The commander of Baltimore Police Department’s Western District, Maj. Natalie Preston, told BHCA’s June meeting that unreported incidents get no attention or follow up. “Until we get a call into 911, there’s no record” and no way to investigate, she said.
Over the summer BHCA successfully conducted a safety and security survey of residents and those who work in Bolton Hill, acquiring detailed responses from 275 households from the estimated 3853 residents of Bolton Hill. The responders were, predictably, skewed towards homeowners (81%) and BHCA members (61%).
The commander of the Baltimore Police Department’s Western District, Maj. Matt Corell, gave a no-nonsense review of the continuing region-wide high incidence of car thefts and armed robberies at the November BHCA meeting. He detailed his officers’ activities to reduce these crimes in and around Bolton Hill, which became part of the Western District in July.
The carjacking problem and other attempts to steal cars in Bolton Hill and around the region haven’t gone away, notwithstanding some politicians’ happy talk about reduced crime.
Only six months after it was declared a “disallowed zone” in which harassing drivers and squeegeeing car windows would be no longer tolerated, a cadre of young men, squeegees in hand, are back working the traffic regularly at the I-83 south exit ramp to Mt. Royal Avenue.
A rash of carjackings across the city and disproportionately in Bolton Hill has caused city police to step up security in the neighborhood.
The State of Maryland has awarded $62,767 to BHCA and two adjacent community associations to start work on renovating Mounds Park – a kickoff to the Green Street Concept Plan for the 1400-1500 blocks of the Eutaw Place Median, Mosher Plaza and Mounds Park on the west side of Eutaw.
Reginald Scott, 48, has for years delivered the Sun, New York Times, Washington Post and other print publications in Bolton Hill early each morning. On Dec. 7, he was attacked by two armed young men.
The mayor has approved a proposed city police redistricting map that will transfer Bolton Hill from the BPD Central District, which stretches south from the neighborhood and includes most of the Midtown benefits district and Downtown/Inner Harbor, to the BPD Western District.
A major pruning of shrubs on the Park Avenue median parks has left the parks cleaner and safer, if for a time a little naked.
