BALTIMORE — Will Richard Worley permanently lead the Baltimore Police Department?
We'll have to wait roughly three weeks to know the answer. At community meetings this month, some got the chance to make up their minds on Mayor Brandon Scott's pick.
On Tuesday afternoon, Greater Paradise Christian Center in East Baltimore hosted the last chance for folks to ask questions to the acting commissioner.
Before that, drivers waited in their cars outside the church for locks, handed out by the city and provided by car manufacturers Hyundai and Kia, to protect cars.
"I think it’s a great thing," said Stephanie, one city resident. "So many cars have been getting windows getting busted out, and windows getting broken into."
"We’ve recovered over 160 stolen vehicles that were Hyundais or Kias," Worley told reporters Tuesday.
Car thefts are up roughly 200 percent year-to-date in the city this year; this is just one of the issues acting commissioner Worley will continue to face if he’s confirmed.
"We are still fighting to win the community back," Worley said at the final town hall. "That’s my number one priority, to enhance community trust.”
Among his priorities, he says: living out the consent decree, addressing officer shortages, and increasing on-foot, in-community patrols.
"Please just do one thing - be true to the people you serve," one resident pleaded Tuesday.
Mayor Brandon Scott and his pick for top cop have been jumping to locations around the city to introduce the hopeful permanent commissioner.
Worley has been acting commissioner for about two months, and that time has been eventful: notably, with the abrupt departure of former commissioner Michael Harrison in June, which put Worley in the temporary job, and the tragic Brooklyn Day mass shooting in July.
The mayor told reporters to expect the department’s after-action report on that tragedy "within the next few days."
