Black Lives Matter

The Justice Department on Wednesday will release a blistering critique of racial discrimination by Baltimore’s police department, the latest example of the Obama administration’s aggressive push for police reforms in cities where young African-American men have died at the hands of law enforcement.

The long-awaited report, coming more than a year after Baltimore erupted into riots over the police-involved death of a 25-year-old black man, Freddie Gray, is sharply critical of city policies that encourage officers to charge people with minor crimes to inflate police statistics.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, found that African-American residents were often stopped or arrested without legal justification.

FINDINGS OF THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REPORT

In its report, the Justice Department concluded that the Baltimore Police Department “engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct” that was unconstitutional or violated federal law, including:

Making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests.
Using enforcement strategies of stops, searches and arrests that unfairly target African-Americans.
Using excessive force.
Retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally-protected expression.
To show how officers disproportionately stopped black pedestrians, the report cited the example of a black man in his mid-fifties who was stopped 30 times in less than four years. None of the stops led to a citation or criminal charge. Black residents, the report said, accounted for 95 percent of the 410 individuals stopped at least 10 times.

Eighty-two percent of the traffic stops were black drivers, the report said, who account for 60 percent of the driving-age population in the city.

Racial disparities were also apparent in criminal charges filed, the report said, particularly for discretionary offenses like trespassing, disorderly conduct or failure to obey.

DOCUMENT
Justice Department Investigation of the Baltimore Police Department
A Justice Department investigation into the practices of the Baltimore police department found "reasonable cause to believe that the BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution or federal law."


OPEN DOCUMENT
Two weeks ago, Maryland prosecutors dropped charges against the last of six police officers charged in the April 2015 death of Mr. Gray, who sustained a fatal spinal cord injury while in custody. Thus Baltimore joined a growing list of communities where police-involved deaths sparked outrage, and even riots, yet no one was held accountable in court.

Now accountability may come in a more far-reaching form. As part of the Justice Department’s investigation, the federal government, as it has repeatedly under President Obama, is expected to demand changes in training and practices of the Baltimore Police Department, and insist on oversight by a federal judge and an independent monitor.

“I don’t think at this point, it’s about justice for Freddie Gray anymore,” said Ray Kelly, a director of the No Boundaries Coalition, a West Baltimore group that provided its own report on police abuses to the Justice Department. He added, “Now its about justice for our community, for our people.”

Baltimore is among nearly two dozen cities that the Obama administration has investigated after they were accused of widespread unconstitutional policing. Using its broad latitude to enforce civil rights laws, the Justice Department has demanded wholesale change in how cities conduct policing. In several cities, including Seattle; Cleveland; and Ferguson, Mo., those investigations began in the aftermath of a high-profile death that sparked protests and in some cases riots.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Matt Apuzzo reported from Washington, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from New York.

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People in Australia aren't allowed to defend themselves? I find that hard to believe from all the movies I've seen.

Seems like if someone was pounding your head into the sidewalk that you'd do all you could to not die.

Of course they are - I'm not sure how you came to ask such an absurd question from anything I've said.

(Zimmerman made news even here in Australia - no one I know could quite believe the laws there allowed him to get away with it)