Posted on 03/11/19
| News Source: WBAL
The Baltimore City Council on Monday unanimously confirmed Michael Harrison as police commissioner.
Harrison, the former New Orleans superintendent, has been acting commissioner since February. City police have been without a permanent leader for more than a year, since Mayor Catherine Pugh fired Kevin Davis in January of last year.
Harrison will be sworn in at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Pugh announced Harrison as the nominee in January, a day after her previous choice, Fort Worth, Texas Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald, withdrew from consideration.
"We commit our full support to him as he now officially takes up his responsibility, knowing of his own strong commitment to new levels of accountability and transparency," Pugh said in a statement after Monday's vote. "We have much work yet to accomplish but have in Commissioner Harrison a seasoned partner who regards this work as both an opportunity and a privilege. I ask all of Baltimore to work with us in creating the safer City we desire and deserve."
Last Thursday, the council's Executive Appointments Committee voted in Harrison's favor. Harrison then testified before City Council members Wednesday, answering questions at his confirmation hearing. In the past few weeks, Harrison attended nine nightly community meetings in all nine city police districts.
Harrison spent 28 years rising through the ranks in New Orleans police before coming to Baltimore.
Harrison is tasked with reforming a force that remains under a federal consent decree agreed to in 2017. That followed a report conducted following Freddie Gray's death in 2015 that found routine constitutional violations by officers. The department is still dealing with the fallout from the actions of rogue officers linked to the since-disbanded Gun Trace Task Force. Nine former officers are in federal prison. A former sergeant was indicted last week in relation to the task force's actions. He allegedly had a BB gun planted at the scene of an arrest.
Harrison is in line to get the most lucrative contract ever offered by the city. The contract for Harrison would pay him $275,000 in his first year. Baltimore's Board of Estimates approved the contract in February without objection or comment.