None of this is especially surprising. I left Baltimore 8 years ago, and while i was living there the cops routinely made unconstitutional arrests of young black men. The States Attorney at the time had to repeatedly go to the police department, and to the city council, to lecture them about the unconstitutionality of loitering arrests. Her department was releasing hundreds of arrestees a year without charges, because they had been unlawfully arrested.
In August 2005, almost 9,000 people were taken to central booking in Baltimore. Of those, 1882 cases:
And from another story:
The stories that i took those quotes from are no longer available online. I’m actually quoting from a post i made back in 2007.
This is idiotic.
Part of the fundamental problem with police departments is that they have a culture that does not necessarily change just because some of the people in charge happen to be black.
Firstly, there are black officers who are just as bad as white officers when it comes to excessive use of force and other unlawful or prohibited conduct. Look at the cops involved in the Freddie Gray case. It’s not just white and black; it’s blue and black.
Also, just because some officials are black doesn’t mean that everything changes, and nor does it mean that “they” (i.e., the black community of Baltimore) are any more in charge of the police force than they were when it was run by whites. Black leaders and officials, just like white leaders and officials, feel pressure from all sorts of constituencies, including citizens, police unions, churches, etc.
Two different parents in different counties, within two weeks of each other, are stupid enough to leave their small child in the car in the heat. They both said they ‘forgot’ about the child being in the car. Both children die as a result. Frankly, both should be horsewhipped with a horsewhip. The circumstances are nearly identical. But the State has charged one parent with manslaughter. The other, not charged with anything.
You already see where this is going. The facts are that the parent charged with manslaughter is a black male. The parent not charged at all is a white female.
Now, I have no problem with the manslaughter charge. The problem is with the white woman getting a pass.
I’ve just finished reading the whole 163 pages, and i highly recommend it to anyone who desires a spike in blood pressure, and the barely-controllable urge to put your fist through a wall. If i were to run into a Baltimore police officer right now, i’d be very hard pressed to restrain myself from asking him or her how it feels to work for a criminal organization.
For me, the most damning parts of the report were not the descriptions of individual cases of unconstitutional stops or illegal strip searches or arrests without probable cause or excessive force. Those were all pretty bad, but taken as a group, they could merely be evidence of a few bad apples in an otherwise OK police department.
The most damning part of the report was the finding, reiterated time and again, that the poor practices of the police department were endemic, and were the ongoing result of the fact that basically no-one in a position of authority, at any level of the BPD hierarchy, was really interested in doing the job properly. Or, at least, not enough people to make any real difference.
Complaints about clear and egregious constitutional violations are repeatedly found to be “not sustained” by the Internal Affairs division; shift commanders and sergeants and other mid-level authority figures constantly push line officers to engage in unconstitutional behavior in order to “clear corners” and harass citizens going about their lawful business; officers who fail to get on board with the unconstitutional practices are denied overtime and advancement within the department; and the department has no mechanism in place to even determine which commands, which supervisors, and which particular officers are disproportionately engaged in unconstitutional policing practices, meaning that they have no real way to correct such behavior.
The past couple of police commissioners in the city have apparently tried to reduce the emphasis on “zero tolerance” policing that leads to so much of the egregious behavior, but it’s not clear how committed they are to the task, and it is very clear that officers at all levels of the BPD are ignoring the call anyway.
One small incident really stands out in my mind as an indicator of how entrenched this sort of behavior is in the department. In this encounter,
This incident is illustrative not because its circumstances are particularly unusual. Indeed, the next sentence in the report notes that this type of thing is “far from anomalous.”
What makes this incident so mind-blowing is that it occurred DURING a ride-along with Justice Department officials that was being conducted as part of the DoJ’s investigation. That is, the sergeant in the car knew that the Justice Department officials were investigating the BPD for evidence of unconstitutional policing practices, and apparently either didn’t know or didn’t care that he was ordering his subordinate to engage in unlawful policing.
Larry Wilmore made the observation last night on his show to the affect that this is like you sitting down with your accountant with an auditing IRS agent present to do your taxes and asking him if he could pass the box of fake receipts to you.
Police said the suspect had a “lengthy arrest record,” though the specific crimes were not detailed. The suspect was carrying a handgun taken in a March burglary in Waukesha. The owner reported that 500 rounds of ammunition also were stolen.
Nefataria Gordon said she knew the man who had been killed by the officer. “He was a nice good person. He was really respected. That’s why everyone came out. They’re angry.”
Looks like this is the same “Khalif” who wanted to rename Red Arrow park in downtown Milwakee in honor of Dontre Hamilton. “Dontre’s” claim to fame is wrestling a baton from a cop, and then proceeding to beat the cop with it, and subsequently being shot.
At this poiint, we’re not far from the point where law-abiding citizens would just hire private security company and let them clean up Sierra Leone.
Next time, learn to comprehend before posting while mentally challenged.