Brutality and the law
Our view: Legislators should outlaw ‘rough rides’ in police vans
When a suspect is shoved into the back of a police van with no seat belt despite the chance that he or she might be seriously injured or even killed during the ride to jail, something is wrong. Yet in a disturbing number of cases, officers in Baltimore have done just that, despite the department’s own guidelines barring a practice that essentially allows police to mete out rough justice before a suspect ever sees the inside of a courtroom. That’s why lawmakers should approve legislation in the General Assembly .this year that treats such “rough rides” for what they really are — acts of criminal negligence and misuse of force that amount to police brutality.
The reverberations from Freddie Gray’s death in police custody last year continue to be felt in Baltimore, where Mr. Gray died of a severe neck injury suffered while handcuffed and shackled but unbelted in the back of a city police van. But there’s still no law that explicitly prohibits such extrajudicial punishments, whether intended as such or not. One of the bills being proposed this year would require all prisoners to be secured with a seat belt while being transported in a police van. Other measures would make it a crime for officers not to seek medical help for detainees who request it, mandate video recording devices inside police vans and require police to put helmets on prisoners.
Most of these proposals merely codify what decency and common sense require, and in a society less riven by racial and class discord they probably would be unnecessary. It’s a measure of how toxic relations between police and the poor minority communities they serve have become that legislation is needed to make explicit the criminal nature of “rough rides” and other instances of prisoner mistreatment when they occur, as all too frequently happens.
It’s debatable whether putting helmets on everyone who is transported in addition to seat belts is necessary, but the proposed requirement that officers seek medical help for those who request it — another issue in the Gray case — makes good sense. Police officers may complain that arrestees get sudden cases of “jail-itis” when they’re about to be put in the back of a van, but they are not medical professionals, and they should not be the ones to judge whether such complaints are legitimate.
Some critics have raised concerns about the safety of police officers if they are required to belt-in suspects before taking them to jail. They claim that even if a suspect is already handcuffed and shackled he or she might still be able to grab an officer’s gun while being strapped in. But with proper training and precautions, it can be done safely. Others question the cost of the proposal, but any jurisdiction that thinks protecting prisoners being transported to jail is too expensive should consider the potential costs of not doing so, which ran to $6.3 million for the civil settlement in the Gray case alone.
State Sen. Joan Carter Conway, who is sponsoring the seat belt bill, is proposing a $10,000 fine against officers who fail to secure a prisoner in a van’s seat belt if that person suffers serious injury or death as a result. It’s debatable whether that is needed, since victims of brutality can also recover damages through civil lawsuits regardless of whether criminal charges are brought, and in any case the proceeds go to police departments, not the victim. But what may be more important than the penalty is the clarity and uniformity the law would bring to the treatment of detainees by police departments around the state. Officers wouldn’t be able to claim they didn’t get the memo about seat belt use — as has been suggested in the Gray case — nor would jurors be confronted by the hard questions of what constitutes criminal inaction that are at the heart of the prosecution of the officers involved in his arrest. Whenpolice arrest someone, their next job is to ensure they are transported to jail promptly and safely. Maryland law should leave no ambiguity about that.