Police chiefs come and go. In Baltimore its a rite of passage.

So despite catching everyone off-guard this week it should come as no surprise that Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld 3rd has decided to retire after nearly five years at the helm of the police department of one of America’s most crime ridden cities.

His tenure has had its ups and downs: From reducing the city’s murder rate — one of the highest in the country — to presiding over a department where cops have killed other cops and 16 former officers have pled or been found guilty in a towing scam, he leaves highly respected in most quarters.

A remarkable achievement.

As does his liaison in the Rawlings-Blake Administration, Director of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice Sheryl Goldstein, the wife of City State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein.

The two announced their upcoming departure Thursday within hours of each other, Bealefeld’s having been first reported within minutes by the Editor of the Baltimore Business Journal Joanna Sullivan.

Bealefeld will retire Aug. 1; Goldstein will leave office June 15.

But are they leaving voluntarily? or under fire? It’s a question everyone’s asking. Were they pushed?

No one around City Hall is talking. But Sheila Dixon, the former mayor who appointed both — they were kept on when Dixon was forced to resign in 2010 and Stephanie Rawlings-Blake succeeded her as mayor — has said privately she thinks they quit.

Blake said she was “saddened” to have to announce the commissioner’s retirement. No wonder: He and Goldstein are merely the latest in a line of experienced and capable leaders to leave city government since she became mayor.

Most recently the highly regarded M.J. “Jay” Brodie, who has presided over the Baltimore Development Corp., the city’s economic development arm, since 1996, announced his upcoming retirement.

Known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the city, Brodie was first appointed by former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and has served under three mayors since.

Bealefeld, whose hallmark phrase for criminals — “bad guys with guns” — came to be identified with his tenure as top cop, has also been known to refer to the city’s crime element as “knuckleheads” and “morons.”

Such lively language will surely stand him in good stead should he decide in his retirement to host a radio show, à la one of his well-known predecessors.
 
— Alan Z. Forman
 
alforman@voiceofbaltimore.org