Agreement reached in lawsuit against police, prisons
A four-year-old lawsuit alleging a broad pattern of abuse by Baltimore police and state prison officials appears to be nearing an end with a settlement. My colleague Justin Fenton reports today that the state and NAACP have agreed on closure to one part of the suit -- strip searches and the detentions of innocent people in jail (Baltimore Sun staff photo at left).
A second, more complicated part of the litigation alleging city police for years arrested many people without proper authorization is nearing completion, according to people involved in the case. Both issues target a zero-tolerance policing strategy that called for arresting people on the pettiest of crimes. Many complained they were innocent but got caught up in a broad web, and it led to overcrowded jails and detention centers.
Angry judges set people free when their hearings were delayed more than 24 hours and prosecutors complained that the cases being brought to them were weak. The city State's Attorney's Office declined to prosecute hundreds if not thousands of arrests, and even though thsoe people never got records, they still ended up being detained for hours in the dingy booking center.
The past practice has been criticized by the current police commissioner, Frederick H. Bealefeld III, as a bad way to police a city. He favors targeting guns and drugs and having his officers use common sense and discretion in enforcing so-called quality of life crimes. Justin reported:
In recent years, officials have trumpeted a steady reduction in arrests and arrests without charges. More than 108,400 arrests were made in 2005, a figure that dropped to 77,600 in 2009.
Here are some complaints spelled out in the lawsuit:
The complaint spells out a number of horror stories from people who say they were rounded up and jailed. One includes a group of men handing out religious literature on a Northeast Baltimore sidewalk in 2006, who say they were arrested when they turned a camera on police asking them to stop handing out the fliers. At Central Booking, they say, their robes were removed and they were subjected to strip searches.
Timothy Johnson alleges he was in Baltimore in June 2006 for a conference for the Research Society on Alcoholism and was arrested while walking back to a hotel with a woman and some friends. Police pulled up and arrested the woman, then as Johnson walked away he was picked up for "hindering" and kept at Central Booking for six hours after a strip search. He was released 30 minutes before he was to give a presentation at the conference.
Parkville teacher Jonathan Lindsay alleged that he was arrested in July 2007 as he filmed an arrest in Canton. An officer told him he could not take photographs. Lindsay and his friend, Armando Horsey, were arrested and searched. "A police officer told Lindsay that he shouldn't worry about being arrested because he would be released in a few hours," the complaint says.
Categories: Confronting crime, Prisons, Top brass
Comments
Baltimore police officers need better training on how and when to use their arrest power. A police arrest power should not be used to settle personal grudges. If police officers are subjected to criminal prosecution for unreasonable arrests, I think they will be more prudent. I do also think that strip searches of arrestees should be base on the types of arrest and approved by a police supervisor.
Posted by: rasong | February 28, 2010 11:17 PM