E-mail
Print
Second of two parts
The different-colored uniforms tell the story.
They converge at Mondawmin Mall from Frederick Douglass High School, just a few blocks away and connected with a walkway built over the Gwynns Falls Parkway. They come from Carver, 10 blocks farther south, and from high schools from northwest to northeast and south to north.
It's a transit hub for 11 bus lines and the subway, and a daily afternoon meeting spot for teens heading home from school, their competing white, green, blue and orange shirts filling the parking lot and the bus depots, many milling about waiting for the mall's afternoon curfew to end at 4 p.m.
The place also is a meeting spot for officers from three agencies - the Maryland Transit Administration and city and school police - who try to keep the kids moving while watching for trouble. On Monday, the first day of classes, school systems police Chief Marshall "Toby" Goodwin quickly intervened before trouble could start.
"Get over there," he ordered his officers. "Move that group, they're doing gang signs and everything."
Goodwin estimates that up to 4,000 students pass through Mondawmin every afternoon that school is in session. It is just one of several points where students from different schools, different neighborhoods and different backgrounds are thrown together in what usually is a loud but peaceful gathering, but also one that can quickly deteriorate.
The small group flashing gang signs quickly dispersed, and Monday's first school day ended peacefully for Goodwin, who at 52 is beginning his third year as chief of the 142-member department. He is a product of city schools who spent 25 years as a sheriff's deputy and served a brief stint as a state delegate, chosen by the 40th District State Central Committee to succeed the powerful Howard P. Rawlings after he died in 2003. He withdrew from running for a City Council seat to take the chief's job two years ago.
While principals and administrators get to talk about programs and good students, it falls to Goodwin to talk about and deal with violence, which at times invades city schools but more often occurs outside, around dismissal time, when students from rival neighborhoods and rival schools and rival gangs meet at bus stops and on the volatile streets between school and home.
A middle school student was charged with killing a classmate on school grounds last year - which Goodwin described as a "moment I don't want to live ever again" - but for the most part, he's pleased. "Crime is down, and test scores are up," he said.
As he does on most days, Goodwin spent Monday visiting schools, making unannounced visits to classrooms, and he started after lunch at West Baltimore's Gilmor Elementary, which he remembers as Public School No. 108, where his education began in 1963 and continued to 1968, kindergarten through fifth grade.
The chief poked his head into classrooms and walked through the lunchroom. "Ready for a good year?" he asked the kids, some of whom proudly announced their desires to be police officers or FBI agents, but some, like one little girl, hid under a desk at the sight of Goodwin's holstered gun.
"Hi, Mr. Police," a fourth-grade class cried out in unison as their teacher led them single file down a hallway marked with "stop" signs to control the flow.
The encounters were brief, though principals did buttonhole Goodwin for help - one had graffiti in the playground, an elementary school leader was concerned about a nearby high school letting out about the same time and a high school principal told him mentoring help promised from his office had never materialized.
Goodwin handed out his cell phone number and told them to call him.
The job description is simple: "My job is for children to be safe, and to get them safety to and from school."
The actual job is harder.
The different-colored uniforms tell the story.
They converge at Mondawmin Mall from Frederick Douglass High School, just a few blocks away and connected with a walkway built over the Gwynns Falls Parkway. They come from Carver, 10 blocks farther south, and from high schools from northwest to northeast and south to north.
It's a transit hub for 11 bus lines and the subway, and a daily afternoon meeting spot for teens heading home from school, their competing white, green, blue and orange shirts filling the parking lot and the bus depots, many milling about waiting for the mall's afternoon curfew to end at 4 p.m.
The place also is a meeting spot for officers from three agencies - the Maryland Transit Administration and city and school police - who try to keep the kids moving while watching for trouble. On Monday, the first day of classes, school systems police Chief Marshall "Toby" Goodwin quickly intervened before trouble could start.
"Get over there," he ordered his officers. "Move that group, they're doing gang signs and everything."
Goodwin estimates that up to 4,000 students pass through Mondawmin every afternoon that school is in session. It is just one of several points where students from different schools, different neighborhoods and different backgrounds are thrown together in what usually is a loud but peaceful gathering, but also one that can quickly deteriorate.
The small group flashing gang signs quickly dispersed, and Monday's first school day ended peacefully for Goodwin, who at 52 is beginning his third year as chief of the 142-member department. He is a product of city schools who spent 25 years as a sheriff's deputy and served a brief stint as a state delegate, chosen by the 40th District State Central Committee to succeed the powerful Howard P. Rawlings after he died in 2003. He withdrew from running for a City Council seat to take the chief's job two years ago.
While principals and administrators get to talk about programs and good students, it falls to Goodwin to talk about and deal with violence, which at times invades city schools but more often occurs outside, around dismissal time, when students from rival neighborhoods and rival schools and rival gangs meet at bus stops and on the volatile streets between school and home.
A middle school student was charged with killing a classmate on school grounds last year - which Goodwin described as a "moment I don't want to live ever again" - but for the most part, he's pleased. "Crime is down, and test scores are up," he said.
As he does on most days, Goodwin spent Monday visiting schools, making unannounced visits to classrooms, and he started after lunch at West Baltimore's Gilmor Elementary, which he remembers as Public School No. 108, where his education began in 1963 and continued to 1968, kindergarten through fifth grade.
The chief poked his head into classrooms and walked through the lunchroom. "Ready for a good year?" he asked the kids, some of whom proudly announced their desires to be police officers or FBI agents, but some, like one little girl, hid under a desk at the sight of Goodwin's holstered gun.
"Hi, Mr. Police," a fourth-grade class cried out in unison as their teacher led them single file down a hallway marked with "stop" signs to control the flow.
The encounters were brief, though principals did buttonhole Goodwin for help - one had graffiti in the playground, an elementary school leader was concerned about a nearby high school letting out about the same time and a high school principal told him mentoring help promised from his office had never materialized.
Goodwin handed out his cell phone number and told them to call him.
The job description is simple: "My job is for children to be safe, and to get them safety to and from school."
The actual job is harder.
Digg
Twitter
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Why is it so hard to find a cntact at the paper? You can spend a ton of time doing it. Only for you to edit???
BaltimorePlaces (09/03/2009, 3:56 PM )