The 163-page report uncovered “systemic failures” and “structural deficiencies” in the Baltimore police department, said Vanita Gupta, the head of the civil rights division at the Justice Department.
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called for comprehensive reforms by the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) after the U.S. Department of Justice released a report revealing unconstitutional policing practices and extensive violations of basic civil rights. 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 said the police department had already revised 26 procedures, including changes in policies, training, a body-camera program and use-of-force guidelines. Of 410 people stopped at least 10 times from 2010 to 2015, 95 percent were black.
The department’s “targeted policing of certain Baltimore neighborhoods with minimal oversight or accountability disproportionately harms African-American residents”, the report stated.
“The FOP is prepared to continue to demand the reforms we called for in our 2012 Blueprint for Improved Policing that is cited in the Department of Justice’s findings”.
When Baltimore City state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby filed criminal charges against six local police officers who arrested Freddie Gray last year, she said she believed the officers were negligent in failing to buckle the 25-year-old into a police van before the rough ride that led to his death. The report noted that one African American man in his mid-50s was stopped 30 times in less than four years.
Another officer wrote on Facebook, “Do not treat criminals like citizens”.
“I am very, very concerned by some of the information contained in this detailed report”, Davis said.
Wednesday morning, the Department of Justice officially released its investigation into the Baltimore Police Department.
“When we get to an agreement, it will be a court enforceable agreement which helps sustain the commitment to change regardless of who’s in any of our positions and will be independently monitored by a monitoring team and I think that just helps build in and ensure sustainable reform over the long haul”, Gupta said.
Investigators found a stark difference in public perception of the police department when talking to different communities.
The department recognizes community policing as an effective strategy to improve its relationship with the public, but it is not being carried out fully, the report says.
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.
Baltimore police “routinely use unreasonable force against individuals with mental health disabilities”, the DOJ wrote, escalating encounters instead of de-escalating them.
I encourage people to read the report, reflect on the findings and consider the role that each of us should play in bringing about much needed change.
But the bulk of the examples are actions against individual Baltimore residents – racial discrimination, excessive force, unjustified stops, unlawful restrictions on speech, retaliation against critics, unreasonable force against juveniles and the mentally ill, bias against women reporting sexual assault.
“We have not been standing still while this inquiry was underway”, she said.
Six offers have been fired this year, according to Police Commissioner Kevin Davis.
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Rosalyn Kelly, 54, said she was once chased and choked by a police officer in West Baltimore, where she was born and raised. Black residents made up 91 percent of those charged with “failing to obey” an officer, and 84 percent of those charged with “disorderlyconduct”.
