off if we had that same notion of service.”
Mr. Bealefeld said that before President Obama, people had a sense of nostalgia when it came to service.
“With Obama as our president, we have a genuine chance to make a difference,” he said. “The president talks about service and commitment. I’ve been talking about raising money for these horses [the city’s Mounted Unit]. But I can’t just talk about it; something has to be done and Shomrim here, as well as others, are picking up the cause. This is just one great way to get the people back in touch with their greater community.”
When it comes to crime, homicide rates, gang activity and other issues, Commissioner Bealefeld said there is no “elsewhere” to these issues.
“I own all of it,” he said. “Whatever happens in the city, as commissioner you own every single piece of it.
“In my 28 years, I’ve never been more committed to the training we need as professionals. Everyone in the police department has to pick up the ball and build relationships within the communities, just like we do in the Jewish community.”
Personally, Commissioner Bealefeld said he doesn’t wear any particular religion on his sleeve. “But you have to think that you are getting help, that you are getting led and directed by a higher authority or spirit. We have so much religious diversity in Baltimore and we’re all getting that spiritual help. And it also helps me believe that whatever I am challenged with, I’m going to be OK.”
He is inspired by Christopher McDougall’s book “Born To Run” (Knopf), a best-seller covering the reasons why the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico can slap thin leather sandals on their feet and outrun world-class runners in their techno-created running shoes through rough, impassable terrain.
The commissioner also listens when he can to Coldplay. Maybe he identifies with Coldplay lyrics:
“Oh my head just won’t stop aching
And I’m sat here licking my wounds
And I’m shattered, but it really doesn’t matter
’Cos my rescue is gonna be here soon.”
If any media irks him, it is to be constantly reminded about the TV series “The Wire.” It’s not the image he sees in the city and with his police force. He said his own children can’t go out of town without someone saying, when they find out where they are from, “Oh, isn’t that where ‘The Wire’ was filmed?”
“I’m not those men in that show,” he said. “I’m pushing hard on the solutions to the problems we face through teaching and training. And I’ll do so as long as I’m in this space.”
Commish Facts
Frederick H. Bealefeld III
Age 47, born 1962
Attended Chesapeake High School
Pasadena, Md.
Baltimore Police Academy
Baltimore
Joined Baltimore Police Department in 1982, ascended through the ranks from cadet to commissioner. Extensive history in narcotics enforcement
Lives in Baltimore with two children.
Avid ice hockey player.
Favorite pro team: Detroit Red Wings.
Commissioner Bealefeld’s Letter to the Community:
On Sunday, Nov. 15, beginning at 1 p.m., Shomrim of Baltimore and police officers from the Northwestern District will meet for a friendly game of flag football at Northwestern High School, 6900 Park Heights Ave. at Fallstaff Road. However, this will be more than a just a game. Shomrim is working with Mayor Sheila Dixon and the Police Department to raise $150,000 to maintain the Department’s Mounted Unit.
Shomrim is an all-volunteer public safety organization serving the Northwest Baltimore community. For over four years, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, Shomrim volunteers have worked as extra eyes and ears for the Police Department. Shomrim has done everything from returning stolen bikes to children, locating and returning missing persons to their loved ones, and giving neighbors and businesses an enhanced feeling of safety and security in their communities.
The Mounted Unit, founded in 1888, is the oldest continuously operating Mounted Police Unit in the United States and has proven itself to be an extremely effective police tool. The officers of the Mounted Unit are a familiar sight in downtown Baltimore and at the Inner Harbor, where their crowd control skills and ability to go places where vehicles cannot is a particular asset. In addition, the attention the horses and officers receive from the public is an asset in enhancing the Police Department’s image and improving citizen-police communication. People don’t easily miss or forget the presence of a mounted patrol officer. However, in these tough economic times, the Unit’s funding had to be cut.
Because of the valuable service the Mounted Unit provides to visitors and the citizens of Baltimore, we are seeking private donations to subsidize the Unit. Your contribution is tax deductible and will pay for maintaining the unit’s six horses, by providing Butch, Barney, Buster, Binx, Belle and Slurpie with feed, hay, bedding, equipment, veterinary care and blacksmith services.
Please help to keep this invaluable and historic Mounted Police Unit in operation. We are asking you to support this event with a donation or sponsorship, which can be made directly to Shomrim, c/o Nathan Willner Esq. ,10461 Mill Run Circle, Owings Mills, Md. ,21117 or The Baltimore Police Foundation, 2 E. Read St., 9th Floor, Baltimore, Md. ,21202.
The Big Game
Shomrim vs. City Police Dept. Northwest District in game of flag football
Sunday, Nov. 15, Northwestern High School football stadium, 6900 Park Heights Ave.
Festivities to start at 1 p.m. Kickoff at 2 p.m.
Commissioner Bealefeld and Mayor Sheila Dixon are scheduled to appear.