The commander of the Baltimore Police Department’s southwest district has been fired. The news comes as crime in that part of the city spikes.

Today, the Baltimore Sun reports that Police Commissioner Fred Bealefeld has replaced Maj. Darnell Brock.

It was a particularly violent weekend in southwest Baltimore. As you may recall, there were 15 shootings over the Labor Day weekend — four of them were fatal.

The fact that Bealefeld is acting so swiftly to get rid of a weak link in his chain of command is superb news for the city.

Bealefeld has been incredibly successful since he officially took over as police commander last November. Though some of us may see 15 weekend shootings as an anomaly, Bealefeld appears to see it differently. It worries him and it’s cause for swift action. And, imagine this: he even has a plan for what to do next.

He says he’s going to send in more foot patrols to try to cut gang-related activity, which he thinks are the reason for the 19 homicides this year and 21% increase in robberies in the district. He also says detectives are going to look deeper into cases, which I guess implies Brock wasn’t encouraging.

Bealefeld is a no-nonsense kind of leader. He told the city’s long-time DNA lab director to resign as soon as the director, Edgar Koch, told Bealefeld about contaminated DNA evidence.

Good for Bealefeld. He obviously knows what he’s doing, considering Baltimore’s homicide rate is down about 30% this year, according to WJZ. (Full disclosure: I also freelance for WJZ.)

Keep it up, Bealefeld.

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