The long-awaited report should resonate nationally, coming almost two years after a similarly scathing probe suggested Ferguson, Missouri, was basically a police state.
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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.
“The disparities described to us go beyond aggressive behavior and misconduct; some residents spoke about a police non-response to poor, minority areas as well as a lack of thorough investigation into crimes committed in these communities”, the report said. The report, which includes interviews with residents, was a damning indictment not only of the city’s police officers’ tactics, but their motives and collective character. A grand jury concluded that too many arrests were being made in black neighborhoods without merit, and the city paid $870,000 to settle a lawsuit from the NAACP on behalf of people who said they were illegally arrested. Of all vehicle stops conducted during that time, 82 percent involved black drivers, even though African-Americans account for only 60 percent of driving-age Baltimoreans. The Justice Department report also found that Baltimore police officers tend to treat minors the same as they do adults and have no training in dealing with those with mental health issues. None of the 30 stops resulted in a citation or criminal charge. According to the report, 410 people were stopped at least 10 times from 2010 to 2015. In detailing its findings, the report depicted a bleak picture for local African-American communities which had always been complaining about excessive use of forces and racial profiling by local police force.
Rawlings-Blake, when discussing those broad, city-wide problems, said “no one is waiting around until we solve poverty” before addressing the problems in the police department.
“It doesn’t matter, if you’re black you’re going to get stopped”.
“BPD engages in a pattern or practice of making unconstitutional stops, searches and arrests”, Gupta explained. The directives often come from supervisors. Six officers were initially charged in Gray’s death, but after three officers were acquitted, charges against the rest were dropped. During his arrest, officers placed Gray in the back of a police van that made several stops.
BPD Commissioner Kevin Davis assured the public at the news conference that the report is a “turning point” and that the city’s police department “will be the model for this nation”. The officer’s report “provides no reason to believe the man was armed”. Without comprehensive use of force standards that include training on de-escalation and crisis intervention, police interactions will remain unsafe for both police and those they encounter.
The report establishes an outline from which the city and the federal Justice Department will craft a legally binding agreement for reform known as a Consent Decree. Vanita Gupta announced the findings of the federal investigation on Wednesday during a news conference in Baltimore.
Eugene O’Donnell, a former New York Police Department officer and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the report’s conclusions failed to take into account the hard realities of being a police officer in Baltimore. “They re-affirm this City’s commitment to a Police Department that both protects our citizens and respects their rights”. The deaths have provoked a nationwide conversation about race, discrimination and police practices, and have exposed deep rifts between police and the communities they serve.
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“There were individual police officers that were witnesses to the case, yet were part of the investigative team, interrogations that were conducted without asking the most poignant questions, lead detectives that were completely uncooperative and started a counter-investigation to disprove the state’s case”, Mosby said.
