Frank Battaglia is a former Baltimore Police Department

Baltimore Police Department

The Baltimore Police Department provides police services to the city of Baltimore, Maryland and was officially established by the Maryland Legislature on March 16, 1853...

 officer who was Commissioner of the Department between 1981 and 1984.

Biography

Battaglia was the only Italian-American police commissioner of Baltimore, controlling a police department previously dominated by Irish-American police officers during a time period nicknamed the "Holy Roman Empire." Battaglia would lose the post for a consultant position in 1984 to Bishop L. Robinson as Mayor Donald Schaefer shifted control of the department to the city's majority African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 community. It was under Battaglia that former BPD officer Gary D'Addario

Gary D'Addario

Gary D'Addario is a retired police commander, television technical advisor and actor from Baltimore, Maryland.D'Addario joined the Baltimore police department in 1967...

 was elevated to the rank of lieutenant. D'Addario is best known as the shift commander featured in David Simon

David Simon

David Simon is an American author, journalist, and a writer/producer of television series. He worked for the Baltimore Sun City Desk for twelve years. He wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood with Ed Burns...

's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets is a 1991 book written by Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon describing a year spent with detectives from the Baltimore Police Department homicide squad...

 book and was the inspiration for the character of Al Giardello

Al Giardello

Alphonse Michael Giardello, Sr. is a fictional character from the television drama Homicide: Life on the Street. The character was played by Yaphet Kotto...

 seen on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

's Homicide: Life on the Street. During the Baltimore riot of 1968

Baltimore riot of 1968

The Baltimore Riot of 1968 began two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. Rioting broke out in 125 cities across the United States, and spread to the city of Baltimore, Maryland on Saturday, April 6. The Governor of Maryland, Spiro T...

, Battaglia was ranked as a Lieutenant Colonel and was the Department's official Field Force Commander.