BALTIMORE — Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison on Thursday defended the department’s decision to wait five days to serve a search warrant on a robbery suspect who investigators said killed a man during that time.
“I firmly stand by the decisions,” Harrison said in a statement sent to department members Thursday following questions by news media about the delay.
Baltimore County Police received a signed search warrant for the Northeast Baltimore home of 18-year-old Sahiou Kargbo, a Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School student, who was wanted in a prior armed robbery at a Parkville Wendy’s. Four days after the warrant was approved, James Blue III, a veteran Amtrak conductor and husband of a Baltimore Police Department lieutenant, was found fatally shot on Walker Avenue in Northeast Baltimore.
Baltimore police served the search warrant at Kargbo’s city home the day after Blue was killed. Inside, police said, officers located two guns, including the one used to kill Blue.
Kargbo, 18, has since been charged with the killing.
Harrison said the decision to serve the warrant five days after it was signed by a judge was a matter of calculating risk to the public and the safety of officers.
“At the request of Baltimore Police Department SWAT, the parties agreed to execute on Wednesday, January 26th. This decision was made to ensure the safety of the members of the public, the suspect and the officers executing the warrant,” Harrison wrote.
Harrison said the search warrant would not normally rise to the level that would require the department to alter the officers’ schedules.
“Unfortunately, in this instance, there was no information presented or inferred that exigent circumstances existed, which again meant that it would not have risen to a level that would require us to call people in,” he said.
Harrison also addressed questions about why a prior arrest warrant for a gun discharging filed against Kargbo on Dec. 28 was not served earlier.
“The three charges listed were all misdemeanor offenses and the detectives prioritized their efforts on serving warrants for incidents such as homicide and nonfatal shootings,” Harrison said.
The letter was issued to members of the department after Baltimore police union leaders blamed Harrison’s “ill-fated policies” designed to reign in the department’s once outsized overtime spending.
“The fact that Mr. Blue’s death might have been prevented but for scheduling issues and payment of overtime makes the policy makers at the top of the Baltimore Police Department responsible,” the union letter said.
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