Police Focus to Remain on Illegal Guns

Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld, III reiterated the department’s commitment to cracking down on criminals who use guns during his address to the North Baltimore Public Safety Summit on Saturday.

Bealefeld was the featured speaker at the summit that was organized by the York Road Partnership and the Northeast Community Organization. 

Bealefeld, who described himself as a “great historian,” said that in the 1980s and 1990s the police were too focused on drugs. He said that resulted in a mentality where the police were operating like a fishing boat with a net. They were arresting too many people and not focusing at the real source of the city’s problems.

"As long as I’m police commissioner we’re going to work to identify the core group of people who are bad and hold them accountable," Bealefeld said.

He said the city will continue to focus on making arrests and making charges stick to criminals who use guns. He said in Baltimore that 50 percent of people who are arrested for murder, 50 percent of those arrested for a nonfatal shooting and 50 percent of those arrested for armed robbery have already been arrested for a crime involving a gun.

Bealefeld was also critical of state law that doesn't require a gun owner to notify anyone if a weapon is lost or stolen. He compared owning a gun to owning a tiger or rattlesnake, and that gun owners, just like the owners of a tiger or rattlesnake, have a responsibility to let someone know when it's missing. 

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