Report: New Police Commissioner Starts Early

Police Commissioner-designate Anthony Batts has started work early, according to The Baltimore Sun.

Batts, who was announced as the new commissioner last month, was originally expected to begin work on Thursday.

Although he is starting work early, Batts still has to be officially confirmed by the City Council. His appointment was forwarded to the executive appointments committee on Monday night.

Batts was formerly the chief of police in Long Beach, CA and Oakland, CA. He resigned his position in Oakland just after two years in October 2011 after he was unable to get along with that city’s newly elected mayor.

During a news conference last month at City Hall announcing Batts as the city’s next top cop, he told reporters that he wanted to have a focused and disciplined police department.

"I expect to have a well disciplined, focused police department. A police organization that remembers that we serve our community, and [be] clear that we are here to make their lives better," Batts said at the time. "They’re not the enemy. They’re the people who we serve, and we will get in closer to those communities."

Batts is replacing the retired Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III who led the department for five years, one of the city's longest tenured commissioners in recent memory, and who was a popular figure with North Baltimore communities.