Law enforcement expert weighs in on suspected killer Kargo's warrants - Fox Baltimore
WBFF (BALTIMORE, MD) — The Baltimore City FOP posted a letter Thursday expressing outrage over the delay in executing two warrants on the suspect accused in the shooting death of the husband of a BPD Lieutenant.
Sahiou Kargo, 18, is charged in the January 25 murder of James Blue III.
The teen was arrested a day after the murder.
Court records show that arrest came after police executed a search warrant on Kargo’s home in the City for an unrelated armed robbery case in Baltimore County.
The warrant was approved by a judge on January 21, several days before Blue’s homicide.
Further digging into court records revealed Kargo was also wanted by Baltimore City Police in a November 2021 case involving several gun-related offenses.
That warrant was issued on December 28, 2021, four weeks before Blue’s murder.
The FOP claims the delay in serving and executing the two warrants was due to scheduling and overtime issues and specifically called out Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison, as well as Mayor Brandon Scott, and local and state lawmakers.
The FOP President wrote in part.
“Law enforcement isn’t some business where you can deny overtime and expect the work to continue without any effect.”
FOX45 News questioned Baltimore Police if the Department ever attempted to arrest Kargo when the December warrant was issued, as well as if this latest search warrant was delayed in fact due to staffing and overtime policies.
A spokesperson responded to the inquiry saying,
“Baltimore County personnel and Baltimore City personnel communicated, coordinated and agreed to the execution date of January 25. It was determined there needed to be more planning between the parties before executing the search warrant.
At the request of Baltimore Police Department SWAT, the parties agreed to execute on January 26.
The search and seizure “no-knock” warrant – which is a mandate for SWAT-only to execute – was not an arrest warrant and we would not have ordinarily changed schedules to call people in to execute the search warrant.
There was no information presented or inferred that exigent circumstances existed, which means it would not have risen to a level that would require us to call people in.
The Department did not execute the Baltimore City arrest warrant from the warrant issued on December 28. The three charges were all misdemeanor offenses and the detectives prioritize their efforts on serving warrants for incidents such as homicides and non-fatal shootings.
As for specific criteria, we would call someone in from their off-day for a barricade/hostage situation, an active shooter situation, a mass casualty incident or some specific exigent circumstance.”
Jason Johnson is a former deputy commissioner with the Baltimore Police Department.
Johnson said he understands the outrage, as well as parts of BPD's response to the letter.
"The administration and the Department is in a bit of a catch 22 because there is this real demand to prevent further violence. At the same time there is a huge challenge in manpower that cannot be fixed overnight. In fact its worsening over the past several years. They have real constraints on them for overtime. The city has been more or less shut down over the past couple of years. Tax revenues is not in the green. They have real limitations on them," said Johnson.
Johnson adding, "I have to empathize with the Commissioner because he doesn’t have an easy answer. Hindsight is always 20/20. Everybody would agree it would have been really, really great had they gone out an executed that warrant no matter what the cost because it would have saved Mr. Blue’s life. But we don’t have the luxury of hindsight so the best we can do is take a look at the police department's policies. How they prioritize search and arrest warrants and whether there is a better way to do it. Maybe whether they can give more priority to handgun violations even if they’re misdemeanors and give more priority to violent crimes even if they are outside the city."
Baltimore County Police also responded to the inquiry confirming search warrant plans were not finalized until Monday, January 24.
The Mayor’s Office has not yet responded to the letter.
source: https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/law-enforcement-expert-weighs-in-on-suspected-killer-kargos-warrants
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