In tapping police chief, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott goes against his own prior statements about transparency, community input

Four years ago, the Baltimore City Council passed a resolution calling for the Maryland General Assembly to change the process by which a Baltimore mayor selects a police commissioner nominee to require the creation of a diverse committee to assist the city’s top elected official.

The push followed months of drama surrounding the rollout of a mayoral pick to lead Baltimore Police, during which critics had slammed secrecy around the selection process and called for both greater transparency and community engagement.

Its lead sponsor: then-Councilman Brandon Scott.

“Having a robust and inclusive process in the search for a police commissioner cannot and should not be optional,” he said before the vote in 2019 on the resolution. “What we have to do is include in everything that we do the most important voices in Baltimore and that is the citizens of Baltimore.”

No such state law ever passed, but four years later, with Scott in the mayor’s seat, he had the chance to do it the way he saw fit. Critics say his 2023 approach has been a letdown, particularly in light of his earlier stated priorities.

In tapping Baltimore Police veteran Richard Worley as his nominee for permanent police commissioner, Scott opted not to conduct a national search for a new leader, forgoing the assistance of either an outside search firm or a search committee to make recommendations. He didn’t publicly name any candidates or finalists under consideration. And he didn’t solicit community input before making his selection.

Instead, Scott caught much of the city by surprise by announcing on the same day the resignation of Michael Harrison, the top cop of four years, and his plan to nominate Worley. Scott has stood by his selection, even as community groups have voiced concerns about a lack of engagement.

The Rev. Kobi Little, president of the Baltimore NAACP, told The Baltimore Sun it was a missed opportunity and a misread of the relationship between the police department and the community.

“This moment calls, more than anything, for a new police commissioner administration from the very outset to begin with transparency, integrity, community engagement and collaborative problem-solving,” Little said. “The failure to do that limits the possibilities from moment one.”

The mayor was “absolutely” right as a council member to value community input and transparency in the search process, Little said: “It’s sad to see that he has retreated from a correct position to one that doesn’t serve the interests of our community.”

Council leaders, too, while supportive of Worley as the nominee, have argued a search with more public input on the front end would have strengthened the selection process. Councilman Mark Conway, chairman of the council’s Public Safety and Government Operations committee, was among those who spoke in favor of Worley, but sees added benefit in a national search.

“There’s a lot of legitimacy to be gained when you have a search for a candidate, whether it’s someone external or especially when it’s someone internal,” Conway said. “It means they can stand up against some of the best candidates across the country. Going straight for a candidate without the search, you really miss that opportunity.”

Scott and all of Baltimore’s Council members are Democrats.

Worley’s nomination, formally introduced July 17 to City Council, is scheduled for consideration at a hearing Aug. 15. City officials have said they’ll hold at least four in-person community meetings and three virtual or telephone town halls with Worley before a vote, but haven’t released dates or locations. The city’s charter requires the council to vote within three meetings, or by Oct. 2.

Scott said via a spokesman last week that the transition of power underway is unlike the situation Baltimore faced during Democratic Mayor Catherine Pugh’s tenure and other past commissioner searches.

“This is a peaceful transition of power, not clouded by scandal or failure, as previous departures have been,” Scott said. “Former Commissioner Harrison said from the very beginning of his tenure that the goal was to pass the torch to a Baltimore native and to build the next generation of BPD’s leadership from within. That is exactly what we have found in Acting Commissioner Worley.”

Scott said Worley has begun to “engage with Baltimoreans of all kinds.”

Harrison is paid more than $287,000 a year on a contract that expires in March. Worley’s salary is $207,944, according to Baltimore Police, and he would likely get a raise if chosen as the permanent commissioner.

Baltimore saw a quick succession of police leaders before Harrison’s appointment in 2019.

Anthony Batts, who’d been hired in 2012 in a national search and came to Baltimore from California, was fired in July 2015 amid backlash over the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray and subsequent unrest, as well as a spike in homicides. Kevin Davis served for three years in the role before he was fired by Pugh, who said she was “impatient” with the agency’s inability to stem killings after the city’s third consecutive year with at least 300 homicides. Davis had experience in Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties.

Pugh then turned to Darryl De Sousa, an agency veteran praised by officials, including Scott, who called him someone who “understands every aspect of our city and what needs to happen.” De Sousa stepped down months after his nearly unanimous confirmation after he was charged with failing to file federal tax documents.

Between De Sousa and Harrison, Pugh nominated Joel Fitzgerald. The nomination followed a national search with a panel to weigh options, but that process wasn’t transparent enough for Scott.

He and other critics pushed back against the city’s refusal to release a background investigation into Fitzgerald, threatening to withhold their votes, and slammed the lack of transparency around potential candidates. Also, Fitzgerald initially balked at releasing his resume. When Pugh later released it, The Sun and The Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania, found he overstated his accomplishments.

Fitzgerald pulled out of consideration before a council vote, citing family reasons.

Scott, then a council member, said he wanted to see the selection process expanded to include more stakeholders, saying: “The structure is broken.”

He also called Pugh’s process an “embarrassment to the city,” as he’d asked the mayor’s office for information on candidates without success. Scott called for the creation of a board of commissioners to oversee the police department, similar to Los Angeles. That board, he said, could publicly nominate candidates to the mayor.

Four years later, Scott declined to create a committee, name any candidates or conduct a public search.

Scott said the 2019 search for a commissioner is not comparable.

“BPD was grappling with consent decree requirements, lacking leadership, and was an example for the entire country of how not to police,” he said. “At that time, we were already deep into a national search for a police commissioner from elsewhere in the country, and some of those nationwide candidates bristled at the need for transparency and honesty.”

In contrast, Scott said, in 2023 Baltimore Police has had “significant success” with reforms, redefining public safety and rebuilding a professional police force.

Little said not having a search process this time deprived the city of an “important temperature check” for the state of policing in Baltimore.

The NAACP and other social justice organizations said in late June they’d had zero contact with Worley in the three weeks following the mayor’s announcement. Little said that since then, he has spoken briefly with the acting commissioner and that the NAACP is open to engaging in the future.

Cities vary widely in their approaches to hiring police leaders.

New Orleans, home of former Commissioner Harrison, is in the midst of a national search assisted by an outside industry group. Seattle, meanwhile, earlier this year confirmed a 25-year agency veteran following a monthslong national search. It included a committee evaluation and a forum with three candidates.

Both New Orleans and Seattle have recent experience under policing consent decrees with the federal government. Baltimore has been under one since 2017.

Chuck Wexler of the Police Executive Research Forum, which has assisted in leadership searches across the country, including at least two in Baltimore, called it a trade-off in deciding whether to announce finalists’ names or get the most competitive applicants. Current chiefs, he said, might decide against applying if they knew their interest would become public, something that could jeopardize their present jobs.

But he said one key principle in a search is gathering feedback in some way from community members before an applicant is selected — ranging from surveying residents, as in Louisville, Kentucky, to Dallas’ and Milwaukee’s approach of an online candidate forum.

“It’s a mistake to say you’re not going to get citizen input,” Wexler said. “The key is how do you get it and the best candidates? Those are the two goals you’d like to achieve.”

Conway said he has begun to see signs that Scott is seeking community input on Worley’s selection, although it is coming later in the process. The councilman said he is slated to attend a meeting this week with Worley and community leaders in his 4th District in North Baltimore.

Ideally, the community should help shape Worley’s vision for the commissioner role, Conway said, but also determine whether he’s the right person for the job.

“It’s an important opportunity for folks to weigh in on what they saw in the previous commissioners and what would they be looking for in the next commissioner and what might be different,” Conway said. “Commissioner Harrison was really great at some things and left things to be desired in other areas. He was a great commissioner, but we don’t want to copy and paste. We want to upgrade.”

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