With each passing day it’s becoming harder and harder to sustain the “few bad apples” theory of what is wrong with policing in the United States—which is truly a wonderful thing. Just one week ago the Baltimore Sun reported that most of the internal investigations of Baltimore cops are, unsurprisingly, not sustained:
Internal affairs investigations often take longer than they should, mostly conclude without proving or disproving the officer's alleged misconduct, and rarely find that officers used excessive force, according to an analysis of data from January 2013 through March 2016.
Nearly eight of every 10 excessive-force complaints submitted to police over that period ended the same way — "not sustained" — and officers didn't face any discipline. That rate is more than twice as high as that found in a national study by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Today, the Department of Justice released a report on the Baltimore Police Department that has been called “scathing” and “damning.” The Baltimore Sun described the department’s actions as “routinely violating civil rights.” Routinely. As in: It’s just what they do.
The investigators found that "supervisors have issued explicitly discriminatory orders, such as directing a shift to arrest 'all the black hoodies' in a neighborhood."
They also found that black residents were more likely to be stopped and searched as pedestrians and drivers even though police were more likely to find illegal guns, illicit drugs and other contraband on white residents.
Police practices in Baltimore "perpetuate and fuel a multitude of issues rooted in poverty and race, focusing law enforcement actions on low-income, minority communities" and encourage officers to have "unnecessary, adversarial interactions with community members," the report said.
The probe was launched after the murder-but-not-really of Freddie Gray in April 2015.
The report went far beyond the circumstances of Gray's death to examine a slew of potentially unconstitutional practices, including excessive force and discriminatory traffic stops, within the department.
Federal investigators spent more than a year interviewing Baltimore residents, police officers, prosecutors, public defenders and elected officials, as well as riding along with officers on duty and reviewing documents and complaints.
Among the findings: Black residents account for roughly 84 percent of stops, though they represent just 63 percent of the city's population. Likewise, African-Americans make up 95 percent of the 410 people stopped at least 10 times by officers from 2010 to 2015.
During the same time period, officers stopped 34 black residents 20 times, and seven African-Americans 30 times or more, while the report says that no individuals of any other race were stopped more than 12 times.
One man who spoke to investigators said he was stopped 30 times in less than four years. At least 15 of those stops, he said, were to check for outstanding warrants. None of the stops resulted in charges.
In addition to pat-downs, Baltimore officers perform unconstitutional public strip searches, including searches of people who aren't under arrest.
The Department of Justice’s report also details the culture of retaliation that allegedly keeps “good cops” from aiding in the cleanup of the department. Daily Kos readers who would like to read the document for themselves can find it here.