The DOJ found 60 incidents where a black complainant alleged an officer had used a racial slur, but which was then classified as a lesser offense by Baltimore police supervisors.
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A disproportionate number of these stops by the Baltimore Police happened within two neighborhoods that represent only 11 percent of Baltimore’s population, but which were predominately African-American.
“Our hope is that with all the resources that the Justice Department puts out, including through findings reports and consent decrees, that these are resources that major city police departments, small and mid-size, can actually learn from and do self-evaluation”, said Gupta.
Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, was arrested April 12 and suffered a spinal injury in police custody. Six officers were initially charged in Gray’s death, but after three officers were acquitted, charges against the rest were dropped.
“We heard complaints from the community that some officers target members of a vulnerable population-people involved in the sex trade-to coerce sexual favors from them in exchange for avoiding arrest, or for cash or narcotics”, the report states.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who is black, told a city hall news conference that Baltimore would implement a reform plan in the next few months.
The primary victims of such practices were the city’s black citizens, a sadly predictable conclusion that the DOJ documents in a catalogue of grim statistics: Ninety-five percent of residents who were stopped by BPD more than ten times over the past five-and-a-half years were African-American.
Police Departments in at least 20 major US cities are now operating under DoJ Consent Decrees.
The president of Baltimore’s police union has had public disagreements with city officials including State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby. The officers tackled and drive-stunned the man, the report said.
It found that one African-American man was stopped 30 times in less than four years and never charged. In some cases, individuals were stopped as many as 30 times. But officers found contraband twice as often when searching White residents during vehicle stops and 50 percent more often during pedestrian stops, the report notes.
“Nearly everyone who spoke to us. agreed the Baltimore Police Department needs sustainable reform”, Gupta said.
“Officers frequently resort to physical force when a subject does not immediately respond to verbal commands, even where the subject poses no imminent threat to the officer or others”, according to the report.
“Even where prosecutors have provided BPD with specific information on problematic officers who routinely make improper arrests, searches, or seizures, the Department has failed to meaningfully investigate the information or take appropriate action”.
“They have huge unresolved problems, huge festering problems”, O’Donnell said. 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.
A lack of adequate staffing meant “forcing officers to work overtime after long shifts, lowering morale, and leading to officers working with deteriorated decision-making skills”.
Anticipating what the Justice Department would discover, city officials have pushed forward on several fronts, revising the police department’s policy on use of force and instituting new training.
“It’s instructive that the DOJ identifies the legacy of “zero-tolerance policing” as the key source of the systematic unconstitutional conduct of the Baltimore Police Department”. Both issues arose in the Gray case.
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“Those things didn’t grab their attention sufficiently – and what we ended up with is a tragedy, pain and suffering in the streets of Baltimore a year ago in the wake of Freddie Gray’s death”, Hosko, the former No. 2 in the agency’s criminal investigative division, told “The Hard Line” host Ed Berliner.
