Scathing report on Baltimore cops vindicates black residents

“Appropriate oversight, training and accountability are key components to upholding justice, protecting citizens’ rights and restoring trust between law enforcement and vulnerable communities that have been disproportionately impacted by unconstitutional policing practices”, said CAIR Maryland Outreach Manager Dr. Zainab Chaudry. “No cause, just the color of my skin”.

“Those who choose to wear this uniform and choose to blatantly disregard someone’s rights absolutely should be uncomfortable, because we are not going to tolerate it”, he said.

“It reflects a debate that’s been going on for quite a while, and to the extent that we can find the government acknowledging those costs and downsides, it’s about time”, said David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who specializes in police policy and conduct.

The commissioner vowed a no-tolerance policy for police who “engage in racist, sexist, discriminatory, or biased-based policing”.

Anthony Williams, a 27-year-old father raising young children in Sandtown-Winchester, the neighborhood where Gray was arrested, said he was once with his kids and saw officers chasing a teenager for smoking marijuana.

And in a disproportionate number of those relatively trivial cases, where the arrests depended on an officer’s discretion, the charges were ultimately dropped.

The court-enforceable decree will mandate that the department must commit to improving its procedures or face a lawsuit.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

The racial disparities in BPD’s stops and searches are further reflected in BPD’s arrest practices.

The numbers in the Justice Department’s scathing report on the Baltimore Police Department are startling, showing that officers often make stops with dubious justification, sometimes targeting the same people in mostly poor, black neighborhoods.

Federal investigators interviewed Baltimore residents, police officers, prosecutors, public defenders and elected officials, rode along with police on duty and reviewed documents and complaints.

“While many will attempt to cast blame on the police officer working the street, the Department of Justice states in their Executive Summary, and we agree, that this failure is the result of ‘systemic deficiencies at BPD, ‘” Ryan said.

“Nearly everyone who spoke to us. agreed the Baltimore Police Department needs sustainable reform”, Gupta said.

“Erasing anything is indicative of the police officer believing that the person captured them doing something wrong”, Crawford said.

If that assertion prompts a raised eyebrow, consider this: In the five-year period ending last summer, blacks – who comprise 63 percent of Baltimore’s population – accounted for roughly 90 percent of suspects charged with trespassing, failing to obey an officer’s orders or “impeding” an officer.

Although the department has publicly denounced these practices after a 2010 settlement with the NAACP, which sued the department over the policing strategy, “the legacy of the zero tolerance era continues to influence officer activity and contribute to constitutional violations”, the report said. From 2010 to 2015, officers stopped 34 black residents 20 times, and seven African-Americans 30 times or more. It said officers routinely use unreasonable force, including against juveniles and people who aren’t risky.

Wednesday’s report – which focused on agency-wide, institutional practices – is separate from a specific, ongoing probe into Gray’s death.

Police, he said, try to make recording “as hard as possible”.