The report on the 2,600-officer department released on Tuesday found that black residents were regularly subjected to stops as pedestrians and motorists, arrests, strip searches and excessive force in violation of USA constitutional rights and federal anti-discrimination laws.
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Vanita Gupta said during a news conference Wednesday that these negotiations would provide a framework for a formal consent decree between the Justice Department and the police department. “It’s going to take time and it’s going to require a focused and sustained effort”.
The Department of Justice released its report on the Baltimore Police Department and found the BPD engages in systematic behavior that violates citizens’ First and Fourth Amendment rights, as well as anti-discrimination laws.
“The city commits to continue improving its policies, training, data collection and analysis to permit the assessment of officer activity and ensure that officers’ actions conform to legal and constitutional requirements”, the agreement states.
The probe found that a police force rooted in “zero tolerance” enforcement that started in 1999 but ended a decade ago has created a deep divide between police and many members of the community it serves.
Gray’s death ignited widespread protests in Baltimore and in other cities, coming in the middle of a parade of deaths of unarmed black people during police stops or while in police custody.
In other cases, the specific example came directly from police records or DOJ observations.
In a statement, fund President and Director-Counsel Sherrilyn Ifill calls the findings of the report being released Wednesday “devastating”, saying they “lay bare the harsh reality of discriminatory policing in a major American city”.
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”.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake says the findings of the report are challenging to hear, but she believes the report will help heal the relationship between the community and police.
“It’s not going to be easy to reform the department, and it’s not going to be quick”, Rawlings-Blake said.
The Justice Department report was undertaken over more than a year, and carefully assembled interviews from police officers, attorneys, elected officials, and the public. “You’ve got to be the baddest motherfucker out there”, one officer said, explaining his approach to policing.
“Change is painful. Growth is painful”.
“Our investigation found that Baltimore is a city where the bonds of trust have been broken and that the Baltimore Police Department engaged in a pattern or practice of unlawful and unconstitutional conduct, ranging from the use of excessive force to unjustified stops, seizures and arrests”.
On the streets of Baltimore, some residents were skeptical of promises of reform.
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.
German Lopez at Vox describes the Baltimore Police Department as a “complete and utter disaster” but points out that the Justice Department’s report raises broader questions race relations in American society.
Six officers, three white and three black, were charged in Gray’s arrest and death.
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Since Gray’s death, BPD has begun using new police vans with built-in surveillance, instituted training in community policing, and made mandatory body cameras for officers-though uncertainty remains about when these cameras must be turned on.
