Baltimore’s police commissioner hasn’t camped out in years, but there he was Friday night at Fort McHenry, fitting poles together and setting up a tent with the help of two young boy scouts.
Shane McCormick, 16, from Troop 870 in Pasadena, and Marquise Dunlap, 10, from Thurgood Marshall Troop 193 in Baltimore, helped the city's top cop set up his new digs in the federal park at the end of East Fort Avenue.
At left, Bealefeld is shaking hands with Marquise.
"Under the night sky and stars," Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said of spending the night with hundreds of boy scouts who are camping out this weekend as part of a celebration of 100 years of scouting.
"I asked how could I demonstrate my support," Bealefeld said. "They said, 'Camp out.'"
For more on the outing:
The commissioner arrived shortly after 8 p.m. in a white Sport Utility Vehicle dressed in his uniform and sidearm, but wearing a baseball cap and lugging a bag and a knapsack. His police flashlight stuck out of a back pocket.
He got right to work with Shane and Marquise; he was spending the night with the Thurgood Marshall group, a small troop of about 20 scouts, mostly from Baltimore's inner city.
Shane, an Eagle Scout, walked Bealefeld through bending the poles and stretching out the tarp, lighted only by a single flash light, a pen-light provided by the commissioner's chief spokesman and the light from a single television camera.
The trio got the tent up in about 10 minutes. A satisfied Bealefeld, being watched by several police officers and members of his spokespersons office, who admittedly were not the camping type, noted that the allure of the scouts is a "generational thing."
"It's hard to get kids outside anymore," he said.
The commissioner's green tent joined hundreds of others near the entrance to the fort, which turned the green lawns into a mini tent-city. About 500 scouts camped at the fort and another 200 at a part about a mile east. Up to 6,000 scouts are expected to participate in programs on Saturday.
Bealefeld had been a scout for about two years when he was a youngster and his son Frederick IV participated as well. The commissioner said his son, who is now 19, had once planned a camping trip to Pennsylvania but at the last minute all his friends backed out.
"He went anyway and we were worried that he was all alone," Bealefeld recounted Friday night. "But you know, he was with other scouts, and a scout is a scout is a scout."
That is the camaraderie that Bealefeld said is important. He serves on the board of directors for the Baltimore area scouting program, but he also is active in soccer and Lacrosse leagues to help kids who might not be interested in scouting but still need a structured environment.
Barry F. Williams, the chairman of the board of directors for the Baltimore region Boy Scouts of America, which includes Baltimore City and five surrounding counties, said recruiting in the city is difficult.
He said the Thurgood Marshall troop is filled with scouts with troubled backgrounds – a father in jail, a missing mother – and they live in neighborhoods struggling against crime and drugs.
Williams, a former principal of what was then Southern High School in South Baltimore, said he likes to think of the city scouting program as "the good gang. … I want kids to join our gang."
Said Bealefeld: "These kids are dedicated to building moral character,"
Just then, Marquise walked up to the chief, shook his hand and said, "Thank you sir, for being here."
It's not exactly the reception the top cop is used to when he patrols some streets in Baltimore. But Bealefeld didn't blink an eye. The politeness, the handshake, the respect, is expected with this crowd.
"He's a scout," the commissioner said.
That's all the explanation needed.