The Baltimore Police Department is asking the city for $285,000 to hire a Massachusetts-based consultant — the highest of five bidders — to recommend how the department should be run, says the Baltimore Sun. A city councilman is questioning the need for a consultant. He says he’s concerned that the department is bypassing lower bidders for a company with ties to former Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, an ally of Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts.
Strategic Policy Partnership LLC, based in Martha’s Vineyard, is the Police Department’s choice to develop a “three- to five-year strategic plan” to make the agency more efficient and improve crime-fighting. The firm is working with Bratton, himself a consultant, on a similar plan in Oakland. The low bidder, Florida-based Law Enforcement Accreditation Consultants Inc., has filed a protest. “We all know that Mr. Bratton is the grandfather of zero tolerance and stop-and-frisk,” said Councilman Brandon Scott, referring to policies in which people suspected of even minor crimes are routinely stopped by police in hopes of curbing violence. “That should worry everybody. We’ve been there before. That is not a strategy that works in Baltimore.”