Suddenly, the future of the Baltimore Police Department shows itself in the ages-old image of a lone foot patrolman, walking down West Fayette Street, a nightstick bouncing against a new uniform, a Kevlar vest putting weight into each stride.
The locals take notice.
"You wearin' a uniform," says one of the heroin dealers. "What happened?"
What happened is that "community policing," the Baltimore department's blueprint for the next decade, has arrived in the Western District, and as a result, Officer Timmy Lee Devine is back in uniform, walking a foot post across 10 square blocks.
In a single shift last week, Officer Devine rousted dozens of young dealers from two drug markets, watched users wander into shooting galleries, bantered with neighborhood kids, wrote up a burglary report and chatted up managers and cashiers at groceries and carryouts.
He made no arrests. The dealers can see Timmy Devine coming. When he goes to the west end of his post, the dealers momentarily scatter from Vine and Monroe streets; when he goes east, the shop closes up on Vincent Street. If the patrolman goes back and forth a little too quickly, the dealers and their package go just north of Lexington, a block off the foot post.
At one point, Officer Devine sees a stray white kid coming out of Vincent Street. Knowing that there is, only one reason for him to be this far north, he tries to call him over.
"HEY, BUDDY," he shouts. "HEY, BUDDY, I WANT TO TALK TO YOU."
But the kid begins running. He's not about to lose freshly purchased dope to some lumbering beat cop wearing a gun belt and a body shield. At the sound of Timmy Devine's voice, the lookouts come to life.
"FIVE-OH. FIVE-OH ON MOUNT STREET."
For a short time, the dealers flee. For a short time, the package disappears. But that, according to the department's new mandate, isn't for Timmy Devine to worry about. He's not out here to lock up dealers and junkies. He's out here to be a presence, a reassuring sign to this beleaguered neighborhood. He's planting the flag for the police department.
This is the future:
"In each neighborhood of the city," declares a consultant's report adopted by the police department, there should be "a police officer assigned who has intimate knowledge of problems and issues of the area, is familiar with residents and their children and is skilled at collaborating with residents and business people on solving important neighborhood concerns."
In the last decade, one urban police department after another began experimenting with foot patrols, neighborhood-based police substations and a greater emphasis on community relations. Some departments, such as the New York force, found that these efforts required a significant number of new officers. Others, such as the Houston department, are moving away from the experiment after dismal failure.
An experimental start
In Baltimore, the mayor and police commissioner have embraced community policing but have yet to implement a citywide plan. But in the Western District, Maj. Victor D. Gregory took a first step two weeks ago by creating foot patrol posts in five high-crime neighborhoods and reassigning 15 officers -- Officer Devine among them.
"We know this is what the department is going toward," says Major Gregory. "I felt that it was time to try to be a little innovative and see what comes out of it. I want to see what effect this move has on these neighborhoods."
On Officer Devine's new post, perceptions are already positive. But that is to be expected in a time when foot patrols are what every neighborhood association, business and activist citizen wants.
On his day shift last week, when Officer Devine walked into a grocery at Baltimore and Gilmor streets, he was greeted warmly by the cashiers and manager. A security guard was shot to death in a robbery several months ago. The memory is fresh, and the workers discussed the court case with the patrolman.
Up the block on Fayette Street, he stopped inside a deli and chatted up the young owner, an entrepreneur who renovated the corner property and then bought an adjoining rowhouse and boarded up the windows to prevent junkies from loitering.
"How's it going?" asks the officer. "You having any more trouble?"
A while back, one of the neighborhood dealers pulled the deli owner up on the street, telling him that he was getting too big for the neighborhood. The businessman called police the next morning, afraid to open the store.
"It's OK," says the owner, smiling. "I'm all right."
Officer Devine is good at showing the colors. He knows the terrain down here, knows the criminals and a good share of the residents. He tries hard to mingle with the residents but notices that he usually has to initiate the conversation. Only a handful of people feel comfortable talking openly to a police officer.
The theory behind community policing argues that over time, with the same officer walking the same beat, such attitudes will change. But for Officer Devine, the residents' wariness is of less concern than the limitations inherent in foot patrol.
"They're trying to do something new, and I can see the value to what they're hoping to do, but for me, I don't know, this goes against my grain," he says. "I can't help it. I see something happening, I want to do something about it and it's hard to get at things when you're doing this."
A week ago, the patrolman became so frustrated with the dealing on Vincent Street that he climbed to the third floor of a vacant rowhouse and began watching drug transactions, then calling out descriptions to other officers in radio cars, who began to make arrests.
Supervisors were soon interrupting to tell Officer Devine to get back out in the open, where the neighborhood could see him. That was his new purpose, they reminded him.
Making hard choices
That's the rub with foot patrols and community policing, the dilemma the Baltimore department now faces. Foot officers and community outreach make a neighborhood feel better about police performance, but it's often less-visible police work that solves crimes, leads to arrests and thereby prevents additional crimes.
In the Western District, Officer Devine was doing some of that work.
At 33, Officer Devine has spent all of his seven years with the dTC department in the Western District, the last four of them in plainclothes. Along with two other officers, one of whom is limited to station house duty, he was responsible for conducting follow-up investigations in felony cases.
"Simply by the fact that Timmy Devine breathes air in the Western's follow-up squad, we're guaranteed an extra five homicide [arrests] a year," says Detective Sgt. Terry McLarney, a homicide supervisor. "He's that good. And if he's walking foot, then we've lost something."
For Officer Devine, time spent on his new foot post competes with his felony investigations. Right now, he's working with one detective on a street murder near Upton, he's looking for another suspect for detectives in another slaying, he's giving grand jury testimony in a drug shooting involving a 15-year-old gunman and he's trying to identify a man who stole some walkie-talkies from a district police wagon.
"I probably work about 60 hours a week," says Officer Devine, who is married with two small children. "Some of that is court that I get paid for, but a lot of it is on my time."
District-level investigation is desperately needed in the Baltimore department, where many cases that don't get assigned to detectives at headquarters often don't get any attention. For example, the arrest rate for aggravated assault consistently trails that of murder, though the only difference between the two crimes is that in an assault, the victim is alive and able to provide police with information.
"We're still able to do the follow-up investigations using some officers working flex time," contends Major Gregory, adding that ideally, if the community policing works, it should reduce the number of 911 emergency calls and free the district's regular patrol officers to perform their own follow-ups on reports they handle.
But right now, the patrol division is handling so many calls for service that follow-up probes are all but impossible.
In the last four years, in fact, the city's crime rate has jumped 27 percent, while in two decades, the department has lost 1,000 officers.
Diminished resources
All of this means that the Police Department is trying to implement this new, labor-intensive policing plan with diminished resources. The Western District is the problem in microcosm: Officer Devine and the other officers assigned to the new foot posts aren't a new resource; they've been pulled away from other duties, including vice enforcement and the operations unit, which district commanders often use to trouble-shoot in high-crime areas.
"That's true, and it's something that the community tends to forget," says Maj. Ronald Daniels, who now heads the personnel division. "But when you ask taxpayers if they're willing to pay to hire more officers, the answer is invariably negative. We're all making do with less."
The costs of community policing seemed evident as Officer Devine was finishing his shift last week, writing a burglary report. storefront church at Baltimore and Gilmor streets was taken for $3,100 in electronic equipment overnight -- junkies breaking in through a back window, probably.
That was a lot of money for the Mount Nebo Holy Church to lose, but in all probability, the case will not get much attention from an understaffed and overburdened burglary unit downtown. And with the district's operations unit walking foot, the case isn't likely to get any follow-up investigation at all.
"The way it is, you've only got time to do so much," said Officer Devine, collecting paperwork and wandering back down to Monroe Street to clear the corners one last time.