The Department of Justice agrees that the Baltimore Police Department has achieved full compliance with part of the city’s policing consent decree. It’s a major milestone that comes seven years after Baltimore City entered into the decree over policing practices that violated citizens’ constitutional rights.
The two completed reforms are the transportation of people in police custody, and for officer support and wellness practices. One of the factors that led to the consent decree was the 2015 in-custody death of Freddie Gray, which led to an uprising and weeks of protests.
The city and the justice department filed a joint motion on Tuesday asking U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar, the federal judge overseeing the decree, to give the rubber stamp of approval.
“The fact that this milestone is occurring at a time when the city is achieving a recent and historic reduction in violent crime… is a testament to the effectiveness of constitutional and community focused policing,” said Acting City Solicitor Ebony Thompson during a late Wednesday press conference, referring to the historic drop in non-fatal shooting and homicides the city saw in 2023.
The reforms for transportation particularly included new policies, modern equipment, and “spot checks” to ensure that police were following policy, according to the city’s filing.
Meanwhile for Baltimore police there’s still a long way to go – while reforms have widely started across the board, Commissioner Richard Worley estimates only about five percent of the reforms are now considered complete.
Worley told reporters that as of the end of 2023, about 25% of all paragraphs in the roughly 470 paragraph consent decree are in “initial compliance” and the other 60% of paragraphs in the decree are “on track for initial compliance.”
Shannon Sullivan is the Director of the Consent Decree Implementation Unit at the police department. She explains that a paragraph of the consent decree is considered in “full and effective compliance” once the dictates of every line and letter are met. From there, depending on the reform, reforms must be in sustained compliance for either one year or two years.
That progress along with the two completed reforms “represent a major shift in the culture of our department,” said Worley.
Assessments on some of the most notable parts of the decree are forthcoming including on use of force.
“They're all very large, they're very comprehensive… particularly on the Public Integrity, Bureau and misconduct investigations, because that is the largest section that has the most paragraphs of the decree,” said Sullivan with the compliance unit, relaying that many of those assessments will be coming over the next six months or so. About 15% of the decree hasn’t been touched yet and Sullivan said that a large part of that is related to performance evaluations.
Each section needs to be in sustained compliance for a year before the city can petition to remove that section from federal oversight.
