You never know where or when you’ll run into Annapolis police chief Scott Baker. It’s not unusual to see him directing traffic at midnight on New Year’s Eve, or walking a beat in a neighborhood targeted as a high crime area, riding a bike downtown, attending police camps for youth, and community meetings.
Baker intentionally leaves blocks of time open on his calendar by writing “no (office) meetings” or simply “off” so he can spend up to 10 hours per week doing community outreach.
It’s all part of the chief’s brutally long days. He works 60 to 70 hours per week, as many as 14 a day at times. Baker says that even when he’s off on the weekends, he spends two to three hours on the phone conducting police business. “Sitting behind this desk, I might get an e-mail or a phone call or a complaint out of downtown that there’s loitering, or there’s an open-air drug market,” Baker says. “But if I am out there, I can see and hear and talk to people and really get the pulse of what is going on.”
Alderwoman Sheila Finlayson, who chaired the city’s Public Safety Committee from 2009 to 2017, is pleasantly surprised at how often she crosses paths with him. “He seems to be everywhere,” she says. “I don’t think he turns down an engagement. He’s at all kinds of events. He is listening to the community and he is responsive.”
Baker, a 54-year-old Lutherville resident, knows that’s what he must do. Annapolis experienced a disturbing increase in homicides (1 to 10) in 2016. As a result, former Annapolis Mayor Mike Pantelides promoted him from deputy chief to interim chief after relieving Baker’s former boss, Michael Pristoop.
Baker took over as permanent chief in May of 2017 after serving nearly nine years as deputy. He wasted little time in implementing a slew of initiatives to tackle violent crime and build better relationships with residents in Annapolis neighborhoods. “I think we may have lost focus with the community,” says Baker, who worked more than 20 years for the Baltimore City Police Department and retired in 2007 as a shift commander of a homicide unit, where he managed 24 detectives. “In 2017, we moved to a community policing approach and we took a much broader approach to outreach. We probably do 10 times the amount of community association meetings and outreach meetings than we did in 2016.
“But one thing I tell the officers here is, ‘We are still cops and we still have this core function of law enforcement,’” adds Baker, who has a bachelor of science in criminal justice from the University of Baltimore, a Juris Doctor Degree from the University of Baltimore University School of Law, and is a graduate of the FBI’s National Academy. “We’re trying to combine both things and do them well.”
So far, it seems to be working. The best news: the city has seen one murder in 2018. That comes after a year marked by seven homicides. “I’d like to think we’re targeting the right people,” Baker says of the dramatic decrease. “We are targeting gangs. And we’re in the right place to prevent some of these things.”
Overall, crime is down as well. According to police department statistics, there has been an 13 percent drop in overall crime for most of 2018 from the same period of 2017. This includes categories such as shootings, aggravated assault, robbery, and theft from auto. “We are going to be fighting against very low crime numbers,” Baker says of this year’s overall crime stats. “In 2017, we had the second lowest crime numbers since 1975. So, we are down now from the second lowest numbers. We are doing really well. But we also have this huge thing going on and that is changing the perception of policing and who we are and what we do.”
Baker’s tone grows more intent when he talks about two of his violent crime initiatives. One of them involves an officer visiting someone when they’ve been released from the county detention center after serving time for a handgun violation. “We will knock on their door—the next day, hopefully,” Baker explains. “We tell them, ‘We know who you are and that you carried a gun. Everybody in the police department knows you had a gun, because they all have your picture.’”
Another initiative has Baker sitting down with some of the most violent offenders when they are being released or are on probation or parole. They hold a conference, which also includes representatives from social services, a clergy member, the state’s attorney, and the federal prosecutor.
“We tell them, ‘You are going down the wrong path,’” Baker says. “The federal prosecutor also speaks to them and says, ‘If you’re caught with a gun and drugs, this is how many years you’re going to get in federal prison. You’re not going to be in Maryland. Your family is not going to be able to come visit you, because you are going to be in Colorado or Arizona.’”
Pantelides praises Baker for his leadership, noting his initiatives and the positive results they’ve brought. The former mayor also says the chief’s impact on the department is often overlooked. “He did a really good job of getting the morale back up in the department,” Pantelides explains. “We saw the murders and the crime statistics go down. He has a very difficult job. I would tell him he has the most difficult job in the city and even more important than the mayor’s job—by a long stretch.”
In his latest role, Baker seems to have become the ultimate team player. But he can also be outspoken. In August of 2017, when President Trump made a public statement that some interpreted to mean that police shouldn’t be afraid to rough suspects up a little when they arrest them, Baker objected with a posting on his department’s Facebook page, noting that the president’s comments “do not help build trust between citizens and police.”
No matter who you are talking to—the former mayor, Finlayson, or Baker—the conversation often comes back to community policing. Eight of Baker’s initiatives address this issue.
One of the most crucial of these are the Neighborhood Enhancement Team Unit. Two officers from this unit are assigned to Harbour House/Eastport Terrace and another one to Clay Street. They spend five to eight hours of their 10-hour shifts walking the neighborhoods and making community contacts. Two of the officers also teach DARE at Eastport Elementary School. “If you’re seeing a different officer every day you can’t build trust,” Pantelides says. “Where, if your team is only working Eastport, you get a chance to know the neighbors and build trust.”
Baker has gotten positive feedback from residents about these officers on foot patrol. One letter he received jumped out at him.
“This woman on Clay Street told me she was in her house and heard a bunch of kids running, which usually means trouble,” says Baker, who likes to spend what little free time he has on his boat or traveling and scuba diving with his family. “But when she looked out her window she saw a bunch of kids around one of our officers. They were laughing and getting in and out of the car and hitting the siren and playing with the lights.”
Another direct link with the community is the chief’s 10-person board. It is comprised of residents who help identify problems and trouble spots and offer suggestions to resolve those issues.
Annapolis Police Chief Scott Baker talked to residents and community leaders along with throwing a football around at National Night Out at Annapolis Gardens in August.
Another form of outreach is the Mobile Crisis Response unit. This is a small team that offers immediate care to people facing mental health crises. They provide treatment and additional services while steering people to more long-term therapeutic programs.
Annapolis has certainly not been immune to the nation-wide opioid epidemic and under the Safe Stations initiative anyone seeking treatment with an addiction can come for help to a police or fire station without fear of arrest.
On the prevention side, the department installed 185 additional surveillance cameras in 2017 in Housing Authority of City of Annapolis (HACA) properties to supplement the 130 that were already there.
The cameras are monitored at the Annapolis Police headquarters. “Having them as a resource is amazing for us,” Annapolis Police Sargent and Public Information Officer Amy Miguez says. “We can certainly say it’s one of the factors in our crime reduction. We have used them for cases as serious as homicides. They help build a case.”
Crime is not the only challenge for Baker. Recruiting and retaining officers has become difficult in recent years. “Holding on to the newer cops is hard,” Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley says. “The county offers more money and bonuses. We don’t have the deep pockets that the county has.”
This is an issue that Finlayson has wrestled with and has pushed hard to address. “The county is stealing our people left and right,” she says. “We can’t compete. They’re offering $20,000 signing bonuses and cars. You name it. People come here to work because they like our city. It’s not the best salary, and I work hard to make sure their benefits are not diminished.”
Buckley has come up with an idea for 2019 to help Baker out with his department’s staffing problems: safety officers. “They are not police officers, but kind of like the ones they have in Ocean City,” he says. “I’ve met with the mayor of Ocean City. The safety officer doesn’t have a gun, but maybe he has a radio. A safety officer gives the police back-up and gives them a presence. It’s in the very early stages of discussion.”
Buckley says he is going to continue to push and prod Baker. As a relatively new mayor, he has a lot of energy and a lot of suggestions. “I am a challenging mayor, because I have a lot of big ideas, and I’m sure I’m keeping him busy,” Buckley explains. “I praise the chief because he is trying new things. There’s still a lot of work to do, a lot of community building. I think he had to shake things up, and he’s done that.”