The fight for criminal accountability in the death of Freddie Gray was a courtroom disaster, but Baltimore cops aren’t off the hook yet.
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Police arrested Gray for fleeing unprovoked in a high-crime area.
In other words, according to the 163-page Justice Department report: “The relationship between the Baltimore Police Department and numerous communities it serves is broken”.
“Out of the data we surveyed, the police department made roughly 44 percent of its stops in two small, predominantly African-American districts that contain only 11 percent of the city’s population”.
The pattern or practice results from systemic deficiencies that have persisted within BPD for many years and has exacerbated community distrust of the police, particularly in the African-American community, the federal department said.
During today’s press conference, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said steps have already been taken to improve the relations between the police and Black citizens and to correct the problems in the department. Department transport vehicles have also been outfitted with new safety equipment, including cameras, she said, and the department started a new body camera program.
Additional instances of systematized sexism, mistreatment of mentally ill citizens, and refusal to help or respect trans women in the DOJ’s report paints a picture of how far-reaching and entrenched bigotry is in our police practices. The report found that “Racially disparate impact is present at every stage of BPD’s enforcement actions, from the initial decision to stop individuals on Baltimore streets to searches, arrests, and uses of force”.
The police department suffered from built-in shortfalls in training, supervision and accountability that left officers without tools they needed to be effective within federal law, the report said.
When Freddie Gray died in Baltimore police custody a year ago the Justice Department launched an investigation into the police department’s practices, looking specifically for discriminatory practices. He died a week later after sustaining a fatal spinal cord injury. Ifill says it is instructive that the legacy of “zero tolerance policing” is identified as the key source of the systematic unconstitutional conduct.
In one of numerous incidents cited in the report, police stopped a female motorist merely for a missing headlight.
The Justice Department is now enforcing consent decrees in 14 cities-including Ferguson, Missouri; Cleveland; and Newark, New Jersey-where it found constitutional violations by police.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) just released the findings of its probe into the Baltimore police department and announced its agreement with the city to create a court-enforceable settlement that will reform the racist policies uncovered by its investigation.
“I’ve seen them throw people on the ground”.
Baltimore police and civil leaders undertook a collaborative reform process beginning in October 2014 with DOJ’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. “This is implausible”, the federal investigators found, and so they went back to the complaints and searched for keywords, including racial slurs against blacks.
Justice officials interviewed and met with city leaders and police officials, including BPD Commissioner Kevin Davis, former commissioners and numerous officers. According to the report, black residents account for approximately 84% of stops, but they represent just 63% of the city’s population. Three were acquitted, another officer’s trial ended in a mistrial and the charges against the others were dropped.
She said she has heard officers call residents the n-word. Not once. I’m not saying it’s never been used, but this isn’t fucking Ferguson. “Doesn’t that matter? But the report doesn’t tell us”.
“It’s hard to read this without feeling a sense of rage”, said David Rocah, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who has lobbied for reforms.
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In critical language, it notes that African Americans are more likely to be stopped and searched for illegal guns and drugs, that police practice discriminatory arrest procedures, and that officers are encouraged to have “unnecessary, adversarial interactions” with community members.
