LAST SUNDAY'S column reported about charges by retired Baltimore City police Officer Walter Holtz that gamblers and numbers runners made routine payoffs to cops during his years on the force. Holtz further claimed that he was bounced from the force for reporting the corruption.
The column mistakenly identified Walter Holtz as Ken Holtz. But three men who served with Holtz read the column and said that while they didn't call him Ken, they didn't call him Walter either.
"He was a stick man," charged retired Officer Gene Brukiewa, who was twice named Baltimore City Policeman of the Year. A "stick man" was an officer who liked hitting people with his nightstick, explained Brukiewa, who worked the same shift as Holtz when both were in the Southeastern District. Retired Maj. Robert Larkin and John Clark, who retired as a detective, both repeated the allegation.
Larkin and Clark were stronger in their criticism.
"He was a sadist, as far as I'm concerned," said Clark.
"This man was vicious. This man was brutal," claimed Larkin, who was a captain when Holtz served in the Southeastern District. Holtz said he needed a civilian review board when he was on the force so he could report corruption. But the three other retired officers scoffed at the notion. All agreed that had there been a civilian review board when Holtz was on the force, he certainly wouldn't have lasted 14 years.
Larkin was the captain Holtz said he didn't trust to investigate corruption in the district.
"I challenge him to question my integrity," Larkin said of Holtz. Holtz arrested 21 men in a November 1969 gambling raid. Only 20 men were in court the next day. Holtz charged cops turned one of the men loose. But Larkin said the man simply went down a corridor and walked away.
"I talked to him," Larkin said of the missing gambler. "His name was Furrie Cousins. I don't know if he's still alive. But he told me Holtz told him to go out and get in the police van. He just went down a corridor and walked away." The Sun reported shortly after the incident that Holtz got a warrant and arrested Cousins two days after the raid.
Well, Larkin and Holtz agree on the missing gambler's name at least. Their accounts diverge sharply on other points. Holtz said the gambling operation was a major one, with "money stacked high on a table." The gamblers also had weapons, Holtz said.
"I could hear the ka-bump, ka-bump of weapons dropping to the floor when I went in," Holtz said.
Larkin said the gambling was a "nickel-and-dime" card game, one of many penny-ante operations police allowed because small-time gamblers were some of their most reliable informants about more serious crime and criminals.
Holtz insisted that Cousins was among 21 men led into the police van between "about 25 officers" and that the house raided "was a payoff joint." The comments of Brukiewa and Clark -- who also said Holtz was such a bad and brutal police officer other cops refused to work with him -- Holtz dismissed, saying they were part of a clique commonly formed in most police districts.
The charges fly back and forth. But the main question Brukiewa, Larkin and Clark inspire us to ask is this: If Holtz was so "sadistic" and "vicious," why did he last 14 years on the force?
Brukiewa said sometimes troublesome officers were transferred to other districts. But Larkin placed the blame on himself. He adhered to the code of silence among police officers.
"Police look out for each other," Larkin said, adding that he should have taken steps to get rid of Holtz. Not doing so, he said, has bothered him the past 28 years.
But in a 1971 Baltimore court decision, Judge Meyer Cardin, in a ruling ordering Holtz reinstated to his job after he was fired for insubordination, noted that Holtz "had been commended five times, received numerous letters of commendation and was reprimanded only once," according to a Sept. 24, 1971, Sun article.
That's quite a record for a "stick man." Brukiewa, when asked if officers were supposed to hit suspects with nightsticks, answered with an emphatic "Hell, no!" Nightsticks, Brukiewa said, were only to be used to disarm those armed with knives and other weapons. Brukiewa said he once disarmed a pipe-wielding man with a blow to the knee.
Holtz acknowledged he used his nightstick in making some arrests.
"Everybody did," Holtz said. "Sooner or later, if you arrested somebody, they were gonna challenge you. They were gonna fight you." Some suspects struggled with him, Holtz recalled, and he used the nightstick as a last resort to prevent them from going for his gun.
"Everybody had to use a stick in them days," Holtz said. "That was the name of the game in them days if you were a foot patrol officer."
What's clear from the above exchange is that three retired officers don't much care for Walter Holtz and that the feeling is mutual. What's even clearer is that, wittingly or unwittingly, all four have reinforced the need for a civilian review board.
Pub Date: 3/21/99