At a small gathering of local merchants at a restaurant on Greenmount Avenue, Patricia C. Jessamy was among friends who nodded in agreement as Baltimore's state's attorney spoke not only of locking up criminals, but of understanding "underlying factors" that lead to crime and of keeping police in check.
All but one of the dozen merchants at the meeting were black, as is Jessamy. When talk turned to her Democratic primary challenger, attorney Gregg Bernstein, who is white, the group agreed that he seems interested in "prosecuting everybody," even though he has never said those words.
"You know what that says to the black community?" said attorney Dana P. Moore, former head of the city's ethics board and a Jessamy supporter who lives in Charles Village. "The cops want to lock you up, and he wants to prosecute you."
As Jessamy and Bernstein wrangle over who should serve as top prosecutor in an all-too violent city, the debate at one level concerns conviction rates, management ability and successful trials. Below the surface, however, the discussion is infused with race, as is often the case in Baltimore, where six in 10 residents are black and the city's jail is packed with young black men locked up for drugs and other crimes.
While Jessamy prides herself on the number of offenders she has incarcerated — pointing out that Baltimore generates more prisoners than anyplace else in Maryland, which she says "qualifies me" as being tough on crime — she also touts violence-prevention programs and alternatives to jail time, as well as the role her office plays in keeping police in line by prosecuting corrupt and brutal cops.
It is an approach that appears to resonate among black voters, who still bristle at the city's zero-tolerance policing strategy of several years ago that led to thousands of arrests Jessamy thought were improper.
That message, however, can come across as somewhat lenient, particularly in majority white, gentrified neighborhoods where residents get rattled when violence reaches their blocks and get frustrated when offenders are found to have previous records while still on the streets.
Last summer, mostly white Mount Vernon residents booed Jessamy at a meeting about a serial rapist when she began her remarks with a favorite slogan that lists prevention and treatment ahead of law enforcement — symbolic, critics say, of misplaced priorities.
Bernstein has seized on this disconnect, charging that Jessamy has become an impediment to public safety because she does not aggressively pursue criminals. He has won the support of the city's popular white police commissioner, Frederick H. Bealefeld III, who recently placed a Bernstein sign on his front lawn, a provocative move that ignited fresh interest in the campaign.
By openly supporting her challenger, Bealefeld brought to the forefront the long antagonistic relationship between Jessamy and this police commissioner and his predecessors, reviving questions about whether timid prosecutors or incompetent police investigations are more to blame for shortcomings in the criminal justice system.
That Bealefeld himself is white also sharpened the racial dynamics of the contest.
For former mayor and prosecutor Kurt L. Schmoke, now dean of the Howard University Law School, the sign flap was a troubling indication that race might overshadow policy in the political contest. He noted black residents' historically conflicted views of police and perceived unfair treatment in the judicial system.
"Bernstein, from what I've heard, doesn't seem to appreciate how different the African-American community perceives the criminal justice system from the white community," Schmoke said. "By not modifying his comments in some respect, it has the tendency to look insensitive."
But Schmoke noted, "Regardless of color, black people and white people want to be safe. The bottom line is that everyone wants the same thing from the criminal justice system — efficient prosecutions, fairness in arrests and keeping the bad guys from innocent people."
Pointing fingers in anger
Bernstein, a former federal prosecutor and defense attorney who is married to the mayor's chief political strategist on criminal justice issues, has quickly mounted the first serious challenge in years to Jessamy's 15-year tenure. Recent campaign finance reports show he has raised $217,000 to Jessamy's $46,000, but he may still lack name recognition.
Jessamy's supporters, as listed on her campaign Internet site, include a long roster of current and former city and state politicians, all African-American. Bernstein has the backing of prominent black defense attorney Warren A. Brown, but he is also drawing support from the city's predominantly white legal establishment, and in upper-class neighborhoods.
Both candidates are running in an election in which there are few contested races in Baltimore, and the only competitive contest had been a state Senate primary in mostly white South Baltimore.
"Nobody wants to talk about the fact that Pat Jessamy needs lots of black voters to show up in this primary," said Anthony McCarthy, a radio talk show host, a former mayoral spokesman and political insider in the African-American community.
On the flip side, McCarthy said, "It appears on the surface that Pat Jessamy has a very serious problem with white voters in this city."
Much of that stems from highly publicized murders of two white men that galvanized fears among residents that Jessamy had not done enough to keep dangerous criminals off the street.
Two years ago, residents railed against a plea deal they deemed too lenient after 28-year-old Zach Sowers, who worked in finance at Johns Hopkins University, was killed blocks from his rowhouse near Canton. This year, citizens expressed outrage that Jessamy's office didn't pursue a robbery case in April against a man who was charged last month with fatally stabbing Johns Hopkins researcher Stephen Pitcairn in Charles Village.
"They're angry, and they are pointing the fingers directly at Pat Jessamy," McCarthy said of white city residents, "and they have a poster child in the unfortunate death of Stephen Pitcairn."
When Jessamy attacked Bealefeld for planting her opponent's yard side in his lawn — coupled with past attacks on the quality of his officers' investigations — McCarthy said it "translated into a rallying around Gregg Bernstein."
"The police commissioner is extraordinarily popular, and his tough talk and tough walk resonates with a lot of people," the talk-show host said. "But her questioning of police behavior resonates with a lot of black voters. Her saying we got to keep cops in check and cops don't bring us evidence to win cases — black people get that. It's personal. The subtle message here is do you want this white prosecutor locking up your black children?"
Neither candidate is overtly campaigning on racial issues.
"I would hope that people vote for the best person, and that's me," Jessamy said.
Bernstein said in an interview Friday that his call to target criminals "who prey on the citizens in disproportionate levels in areas that are predominantly African-American" should appeal "to both black and white residents of this city."
He said he is trying to get the message out that if elected, he would "exercise discretion" and "concentrate our resources on the most violent offenders," as well as providing "alternatives to incarceration and arrests where appropriate for nonviolent offenders.
"I cannot be more emphatic in saying that this is not about zero-tolerance," he said. "That strategy was attempted, and it did not work. It should not have worked. It fostered a level of mistrust between the public and the police that still exists today."
Fed up with 'blame game'
Both candidates seem to realize that people are fed up with talk of programs and want action. One of Bernstein's campaign sign slogans says "fight crime" and urges voters to support him "because Eliot Ness is not on the ballot." Jessamy's slogan on her signs this year says "Tough and Smart on Crime."
While Bernstein credits police with historic 20-year lows in violent crime and homicides, Jessamy repeatedly says that her office deserves to share in the credit, saying her long tenure outlasting successive police chiefs and mayors makes her the one constant in the equation.
But as shootings and slayings have plateaued this year and a string of bloody weekends has done little to convince residents the city has turned a corner on crime, Bernstein may have an opening. At a debate on Thursday with Jessamy, he said citizens "are no safer now than they were" when Jessamy took office 15 years ago.
The forum, in a Mount Washington conference center, allowed both candidates to speak to Baltimore police officers who are members of the Vanguard Justice Society, a police group for minorities.
Jessamy disputed that her relationship with the department is strained and blamed the news media for hyping the conflict; Bernstein countered that his opponent "is not grounded in reality."
Race did not come up, but Rick Hite, a retired police major and former head of the Vanguard, said that "race is always going to be an issue." But Hite said he likes the "carrot and stick approach" — a mix of hard-line policing and sending criminals to prison for long terms, but also programs and intervention to prevent crime.
He noted his disappointment that neither Jessamy nor Bernstein addressed the underlying social and economic problems of Baltimore's underprivileged and crime-ridden communities. "Those issues trump race," he said.
On Tuesday, Jessamy is scheduled to venture into what some might call enemy territory — Canton — the mostly white upper-middle-class community still outraged by the plea deals and insensitive comments from her spokeswoman that played down the extent of injuries in the 2007 beating death of Sowers.
City Councilman James B. Kraft, who is moderating the forum, said Jessamy may not receive a warm welcome, but he insisted, "I don't think it has anything to do with race. I think it has to do with people in Canton who want to see people prosecuted when they commit crimes. I think they're fed up with the blame game."
Bishop Douglas Miles, who heads the BUILD interfaith council, said the chief prosecutor "has to be both responsible to hold the police accountable for their actions and has to be the person who is toughest on the people who commit heinous crimes. I don't think it has to be either or."
The bishop said that "there is enough blame to go around" for failures, and he thinks it's unfair to blame Jessamy. "The current state's attorney is being held to a different standard than previous state's attorneys," he said.
Miles said the debate "should revolve around who people think should be the chief prosecutor over the city of Baltimore" and that race "shouldn't be an issue."
But McCarthy, the radio show host, predicted that the contest could be decided by what he calls "race loyalty."
"In the last hour, there will be an appeal to racial pride," McCarthy said. "The prosecutor is one of ours, she's served for a very long time … and you have to make that happen."
Moore, the attorney who attended the Greenmount Avenue meeting last week, may represent the disconnect between Bernstein and some in the black community.
She's been the victim of a street robbery, but also, she said, she was once falsely detained by a Baltimore police officer. She knows Bernstein and worked with his wife on the board of a nonprofit. She likes the police commissioner, who supports Bernstein, and praised the officer who patrols Charles Village, saying she has his cell phone number in her speed dial.
"It's possible that this vote will come down to racial lines," Moore said after the meeting at Darker Than Blue Cafe. "That would be a major disappointment, and it would be a disservice to Baltimore City. The people of Baltimore are better than that. Baltimore is better than that."