Pressure to make reforms
learned what had happened. “It figures,” he said. For years, some lower-level allegations, including complaints about discourtesy or neglect of duty, were farmed out to so-called Command Investigations Units in the police districts.
Data obtained by The Sun shows nearly 2,500 complaints were handled that way from January 2013 through July 2015, when Davis came on board and stopped the practice. Half of those cases were closed with no explanation; a quarter were closed after detectives found insufficient evidence to prove or disprove the allegations.
Hill said detectives in these Command Investigations Units had massive caseloads and weren’t attending to the investigations “for one reason or another.”
A number of officers weren’t disciplined because time ran out in about 100 cases. Under state law, in most cases apart from excessive force and criminal allegations, police have a one-year statute of limitations to impose discipline.
“There were a number of investigations not getting done before the statutory deadline,” Hill said. “It was a big problem.”
The Justice Department has criticized these separate investigative tracks in other cities. After a civil rights investigation of Seattle police, federal officials said in 2011 that they found internal affairs disposed of nearly two-thirds of citizens’ complaints by sending them to the precincts where the quality of investigations was, according to one internal affairs supervisor, “appalling.”
A year after Harris’ complaint, an outside auditor flagged several structural and procedural problems with Baltimore’s internal affairs, including the separate investigations done in the precincts.
The auditor, Karen Kruger, a Baltimore lawyer and national expert on police discipline, noted the potential for conflicts of interest, saying it would be difficult for detectives to remain “truly objective” when they work so closely with the accused officers and report to the same district commanders.
Kruger recommended that police move those investigations to internal affairs. A year later, Davis did just that.
The auditor also recommended that police conduct an in-depth audit to determine whether any of the complaints were “swept under the rug.”
Hill said they haven’t undertaken the follow-up audit recommended by Kruger, but Davis said he is seeking funding to hire auditors, which he believes would be a first in the agency. Their duties would include looking into internal affairs records.
Obtaining records of police misconduct complaints is a challenge in Baltimore. Police took several months to compile data for release under a public records request, removing officers’ names and summaries of the allegations. Some broad categories of allegations, such as “misconduct general,” shed little light on the kinds of complaints received. Police said state privacy laws prohibit the release of more detail.
Other jurisdictions, including Montgomery and Anne Arundel counties, post redacted complaint information online.
Harris’ complaint was “administratively closed,” according to the data obtained by The Sun. Harris said he was never informed of that outcome.
Unable to find a lawyer to take his case, Harris typed up a civil lawsuit and filed it in federal court, where his case file is more than 100 pages long. “I’ve spent at least as many hours on this,” he said.
The court sided in May with the officers, saying they had probable cause to stop Harris. Lawyers for the officers used Harris’ video to show he was wearing his seat belt improperly. Harris has appealed the judge’s dismissal.
‘Take too long’
The night after police stopped Harris, Officers Chapman and Bernardez-Ruiz were patrolling the Northeastern District in an unmarked police vehicle when they pulled over 44-year-old Tyrone West because he had reversed his vehicle into an intersection. Fifteen minutes later, West would stop breathing.
The officers said West had behaved suspiciously, and when they searched him they found a bag with a small amount of cocaine in his sock. Police said he initially
Internal affairs decisions
2% 63% complied but then fought two officers as he tried to escape. Soon, six backup officers arrived and joined the struggle. West passed out and died at a local hospital.
Internal affairs investigated and officially exonerated the police officers of any wrongdoing 606 days later. The Baltimore state’s attorney at the time, Gregg Bernstein, declined to pursue criminal charges. An autopsy found that a heart condition, dehydration and exertion were factors in West’s death but couldn’t determine the degree to which the officers’ actions contributed.
The case inflamed police-community tensions, and West’s family, who have filed a federal civil lawsuit, continues to hold weekly demonstrations calling for a renewed investigation into his death.
“My situation and that of Tyrone West is a microcosm of what’s going on in the Police Department,” Salaam said at one of those rallies. “When it’s not taken seriously, that’s when it becomes normal for rogue officers to do this repeatedly.”
Batts ordered an independent review by outside experts. They found appropriate force but said officers broke police policy and made several tactical errors that exacerbated the situation. They also concluded the officers were too inexperienced for their jobs on the special operations unit.
They leveled one of their harshest criticisms at internal affairs. “The Internal Affairs investigations take too long to be closed and to be of real service to the police department, its personnel, or the community,” the report said.
The independent panel asked for the history of complaints against the officers, but Hill denied the request because Maryland law bars the release of police disciplinary records.
Lawyers for the Police Department did file the Salaam investigative file in federal court, to show that internal affairs does investigate citizen complaints and that his case wasn’t sustained.
The West family argued that he might not have died if internal affairs had investigated the Salaam case earlier and more thoroughly.
However, a judge reviewing the West civil lawsuit found that implausible.
U.S. District Judge Ellen L. Hollander noted that police had to abide by Maryland law governing the rights of officers accused of misconduct, which affords them due process before they are disciplined.
Even if Salaam had died because of “unconstitutional conduct” by Baltimore police officers, she wrote in an opinion, “it is implausible that a thorough investigation and appropriate discipline of those involved could have occurred within seventeen days of when the incident at issue took place.” The lawsuit is still pending. Marshall, the attorney for Chapman, Bernardez-Ruiz and Ulmer, said that getting two or three complaints over 18 days doesn’t mean these were bad officers.
“It’s the luck of the draw,” he said. “Some officers go years without complaints and then get two to three in a row . ... These were good police officers. The vast majority of them are out there because they want to do right for the community.”
Reforms underway
One morning this spring at the red-brick Police Academy in Northwest Baltimore, retired Judge Emory A. Plitt Jr. stood before a classroom of 50 detectives and supervisors to lead a training session.
As an opener, Plitt, a retired Harford County circuit judge, held up a number of books on police accountability dating to the 1990s, waving the covers to the room.
“This is just to show you the idea that the erosion of public confidence in your ability to police your own — there is no better way of saying it — is not a new idea,” Plitt said.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has opened 23 investigations into police departments, including Baltimore’s, during the Obama administration. They often reach agreements with the local police departments to adopt reforms.
Among the changes sought: requiring that police give equal weight to officer and civilian testimony, that internal affairs thoroughly investigate both major and minor complaints, and that departments set up effective early-warning systems to alert supervisors when anyone on the force draws repeated misconduct complaints.
Commissioner Davis said the probe in Baltimore is likely to look at police practices going back several years but emphasized that he has already implemented reforms, including monthly training sessions. Internal affairs head Rodney Hill
Davis also brought on more experienced managers, and in recent weeks more detectives, for a total of 19 who work the bulk of alleged misconduct cases. Officials hope this allows supervisors to assign several detectives at a time to more quickly complete cases.
In addition, the department has adopted a process for “accelerated disposition,” in which officers agree to accept punishment when the facts are not in dispute and it’s clear what discipline is warranted.
Internal affairs has also improved its system for flagging potentially problematic patterns in an officer’s behavior — a system Davis said had been “anemic.” Before the most recent change, a letter would be sent to an officer’s supervisor after six complaints. Now, the number of events that would trigger a supervisor’s intervention has been cut to three.
And Vernon Herron, a director within the office of professional responsibility, who now oversees the program, said there would be more oversight and follow-up.
When a case has been completed, Hill said, internal affairs is doing a better job of communicating with those who brought them. A new law requires police to inform them of the case’s disposition and any discipline.
The need for more training had been flagged by Kruger, the external auditor, in her 2014 audit. She said some investigators weren’t familiar with “basic investigative techniques” and needed training on locating witnesses, obtaining documents and conducting interrogations.
Another internal police study, ordered up by former commissioner Batts in 2014, found that internal affairs was understaffed and should discontinue the practice of detailing its detectives on a weekly basis to patrol, crowd control and enforcement details — a practice criticized in the audit.
And years before that, the ACLU had complained that the department failed to track officers with a history of problems. As part of a lawsuit settlement in 2010, police agreed to create an electronic database that could track civilian complaints and when force is used. Still, department officials said it wasn’t effective.
Davis said his tenure marks a new era for the department. “We’re giving the disciplinary arm of the Police Department, finally, the attention that it deserves,” he said. “The fundamental changes we’ve made to this division are unprecedented in the history of this police department, and I don’t say that lightly.”
But he said some changes would come gradually.
Rocah, with the ACLU, said even if Baltimore police reach an agreement with the Justice Department, it would not be a “magic bullet to solve all problems.”
“At its best, it will highlight problems and create opportunities for solutions,” he said. “Lasting change will require sustained pressure from citizens.”
“There were a number of investigations not getting done before the statutory deadline.”