OCEAN CITY- The resort community on Tuesday laid to rest an iconic law enforcement officer with a huge stature and a bigger heart, who patrolled the streets of Ocean City for decades with courage and aplomb including one particular incident during which he likely saved several lives including his fellow officers.
Retired Ocean City Police Department Captain James Burton “Big Bake” Baker passed away last Friday at the Berlin Nursing and Rehabilitation Center at the age of 76. Baker started his career with the OCPD in 1965 and retired 33 years later in 1998. Over the span of three-plus decades, Baker touched the lives of hundreds of full-time and seasonal police officers, along with countless residents and visitors who recalled his huge burley stature and his kind and compassionate nature.
With 33 years in the service of the OCPD under his belt, the stories of his accomplishments and escapades, some humorous and others deadly serious, were told over and over this week in the days after his passing, but one incident in particular illustrated his remarkable strength and courage and goes down in the annals of the OCPD’s long history. Retired Ocean City Police officer Time Keane, who worked side by side with Baker for nearly three decades, this week recalled the famed “Fort Apache” story during which an angry mob stormed the old police station on Dorchester Street on a hot July night in the early 1980s hell bent on breaking five arrestees involved in a melee out of jail, only to be repulsed by Baker, who saved the day that night and likely several lives.
“Everybody remembers that to this day,” he said. “Every time police officers get together and tell stories, that is the first one that comes up. I don’t think it will ever cease to be told because the younger guys have now heard it over and over.”
Keane said the department, much smaller and less sophisticated in the early 1980s, was handling a busy July night in the resort when a fight broke out in the area of Wicomico Street and some of its famed watering holes in the area. Five of the combatants were arrested and were being held in the old Dorchester Street jail awaiting processing when an ugly scene started to unfold.
One local resident, Christopher Kane, who was well known to the OCPD for his multiple arrests and habitual fighting over the years, organized a mob that grew to around 40 to 50 people on the street opposite the old jail. The Dorchester Street jail had a small lobby and a low front counter with a small processing center off the one side and a waiting room on the other.
Behind the counter was a dispatch area and an upstairs area held the OCPD’s records. There was also a bank of ancient holding cells in the facility. Keane said he was working behind the desk on that fateful night in July when the five arrestees from the fight on Wicomico Street were brought in. He said the five arrestees were held in the processing area on a bank of heavy metal chairs that were welded together and the five suspects were handcuffed to their chairs.
Funeral services for retired OCPD Captain James “Big Bake” Baker were held at the 1st Presbyterian Church on Tuesday afternoon with police and fire trucks lining Philadelphia Avenue.
Photo by Shawn Soper
Not long after the arrestees were brought in, Kane, who Keane characterized as “real violent and a habitual problem,” had formed the angry and intoxicated mob across the street and prepared to take over the station. Kane and another suspect entered the station and demanded the five arrestees be released or the mob was going to take over the station and take back the suspects themselves.
At that time, the station was occupied by Keane and two other officers, who were in the midst of processing the recent arrestees. Keane said Kane told them they had better release the prisoners or “we’ll forcibly take over this station.” Keane said the handful who entered the station making demands were told the suspects were being processed and would likely be released in the morning.
“That wasn’t acceptable to them and things accelerated pretty quickly,” Keane said this week. “They were going to attempt to take over the station and one of them jumped over the counter. One of the suspects was heading upstairs to the records department, one of them was heading into the processing area to attempt to free the prisoners and a third was going to take out the radio system we would have no communications. A dispatcher saw what was going on and handed me an oak night stick and I was able to hit Kane with the stick and subdue him.”
By that time, the dispatcher was able to get out a “Signal 13” call, essentially an officer in distress call that advised all active units to begin heading to the location.
“When the Signal 13 goes out, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing,” he said. “You just go there because it means somebody is in deep trouble. Every car on the street from the north end of the town to the other and every officer on the Boardwalk knew to get heading to the station on Dorchester Street.”
Keane said the situation at the police station was deteriorating quickly. He said there were four or five or maybe more individual fights going on between officers and suspects within the station.
“There was blood everywhere and there were fights breaking out all over,” he said. “The five original suspects, still handcuffed to the heavy metal chairs, had gotten up and with the assistance of their friends were attempting to go out the side door. It looked like a centipede with five guys handcuffed to welded chairs trying to navigate through the station and out the door with fights going on all around them. They got half way out the side door still handcuffed to the chairs.
Around that time, then-Lieutenant Baker arrived on the scene with Sgt. Al Warner. Keane said the mob of 40 to 50 still across the street and not yet involved in the melee in the station decided the arrival of “Big Bake” on the scene would tilt the battle in the officers’ favor and began to step up their aggression.
“When the mob saw Big Bake, they knew with his size, their guys were going to need some help,” said Keane. “They were getting their courage up one by one and groups of two of three would rush into the station at a time,” he said. “About 12 to 15 actually made their way into the station including the two of three involved in the initial jail break.
Big Bake entered the station and saw the mayhem and knew he was going to have to regulate. The big bear of a man then took memorable action that stemmed the tide for the OCPD and gained control of the steadily worsening situation, according to Keane.
“Bake turned around and locked his left arm through one door handle and his right arm through the other door handle,” he said. “The mob of about 40 people across the street sensed that with Big Bake on the scene, it was going to start to go against them and they began rushing the door to help out the other combatants. He single-handedly kept those guys out. He was so strong.”
Keane said to this day he remember Big Bake blocking the door with his burly arms and preventing an already horrible situation from getting any worse. Defeated, the angry, violent mob retreated and order was restored somewhat in the police station although it would take several hours and even into the next day.
“Bake was a true hero,” he said. “If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know what would have happened. There probably would have been a lot of police casualties that night.”
Keane said Baker’s actions that night likely saved lives.
“If that mob got through the front door, it probably would have been the end for some of us,” he said. “We would have had to resort to breaking out guns and who knows where that would lead.”
The “Fort Apache” story of the attempted jail break is just one of many about Big Bake circulating this week and perhaps the most famous, although stories of his exploits could likely fill the pages of this newspaper and several others. It’s a story of courage and remarkable strength that defined the bear of police officer laid to rest this week who was known affectionately as “Big Bake” to generations of visitors and long-time residents.