Mayor Brandon Scott appointed Richard Worley as interim Police Commissioner on Thursday when former Commissioner Michael Harrison announced he would be leaving the position early. Scott intends to make Worley Police Commissioner outright, pending approval from the City Council.
The commissioner is responsible for leading the reforms mandated by the federal consent decree and the leadership transition could be critical for keeping Baltimore on track to meet those goals, said experts.
Worley, a native Baltimorean, is a 25-year veteran of the police force and became a deputy commissioner in September 2022.
Baltimore City entered into the decree with the Department of Justice in 2017 after the DOJ found evidence that the department engaged in unconstitutional policing practices. Since that time, U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar, who oversees the decree, has determined Baltimore to be “on track” towards meeting the necessary reforms. Bredar has particularly praised the leadership of Commissioner Michael Harrison.
Geoffrey Alpert, a criminologist who specializes in consent decrees at the University of South Carolina called Baltimore’s decision to promote internally “an excellent choice.”
Alpert also monitors the consent decree in New Orleans, where Commissioner Harrison served before coming to Baltimore. He thinks that doing another nationwide search could be detrimental to the progress the department is making.
“You're going to end up having a lot more time spent with the new boss learning what's going on,” he said. “As opposed to someone… internal who's very familiar with the ongoing relationships and the ongoing reforms.”
Like interim Commissioner Worley, Ray Kelly is also a Baltimore native. Kelly is a longtime police reform organizer and chair of the Community Oversight Task Force (COTF) - a civilian board mandated by the decree that recommends police accountability measures.
And though he hasn’t heard of any problems with Worley, Kelly notes that Worley was with the department during the events that led the city to have a consent decree in the first place.
“The whole spirit of the consent decree was changing the culture, the BPD,” said Kelly, who wants to know more about Worley’s earlier career.
“There should be some kind of public scrutiny. I mean, he's been a BPD officer for a lot of years. We love to see what his record is. And outside of what's happened in the past four years, what's his record in Baltimore City? And we don't know that.” he said.
Kelly wants to see a thorough public vetting process - and wants to see the new commissioner, whoever that ends up being, do community meetings with “Q&A sessions” throughout the city’s policing districts.
Community engagement will be critical in successfully leading the force and carrying out the reforms of the consent decree agreed Daniel Webster, who studies gun violence at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. During the consent decree reviews, hiring continues to be an area where the judge has determined BPD needs improvement.
Poor staffing is a trend around the country Webster pointed out, and he doesn’t think police departments, including Baltimore’s, are going to be able to hire the number of officers they had in years past.
He said the department will need a leadership who “can think differently in a context of what can you do with fewer police officers… in collaboration with other city agencies and community partners, to create safe communities.”
Worley has not said much about his plans for the department but said he planned to continue with the city’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy during Harrison’s resignation on Thursday.
“My long term hope and.. demand is that we stay on the right path and we keep focusing on building a better department,” said Kelly, instead of sliding back towards practices “that don’t help the city and only hurt people.”
