Judge: Police comply with 2 consent decree sections
Baltimore’s policing consent decree was spurred in part by the death of Freddie Gray in 2015 following injuries he sustained while being transported in police custody.
On Thursday the department’s work fixing those issues became its first step toward exiting federal oversight.
Federal Judge James K. Bredar, the chief judge for the U.S. District of Maryland who is overseeing the city’s reforms, agreed with the city and federal government that the department had reached “full and effective” compliance with two sections of its lengthy consent decree: transportation of persons in custody and officer assistance and safety.
That approval starts a one-year period during which the agency must show sustained compliance. If successful, come next Jan. 25 the city could petition the court to leave federal oversight of those two sections.
Bredar said he believes it is “at least possible” the city could partially terminate the consent decree. The judge called the step an “important milestone,” but he cautioned there is still “a long way to travel on this journey.”
The consent decree is “inextricably linked” with Gray’s death, the city’s deputy solicitor Stephen Salsbury and other officials said Thursday, acknowledging the significance of the agency’s progress in safely transporting detainees.
Officers interviewed in a federal investigation following his death described so-called “rough rides,” in which officers would drive erratically with a person unsecured in the back of a van, at times causing injuries. Investigators couldn’t say how frequently, as police failed to reliably capture data or record video in the vehicles.
In the years since Baltimore Police has established regular auditing of vehicles and new policies requiring officers to check on detainees. It also has ensured its capacity to review video footage from inside police vehicles, which Bredar called a “fundamental change” from years past.
While the department seeks to sustain compliance with those two sections, it will turn its attention toward the 15 remaining substantive sections and the range of challenges in addressing them.
For instance, while the department in the last few years tackled the immense hurdle of implementing new technology for reports and records management after decades of pen and paper (which one official previously told The Baltimore Sun was like going from the “Stone Age to the Digital Age”), it now must address user error.
Officers are struggling with writing good reports, police officials and the monitor team acknowledged Thursday. Bredar called the issue a “continuing weakness,” adding that “bad report writing is bad policing.”
The new process is expected to be part of an upcoming annual training for the department, and Baltimore police Commissioner Richard Worley expressed confidence the issues were fixable: “Every time we give [officers] a challenge, they do it.”
Community policing represents another lingering challenge.
The department’s struggles came under a tragic spotlight this summer with the mass shooting at Baltimore’s annual Brooklyn Day community gathering. The event caught police flat-footed as the crowd grew into the hundreds. Police were slow to engage until shots rang out, leaving 30 people shot, two fatally.
The tragic event led to questions about the depth of police relationships with the community.
And an assessment weeks later found officers were falling short of the agency’s goal of 40% of patrol officer time spent engaging with residents — at least in part due to call volume and staffing constraints.
Worley has prioritized improving community policing since he took over in July, days before Brooklyn Day. He has assigned a deputy commissioner to focus on improvements within the patrol section and is pushing for more foot patrols, business checks and attendance at community meetings.
Still, Bredar and others said Thursday it’s not clear that all officers have fully adopted a community mindset. And data being collected largely doesn’t measure the quality of officer interactions with residents.
“Staffing crisis or not, we can’t stand still on this issue anymore,” Bredar said. “Maybe Brooklyn was a jolt to everyone. It certainly was to me.”
Advocates have said they hope to see more community engagement on the consent decree and input from residents on how they are being policed. Measuring outputs may not translate perfectly to improvements on Baltimore’s streets, said Heather Warnken of the University of Baltimore’s Center for Criminal Justice Reform last week.
“Having a new batch of policies and procedures is not the same thing as … really understanding, especially from the perspective of the community and from various ranks and roles within the department, that culturechange piece,” Warnken said.