Former Police Commissioner Reveals Crime Plan, by Anna Ditkoff, June 27th, 2007, the Baltimore City Paper.

“At a press conference on Tuesday, June 19, former Baltimore City police commissioner Ed Norris unveiled before an audience of four TV news crews and three print journalists a plan to combat the wave of homicides and shootings that has swept the city this year. Held at the WHFS (105.7 FM) studio in Mount Washington, from which Norris hosts a weekday radio program, he detailed a seven-point plan of attack that, among other things, calls for an independent audit of crime statistics, increased police salaries, focus on violent crime instead of drugs, and processing the police department’s backlog of DNA evidence.”

The complete article is here. [The article has since been removed.]

Ed Norris was the first commanding officer of the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad, and I wrote about him in The Restless Sleep. In 2004 he was sentenced to prison for six months, to be followed by six months of home detention for using up to $30,000 of police funds for personal use while Police Commissioner of Baltimore, and for filing false tax returns. I really don’t know the whole story behind the prosecution, I’m guessing politics were involved in some way, and I’m not excusing bad behavior, but I was very impressed with his police work and his management of the people working for him. He was smart. I couldn’t help feeling that in the end it was a loss to law enforcement. I hope he can help again in Baltimore, because crime-wise, they are in serious trouble there these days.

(The top picture is of Norris in his NYPD days working homicide, and the picture below is of him and his father.)