BALTIMORE—The scathing findings of a federal investigation into Baltimore police practices after the death of a shackled man in a transport van and the court-enforceable agreement to improve policing in the city speak to much broader failures rooted in the culture of the long-troubled agency.
The Justice Department began investigating the Baltimore force after Freddie Gray’s death in April 2015. Its report last August found that officers routinely stopped large numbers of people in poor, black neighborhoods for dubious reasons and unlawfully arrested residents merely for speaking out in ways police deemed disrespectful.
The report and agreement approved Thursday acknowledged what many residents, particularly those living in economically depressed areas, had known for years: “Zero-tolerance” policing—a strategy employed under then-Mayor Martin O'Malley in the 1990s to reduce crime but that instead resulted in thousands of arrests without cause—had a profound and lingering effect on the police department’s culture, and the city’s residents were still enduring the consequences.
“There are a lot of police who have been around for a long time, and they need to understand that they cannot do what they used to do,” said Tessa Hill-Aston, the president of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP.
Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said the agreement will make the city safer for everyone, including officers.
“The city and BPD will implement comprehensive reforms to end the legacy of Baltimore’s zero-tolerance policing,” she said. “And in its place, Baltimore is empowering officers to engage in proactive, community-oriented policing.”
The Justice Department agreement mandates changes in the most fundamental aspects of police work. Known as a consent decree, it is the culmination of months of negotiations and is meant to correct constitutional violations identified in the report released last year.
