By Anja Friedrich, USCM intern
August 5, 2002

Baltimore Mayor Martin O-Malley and Laredo Mayor Elizabeth G. Flores met with their police chiefs, Baltimore City Police Department Commissioner Edward Norris and Laredo Police Department Chief Augustin Dovalina, at a plenary session on July 15th to discuss "local law enforcement and government executives: Are you really together post 9/11."

The session was part of the three-day National Community Policing Conference entitled "Community policing keeps America safe" held in Washington July 14-17 and was hosted by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Orientated Policing Services.

Both Mayors and the Police Chiefs stressed the importance of co-operation and a strong relationship between police and political leadership. "I think it is incumbent on political leaders to really look at your community, really look at the needs of the people and talk to the experts" said Laredo Mayor Flores adding that "there's got to be trust, a great deal of trust". Chief Augustine Dovalina mirrored the Mayors sentiments. "I have enormous respect and confidence in the abilities of our Mayor to run the city as she does....we consider ourselves a team and we act as a team ," he said.

Dovalina said sometimes there are dissagreements at times on what should be done. "we do agree that there is a common goal and the common goal here is the safety and security of our community and we work with that day in and day out," he said.

Emphasis was also placed on the importance of trust and bonding on a community level to ensure public safety. "The public has to understand that its leaders, temporary as we are, are committed to policing their their police department and if they feel you-re trying and if they feel that the integrity is being restored and that it's improving even when it's difficult to do that, they will come along with you," said Baltimore Mayor O-Mally.

Commisioner Norris stressed that part of the success of the Baltimore City Police Department was the construction of a very ambitious crime plan, of which thousands of copies were distributed to Baltimore residents. "I don't care if you fill this room up with cocaine and heroine, it's meaningless if you haven't reduced the level of crime in the city," said Commissioner Norris.

Part of the Baltimore plan was for the department reforming itself. According to Norris, this led to a number of promotions but also to a number of forced retirements for those that were uninterested in their work or quilty of corruption. At the end of the year the public was asked to evaluate the police force on the basis of the promises they had made in the document.

"I thinks it's high time we start getting our domestic troops the kind of network they need to get the job done on the local level from the highest office in Washington," said Mayor Flores. "We together as a community have to work towards that, because it's not happening now and now we-re creating a homeland security office, but we already have homeland security in our police officers all across this country," she added.