FILE – In this April 29, 2015 file photo, police stand in formation as a curfew approaches in Baltimore.
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The more Police Department routinely violated the civil rights of African-American residents, a Department of Justice report says.
The department, for example, has redesigned and placed cameras in its police transport vans and introduced a software platform for the streamlined and tracked dissemination of new training materials and policies for officers; both are issues that arose in the Gray case.
The head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division says the Baltimore Police Department’s unconstitutional and discriminatory practices have “deeply eroded” the relationship between officers and the community.
The 163-page report was triggered by the April 2015 death of a black man named Freddie Gray in police custody.
“It doesn’t matter, if you’re black you’re going to get stopped”. He was with his kids and once saw officers chasing a teenager for smoking weed.
“Community members living in the city’s wealthier and largely white neighborhoods told us that officers tend to be respectful and responsive to their needs, while many individuals living in the city’s largely African-American communities informed us that officers tend to be disrespectful and do not respond promptly to their calls for service”, according to the report. “BPD also fails to equip officers with the necessary equipment and resources they need to police safely, constitutionally, and effectively”. They were looking for drugs. “I don’t do drugs”, he said. “They just harass people”.
Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said he was “very, very concerned” by some of the information in the report.
She said she was confident that the federal probe would “lead to even more reforms which is an important step in ensuring best practices for a fully functioning police-prosecutor relationship”.
The mayor said other cities that have implemented such agreements have spent between $5 million and $10 million a year, adding that “we anticipate that will be the range” for Baltimore.
The commissioner and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake promised the report would serve as a blueprint for sweeping changes.
The Justice Department is seeking a court-enforceable consent decree to force the police agency to commit to improving its procedures to avoid a lawsuit.
The Justice Department released a copy of the report in advance of its public announcement at an event Wednesday morning in Baltimore.
The department since has worked closely with the Baltimore police, which set up a team of officers and officials to deal directly with federal investigators. At least 95 percent were black.
During the same time period, officers stopped 34 black residents 20 times, and seven African-Americans 30 times or more.
One 22-year-old black man was detained merely for walking through an area known for high crime and drugs. At least 15 of those stops, he said, were to check for outstanding warrants. She noted that fewer than 4% of more than 300,000 pedestrian stops from January 2010 to May 2015 resulted in a citation or arrest. The report also found that police department engaged in unnecessary force against juveniles, people with mental health issues and people who were restrained and presented to no threat.
The report partially blames the department’s unconstitutional practices on a “zero tolerance” policy dating back to the early 2000s, during which residents were arrested en masse for minor misdemeanor charges such as loitering.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the report ahead of its public release on Wednesday. The directives often come from supervisors.
Mosby said in a Tuesday statement that the report “will likely confirm what many in our city already know or have experienced first hand”.
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The court-enforced order will be independently monitored and created to sustain reform regardless of who is the police commissioner or mayor, justice officials said. Three were acquitted, another officer’s trial ended in a mistrial and the charges against the others were dropped.
