Amid the nightly violence in Baltimore, there are grim 911 calls that officers dread having to check out.
Then there are calls such as the one fielded by officers May 27: A teenage girl is passed out on a sidewalk from apparent alcohol intoxication, in the city's busiest tourist area.
She is the daughter of the governor.
The gravity of the situation was not lost on Sgt. Duane Henry.
"I can't put that out on the air," Henry told the dispatcher after asking her to call his cell phone. "I'm not trying to have, you know, him mad at me. You feel me?" Henry asked, in an apparent reference to the governor.
City police, after consulting with the governor's office, released the recording of the call in response to a Public Information Act request filed last week after Tara O'Malley, the governor's 18-year-old daughter, had been hospitalized after a graduation party in Towson.
She was treated at Harbor Hospital and released. Sources said she had gone to the harbor to board a boat.
First lady Katie Curran O'Malley called the incident a "teachable moment" during graduation season, but Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley and his wife have otherwise declined comment, including through a spokesman Friday.
According to a police report, Officer Steven Cabral was on foot patrol at 7:30 p.m. when he saw a young woman who "appeared to be unconscious" in the 700 block of Light St.
On the call, Henry, Cabral's supervisor, reports to the dispatchers that he needs a "10-38" — an ambulance — at Light and Lee streets for an individual "possibly liquor-poisoned."
A few moments later, he repeatedly, and with urgency, asks the dispatcher to call him on his cell phone. As he is asking for assistance, the dispatcher is also fielding a report of "20 masked men with dogs and guns fighting."
"I need you to call me," he says. "It's very important."
The dispatcher dials his cell phone.
"The governor's daughter is passed out over here," he said. "I can't put that on the air."
"Alcohol poisoning?" the dispatcher asks.
"Yeah. … We don't want undue police [unintelligible] … people showing up over here."
Anthony Guglielmi, the Police Department's chief spokesman, said he did not believe police had to release the call made by the dispatcher to the officer's cell phone but decided to provide it "in an effort for full disclosure."
He confirmed that police discussed the matter with the governor's office, but Shaun Adamec, a spokesman for O'Malley, declined comment.
justin.fenton@baltsun.com