By Peter Hermann
Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE, Md. — On the street, he’s Baltimore Police Officer Timothy Hall. On stage, he’s the “Comic Cop.”
His main job is locking up criminals by serving warrants around the city. His other job is that of a comedian, poking fun at the crooks he’s busted and the civilians he’s encountered. On the street, he has to be deferential and professional; on stage he can let loose and say things he couldn’t get away with wearing a badge and a gun.
Hall jokes about how hard it is to be a cop in Baltimore because “nobody fears the police anymore.” He says police cars are so broken-down that suspects in sneakers outrun cruisers, and that it’s useless to stop someone for a cracked windshield because the patrol car is probably in worse shape.
His wife is a city schoolteacher, the 37-year-old told a crowd Friday night at the downtown Havana Club, but a violent city gives way to different answers to the standard classroom questions.
What happens when Bobby has five apples, and Billy takes two?
In Baltimore, Hall said, “You get shot.”
Hall, a city native with 19 years on the force, is a regular at the Baltimore Comedy Factory and he’s appeared on HBO’s “Def Comedy Jam.”
People paid $35 to $40 for Friday’s benefit for ReWired For Change, a group started by actors from HBO’s “The Wire” to raise money to help children engulfed in violence. It’s one answer to critics who complain the gritty drama exposed an all-too-real Baltimore and capitalized on the city’s crime and drug problem.
Baltimore’s mayor and police commissioner complain that newspaper coverage and the many television shows devoted to city police and violence instill unfounded fear in residents and unfairly confirm for others that the city is unsafe to visit.
Hall said he knows he skirts the edge of what’s acceptable. He said his jokes are based on experiences and frustrations police officers universally can relate to, and through humor help the public understand what it’s like to be a cop. He said it’s not meant as an indictment of Baltimore.
At the Havana Club, where he was introduced as a Baltimore police officer, he mixed jokes about his marriage and fights in nightclubs with pokes at police and his job.
On “Def Comedy Jam,” Hall identified himself only as a generic police officer and did not mention where he works. He acknowledged “there’s a lot I can’t talk about on stage, being a police officer.” He noted that he can’t use or talk about marijuana. “But I can smell it,” he said, and joked about spending three hours at a car stop to inhale the fumes from a driver who had smoked a joint.
“A police officer high on marijuana - you ain’t never getting a ticket,” Hall said.
The officer said he uses comedy as a release from locking up criminals and as a chance to talk about topics he can’t talk about while in uniform. The department’s rules say, “No member of the department shall publicly criticize or ridicule the official action of any member of the department, public official or judge.”
Regulations also require officers, even off duty, to be professional and reflect the agency in a positive and professional manner. Anthony Guglielmi, the chief city police spokesman, said the commissioner was unaware of Hall’s second job but that a commander approved it in March 1995.
Guglielmi said the commissioner is not taking a position on Hall’s show, but the spokesman emphasized that the act “is not an official representation of the Baltimore Police Department. He’s acting as a private citizen. He’s acting as Timothy Hall, not as Baltimore Police Officer Timothy Hall. The bottom line is that it’s humor.”
Hall avoids discussing the police commissioner, specific policies and the mayor’s indictment, all rich fodder for humor and outrage. He said he doesn’t feel he’s exploiting the very problem he’s been hired to resolve. “We all know we have problems in Baltimore,” he said. “We have problems in all cities.”
Crime, he said, “is not what this city is all about.” He said he was performing in Chicago recently and mentioned being from Baltimore. “They said, ‘That’s ‘The Wire’ city.’ They were scared and they have way more murders than we do.”
Copyright 2009 Baltimore Sun