BALTIMORE — A group of Baltimore City Councilmembers gave their OK to Acting Commissioner Richard Worley to lead the Baltimore Police Department on a permanent basis, putting him in greater position to drop the 'acting' in his title.
Worley has temporarily led the department through a busy few months, and could continue to lead it on a permanent basis.
"It's a great vote of confidence that the council voted for me," Worley told reporters Thursday night.
Worley's nomination was approved Thursday night in the Rules and Legislative Oversight Committee, with support from speakers including former Mayor Jack Young and Baltimore's top prosecutor, Ivan Bates.
"At the end of the day, I'm asking you to give me a partner I can look at, I can depend on," Bates told the committee.
Worley's tenure as acting commissioner began in June. His Thursday evening appearance in the council chambers was not his first; in July - he was there admitting the shortcomings of Baltimore police during a hearing about the deadly Brooklyn Day mass shooting.
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In the weeks following that, Worley and Mayor Brandon Scott sat down throughout the city and took questions from the public.
Fast forward to the present: Worley would inherit a city in which homicides are trending down, but car thefts are on the way up; one of the many topics the group of councilmembers asked him about.
"Can you talk about what the strategy is to deal with the increase auto thefts, including Hyundais and Kias?" asked Councilman Eric Costello.
"That's the biggest push - is that we have to hold young people accountable," Worley responded in part, "But we have to increase our car stops - we have to look for the vehicles that look suspicious, check the tags to see if there's a stolen car."
Worley's mission for the department, as he described at the hearing, includes more police foot patrols to build relationships, revamping officer recruitment, seeing out the consent decree, and winning back a city with which they currently have frayed relations.
His next step is at second reader at the next City Council meeting in the first week of October.
