Consequences of Police Culture in Baltimore

The Brutality of Police Culture in Baltimore

Conor Friedersdorf
Apr 22, 2015

Years of abuses are every bit as egregious as what the Department of Justice documented in Ferguson, Missouri, and as deserving of a national response.

Picture by Jose Luis Magana / Reuters

In Baltimore, where 25-year-old Freddie Gray died shortly after being taken into police custody, an investigation may uncover homicidal misconduct by law enforcement, as happened in the North Charleston, South Carolina, killing of Walter Scott. Or the facts may confound the darkest suspicions of protestors, as when the Department of Justice released its report on the killing of Michael Brown.

What’s crucial to understand, as Baltimore residents take to the streets in long-simmering frustration, is that their general grievances are valid regardless of how this case plays out. For as in Ferguson, where residents suffered through years of misconduct so egregious that most Americans could scarcely conceive of what was going on, the people of Baltimore are policed by an entity that perpetrates stunning abuses. The difference is that this time we needn’t wait for a DOJ report to tell us so. Harrowing evidence has been presented. Yet America hasn’t looked.

I include myself.

Despite actively reading and commenting on police misconduct for many years, I was unaware until yesterday that the Baltimore Sun published a searing 2014 article documenting recent abuses that are national scandals in their own rights.

A grandmother’s bones were broken. A pregnant woman was violently thrown to the ground. Millions of dollars were paid out to numerous victims of police brutality.

And almost none of us noticed!

So I join all who say that protests in Baltimore should remain peaceful, and I will continue to withhold judgment about Gray’s death until more facts are known.

But I also insist that Baltimore protests are appropriate regardless of what happened to Freddie Gray, as is more federal scrutiny and intervention. Although much was rightly made of Ferguson’s racially unrepresentative local leadership, the presence of a black mayor and a diverse city council has not solved Baltimore’s police problem, partly because the DOJ responded to revelations of epidemic brutality with less than the full-scale civil rights probe that some residents requested and because Maryland pols have thwarted reform bills urged by city leaders.

There are so many good reasons for locals to be outraged.

the rest of this story can be found here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-brutality-of-police-culture-in-baltimore/391158/

And this Atlantic Story provides an important backdrop for what happened recently…
(picture from countercurrentnews.com)

“Running While Black”:
Protests Swell over
Death of Freddie Gray
in Baltimore Police Custody

Protests in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray have entered their fifth day. The 27-year-old African-American man died Sunday from spinal injuries, one week after Baltimore police arrested him. His family and attorney say his voice box was crushed and his spine was “80 percent severed at his neck.” A preliminary autopsy report showed Gray died of a spinal injury. Video shot by a bystander shows Gray screaming in apparent agony as police drag him to a van. Another witness said the police bent Gray like a pretzel. While the police union has described the protesters as a lynch mob, former Black Panther Eddie Conway says Gray is the one who was lynched. “There was a lynch mob. There is a body. There was a death without a trial, without a jury, without a sentence. There was an execution. That’s lynching,” Conway says. “They’re blaming the victims. They’re blaming people that suffered the lynching for protesting.”

rest of Story: http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/23/running_while_black_protests_swell_over

Photojournalists ‘taken down,’ detained by police in Baltimore protests

By Kevin Rector The Baltimore Sun contact the reporter

City Paper photographer had ‘face pretty much smushed down on the ground’ by police

A photographer for Reuters was detained and another for the Baltimore City Paper was thrown to the ground by Baltimore Police officers while covering protests over police brutality late Saturday, they said.

The incidents occurred near the Western District police station, the journalists said, as they were covering a particularly tense standoff between protesters, who were throwing rocks, and helmeted police officers, who wielded shields and batons.
Baltimore police arrest 35, 6 officers injured in protest

J.M. Giordano, the photo editor at City Paper, said he was hit in the head with multiple police shields had his “face pretty much smushed down on the ground,” and sustained multiple bruises after several officers rushed at him as he shot pictures.

“They just took me down,” he said.

The incident occurred after police had given a general order for people to leave the area, but also came as a surprise, said Baynard Woods, the City Paper’s managing editor who was with Giordano at the scene. The City Paper is owned by the Baltimore Sun Media Group.

What we know about the Freddie Gray case

Protests were being held across the city in response to the death of Freddie Gray 25, who died April 19
— a week after his arrest. Saturday’s protests created more noise downtown, but originated in Gray’s
West Baltimore neighborhood, which also houses the Western District precinct.Police had broadcast a message that said “something like, ‘This is no longer a legal assembly. This is no longer a peaceful protest,'” and warned people in the area they would be detained, Woods said. But officers on the ground had also backed off after the announcement, and there was a significant amount of space between officers and protesters when the incident occurred, he said.

Weekend Protest

Protesters continued to gather this weekend, nearly a week after the death of Freddie Gray and two weeks after his arrest near Gilmor Homes.

The latest | Voices from Freddie Gray’s neighborhood | The 45-minute mystery of Freddie Gray’s death

On Sunday, Baltimore Sun Media Group spokeswoman Renee Mutchnik issued a statement saying: “We take seriously the right of the press to fairly and accurately cover events such as the protests that occurred yesterday in Baltimore. We are looking into the incident and are reaching out to the Baltimore Police Department to begin a constructive dialogue to express our concerns about what happened to our photographer.”

Capt. Eric Kowalczyk, a police spokesman, said it can be difficult for officers to tell media apart from those disobeying orders in certain situations, but said commanders have given instructions that members of the media are to have access to all interactions with police and protesters.

“We are working to reinforce throughout the organization that media should be allowed to have as much access as they possibly can,” Kowalczyk said.

A spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake did not return a request for comment.

Sait Serkan Gurbuz said he was shooting pictures for Reuters at the same location when he was detained, around the same time as Giordano.

Gurbuz declined to comment on the circumstances. “I was there taking pictures,” he said.

A Reuters spokeswoman issued a statement on the incident, saying Gurbuz was issued a citation for “failure to obey orders” and noting he was detained while photographing the encounter between police and another photojournalist — possibly Giordano.

“Serkan was on a public sidewalk and the events were happening in plain view. We do not agree with the police’s citation for ‘failure to obey orders,’ as Serkan backed away from the scene when the police demanded that he do so, or with the way in which he was treated by the police,” the spokeswoman said. “We hope the Department will dismiss the citation and, in the future, respect the First Amendment right of the press to lawfully take images in the public interest.”

Kowalczyk said officers released Gurbuz as soon as they realized who he was.

“We apologize for the fact that he was detained,” he said.

Outrage over Gray’s death has sparked protests across the city — including those Saturday night.

Gray was arrested by police on April 12 and sustained a severe spinal cord injury while in police custody, under still unclear circumstances. He died a week later. Police said Gray was not properly seatbelted in a transport van and was not given proper medical attention, and have launched a “massive investigation” into the incident.

During protests following the police-involved death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., journalists being detained and arrested added to criticism of the local police force’s response.

Giordano was not charged with anything, he said.