Dreamer
Regular Member
So what does this article have to do with OC?
Just a warning to anyone in MD that if you live in, or travel in certain Baltimore neighborhoods, you cn get arrested for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No RAS. No illegal activity. Not even "mistaken identity". Baltimore police just arrest people to pad their arrest rate statistics.
And for their hard work, the Baltimore Police cost the fine taxpayers of Baltimore $870,000 in settlement payments for their illegal arrest program...
You guys have it much worse that people who live in free parts of the US. Not only can you not arm yourselves for self-defense against criminals, but you have to worry about being illegally arrested for just being in certain neighborhoods in Baltimore.
No wonder Gov. O'Malley and Col. Sheridan want the fine law-abiding citizens of MD to be disarmed. Apparently kidnapping is now SOP for LEA's in MD--to boost their statistics.
Meanwhile, the REAL criminals continue to roam the streets, shooting, looting, and dealing drugs...
Independence Day is coming up soon, folks. Unfortunately, it looks like the folks in Baltimore, Pikesville, and Annapolis have forgotten what that means, and are doing everything they can to reinstate an oligarchical tyranny in the "Free State"...
http://investigativevoice.com/index...-arrest-policy&catid=25:the-project&Itemid=44
TARGETED ENFORCEMENT — Police focused illegal arrest policy on poor, minority neighborhoods
Thursday, 24 June 2010 02:41
By Stephen Janis
When crime spiked in Baltimore's poorest neighborhoods during the middle of the decade, city police officers were ordered to descend upon violence-wracked areas and make as many arrests as possible.
The problem was, it didn't matter if the detainee had committed a crime.
“If crime is going up somewhere, they wanted more arrests; it didn’t matter who got arrested, what they got arrested for, it didn’t matter if the arrest got prosecuted.
What mattered was how many arrests were made,” declared ACLU attorney David Rocah at the Maryland chapter's Baltimore offices Wednesday.
But the mass arrest policy that the city now concedes was illegal was not targeted at affluent neighborhoods such as Roland Park. Instead, Rocah and other plaintiffs said the poorest citizens of Baltimore bore the brunt of a strategy that led to tens of thousands of illegal arrests.
These are just some of the details revealed by Rocah and a group of plaintiffs at a news conference called to announce an $870,000 settlement with the city over a mass-arrest policy that yielded little success at its height.
ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY CRITICIZED
The lawsuit, a joint effort of the ACLU and the Baltimore City branch of the NAACP, was filed in 2006 on behalf of roughly a dozen city residents who had been victims of illegal arrests.
The suit marked a major turning point in the often heated debate over the city’s unprecedented implementation of the so-called zero tolerance policy, which embroiled then-Mayor Martin O’Malley in controversy over the crime-fighting strategy that failed to reduce homicides.
The police department embraced the policy during O’Malley’s tenure as an adaptation of the so-called broken-window theory, a policy that called for arrests for minor quality-of-life crimes coupled with intelligence gathering to catch violent offenders.
But the policy failed to work.
At the height of the policy in the middle of the decade, residents of poor neighborhoods would wait for the so-called “jump-out boys,” squads of officers who would make dozens of arrests on Wednesdays and Thursdays to book enough arrests for COMSTAT, the weekly police statistical review.
“One of the things that happened during the O’Malley Administration was a growing emphasis on statistics,” Rocah said.
One of the most startling revelations of the news conference was that depositions taken by the plaintiffs revealed police officers involved in the arrests were often unfamiliar with the laws governing both probable cause and when minor offenses like disobeying an order or trespassing rose to the level of being illegal.
“We think there were real problems with how the police evaluated probable cause,” Rocah said.
MORE TRAINING FOR OFFICERS
The settlement calls for additional training for officers, an effort that Rocah said he hopes will change the culture inside the department. Rocah said the change already had occurred under Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld 3rd, who was named acting commissioner in July of 2007 and appointed to the permanent position in October of that year.
Indeed, in a joint statement issued by the department and the plaintiffs, the city made the startling revelation it had “rejected” zero tolerance as a policing strategy, and agreed to re-train officers to more effectively deal with minor quality-of-life offenses and less intrusive methods like criminal citations.
“I think the agreement speaks for itself,” Rocah said when asked if he felt vindicated by the settlement.
At an impromptu appearance at an Eastern District community meeting Tuesday evening, Bealefeld noted the police department had decreased the number of arrests from 108,000 in 2005 to fewer than 78,000 last year.
To ensure that police follow the guidelines set forth in the agreement, the city will appoint an independent auditor who will issue a semiannual report on the department’s compliance with the agreement.
But even with the promise to roll back the number of arrests for nuisance crimes, at least one of the plaintiffs said she still has concerns.
“I think it’s still going on,” said Erin Marcus, who was arrested while conducting a legal protest on a city sidewalk.
“I’ve been arrested several times since the lawsuit was filed.”
Just a warning to anyone in MD that if you live in, or travel in certain Baltimore neighborhoods, you cn get arrested for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No RAS. No illegal activity. Not even "mistaken identity". Baltimore police just arrest people to pad their arrest rate statistics.
And for their hard work, the Baltimore Police cost the fine taxpayers of Baltimore $870,000 in settlement payments for their illegal arrest program...
You guys have it much worse that people who live in free parts of the US. Not only can you not arm yourselves for self-defense against criminals, but you have to worry about being illegally arrested for just being in certain neighborhoods in Baltimore.
No wonder Gov. O'Malley and Col. Sheridan want the fine law-abiding citizens of MD to be disarmed. Apparently kidnapping is now SOP for LEA's in MD--to boost their statistics.
Meanwhile, the REAL criminals continue to roam the streets, shooting, looting, and dealing drugs...
Independence Day is coming up soon, folks. Unfortunately, it looks like the folks in Baltimore, Pikesville, and Annapolis have forgotten what that means, and are doing everything they can to reinstate an oligarchical tyranny in the "Free State"...
http://investigativevoice.com/index...-arrest-policy&catid=25:the-project&Itemid=44
TARGETED ENFORCEMENT — Police focused illegal arrest policy on poor, minority neighborhoods
Thursday, 24 June 2010 02:41
By Stephen Janis
When crime spiked in Baltimore's poorest neighborhoods during the middle of the decade, city police officers were ordered to descend upon violence-wracked areas and make as many arrests as possible.
The problem was, it didn't matter if the detainee had committed a crime.
“If crime is going up somewhere, they wanted more arrests; it didn’t matter who got arrested, what they got arrested for, it didn’t matter if the arrest got prosecuted.
What mattered was how many arrests were made,” declared ACLU attorney David Rocah at the Maryland chapter's Baltimore offices Wednesday.
But the mass arrest policy that the city now concedes was illegal was not targeted at affluent neighborhoods such as Roland Park. Instead, Rocah and other plaintiffs said the poorest citizens of Baltimore bore the brunt of a strategy that led to tens of thousands of illegal arrests.
These are just some of the details revealed by Rocah and a group of plaintiffs at a news conference called to announce an $870,000 settlement with the city over a mass-arrest policy that yielded little success at its height.
ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY CRITICIZED
The lawsuit, a joint effort of the ACLU and the Baltimore City branch of the NAACP, was filed in 2006 on behalf of roughly a dozen city residents who had been victims of illegal arrests.
The suit marked a major turning point in the often heated debate over the city’s unprecedented implementation of the so-called zero tolerance policy, which embroiled then-Mayor Martin O’Malley in controversy over the crime-fighting strategy that failed to reduce homicides.
The police department embraced the policy during O’Malley’s tenure as an adaptation of the so-called broken-window theory, a policy that called for arrests for minor quality-of-life crimes coupled with intelligence gathering to catch violent offenders.
But the policy failed to work.
At the height of the policy in the middle of the decade, residents of poor neighborhoods would wait for the so-called “jump-out boys,” squads of officers who would make dozens of arrests on Wednesdays and Thursdays to book enough arrests for COMSTAT, the weekly police statistical review.
“One of the things that happened during the O’Malley Administration was a growing emphasis on statistics,” Rocah said.
One of the most startling revelations of the news conference was that depositions taken by the plaintiffs revealed police officers involved in the arrests were often unfamiliar with the laws governing both probable cause and when minor offenses like disobeying an order or trespassing rose to the level of being illegal.
“We think there were real problems with how the police evaluated probable cause,” Rocah said.
MORE TRAINING FOR OFFICERS
The settlement calls for additional training for officers, an effort that Rocah said he hopes will change the culture inside the department. Rocah said the change already had occurred under Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld 3rd, who was named acting commissioner in July of 2007 and appointed to the permanent position in October of that year.
Indeed, in a joint statement issued by the department and the plaintiffs, the city made the startling revelation it had “rejected” zero tolerance as a policing strategy, and agreed to re-train officers to more effectively deal with minor quality-of-life offenses and less intrusive methods like criminal citations.
“I think the agreement speaks for itself,” Rocah said when asked if he felt vindicated by the settlement.
At an impromptu appearance at an Eastern District community meeting Tuesday evening, Bealefeld noted the police department had decreased the number of arrests from 108,000 in 2005 to fewer than 78,000 last year.
To ensure that police follow the guidelines set forth in the agreement, the city will appoint an independent auditor who will issue a semiannual report on the department’s compliance with the agreement.
But even with the promise to roll back the number of arrests for nuisance crimes, at least one of the plaintiffs said she still has concerns.
“I think it’s still going on,” said Erin Marcus, who was arrested while conducting a legal protest on a city sidewalk.
“I’ve been arrested several times since the lawsuit was filed.”
