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BALTIMORE — After Baltimore's New Year's Eve fireworks celebration was canceled by strong winds, the city's police commissioner hit the streets and collared a few revelers who he said fired illegal guns into the air.
Frederick H. Bealefeld III had planned to end the year supervising police coverage for thousands who watch the display from the city's Inner Harbor.
But instead he spent the night on patrol in a violent section of west Baltimore. When he and an aide spotted two men firing shotguns in the air, the officers ran up the alley and chased the suspects into a home.
The commissioner followed one of the men into a basement, where he encountered several more people. He held them at gunpoint while calling for backup.
"It's not every day they hear a Signal 13 on Unit 1," Bealefeld said, referring to the code for an officer in need of assistance and his personal call number.
The backup was formidable. Within minutes, the streets around the home were jammed with about 50 police cars, said Anthony Guglielmi, Bealefeld's spokesman.
Both gunmen were arrested, and officers seized the illegal 12-gauge sawed-off shotguns, which Bealefeld described as "very formidable street weapons."
Charges against the two men were pending, and police had not released their names Thursday afternoon.
Bealefeld, a 27-year veteran of the department, goes out on patrol about once a month and has made other arrests since he became commissioner in July 2007. But this is the first time he's put himself in such a dangerous situation.
"I was really glad to see the cavalry get there," Bealefeld said. "I also recognize it is the stroke of midnight and other people are going to need backup and help. That's the kind of dilemma that the police commissioner being out there, getting involved hands-on, kind of puts you in."
Celebratory gunfire is common in Baltimore on New Year's Eve, and officers were deployed in hot spots around the city — part of Bealefeld's strategy to go after "bad guys with guns." Officers made 44 arrests between midnight and 3 a.m. and seized about four dozen guns, police said.
