Nearly ten-years to the day that Freddie Gray died from injuries sustained while being transported in police custody, a federal judge ruled Thursday that the Baltimore Police Department has met constitutional standards for safe transport of detainees. With the judge’s decision, the department has now fully met and been released from two sections of its consent decree with the federal government.
Reporter Emily Hofstaedter speaks with News Director Matt Bush to explain more about what that means.
Matt: There was a pretty momentous court hearing Thursday in Baltimore. Judge James K. Bredar ruled for the first time that the U.S. Justice Department can terminate two sections of its consent decree with the police department. Before we get into what that means and what those are, can you just get us to speed on what the consent decree is and why we have it?
Emily: Absolutely. It’s interesting timing because on Saturday we will mark the ten-year anniversary of when Freddie Gray died from injuries after a so-called “rough ride.” Police shackled his hands and feet and threw him down in a van face first without a seatbelt. His death sparked a series of protests now known as the Baltimore Uprising and also led to a federal investigation into practices at the Baltimore Police Department. They found that the department had a culture of policing that repeatedly violated Baltimoreans constitutional rights with, unfortunately, at times really deadly consequences like in Gray’s case. As such the U.S. Department of Justice and BPD entered into a series of mandated, court monitored, and approved policing reforms with the aims of running a constitutional department and perhaps, just as importantly, building a police force that the community will trust.
Matt: So, DOJ and Baltimore Police entered the consent decree in 2017. They identified 17 major sections for reform and Thursday, two of those sections were deemed as fully in compliance and the judge terminated them from the decree. What are those reforms and what does termination mean?
Emily: The two sections are the transportation of persons in custody and officer assistance and support — that last one is a little less obvious. Basically, that boils down to officer wellness and mental health opportunities like, is an officer connected to counseling after responding to a traumatic event. And when we say they’ve been terminated, that means that the court no longer oversees those sections of BPD. Until now, BPD and an independent monitor has had to continually provide audits and reports to the court about how they are either reforming or maintaining that reform– with this termination, the court has said that it trusts BPD to preserve these constitutional reforms on their own. If there’s a problem, it is trusting BPD to fix it. And it's important to note here, that the Justice Department and Baltimore City filed the motion for release jointly, so the Justice Department is also confident in BPD’s reforms.
Matt: Since Freddie Gray is on the minds of all of Baltimore right now, can you say a bit more about what police have done to make that transport process safer?
Emily: Under the decree, they were required to have updated vehicles with a recording system, those transports have to be recorded and those recordings are saved. Vehicles must be checked monthly to make sure their seatbelts are functioning. The speed of those vehicles is tracked too. Judge Bredar was concerned that according to BPD data, that in 10 percent of cases BPD was driving above the speed limit, although in all but two of those cases, they were fewer than 10 miles above the limit.
Matt: So what does this mean for the consent decree as a whole? When can we see the end of it?
Emily: We will definitely have it for a few more years. We still have fifteen sections to go and Judge Bredar is majorly concerned about some pretty significant areas, especially community policing. One of the major findings in the federal investigation was a lack of trust. One barrier that is repeatedly cited for community policing is a staffing shortage. According to Bredar, the department should have 2600 officers and currently it has around 2,000. As far as areas like use of force, staffing and dealing with people with behavioral difficulties, the police say they are making reforms but Judge Bredar says there’s a lot of work to meet the standard of compliance.
