Anthony E. Barksdale, deputy mayor for public safety and former acting commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department, died Thursday, Mayor Brandon Scott said late Thursday. Barksdale was 53.

“Tony Barksdale was the epitome of what it means to be a public servant,” Scott wrote in a statement Thursday, “but more importantly, he was a standard bearer of what it means to be a good man.”

The mayor did not disclose Barksdale’s cause of death.

Barksdale joined the police department in 1993, and at 35, was named deputy police commissioner by Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III in 2007. In that position, he oversaw the department’s operations during an historic drop in crime, and when Bealefeld retired in 2012, Barksdale took over as acting commissioner.

While many at the time sa

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