Baltimore Police union leaders on Thursday blamed department policies and a reduced number of officers for leading to decisions that delayed serving a search warrant on a teen who detectives say murdered a man before his arrest.
Baltimore County and city police officials said a search warrant in connection with a county robbery was signed by a judge to search the home of 18-year-old Sahiou Kargbo, five days before his arrest. The day before police entered his Northeast Baltimore home and arrested him, police said he shot and killed James Blue III, a veteran Amtrak conductor and husband of a Baltimore Police Department lieutenant.
Baltimore County Police said the city sought to delay executing the warrant. Baltimore Police have said the county could have used its own officers to execute the no-knock warrant earlier. The raid was scheduled for Jan. 26, when both agencies agreed upon availability.
Union leaders say the decision was the result of prioritizing reduction in overtime.
“The warrant service was delayed due to the ill-fated policies of Police Commissioner [Michael] Harrison,” the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3 said in a statement Thursday. “Law enforcement isn’t some business where you can deny overtime and expect the work to continue without any effect. We are in the business of public safety and there is no price tag for the safety of our citizens.”
Harrison has instituted policies to rein in the department’s expensive overtime costs, limiting the amount of overtime officers can work and requiring a supervisor’s approval.
Kargbo, a student at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School, had been identified as a member of the Harford & 28th gang and also had a prior arrest warrant filed against him Dec. 28 in Baltimore for a firearms discharging that occurred Nov. 5, according to court documents.
The search of his home turned up two guns, one of which was later identified as the weapon the shot Blue.
Baltimore Police said the department’s Warrant Apprehension Task Force prioritizes felony warrants, and that warrant issued for Kargbo in the November handgun case is a misdemeanor.
In its statement, the union said the department needs to prioritize serving warrants.
“There are plenty of arrest warrants for violent criminals just waiting to be served because the best cops in the nation are told to go home because there will be no overtime paid,” the union statement said.
