Attorney for Gray family blasts Baltimore police

Gray, 25, died after suffering a neck injury while in police custody in April 2015, igniting protests and illuminating tension and distrust between the black community and Baltimore’s police force. “BPD’s trainings fuel an “us vs. them” mentality we saw some officers display toward community members, alienating the civilians they are meant to serve”.

During her address at today’s press conference, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said that transparency would be key to rebuilding trust between police and the community, and of course, data will be key to that transparency.

Rosalyn Kelly, 54, said she was once chased and choked by a police officer in West Baltimore, where she was born and raised. “DOJ’s findings will serve to solidify our road map”.

“While the vast majority of Baltimore City Police officers are good officers, we also know that there are bad officers and that the department has routinely failed to oversee, train or hold bad actors accountable”. The report was issued after the Division engaged in a almost one-year review of the BPD – an investigation requested by the City and numerous residents.

The report also said that in searching phones of people who recorded police, and deleting their video, police violated the Fourth and 14th amendments to the Constitution, provisions related to unwarranted searches and equal protection. In one email, an officer and prosecutor expressed disbelief over a survivor’s story by reportedly calling her a “conniving little whore”.

African-American residents in Baltimore are routinely subjected to unconstitutional stops, arrests and excessive force by the Baltimore Police Department, a scathing federal report released on Tuesday said. For example, roughly 44 percent of these searches occurred in two (primarily Black) neighborhoods, even though these residents make up only 11 percent of the city’s population. But when the officer checked his pockets, he found no cash or drugs.

The Baltimore mayor and police chief stressed that while reforms were already underway, they were committed to making long-term, comprehensive changes.

One example of this lack of accountability was shown in the analysis of the last 6 years of citizen complaints against the BPD: Only one incident was classified by police as a racial slur.

The report also found deficiencies in training, policies, and supervision that “fail to equip officers with the tools they need to police effectively and within the bounds of federal law”.

The Baltimore PD targets black people for stops, searches and arrests; uses excessive force; does a poor job investigating sexual assault; and puts detainees in danger when it transports them, according to the 163-page DOJ report.

Kairys won a consent decree when he sued the city of Philadelphia in 1985 over “Operation Cold Turkey”, in which cops arrested 1,444 nearly entirely innocent people who merely walked through intersections frequented by drug dealers. That data would include such basic statistics as who is arrested, who is pulled over, for what, how often, and when and why police use force. “They think they rule the world, and they treat us terribly”, she said. And previous year, it launched the Police Data Initiative, which encourages police departments to use data to cut down on their use of force.

Williams was among those reacting Wednesday before the Department of Justice released its report on the police department.

In the wake of the Justice Department’s report, Baltimore and federal officials will meet to work out details of a consent decree, enforceable by the courts, that will outline steps to be taken by Baltimore in an effort to reform their police department.

The Department of Justice second most of the statements raised by protesters especially the accusation that Baltimore police officers act in a biased way.

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A BPD sergeant ordered an unconstitutional stop while on a ride-along with Department of Justice investigators.