JS 44 (Rev. 07/16)

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 1 Filed 01/12/17 Page 1 of 18
CIVIL COVER SHEET

The JS 44 civil cover sheet and the information contained herein neither replace nor supplement the filing and service of pleading;s or other papers as required by law, except as provided by local rules of court. This form, approved by the Judicial Conference of the United States in September 1974, is required for the use of the Clerk of Court for the purpose of initiating the civil docket sheet. {SEE INS11~UC110NSON N8X'/' PAGE"OF THIS FORM.)

I. (a) PLAINTIFFS United States of America

DEFENDANTS ,Mayor and City Council of Baltimore; and the Police Department of Baltimore City

(b) County of Residence of First Listed Plaintiff
(EXCEPT JN U.S. PLAINTIFF CASES)

County of Residence of First Listed Defendant Baltimore City
(INU.S. PLAINTIFF CASES ONLY)
NOTE: IN LAND CONDEMNATION CASES, USE THE LOCATION or
THE TRACT OF LAND INVOLVED.

( C) Atton1eys (Firm Name, Addres.1·, and Telr!phone Numbe1~ United States Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20530

Attorneys (IfKnown)

II. BASIS OF JURISDICTION (Pia" an "X" lnOn.B"Only)

tll 1 U.S. Government
Plaintiff

0 3 Federal Question (U.S. Gm•ernmenl Not a Party)

III. CITIZENSHIP OF PRINCIPAL PARTIES (Pia" an "X" In om Boxf"' Plaln1i!J

(For Diver,vily Ca.1·es Only)

and One Box for Defendant)

PTF DEF

PTF DEF

Citizen of This State

0 I 0 I Incorporated or Principal Place

0 4 O4

of Business In This State

0 2 U,S. Government Defendant

04 Diversity (Indicate Clf/zen.l'h/p ofParties In //em Ill)

Citizen ofAnother State

0 2 0 2 Incorporated and Principal Place of Business In Another State

0 5 05

Citizen or Subject of a Fotei n Count

O 3 O 3 Foreign Nation

0 6 06

IV NATURE OF SUIT WIace an "XIn"OBOI~

,, " ""' " "" 10 ;l;.;fY\~~:~

't.· '" ·"

~·. ~

0 110 Insurance

PERSONAL INJURY

PERSONAL INJURY

'
0 625 Drug Related Si;:izurc

,_},

"

0 422 Appeal 28 USC 158

' ' ,Jil~~::/J~~~~IMI
0 375 False Claims Act

O 120 Marine

0 310 Airplane

0 365 Personal Injury -

ofProperty 21 USC 881 0 423 Withdrawal

0 376 Qui Tam (31 USC

O· 130 Miller Act

0 315 Airplane Product

Product Liability

0 691) Otbei·

28USC 157

3729(a))

0 140 Negoth1ble Instrument

Liability

O 150 Recove1y ofOverpayment 0 320 Assault, Libel &

O 367 Health Carel Phmmaceutical

,,

·~ JPR1•1B,

0 400 State Reapportionment lRIGRTS1I 1>(l!WJI• D 410 Antitrust

& Enforcement of Judgment

Slander

0 151 Medicare Act

O 330 Federal Employers'

Personal Inj111y Product Liability

I
"

O 820 Copyrights 0 830 Patent

D 430 Banks and Banking D 450 Commerce

0 152 Rccovc1y ofDefaulted

Liability

0 368 Asbestos Personal

0 840 Trademark

D 460 Deportation

Student Loans

0 340 Marine

Injury Product

D 470 Racketeer Influenced and

(Excludes Vctcrans)

0 345 Marine Product

0 !53 Recove1y ofOverpayment

Liability

Liability

'<\l·J;;>li;_ii1111.\"1ifoli

~~.,;.:(!, '" •

''

PERSONAL PROPERTY 0 71[) Fair Labor Standards

0 861 HIA (l395ff)

CoO'upt Organizations D 480 Consume!' Credit

of Veteran's Benefits

0 350 Motor Vehicl~

0 370 Othe1· Fraud

Aot

O 862 Black Lung (923)

D 490 Cable/Sat TV

0 160 Stockholders' Suits

0 355 Motor Vehicle

O 371 TruU1 in Lending

0 72[) Labor/Management

0 863 DIWC/DIWW (405(g)) D 850 Securities/Commodities/

0 l 90 Other Contract

Product Liability

0 380 Other Penonal

Relations

0 864 SSIDTitle XVI

Exchange

0 19S Contract Product Liability 0 360 Other Personal

Property Damage 0 740 Railway Labor Act

0 865 RSI (405(g))

0 890 Other Statutory Actions

0 !96 Jlranchisi;i

htjmy

0 385 Property Damage 0 751 Family and Medical

D 891 Agricultural Acts

0 362 Personal Injury·

Product Liability

Leave Act

D 893 Environmental Matters

Medical Maloractice

O 79[) Other Labor Litigation

D 895 Freedom oflnfonnation

' Eu11:Y"lf~',l~<f_;/! r.,

0 210 Land Condemt1ation

~ 440 Other Civil Rights

Habeas Cor11us;

0 791 Employee Retirement Income Secmity Act

''""''.~

Aot

O 870 Taxes (U.S. Plaintiff D 896 Arbitration

0 220 Foreclosure

0 441 Voting

0 463 Alien Detainee

or Defendrn1t}

D 899 Administrative Procedure

0 230 Rent Lease & Ejectment O 442 Employment

D 510 Motions to Vacate

0 87 I IRS-l11ird Party

Act/Review or Appeal of

0 240 Torts to Laud

0 443 Housing/

Sentence

26 USC 7609

Agency Decision

0 245 Tort Product Liability

Accommodations 0 530 General

D 950 Constitutionality of

0 290 All Other Real Property O 445 Amer. w/Disabilities - D 535 Death Penalty

State Statutes

Employment

Otber:

0 462 Naturalization Application

0 446 Amer. w/Disabilities - 0 540 Mandamus & Other 0 465 Other Immigration

Other

0 550 Civil Rights

Actions

O 448 Education

0 SSS Prison Condition

0 560 Civil Detainee -

Conditions of

.

Confinement

_V, 0 RIG IN (F'face an ''X" rn One Box Only)

~ 1 Original

0 2 Removed from

Proceeding

State Court

0 3 Remanded from Appellate Court

0 4 Reinstated or 0 5 Transferred from 0 6 Multidistrict

Reopened

Another District

Litigation -

(.~peciJYJ

_ Transfer

.
0 8 Multidistrict Litigation Direct File

Cite the U.S. Civil Statu.te under which you are ~Jin~ {jo nor clte]ul'i.wlfctl~naf statutes unless diver,v~):

VI. CAUSE OF ACTION i,:4~2;,,:U:;,,So:;,e::C:.i,§iL.!.:14!.!1::.41!!•24::.2,::U,:::,S::,:,C:;,,,;i,§.=2~00;:::0'.:'.d~4, =:.::·S:::·,::C:_,;.l-'3:'..'.7.:::89:::d::;.,::,42::.:::,U·::::S.::C:,::.;..;a..J,!12:.!1.:::1!..-..!1::.21;,::3:::;4_ _ _ _ _ _ __

Brief description of cause:

1: '

Sult to remedy a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers that violates federal law,

VII. REQUESTED IN COMPLAINT:

0 CHECK IF THIS IS A CLASS ACTION
UNDERRULE23,F.R.Cv.P.

DEMAND$

CHECK YES only if demanded in complaint:

JURY DEMAND:

0 Yes ~No

VIII. RELATED CASE(S)

IF ANY

(See ln.~trrJc/lons):

DATil-
0111212017

JUDGE
SlGN~~

DOCKET NUMBER

FOR OFFICE USE ONLY

RECEIPT/I

AMOUNT

APPLYING IFP

JUDGE

MAO.JUDGE

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 1 Filed 01/12/17 Page 2 of 18

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
 DISTRICT OF MARYLAND 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff;
v.
POLICE DEPARTMENT OF BALTIMORE CITY
and
MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE,
Defendants.

Civil Action No. ___

COMPLAINT The United States of America (“United States”) brings this action against the Police Department of Baltimore City and the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore to remedy a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers that deprives persons of rights, privileges, and immunities secured and protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States. The United States brings this action under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141, Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d (“Title VI”), the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d (“Safe Streets Act”), and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131–12134 (“Title II”).
JURISDICTION AND VENUE 1. This Court has jurisdiction of this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1345, and 2201.

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2. The United States is authorized to initiate this suit under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141 (“§ 14141”), Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, the Safe Streets Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d, and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131–12134.
3. Under § 14141, the United States is authorized to bring suit against a state or local government in order to eliminate a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers that deprives persons of rights, privileges or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or federal law.
4. The United States is authorized to enforce Title VI, which, together with relevant implementing regulations, prohibits discrimination on the basis of race by recipients of federal financial assistance.
5. The United States is authorized to enforce the Safe Streets Act, which, together with relevant implementing regulations, prohibits discrimination on the basis of race by recipients of funds from the U.S. Department of Justice.
6. The United States is authorized to enforce Title II, which requires reasonable modifications to avoid discrimination against individuals with disabilities.
7. Declaratory and injunctive relief is sought as authorized by § 14141, Title II, Title VI, and the Safe Streets Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201 and 2202.
8. Venue is proper in the District of Maryland pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b). Defendants are located or reside in the District of Maryland, and the events giving rise to this claim occurred in Baltimore, within the District of Maryland. PARTIES
9. Plaintiff is the United States of America.
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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 1 Filed 01/12/17 Page 4 of 18
10. Defendant Police Department of Baltimore City (“BPD”) is the primary law enforcement agency within the City.
11. Defendant Mayor and City Council of Baltimore (“the City”) is a municipality located within the District of Maryland. The City of Baltimore is a local government within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 14141. The City is responsible for funding BPD and for the acts or omissions of BPD. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
12. BPD is the chief law enforcement agency in Baltimore and has jurisdiction throughout the City.
13. BPD employs approximately 3,000 personnel, including approximately 2,600 sworn officers. BPD’s jurisdiction is divided geographically among nine police districts that include local police stationhouses, referred to as district headquarters.
14. During the course of conduct described in this Complaint, Defendants have received federal financial assistance from the United States Department of Justice, either directly or through another recipient of federal financial assistance.
15. As a condition of receiving federal financial assistance, the City and BPD certified that they would comply with all requirements imposed by Title VI and the federal regulations implementing Title VI. The assurances signed by the City bind subsequent recipients, including BPD to which the City disburses the funds. The City and BPD are responsible for ensuring that BPD complies with the requirements of Title VI and its implementing regulations.
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16. During the course of conduct described in this Complaint, Defendants have received funds from the Office of Justice Programs (“OJP”) that are subject to the requirements of the Safe Streets Act.
17. As a condition of receiving OJP grants, the City and BPD certified that they would comply with all requirements imposed by the Safe Streets Act.
18. There is longstanding recognition of the need to reform BPD to ensure that BPD officers do not violate the constitutional rights of City residents.
19. In the late 1990s, BPD adopted zero tolerance policing strategies that prioritized officers making large numbers of stops, searches, and arrests for misdemeanor offenses without ensuring robust oversight to hold officers accountable for misconduct and protect the constitutional rights of City residents. Current BPD Commissioner Kevin Davis and his predecessor, Anthony W. Batts, have both acknowledged publicly that this approach eroded community trust and impeded efforts to build partnerships that are central to effective policing.
20. Following the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray in police custody, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake asked the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, to conduct a pattern-or-practice investigation of BPD’s police practices. The Civil Rights Division announced that it would conduct a pattern-or-practice investigation on May 8, 2015, and issued a Findings Report on August 10, 2016.
21. BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution and federal laws. These violations include the following: a. Making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests, in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments;
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b. Using excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. c. Retaliating against individuals engaging in constitutionally-protected expression,
in violation of the First Amendment. d. Using enforcement strategies that disproportionately impact African Americans,
in violation of Title VI, the Title VI implementing regulations, 28 C.F.R. §§ 42.101-112, and the Safe Streets Act and its implementing regulations. e. Failing to make reasonable modifications to their practices regarding the use of force against individuals with disabilities, in violation of Title II. 22. BPD’s violations of the Constitution and federal law are driven by BPD’s practices – systemic deficiencies in policies, training, supervision, and accountability structures. Defendants have been aware of these structural challenges for many years, but have not taken adequate steps to comply with the Constitution and federal law. A. Defendants’ Unconstitutional Stops, Searches, and Arrests 23. BPD engages in a pattern or practice of making unlawful stops, searches, and arrests in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. 24. BPD officers engage in a pattern of making stops without the individualized, reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing required by the Fourth Amendment. Officers frequently make stops without identifying reasonable suspicion, including stopping individuals standing on sidewalks or street corners without any indication that the individuals are connected to unlawful activity. 25. Only a small fraction of BPD’s stops uncover involvement in criminal activity and result in a citation or arrest. BPD officers issued a criminal citation or made an arrest in only 3.7 percent of the more than 300,000 pedestrian stops documented from 2010-2015.
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26. During stops, BPD officers conduct searches without probable cause and weapons frisks without reasonable suspicion that a person is armed.
27. BPD officers also conduct unconstitutional strip searches. In some cases, BPD has conducted strip searches prior to arrest, without any exigent circumstances requiring the search, and/or in public view.
28. BPD makes arrests that are not supported by probable cause. From November 2010–July 2015, supervisors at Baltimore’s Central Booking released 6,736 arrestees without charge. Prosecutors from the State’s Attorney’s Office declined to charge an additional 1,983 cases because the underlying arrests lacked probable cause.
29. In other cases, BPD detains individuals for significant periods of time for investigation without having the probable cause required to do so.
30. BPD likewise makes unconstitutional arrests pursuant to City ordinances banning trespassing and loitering. BPD applies these ordinances in a manner that violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. BPD arrests individuals for “trespassing,” “loitering,” or failing to obey an officer’s instruction to stop trespassing or loitering, where the arrested individuals are merely standing on public streets or sidewalks near publicly-owned property or private businesses.
B. Defendants’ Discriminatory Policing 31. BPD engages in a pattern or practice of discrimination, through its use of enforcement
strategies and other practices, that violate Title VI and the Safe Streets Act, which prohibit police practices that create an unjustified disparate impact based on race and other demographic factors.
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32. For many years, BPD has employed policing strategies in certain Baltimore neighborhoods that emphasize officers making large numbers of stops, searches, and arrests, often for non-violent misdemeanor offenses, and with minimal supervisory review. These tactics disproportionately impact African Americans.
33. BPD stops African Americans at higher rates than people of other racial backgrounds in each of its nine police districts.
34. During stops, BPD searches African Americans more often than similarly-situated nonAfrican Americans, even though searches of African Americans were less likely to find contraband. Racial disparities in search rates persist after controlling for non-racial factors relevant to whether an officer conducts a search. These rates indicate that officers apply a lower threshold of suspicion when deciding to search African Americans during pedestrian and vehicle stops.
35. There are also racial disparities in BPD’s warrantless arrests for misdemeanor offenses, including disorderly conduct, making a false statement, hindering or obstruction, and misdemeanor trespassing. For each of these offenses, BPD arrests African Americans at disproportionate rates and reviewing officials are more likely to decline charges filed against African American arrestees.
36. BPD disproportionately arrests African Americans for drug possession offenses compared to similarly situated people of other racial backgrounds. BPD charges African Americans for drug possession offenses at approximately five times the rate it files drug charges against people from other racial backgrounds. This difference is not attributable to differences in drug usage rates among different racial groups.
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37. These racial disparities are driven in part by deficient policies, training, supervision, and accountability.
38. BPD did not institute a “Fair and Impartial Policing” policy until 2015, leaving officers without guidance on how to lawfully perform their duties in an impartial manner. In some cases, BPD supervisors have encouraged racial profiling directly.
39. BPD officers have also used racial slurs and other derogatory language to address or refer to African Americans. When BPD has received complaints about such conduct, it has often misclassified or failed to investigate them.
40. In many cases, BPD investigators make comments during sexual assault investigations showing undue skepticism of victims’ accounts and fail to collect available evidence that could corroborate them. C. Defendants’ Use of Excessive Force
41. BPD engages in a pattern or practice of using force that is objectively unreasonable under the circumstances in which the force is applied, including the threat posed by the suspect and the severity of the alleged underlying crime, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. a) BPD uses ineffective tactics that escalate encounters, leading to the use of physical force when it is not necessary to resolve an incident. b) BPD uses unreasonable force against people who present little or no threat to them or others. For example, officers have used unreasonable force against individuals who are already restrained or who are fleeing away from officers. c) BPD uses unreasonable force against juveniles without applying accepted tactics 
 to account for the age and developmental status of the youth they encounter. 
 d) BPD uses unreasonable force against individuals with mental health disabilities. 

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e) In the use of force against individuals with mental health disabilities, BPD officers fail to make reasonable modifications necessary to avoid discrimination in violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
f) BPD also use unreasonable force against individuals in crisis. g) BPD frequently escalates encounters with unarmed individuals with mental health
disabilities and those in crisis, resulting in officers using unreasonable force. When responding to calls to escort individuals to the hospital for mental health treatment, BPD officers often use force if the individual does not follow officers’ commands, even though the individuals have committed no crime and present no significant threat to officers or other members of the public. h) BPD also subjects individuals to significant risk of harm by using deficient practices for transporting them. i) BPD has not consistently secured detainees transported in vans or monitored detainees during transport. For example, a 2012 BPD audit found that none of the 34 arrestees were secured with seatbelts. j) BPD’s failure to secure detainees during transport has resulted in serious injuries and death. 42. The repeated use of unreasonable force against individuals with mental health disabilities reveals that BPD fails to make reasonable modifications necessary to avoid discrimination in violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. 43. Under the ADA, training BPD officers on how to interact with individuals with mental health disabilities is a reasonable modification to policies, practices, and procedures to afford people with mental health disabilities the equal opportunity for a police
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intervention that is free from unreasonable force. BPD has failed to provide the necessary training, however, resulting in BPD officers often resorting too quickly to using force against individuals with mental health disabilities. D. Defendants Retaliate Against Individuals Who Engage in Constitutionally-
Protected Speech 44. BPD arrests, detains, uses force, and otherwise retaliates against individuals who criticize
BPD or engage in other constitutionally-protected expression. 45. BPD stops and arrests individuals for speech that officers perceive to be rude, critical, or
disrespectful. 46. In addition, BPD interferes with individuals attempting to lawfully record police activity.
BPD officers seize recording devices without a warrant or probable cause, order individuals to stop recording, and retaliate against individuals filming police activity. E. BPD’s Violations of the Constitution and Federal Law Are Rooted in 

Systemic Deficiencies in Supervision and Accountability
 47. Defendants’ use deficient policies, training, supervision, and accountability systems
contributes to BPD’s violations of the Constitution and federal law. Defendants have been on notice of these deficiencies for years, but have not implemented sufficient reforms to ensure constitutional policing. 48. Defendants fail to supervise officers effectively or hold them accountable for misconduct, contributing to a pattern of police actions that violate the Constitution and federal law. 49. BPD fails to adequately train and supervise its officers. This deficiency manifests itself in multiple ways, including a failure to guide officer activity through effective policies and training; a failure to collect and analyze reliable data to supervise officer enforcement activities; and the lack of a meaningful early intervention system to identify officers who
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may benefit from additional training or other guidance to ensure that they do not commit constitutional violations. 50. BPD’s accountability systems are not sufficient to deter misconduct. BPD does not consistently classify, investigate, adjudicate, and document complaints of misconduct. 51. In some cases, BPD improperly classifies complaints as alleging only minimal misconduct, resulting in minimal investigation and accountability. 52. BPD also lacks external oversight to curb its pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing. The City-funded Civilian Review Board (“CRB”) has statutory authority to investigate certain types of complaints and make non-binding recommendations to BPD, but the CRB lacks sufficient authority, staff, and funding to provide meaningful oversight and accountability. 53. Together, these failures prevent BPD from deterring, identifying, and correcting misconduct that contributes to a pattern or practice of violating the Constitution and federal laws.
FIRST CLAIM FOR RELIEF DEFENDANTS’ PATTERN OR PRACTICE OF CONDUCT DEPRIVES 
 INDIVIDUALS OF RIGHTS, PRIVILEGES, AND IMMUNITIES SECURED BY 

THE FIRST, FOURTH, AND FOURTEENTH AMENDMENTS 
 TITLE II, TITLE VI, AND THE SAFE STREETS ACT,
 IN VIOLATION OF § 14141 

54. The United States re-alleges and incorporates by reference all the allegations set forth above.
55. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides in pertinent part that “Congress shall make no law . . .
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abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble . . . .” 56. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, house, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” 57. Section II of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that “[n]o state shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws.” 58. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act provides that “no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity.” Defendants are public entities subject to Title II of the ADA, 42 U.S.C. § 12131(1). Defendants violate the ADA by repeatedly failing to make reasonable modifications necessary to avoid discrimination against individuals with mental health disabilities. 59. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Defendants receive federal financial assistance and are subject to Title VI requirements.
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60. The Safe Streets Act provides that “[n]o person in any State shall on the ground of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under or denied employment in connection with any programs or activity funded in whole or in part with funds made available under this title.” Defendants receive funding from the U.S. Department of Justice and is subject to the Safe Streets Act requirements.
61. By the actions set forth above, Defendants and their agents, including BPD officers, have engaged and continue to engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Safe Streets Act, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 14141.
62. Unless restrained by this Court, Defendants will continue to engage in the unconstitutional and illegal conduct alleged herein, or other similar unconstitutional or illegal conduct, causing irreparable harm to the people of Baltimore. SECOND CLAIM FOR RELIEF
 DEFENDANTS’ LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITIES VIOLATE TITLE VI 

63. The United States re-alleges and incorporates by reference all the allegations set forth above.
64. Title VI provides that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
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65. Defendants received and continue to receive federal financial assistance for its programs and activities that are subject to the requirements of Title VI and its implementing regulations.
66. Defendants have engaged in law enforcement practices, including stops, searches, arrests, and uses of force, that have an adverse disparate impact on African Americans and that are unnecessary to achieve non-discriminatory objectives.
67. The United States has determined that all administrative requirements have been exhausted and that securing compliance from the Defendants cannot be achieved without a court order.
68. Defendants’ discriminatory law enforcement practices violate Title VI. THIRD CLAIM FOR RELIEF
DEFENDANTS’ LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTVITIES VIOLATE 
 THE SAFE STREETS ACT 

69. The United States re-alleges and incorporates by reference all the allegations set forth above.
70. The Safe Streets Act provides that “[n]o person in any State shall on the ground of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under or denied employment in connection with any programs or activity funded in whole or in part with funds made available under this title.”
71. Defendants received and continue to receive funds from the Office of Justice Programs that are subject to the Safe Streets Act.
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72. Defendants have engaged in a pattern or practice of law enforcement practices, including stops, searches, arrests, and uses of force, that have an adverse disparate impact on African Americans and that are unnecessary to achieve non-discriminatory objectives.
73. The United States has determined that all administrative requirements have been exhausted and that securing compliance from the Defendants cannot be achieved without a court order.
74. Defendants’ discriminatory law enforcement practices violate the Safe Streets Act. FOURTH CLAIM FOR RELIEF
DEFENDANTS VIOLATE TITLE II OF THE 
 AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT 

75. The United States re-alleges and incorporates by reference all the allegations set forth above.
76. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act provides that “no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity.”
77. Defendants are public entities subject to Title II of the ADA, 42 U.S.C. § 12131(1). 78. Defendants repeatedly fail to make reasonable modifications necessary to avoid
discrimination against individuals with mental health disabilities. 79. The United States has determined that all administrative requirements have been
exhausted and that securing compliance from the Defendants cannot be achieved without a court order. 80. Defendants’ actions constitute discrimination in violation of Title II of the ADA, 42 U.SC. § 12132, and its implementing regulations, 28 C.F.R. 35.
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PRAYER FOR RELIEF 81. WHEREFORE, the United States asks that the Court:
a. Declare that Defendants, their officers, agents, and employees have engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, in violation of § 14141;
b. Declare that Defendants, their officers, agents, and employees have violated Title VI;
c. Declare that Defendants, their officers, agents, and employees have violated the Safe Streets Act;
d. Declare that Defendants, their officers, agents, and employees have violated Title II of the ADA;
e. Enjoin Defendants, their officers, agents, and employees from engaging in any of the predicate acts forming the basis of the pattern or practice of conduct and violations of Title VI and the Safe Streets Act;
f. Order Defendants, their officers, agents, and employees to adopt and implement policies, training, accountability systems, and practices to remedy the constitutional and statutory violations described herein, and to prevent Defendants, their officers, agents, and employees from depriving persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States; and
g. Order such other appropriate relief as the interests of justice may require.
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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 1 Filed 01/12/17 Page 18 of 18

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Civil Rights Division

'

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Civil Rights Division

Chief, Special Litigation Section Civil Rights Division

Deputy Chief, Special Litigation Section Civil Rights Division
PUNEET CHEEMA MICHAEL J. SONGER MAUREEN JOHNSTON SETH WAYNE Trial Attorneys, Special Litigation Section Civil Rights Division 950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20530 (202) 514-2000

 
 Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 1 of 3
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
 DISTRICT OF MARYLAND 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff;
v.
POLICE DEPARTMENT OF BALTIMORE CITY, et. al.,

Civil Action No. ___

Defendants.

JOINT MOTION FOR ENTRY OF CONSENT DECREE Plaintiff, the United States of America and Defendants, the Baltimore City Police Department and the City of Baltimore, (collectively “the Parties”), have agreed upon and jointly move the Court to approve and enter the attached Consent Decree as an Order of this Court. The Consent Decree would resolve litigation initiated by the United States with the concurrent filing of a Complaint pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141, Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131–12134. The Parties further move that the Court solicit written submissions about the proposed Consent Decree, and hold a public hearing on the finalized proposed Consent Decree.

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 2 of 3
Respectfully Submitted,
VANITA GUPTA Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Civil Rights Division
STEVEN H. ROSENBAUM Chief Special Litigation Section
s/ Seth Wayne TIMOTHY D. MYGATT Deputy Chief MICHAEL J. SONGER PUNEET CHEEMA MAUREEN JOHNSTON SETH WAYNE Attorneys United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20530
Attorneys for the United States
/s/David E. Ralph DAVID E. RALPH (23500) Acting City Solicitor
SUZANNE SANGREE (26130) Chief Solicitor BALTIMORE CITY DEPARTMENT OF LAW 100 North Holliday Street Baltimore, Maryland 21202 Telephone: 410-396-3659 Attorneys for Defendants Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, and the Police Department of Baltimore City

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 3 of 3
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I certify that the foregoing Joint Motion for Entry of Consent Decree was served through the electronic filing service on January 12, 2017, to give notice to all registered parties.
s/ Seth Wayne 
 SETH WAYNE 
 Attorney for the United States


 
 Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-1 Filed 01/12/17 Page 1 of 12
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
 DISTRICT OF MARYLAND 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v.
POLICE DEPARTMENT OF BALTIMORE CITY, et. al.,

Civil Action No. ___

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF LAW IN SUPPORT OF JOINT MOTION FOR ENTRY OF CONSENT DECREE
Plaintiff, the United States of America (“United States”), and Defendants, the Police Department of Baltimore City (“BPD”) and the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore (the “City”), (collectively “the Parties”), have agreed upon and jointly move the Court to approve and enter the attached Consent Decree as an Order of this Court. The Consent Decree would resolve litigation initiated by the United States with the concurrent filing of a Complaint pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141, Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d (“Title VI”), and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d (“Safe Streets Act”). The Parties seek entry of this Decree to ensure that the agreed-upon comprehensive measures to reform BPD are implemented fully and faithfully. As set forth in Paragraphs 504-510 of the attached Decree, the Parties request that the Court retain jurisdiction over the Decree for the purpose of enforcing its terms

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until Defendants have achieved Full and Effective Compliance as defined by the Agreement and maintained that compliance in accordance with Paragraph 504.
In its Complaint, the United States alleges that Defendants violate the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution; Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131–12134 (“Title II”); Title VI; and the Safe Streets Act. The Defendants make no admission of any current or past pattern or practice or individual instance of unlawful conduct as alleged in the United States’ complaint, but enter into this Consent Decree with the goal of addressing the policies, procedures, training, and oversight that the United States alleges contribute to a pattern or practice of constitutional violations. The Parties additionally believe that it is in the public interest to fully and finally resolve this matter on mutually agreeable terms without resort to protracted litigation. The Parties hereby agree and stipulate to the Court’s entry of all aspects of this Consent Decree in resolution of the United States’ complaint against the City.
I. Background The United States Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division opened a civil patternor-practice investigation of BPD in May 2015. Following the investigation, the United States issued a report detailing its investigative findings on August 10, 2016 (“Findings Report”). 1 The United States found that it has reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives persons of rights protected by the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and by federal statutory law. Also on August 10, 2016, the United States and the City entered into an Agreement in Principle that outlined the reforms necessary to address the United States’ findings. Following the announcement of the
1 A copy of the Findings Report is available at https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/baltimore-policedepartment-findings-report.
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investigative findings and the Agreement in Principle, the Parties engaged in extensive negotiations to address and resolve the United States’ findings. Additionally, the Parties solicited significant input from residents, BPD employees, stakeholders, advocacy groups, and others to inform the negotiation process. Considering this input, the negotiations have resulted in the attached Consent Decree, an agreement that mandates reforms of BPD to remedy the constitutional and federal statutory violations alleged in the Complaint. The Parties intend through this settlement to ensure that police services are delivered to the people of Baltimore in a manner that complies with the Constitution and laws of the United States, promotes public and officer safety, and improves public confidence in law enforcement.
II. Discussion Entry of the Consent Decree is appropriate because the Agreement is fundamentally fair, adequate, and reasonable, is not the product of collusion, and is in the mutual interest of the Parties and the public. “In considering whether to enter a proposed consent decree, a district court should be guided by the general principle that settlements are encouraged.” United States v. North Carolina, 180 F.3d 574, 581 (4th Cir. 1999). Additionally, “where a government agency charged with protecting the public interest has pulled the laboring oar in constructing the proposed settlement, a reviewing court may appropriately accord substantial weight to the agency’s expertise and public interest responsibility.” American Canoe Ass’n v. United States EPA, 54 F.Supp. 2d 621, 625 (E.D.V.A. 1999), quoting Bragg v. Robertson, 54 F.Supp. 2d 653 (S.D.W. Va. 1999) (internal quotation marks omitted.). See also Maryland v. GenOn Ash Mgmt., LLC, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 81623 at *4 (D. Md. June 10, 2013) (“[W]hen a settlement has been negotiated by a specially equipped agency, the presumption in favor of settlement is particularly strong.”).
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In determining whether to accept the terms of a proposed consent decree, a court must “satisfy itself that the agreement is fair, adequate, and reasonable and is not illegal, the product of a collusion, or against the public interest.” North Carolina, 180 F.3d at 581, quoting United States v. Colorado, 937 F.2d 505, 509 (10th Cir. 1991). The assessment does not require the court to conduct “a trial or a rehearsal of the trial,” and the court need not “reach any dispositive conclusions” about “admittedly unsettled legal issues” in the case. Flinn v. FMC Corp., 528 F.2d 1169, 1172-73 (4th Cir. 1975) (quotation marks and citations omitted). This assessment considers “the extent of discovery that has taken place, the stage of the proceedings, the want of collusion in the settlement and the experience of plaintiffs’ counsel who negotiated the settlement.” Carson v. American Brands, Inc., 606 F.2d 420, 430 (4th Cir. 1979) (en banc) (Winter, Circuit Judge, dissenting), adopted by Carson v. American Brands, Inc., 654 F.2d 300, 301 (4th Cir. 1981) (en banc) (per curiam).
Consistent with these requirements, the attached Consent Decree is fair, adequate and reasonable; is not illegal; was not produced by collusion; and is in the public interest. Moreover, the Consent Decree is the product of an investigation conducted by a federal agency with responsibility to the public interest and expertise in constitutional and effective law enforcement. The Consent Decree offers the best path forward for the reform of BPD and promotion of lawful and effective policing in Baltimore.
A. The Consent Decree is Fair, Adequate and Reasonable The Consent Decree is fair, adequate, and reasonable. The Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice (“Special Litigation”) is tasked with enforcement of Section 14141, forbidding law enforcement officers from engaging in a pattern or practice “that deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or
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protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” 42 U.S.C. § 14141. In order to do so, Special Litigation, like other federal oversight agencies, “employ[s] individuals specially trained and familiar with the relevant … disciplines and governing law.” United States v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129298 at *11 (S.D.W. Va. 2015), quoting United States v. Patriot Coal Corp, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37304 at *5 (S.D.W. Va. 2009). The negotiation team for the United States included experienced Special Litigation attorneys, who collectively have decades of experience in federal oversight of law enforcement agencies. Additionally, throughout the investigation and negotiation process, the United States consulted with subject matter experts to assess the extent of concerns and ensure that each remedial measure in the Consent Decree is tailored to address these concerns and may be reasonably implemented by the Defendants. The negotiation team for Defendants also included highly experienced attorneys and experts on law enforcement in Baltimore. The extensive and detailed reforms in the Consent Decree are a product of the expertise of the Parties and their consultants.
The Consent Decree is based on findings developed by the United States during a thorough review of BPD’s policies, practices, and conduct. With the full cooperation of BPD and the City, the United States conducted a comprehensive investigation into BPD’s policing practices over the course of fifteen months. During the investigation, the United States reviewed an extensive set of documents, including all relevant policies and training materials used by BPD since 2010, thousands of case files of force incidents, incident reports describing stops, searches, and arrests, investigative files for sexual assaults, and analyzed data on BPD enforcement activities.. The United States also met with hundreds of officers, community members, city leaders, and other stakeholders. Following the investigation, the United States issued a 163-page report concluding that it had reasonable cause to believe that BPD and its officers engaged in a
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pattern or practice of violating the Constitution and laws of the United States. The thoroughness of the United States’ investigation ensures that the proposed settlement is well-founded. Thus, although this settlement comes early in the litigation process, it is the culmination of an extensive investigatory process that created a finding supporting the fairness, reasonableness, and adequacy of the Decree and informed its specific provisions.
The Consent Decree is also fair, reasonable, and adequate as it is the product of significant community input. During its investigation, the United States convened meetings at churches and with religious leaders; meetings with advocacy and community support organizations; attended a variety of neighborhood gatherings; canvassed neighborhoods on foot; and met individually with persons who contacted the United States to share information. The United States also relied on information gained from police officers and police union representatives. After release of the investigative findings and announcement of the Agreement in Principle, the Parties solicited community input and convened and attended community meetings and town halls to hear directly from members of the Baltimore community about their ideas and expectations for the Consent Decree. During the month-long community input period, the Parties received dozens of written submissions from individuals and organizations, and heard from hundreds of stakeholders and other persons with interest in the outcome of this process. The Parties have continued to accept community submissions and attend meetings after the expiration of the input period. The Baltimore community’s diverse views, opinions, and suggestions were critical to the Parties’ understanding of the need for reform and played a significant role in shaping the final product. Many of the Consent Decree’s specific provisions were created, inspired, or influenced by community submissions.
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In order to ensure that the Consent Decree’s fairness, adequacy, and reasonableness persist over time, it provides for independent oversight in the form of a Monitor, selected by the Parties and approved by the Court, to assess the City and BPD’s efforts at implementing the Decree and provide technical assistance to the BPD to help ensure that its efforts are carried out efficiently and successfully. The Monitor will save the time and resources of both the Parties and the Court, provide the public with an objective and independent assessment of the status of the Consent Decree’s implementation, and determine whether this implementation is achieving the underlying objective of constitutional policing in Baltimore.
B. The Consent Decree Is Not the Product of Collusion Having received extensive community input, the Parties negotiated in good faith in order to reach agreement on numerous reforms to BPD’s existing policies, practices, and procedures, as well as its training, oversight, and accountability structures, that sufficiently address the concerns of the United States set forth in its investigative findings and Complaint. The process by which the Parties reached agreement on the Consent Decree’s provisions demonstrates that it is not the product of collusion. Negotiations over the Consent Decree began shortly after the United States issued its Findings Report on August 10, 2016, and included over four months of intensive in-person meetings, telephone conferences, and e-mail exchanges. Throughout the negotiations the Parties were represented by experienced counsel and representatives who are intimately familiar with BPD’s policing practices, the City’s structure and resources, and the Justice Department’s findings. This adversarial posture during negotiations, as well as the degree to which the discussions were informed by the expertise of the Parties, their consultants, and community
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members, provide further assurance that the Consent Decree meets the legal requirements of a settlement.
C. The Consent Decree Is in the Public Interest The Consent Decree is consistent with the objectives of Section 14141 and federal statutory law and is in the public interest. As stated above, Section 14141 prohibits law enforcement officers from engaging in a pattern or practice “that deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” 42 U.S.C. § 14141(a). Where the United States has reasonable cause to believe that a pattern or practice of unlawful conduct is occurring, Congress has authorized the United States to initiate a civil action to obtain appropriate equitable and declaratory relief sufficient to “eliminate the pattern or practice.” 42 U.S.C. § 14141(b); see also H.R. REP. NO. 102-242, pt. 1, at 137 (1991). Title VI, together with relevant implementing regulations, prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin by agencies receiving federal funds or federal financial assistance. 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. The Safe Streets Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex in connection with certain federally-funded programs. 42 U.S.C. § 3789d(c)(1). The ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in all services, programs, and activities provided by State and local government entities. Together, these constitutional and statutory rules provide a framework that protects the public from detrimental law enforcement practices. The Consent Decree’s substantive conditions are designed to address the unlawful conduct that the United States has alleged in violation of these rules, as well as its underlying causes. The proposed Consent Decree before the Court is consistent with the public interest because it requires BPD to reform its practices and deliver police services in a manner that is
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fair, effective, and consistent with legal requirements. Through the proposed Consent Decree, Defendants commit to develop, implement and/or refine their policies, training, and practices in response to the deficiencies identified in the United States’ investigative findings.
The Consent Decree is an appropriate resolution of the issues raised by DOJ’s findings, because voluntary compliance with a negotiated agreement entered as a consent decree is more likely to expediently accomplish agreed-upon goals than forced compliance with orders imposed at the end of contested, protracted, and costly litigation. Indeed, the United States’ investigation and the Defendants’ initiative have already set in motion a process of reform within BPD. Throughout the investigation and subsequent negotiations, the City and BPD leadership have taken steps to implement reforms in anticipation of those required by this proposed Consent Decree, and expressed a commitment to improve BPD’s performance and develop community trust in law enforcement. The Consent Decree will assist the Defendants in achieving those goals.
The Consent Decree is in the interest of the Parties and the public as it establishes the basis for undertaking reform efforts within BPD for the express purpose of better promoting effective community engagement and oversight, effective policy guidance, improved training, closer supervision, and improved technology and resources. The Consent Decree will promote better support for officers, as well as accountability systems that will make investigations of alleged misconduct and discipline more fair, constructive, and transparent. Perhaps most importantly, the Consent Decree seeks to substantively improve the relationships among BPD and the diverse communities it serves. Settling this matter in this way thus allows the Parties to work together to implement reforms within BPD without the unnecessary delay or expense of complex litigation. The Consent Decree serves the public interest by allowing the Parties to
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expeditiously work to implement and continue reforms that will lead to a constitutional, lawful, and effective police department for the City of Baltimore.
III. The Parties Request that the Court Hold a Public Hearing Before Acting on the Decree
As discussed above, in drafting the proposed Consent Decree, the Parties solicited and received extensive community input. The Parties have continued to conduct meetings with stakeholders for the purpose of obtaining their input throughout the negotiation process. Having received submissions representing Baltimore’s diverse communities and including a diverse array of viewpoints has strengthened the negotiation process and contributed to ensuring the Consent Decree is fair, reasonable, and adequate. Nonetheless, given the important public interests involved in this matter, the Parties believe that allowing community stakeholders to provide their views regarding the finalized proposed Consent Decree will be of assistance to the Court. Accordingly, the Parties request that the Court provide an opportunity for members of the public and stakeholders throughout Baltimore to provide written submissions to the Court and the Parties about the proposed Consent Decree, and then hold a hearing on the finalized proposed Consent Decree. The Parties make this request recognizing that such a hearing is not required, as it would be if this were a settlement resolving a class action. Compare Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e)(2) (“If the proposal would bind class members, the court may approve it only after a hearing and on finding that it is fear, reasonable, and adequate.”), with Gen. Tel. Co. of the Northwest, Inc. v. EEOC, 446 U.S. 318, 323 (1980) (holding Rule 23 not applicable to enforcement actions brought by the EEOC in its own name and pursuant to its authority to prevent unlawful employment practices).
Should the Court agree to written submissions and a hearing, the Parties request the opportunity to provide their views to the Court on the format of such a hearing at the Court’s
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earliest convenience. The Parties will meet and confer in an effort to agree upon and jointly
submit to the Court a proposed format for such a hearing.
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the Parties respectfully move this Court to enter the Consent
Decree in its entirety as an Order of the Court.
Respectfully Submitted,
VANITA GUPTA 
 Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General 
 Civil Rights Division 

STEVEN H. ROSENBAUM 
 Chief 
 Special Litigation Section 

s/ Seth Wayne 
 TIMOTHY D. MYGATT
 Deputy Chief 
 MICHAEL J. SONGER
 PUNEET CHEEMA 
 MAUREEN JOHNSTON 
 SETH WAYNE 
 Attorneys
 United States Department of Justice 
 Civil Rights Division 
 Special Litigation Section 
 950 Pennsylvania Ave NW 
 Washington, DC 20530 

/s/David E. Ralph
 DAVID E. RALPH (23500) 
 Acting City Solicitor

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-1 Filed 01/12/17 Page 12 of 12 SUZANNE SANGREE (26130) Chief Solicitor BALTIMORE CITY DEPARTMENT OF LAW 100 North Holliday Street Baltimore, Maryland 21202 Telephone: 410-396-3659 Attorneys for Defendants Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, and the Police Department of Baltimore City
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 Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 1 of 227
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
 DISTRICT OF MARYLAND 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff;
v.
POLICE DEPARTMENT OF BALTIMORE CITY, et. al.,

Civil Action No. ___

Defendants.

CONSENT DECREE 


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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1 
 A. Background ..................................................................................................... 2 

II. COMMUNITY OVERSIGHT TASK FORCE .......................................................... 4 
 III. COMMUNITY POLICING AND ENGAGEMENT ................................................. 6 

A. Community Policing ....................................................................................... 6 
 B. Community Engagement ................................................................................ 7 
 C. Community Engagement Assessments ........................................................... 9 
 IV. STOPS, SEARCHES, ARRESTS, AND VOLUNTARY 
 POLICE-COMMUNITY INTERACTIONS .............................................................. 11 
 A. Stops, Searches, Arrests, and Voluntary Police-Community 

Interactions Principles..................................................................................... 11 
 B. Voluntary Contacts Between BPD Officers and the Public............................ 12 
 C. Involuntary Investigatory Stops and Detentions (Non-Vehicle Stops)........... 13 
 D. Vehicle Stops .................................................................................................. 17 
 E. Searches .......................................................................................................... 19 
 F. Arrests ............................................................................................................. 22 
 G. Stops, Searches, and Arrests Training ............................................................ 24 
 H. Supervisory Review of Stops, Searches, and Arrests ..................................... 25 
 I. Stop, Search, and Arrest Data Collection and Review ................................... 28 
 V. IMPARTIAL POLICING ........................................................................................... 30 
 VI. RESPONDING TO AND INTERACTING WITH PEOPLE
 WITH BEHAVIORAL HEALTH DISABILITIES OR IN CRISIS .......................... 34 
 A. BPD Crisis Intervention.................................................................................. 35 
 B. Behavioral Health Disability or Crisis Data Collection, 

Analysis, and Reporting.................................................................................. 42 
 VII. USE OF FORCE ......................................................................................................... 42 

A. Use of Force Principles................................................................................... 42 
 B. Policies on Officers’ Use of Force.................................................................. 43 
 C. Training........................................................................................................... 54 

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D. Reporting, Investigating and Reviewing Force .............................................. 56 
 E. Data Collection, Analysis, and Reporting....................................................... 72 
 VIII. INTERACTIONS WITH YOUTH ............................................................................. 74 
 IX. TRANSPORTATION OF PERSONS IN CUSTODY ............................................... 76 
 A. Transportation Equipment .............................................................................. 76 
 B. Transportation Procedures .............................................................................. 77 
 C. Monitoring of Transportation Practices .......................................................... 79 
 D. Policies and Training ...................................................................................... 81 
 X. FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTED ACTIVITIES................................................ 81 
 A. Right to Criticize Law Enforcement or Engage in Expressive 

Activity, as Protected by the First Amendment .............................................. 82 
 B. Right to Engage in Lawful Public Protest or Assembly, 
 as Protected by the First Amendment ......................................................................... 83 
 C. Right to Observe and Record, as Protected by the First Amendment ............ 84 
 D. Policy and Training for First Amendment Protected Activity........................ 86 
 E. Supervision of First Amendment Related Arrests and Seizures ..................... 86 
 F. Ongoing Assessment and Improvement ......................................................... 87 
 XI. HANDLING OF REPORTS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT............................................. 87 
 A. Policy and Training......................................................................................... 87 
 B. Sexual Assault Investigations, Supervision, and Internal Oversight .............. 89 
 C. Community Collaboration and External Oversight ........................................ 93 
 XII. TECHNOLOGY ......................................................................................................... 93 
 A. Development and Implementation of Updated Technology ........................... 93 
 XIII. SUPERVISION........................................................................................................... 97 
 A. Policies Generally ........................................................................................... 97 
 B. Training Generally .......................................................................................... 100 
 C. Field Training Officer Program ...................................................................... 104 
 D. Supervisory Character, Duties and Training................................................... 104 
 E. Early Intervention System............................................................................... 107 
 F. Ongoing Assessment and Improvement ......................................................... 112

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XIV. MISCONDUCT INVESTIGATIONS AND DISCIPLINE........................................ 112 
 A. BPD’s Office of Professional Responsibility ................................................. 112 
 B. Complaint Intake, Classification, and Communication with Complainants... 113 
 C. OPR Administrative Misconduct Investigations ............................................ 120 
 D. Criminal Misconduct Investigations ............................................................... 131 
 E. Referral of Criminal and Administrative Misconduct 
 Investigations to Outside Entities ................................................................... 133 
 F. Disciplinary Charges....................................................................................... 134 
 G. Disciplinary Hearings ..................................................................................... 136 
 H. Imposition of Discipline ................................................................................. 137 
 I. Community-Centered Mediation of Misconduct Complaints......................... 137 
 J. Tracking Misconduct Investigations............................................................... 139 
 K. Transparency Measures .................................................................................. 141 
 L. Additional Measures to Encourage Proper Oversight .................................... 145 
 M. Training........................................................................................................... 147 

XV. COORDINATION WITH BALTIMORE CITY SCHOOL POLICE FORCE .......... 150 
 XVI. RECRUITMENT, HIRING AND RETENTION ....................................................... 151 
 XVII. STAFFING, PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS, AND PROMOTIONS................ 155 
 XVIII. OFFICER ASSISTANCE AND SUPPORT............................................................... 157 
 XIX. AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION AND ENFORCEMENT ............................... 158 

A. Selection and Role of the Independent Monitor ............................................. 158 
 B. Term of the Monitor........................................................................................ 161 
 C. Compliance Reviews ...................................................................................... 164 
 D. Outcome Assessments .................................................................................... 165 
 E. Monitoring Plan .............................................................................................. 172 
 F. Monitor Recommendations and Technical Assistance ................................... 175 
 G. Comprehensive Re-Assessment...................................................................... 176 
 H. Monitor Reports .............................................................................................. 177 
 I. Communication Between the Monitor, the Parties, the Court, 

and the Public.................................................................................................. 178 
 J. Public Statements, Testimony, Records, and Conflicts of Interest................. 179 

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 5 of 227 K. Consent Decree Implementation Unit............................................................. 181 
 L. Access and Confidentiality ............................................................................. 181 
 M. Court Jurisdiction, Modification of the Agreement, and Enforcement .......... 184 
 N. Termination of the Agreement........................................................................ 188 
 XVIII. DEFINITIONS............................................................................................................ 191 

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I. INTRODUCTION 1. The United States, the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore (“City”) and the
Police Department of Baltimore City (“BPD” or “the Department”), collectively the “Parties,” are committed to effective, constitutional law enforcement. The purpose of this Agreement is to ensure that the City and BPD protect individuals’ statutory and constitutional rights, treat individuals with dignity and respect, and promote public safety in a manner that is fiscally responsible and responsive to community priorities.
2. The Parties recognize that these outcomes require partnership between BPD and the communities it serves, one in which the Department is transparent about its processes and provides community members with a voice in its functions. This Agreement is designed to enhance BPD’s relationship with its community through increased transparency and public input, improve oversight and accountability systems to ensure that the Department will collect and analyze data on officer activities, impose discipline for misconduct fairly and efficiently, and enhance support for officers through robust employee wellness programs, law enforcement policies, training, and supervision.
3. The City and BPD have already begun the critical work of reform, and this Agreement is designed to build on the work that has already been done. BPD has already made meaningful changes to numerous policies; provided additional training; supplied officers with new equipment, including beginning implementation of body-worn cameras; committed additional resources to its community outreach efforts, particularly with Youth; and invested in additional technology and infrastructure. While the Parties recognize this progress, they also recognize that much work remains, including in those areas where reform has already begun. The Parties recognize that police officers work in difficult conditions, risking their well-being
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and physical safety, including the ultimate sacrifice of their lives, for the public good. The City and BPD commit to ensure that its officers have the resources to perform their duties successfully and within constitutional boundaries to promote officer and public safety.
A. Background 4. On August 10, 2016, the United States issued a report detailing the findings of its investigation pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 14141 (“Report”). The Report documented areas in which the United States found reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution and federal law, including: (1) making unconstitutional Stops, Searches, and Arrests; (2) using enforcement strategies that produce severe and unjustified disparities in the rates of Stops, Searches and Arrests of African Americans; (3) using excessive force; and (4) retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally-protected expression. The Report additionally outlined areas in which the United States had serious concerns about the lawfulness of BPD’s police practices. 5. On that same date, the Parties entered into an Agreement in Principle (“AIP”) that provided the contours for this Agreement. While the City and BPD did not and do not admit or agree with the findings in the United States’ Report, in the AIP, the City and BPD recognized that the United States’ findings raised issues of importance to the City, BPD, and the community that should be addressed, and they committed to address each of the concerns raised in the United States’ Report. The AIP described reforms already begun by the City and BPD. To the extent the AIP described future commitments and reforms, this Agreement now embodies and describes in detail the City’s and BPD’s agreement to address the findings of the Report and supersedes the AIP. It is the specific intent of the Parties that this Agreement shall control the obligations of the Parties with respect to the Findings Report.
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6. The Parties recognize that constitutional and effective policing are interdependent, and rely on a strong partnership between the police department and the communities that it serves. To ensure that the reforms embodied in this Agreement are responsive to community concerns, the Parties consulted extensively with community leaders, police officers, advocates, residents, and other concerned individuals who offered meaningful recommendations and insights on reform. This Agreement reflects the broad input received by the Parties from the diverse communities that make up the City of Baltimore. The Parties are committed to ongoing engagement with community stakeholders to foster continued participation and long-term sustainability of the reforms created by this Agreement.
7. The United States filed a Complaint based on the results of its investigation, as outlined in its Report, alleging that the BPD has engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violated the Constitution and federal laws by making unconstitutional Stops, searches, and Arrests, in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments; using enforcement strategies that disproportionately impact African Americans, in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d (“Title VI”), the Title VI implementing regulations, 28 C.F.R. §§ 42.101-112, and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d (“Safe Streets Act”); using excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131–12134 (“ADA”); and retaliating against individuals engaging in constitutionally-protected expression, in violation of the First Amendment. The City and BPD deny the allegations in the Complaint and the Report.
8. The City and BPD are, by and through their officials, officers, employees, agents, assigns, or successors, enjoined from engaging in the patterns or practices of conduct by law enforcement officers of the BPD that were the basis of the August 10, 2016 Findings Report.
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9. The parties have entered this Agreement to avoid the risks, expense, and burdens of litigation and to resolve voluntarily the claims in the United States’ Complaint. II. COMMUNITY OVERSIGHT TASK FORCE
10. The Parties recognize that effective civilian and community oversight of BPD is essential to rebuilding trust between BPD and the communities it serves and ensuring that BPD’s enforcement activities reflect community values and are consistent with the Constitution and federal, state, and local laws. Civilian and community oversight of BPD raises complex issues of state and local law, and it must reflect input from a broad and diverse group of communities and stakeholders throughout the City of Baltimore.
11. Recognizing that these issues require substantial consideration and public input, the City will establish, within 90 days of the Effective Date of the Agreement, a Community Oversight Task Force (“COTF”) to recommend reforms to the current system of civilian oversight. COTF will consist of five members, representative of diverse communities of Baltimore, appointed by the Mayor. COTF will review the functions of the Civilian Review Board (“CRB”), and whether there are impediments to BPD civilian complaint processes that inhibit the ability of the Baltimore community to seek accountability for police misconduct. The City will provide sufficient resources for COTF to fulfill its obligations under the Agreement.
12. The COTF will review how the civilian oversight system currently functions, how it should function, and what are the impediments to change, and will then make recommendations based on that information. The assessment will consider civilian oversight models and promising practices in place in other cities throughout the nation.
13. The assessment will make recommendations to improve civilian and community oversight of BPD, which will include the following areas:
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a. Whether changes should be made to the CRB to improve its efficacy, including, but not limited to, changes to complaint intake, investigations, resources, coordination with and independence from BPD, and authority to recommend discipline; the assessment should specify whether any recommended changes require state legislative action;
b. Whether there are impediments to BPD’s civilian complaint processes that inhibit the ability of the Baltimore community to obtain accountability for misconduct;
c. Whether the community has sufficient access to information about CRB’s organization, complaint investigation activities, and discipline recommendation processes to promote public confidence in the CRB and ensure that it serves its function to enable BPD to be responsive to community values, and whether any recommended access would require state legislative action;
d. Whether existing civilian-police communication and accountability structures can be improved, or whether additional or different civilian or community oversight entities are necessary to: i. provide effective guidance on community perspectives on BPD policies, procedures, and practices; ii. oversee BPD’s accountability systems and disseminate information to the public about BPD’s activities in readily accessible format; and iii. foster a stronger relationship between BPD and the communities it serves;
e. Whether changes should be made to BPD’s community policing strategies to increase cooperation between BPD and the communities it serves.
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14. The City will request that COTF present a public report with its recommendations within 11 months of the Effective Date. The City will post any COTF report on its website and invite public comment for 30 days. COTF will review and make any revisions of the report, based on the public comments. The final report will be posted on the City’s website for the duration of this Agreement. III. COMMUNITY POLICING AND ENGAGEMENT
A. Community Policing 15. BPD agrees to ensure its mission statement reflects its commitment to community-oriented policing and agrees to integrate community and problem-oriented policing principles into its management, policies and procedures, recruitment, training, personnel evaluations, resource deployment, tactics, and accountability systems. 16. On an annual basis, BPD will provide eight hours of cumulative, structured inservice training on community policing and problem-oriented policing methods and skills for all officers, including supervisors, managers and executives, that shall include:
a. Methods and strategies to improve public safety and crime prevention through community engagement, including how to establish formal partnerships with community organizations, how to work with communities to set public safety and crime prevention priorities, and how to create opportunities for positive interactions with, among others, Youth, LGBT, homeless, and mental health organizations and communities;
b. Scenario-based training that promotes the development and strengthening of partnerships between the police and community;
c. Leadership, ethics, and interpersonal skills;
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d. Problem-oriented policing tactics; e. Principles of procedural justice and its goals; f. Conflict resolution, including verbal de-escalation of conflict; g. Cultural awareness and sensitivity training that addresses the history and culture
of Baltimore’s communities, including the relationship with law enforcement; and h. Methods, strategies, and techniques to reduce misunderstanding, conflict, and
complaints due to perceived bias or discrimination. 17. BPD will encourage patrol officers to be familiar with the geographic areas they serve, including their issues, problems, and community leaders; engage in problem identification and solving activities with the community members around the community’s priorities; and work proactively to address quality-of-life issues in a manner that minimizes stops, Citations, searches, arrests, and use of force consistent with the requirements of this Agreement. 18. BPD will ensure that data about community policing efforts and outcomes are evaluated by command staff. B. Community Engagement 19. The City and BPD will, within their respective spheres, develop and implement community-engagement plans for creating opportunities for routine and frequent positive interactions between officers and community members, including those critical of BPD. The community engagement plans will ensure that:
a. BPD provides for all sworn representatives of BPD who interact with the public in the regular course of their activities to participate in neighborhood and community meetings and other community events;
b. BPD identifies the number and types of meetings to be attended;
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c. BPD and the City establish or provide for participation in a variety of long-term programs that promote and foster positive police-youth interactions;
d. BPD provides for the continuation of a BPD Explorer Program for Youth in Baltimore to learn police-related skills and assist with community events and outreach;
e. BPD and the City place emphasis on creating opportunities for positive interactions with Youth, communities of color and residents of low-income and public housing;
f. BPD and the City provide for outreach in all neighborhoods, including neighborhoods where no neighborhood association has been established to provide consultation and input to BPD;
g. BPD and the City collaborate, where feasible, with neighborhood mediations in Baltimore that promote lasting resolutions of appropriately selected disputes among community members to reduce police involvement in these disputes; and
h. BPD develops micro-community policing or similar plans to reflect particular community enforcement priorities.
20. BPD will ensure that it solicits input from its advisory boards and councils representing particular communities in Baltimore, such as the Youth Advisory Board and the LGBT Advisory Council, on policies, practices, training, engagement programs, and enforcement strategies that affect the communities those advisory groups represent.
21. To inform the public about BPD’s implementation of the Consent Agreement, BPD shall develop a community outreach and public information program about the Agreement in each District. The program shall include at least two meetings per year in each District that is
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open to the public. During the meetings, BPD will inform the public about the requirements of this Agreement, update the public on BPD’s progress meeting these requirements, and address areas of community concern. At least one week before such meetings, BPD will widely publicize the meetings. The meetings shall, with appropriate safeguards to protect sensitive information, include summaries of all audits and reports completed pursuant to this Agreement and any policy changes made and other significant action taken as a result of this Agreement. The meetings shall also include public education on an individual’s rights and responsibilities during a police encounter. These meetings may be held together with the Monitor, partially fulfilling also the Monitor’s public outreach obligations.
C. Community Engagement Assessments 22. On at least an annual basis, BPD will prepare a publicly available report of its community policing efforts, including a breakdown by district. As part of this report, BPD will identify deficiencies and opportunities for improvement in initiatives for community engagement and community policing. The report will include specific problems addressed and steps taken by BPD and the community toward their resolution. The report will describe the ways BPD has sought input from the community related to the Agreement’s implementation. The report will identify steps BPD has taken to measure officer outreach to community members. 23. On an annual basis, the Monitor will conduct a reliable, comprehensive, and representative survey, consistent with the criteria set out directly below, of the Baltimore community’s experience with and perceptions of BPD and public safety. The survey will include police officers, regarding their experiences with and perceptions of BPD and public safety. Analysis of the results of this survey may be used to demonstrate sustained continuing improvement as this Agreement encourages. To assist the Monitor in conducting the annual
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surveys, the Monitor will retain an individual or entity, to be approved by the City and DOJ that will:
a. Develop measurements of public satisfaction with policing, attitudes among police personnel, and the quality of police-citizen encounters;
b. Identify representative samples of City residents, police personnel, and custodial arrestees so that the survey is designed to capture a representative sample of Baltimore residents including members of each Demographic Category;
c. Review and consider prior law enforcement surveys in Baltimore and other cities; d. Observe community meetings and engage in informal conversations with
Baltimore residents, BPD officers and command staff, and DOJ representatives to identify current and recent issues or concerns specific to Baltimore; e. Conduct the surveys in English and Spanish, as necessary, to ensure representation of the entire Baltimore community; and f. Design, conduct, and analyze annual surveys of a representative sample of Baltimore residents, law enforcement personnel, and detained arrestees. 24. The reports of the surveys will be provided to the Court and be publicly distributed and available on the Monitor’s website. 25. BPD will analyze the results of the survey and will use this analysis to modify and improve BPD policies, training, and practices as needed. 26. BPD and the City will cooperate with the design and conduct of the surveys by, for example, providing previous survey instruments and data, and in the case of BPD, helping to organize focus groups of officers.
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IV. STOPS, SEARCHES, ARRESTS, AND VOLUNTARY POLICE-COMMUNITY INTERACTIONS 27. The Parties recognize that constitutional policing is enhanced by proactive,
community-focused policing techniques. These techniques include police officers making regular voluntary social contacts with community members to build relationships, providing an opportunity for the community to ask questions of the police, and allowing police to gather information relevant to criminal investigations. BPD will provide guidance and training to officers to ensure that these social interactions are friendly, professional, and productive.
28. In addition to these voluntary contacts, BPD will ensure that it conducts all Investigatory Stops, Searches, and Arrests in accordance with the rights secured or protected by the Constitution, and state and federal law. BPD will adopt and maintain community policing principles that ensure its officers conduct investigatory Stops, Searches, and Arrests fairly and respectfully as part of an effective overall crime prevention strategy that is consistent with community priorities for enforcement. To achieve these outcomes, BPD will implement the requirements set out below.
A. Stops, Searches, Arrests, and Voluntary Police – Community Interactions Principles
29. BPD has recently implemented revised policies regarding Stops, Searches, Arrests, and Voluntary Police-Community Interactions.
30. To the extent BPD’s existing policies (collectively the “Stops, Searches, Arrests, and Voluntary Police-Community Interactions Policies”) meet the requirements of this Agreement, further revisions are not required. Notwithstanding its revised policies, if necessary, BPD will build on its policies and continue to improve them, as well as its practices, training,
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and review, to ensure that officers respect the civil rights and uphold the value and dignity of all individuals as required by this Agreement.
B. Voluntary Contacts Between BPD Officers and the Public 31. BPD will recognize two distinct classes of voluntary interactions: Voluntary Contacts, which are non-investigative conversations, and Field Interviews, in which the officer questions a person with an investigatory purpose.
Voluntary Contacts 32. The Parties recognize that Voluntary Contacts between police officers and the public are an important component of effective community policing. BPD will encourage officers to speak with members of the public in a friendly, professional manner to enhance communication, trust, and understanding. These Voluntary Contacts will underscore BPD’s commitment to community-oriented policing and will also help officers build relationships with community members that may later assist criminal investigations. 33. BPD supervisors will encourage officers to regularly communicate with members of the public, and the Department will develop training as set forth in the Training Matrix (Appendix A), to teach officers the best methods for such communications. Specifically, within one year of the Effective Date of this Agreement, BPD will provide training to all BPD officers that explains the value of proactive, community-oriented policing. The training will also teach officers skills and techniques that can be used to effectively engage in Voluntary Contacts aimed at building rapport with Baltimore residents.
Field Interviews 34. In addition to Voluntary Contacts, BPD officers may have voluntary contacts with community members to gather information about criminal activity (“Field Interviews”). These
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are contacts that do not rise to the level of a Stop or Arrest, but are more than mere Voluntary Contacts. (In some cases, Voluntary Contacts may evolve into a Field Interview, in which case the requirements of this subsection shall control). During a Field Interview, the community member does not have to respond to questions and is free to leave. Officers conducting a Field Interview shall do the following:
a. Introduce themselves by name and rank as soon as reasonable and practicable; b. Refrain from using words or actions that would tend to communicate that the
person(s) are not free to leave or must answer questions; and c. Reply in the affirmative if asked by the subject of the Field Interview whether
they are free to leave or may decline to answer questions. 35. During Field Interviews, officers who ask individuals to provide a physical form of identification, such as a driver’s license, must inform the individuals that providing identification is voluntary. 36. Officers engaged in, or attempting to engage in, a Voluntary Contact or Field Interview may not use a person’s failure to stop, failure to answer questions, decision to end the encounter, or attempt or decision to walk away to establish reasonable suspicion to justify an Investigatory Stop or Detention, Search, Citation, or Arrest of the person. 37. If at any point, a Field Interview evolves into an Investigatory Stop or Detention or Arrest, officers must act in accordance with the appropriate provisions of this Agreement. C. Involuntary Investigatory Stops and Detentions (Non-Vehicle Stops) 38. BPD will prohibit officers from conducting Investigatory Stops or Detentions when they lack reasonable suspicion, based on specific and articulable facts, that a person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime.
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39. BPD will require that, when making an Investigatory Stop or Detention, officers inform the person(s) stopped that they are not free to leave.
40. BPD will ensure that officers’ reasonable suspicion for their Investigatory Stops and the facts on which the suspicion is based are documented in a specific and clear manner in a written or electronic report of the Investigatory Stop. BPD officers will be prohibited from only using boilerplate language when describing the basis for an Investigative Stop or Detention. Instead, officers will be required to use specific and individualized descriptive language.
41. BPD will ensure the consistent documentation of all Investigatory Stops and Detentions. Documentation of Investigatory Stops and Detentions shall be required to include:
a. The race, ethnicity, gender, and age of the person stopped; b. The location of the Investigatory Stop, including the street address or nearest
intersection; c. A central identifying report number. This number shall allow documentation of
Investigatory Stops to be matched with documentation of any criminal or civil Citation or Arrest that results from the Stop; d. Specific, individualized description of the facts that established reasonable suspicion to make an Investigatory Stop, prior to the Investigatory Stop being made; e. The approximate duration of the Investigatory Stop; f. The outcome of the Investigatory Stop, including whether officers issued a civil or criminal Citation, made an Arrest, or issued a warning;
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g. Whether officers conducted a weapons Frisk during the Investigatory Stop and, if so, the specific and articulable facts establishing reasonable suspicion that the detained individual was armed and dangerous;
h. Whether officers conducted a Search based on probable cause and, if so, the facts establishing probable cause to conduct a Search;
i. Whether officers asked any person(s) to consent to a Search, and whether such consent was given;
j. Whether officers found any unlawful weapons, narcotics, or other contraband during a Search, and the nature of such contraband; and
k. Whether the Investigatory Stop or Detention began as a Voluntary Contact or Field Interview.
42. BPD shall use a documentation system that provides the stopped person(s) with a record of the encounter, such as providing a carbon copy of the receipt, using a form with a “tear off” portion that contains information identifying the officer and the basis for the Stop, printing a copy of the Citizen Police Contact Receipt from a mobile terminal, or providing a contact card showing the officer’s identifying information and the basis for the Stop. For the record given to the person(s) encountered, it will be sufficient for the basis for the Stop to be described in a summary way that indicates the basis of the Stop such as “suspected of criminal activity” or “traffic offense.” It will not be necessary to provide the stopped person(s) a written narrative for the Stop; however, the written record that is provided to the stopped person(s), such as a Contact Card, shall have an identification number that corresponds to the documentation referred to in Paragraph 41.
43. BPD will prohibit officers from:
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a. Conducting pretext stops under Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996), in a manner that violates the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI, or the Safe Streets Act;
b. Conducting pretext stops in which the “pretext” justification for the Stop is loitering or misdemeanor trespass. This language does not prohibit stops that are not pretextual, such as a stop in response to a call for service concerning loitering or misdemeanor trespass;
c. Using conclusory language without supporting detail in documents or reports documenting Investigatory Stops or Detentions;
d. Relying on information known at the time of reliance to be materially false or incorrect in effectuating an Investigatory Stop or Detention;
e. Using an individual’s geographic location, such as presence in a high crime area, or proximity to the scene of suspected or reported crimes – without any other reasonable articulable facts that an individual is, has, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity – as a basis for an Investigatory Stop or Detention;
f. Basing Investigatory Stops or Detentions only on an individual’s response to the presence of police officers, such as an individual’s attempt to avoid contact with an officer;
g. Basing Investigatory Stops or Detentions on an individual’s presence in the company of others suspected of criminal activity without any additional reasonable articulable facts that an individual is, has, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity; and
h. Transporting the subject of an Investigatory Stop for fingerprinting, questioning, or other investigatory purpose, where officers do not have probable cause to make
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an Arrest. Officers may transport the subject of an Investigatory Stop to a different location for questioning if the stopped individual requests to speak with officers in a different location. Where such a request is made, officers will document the request in writing and the individual who makes the request will sign the documentation. D. Vehicle Stops 44. BPD officers shall stop and detain vehicles (“Vehicle Stops”) only where they have probable cause that the driver has committed a traffic violation, or reasonable suspicion based on specific and articulable facts that the vehicle or an occupant of the vehicle has been, is, or is about to be engaged in the commission of a crime. 45. BPD officers shall utilize the Computer Aided Dispatch (“CAD”) or other electronic data collection system to routinely and accurately report any Vehicle Stops. Officers shall be required to record the location of each stop. 46. BPD shall memorialize data related to Vehicle Stops on auditable forms. BPD officers shall not rely only upon boilerplate language when describing the basis for a Vehicle Stop. Instead, officers will use specific and individualized descriptive language sufficient to describe the basis for the stop. The amount of detail that is required shall vary with the complexity of the stop. Thus, for example, where an individual has been stopped because he or she ran through a stop sign, it shall be sufficient to state “Subject ran through a stop sign at XYZ location.” Where, however, an individual is stopped, for example, because he or she engaged in clandestine and erratic driving behavior in the area of a homicide while matching a description of a suspect, a correspondingly more detailed description is required. To implement this requirement, BPD shall develop a system to ensure that officers collect data on all Vehicle Stops,
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whether or not they result in an Arrest or issuance of a Citation. This system shall allow for summarization and searches and shall require officers to document the following:
a. The officers’ names and sequence number; b. Date and time of the Stop; c. Location of the violation and/or Stop; d. Duration of the Stop; e. The driver’s apparent Demographic Category; f. Reason for the Stop, such as a statement of the traffic offense observed prior to a
Stop or other facts creating probable cause or reasonable suspicion that were observed prior to the Stop being initiated; g. Whether the driver or any passenger was ordered by an officer to exit the vehicle, and reason; h. Whether any officer approached the vehicle with a service weapon drawn; i. Whether officers conducted a weapons Frisk during the stop and, if so, the specific and articulable facts establishing reasonable suspicion for the officer’s belief that the stopped person(s) was/were armed with a dangerous and deadly weapon; j. Whether officers conducted a Search based on probable cause and, if so, the facts establishing probable cause to conduct a Search; k. Whether officers asked any person(s) to consent to a Search, and whether such consent was given; l. Whether officers found any unlawful weapons, narcotics, or other contraband during a Search, and the nature of such contraband; and
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m. Disposition of the Stop, including whether officers issued a Citation, warning, or made an Arrest.
E. Searches 47. BPD will prohibit officers from conducting a Frisk for Weapons or Pat Down during an Investigatory Stop or Detention except where officers have reasonable suspicion, based on specific and articulable facts, that a person is armed with a dangerous and deadly weapon. BPD will ensure that officers understand that there is no routine or automatic “officer safety” justification for a Frisk or Pat Down during an Investigatory Stop. BPD will revise its “Characteristics of an Armed Person” training to be consistent with the provisions of this Agreement. 48. BPD will prohibit officers from conducting warrantless Searches of persons and vehicles except where officers have consent to search or have probable cause, based on specific and articulable facts, that a person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime or possesses unlawful contraband, where the search is incident to a lawful arrest, or where the search meets an exception to the warrant requirement under the Fourth Amendment. 49. BPD will ensure that officers are trained on the proper protocols for Strip Searches and Body Cavity Searches in accordance with its recently implemented improved policies regarding Strip Searches and Body Cavity Searches. A report relating to any Strip Search or Body Cavity Search must be submitted by the officer and reviewed by a command level official within 48 hours of the search. 50. BPD will ensure that Strip Searches are only performed when the officer has probable cause that a subject is concealing contraband or a dangerous weapon. All Strip Searches must be approved prior to the search by a permanent rank supervisor, lieutenant or
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above, and be conducted in a setting that ensures the privacy of the person searched, unless exigent circumstances exist. Less intrusive means, such as Pat Downs, metal detectors (where available), and clothing searches, will be performed instead of a Strip Search wherever possible. Officers will explain to the subject why they are being Strip Searched and give the subject an opportunity to voluntarily produce the suspected item, unless doing so would compromise officer safety or risk destruction of evidence.
51. Notwithstanding the provisions of this Agreement for conducting Strip Searches, officers may immediately seize any object they recognize as a dangerous weapon while conducting a Terry weapons Frisk, even if seizing the object requires reaching into or disturbing the clothing of the person frisked.
52. Other than the visual inspection of a suspect’s mouth, nose or ears, BPD will ensure that Body Cavity Searches are only conducted upon receipt of a Search and Seizure Warrant. Officers must consult with their immediate supervisors to determine whether probable cause exists to seek a search and seizure warrant for a Body Cavity Search. Body Cavity Searches will be performed with due recognition of privacy and hygienic concerns, and shall be conducted by licensed medical professionals under sanitary conditions. BPD shall require that visual inspection of a suspect’s mouth, nose or ears shall be based upon the observation of a suspect’s attempt to hide items pertinent to the investigation.
53. BPD officers shall not conduct Frisks or searches of LGBT individuals for the purpose of viewing or assigning gender based on the person’s anatomy or genitalia. LGBT individuals shall not be subject to more invasive Frisk or search procedures than other individuals on the basis of their gender expression or sexual orientation. Absent exigent circumstances, Frisks of women, including transgender women, shall be conducted by female
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officers, and LGBT individuals’ preferences with respect to the gender of the officer conducting a search will be honored.
54. BPD will prohibit officers from relying on information known at the time of reliance to be materially false or incorrect to justify a warrantless search or to seek a search warrant.
55. BPD will ensure that officers do not make consent Search requests absent the officer having an individualized reason to conduct a search. BPD will ensure that consent for a Search is freely given by the subject of the Search, and not based on intimidation or coercion.
56. BPD will require that prior to a consent Search, officers shall provide persons whose person or property they wish to Search with a Consent to Search Form and explain the purpose of the form. The Consent to Search Form will include an explanation of an individual’s right to refuse, limit, and revoke consent at any time. BPD will ensure that the Consent to Search Form has a separate signature line for civilians to affirm that they understand they have a right to refuse, limit, and revoke consent at any time. Officers may not conduct a consent Search until the subject of the Search signs the Consent to Search form. If the subject gives verbal consent to the Search but refuses to sign the Consent to Search form, the officer may proceed with this search and must document the subject’s verbal consent and refusal to sign the Consent to Search form.
57. BPD will require that if further explanation of rights is requested by the subject of a consent search or if it is apparent that the person giving consent has difficulty reading or understanding his or her rights, officers shall affirmatively explain that a civilian has a right to refuse, limit, and revoke consent at any time, and officers will certify that they have read and explained the right to refuse, limit, and revoke consent to the civilian. BPD will emphasize
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through training that individuals have a right to refuse consent, limit consent, and revoke consent at any time.
58. BPD will require that any affidavit or sworn declaration supporting an application for a search and seizure warrant will provide an accurate, complete, and clear description of the offense, the place or thing to be searched, the scope and the time of the Search, and state whether the warrant authorizes a Knock and Announce or No Knock warrant.
59. BPD will record all Searches and Seizures conducted during pedestrian Stops, Vehicle Stops, and other Investigative Detentions according to the procedures described herein.
F. Arrests 60. BPD will ensure that officers issue a Citation or make a custodial Arrest only where they have probable cause to believe a person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a criminal infraction or citable offense. Officers will not rely on information known at the time of receipt of information to be materially false or incorrect in effectuating an Arrest. 61. For any of the following offenses, BPD will require that an officer seek permission from a permanent rank supervisor prior to effectuating an Arrest, unless not practicable under the circumstances, in which case officers must notify a permanent rank supervisor as soon as practicable after effectuating an Arrest:
a. Obstructing, Hindering, or Resisting an Officer; b. Disorderly Conduct; c. Failure to Obey an Officer; d. Gambling; e. Making a False Statement to an Officer; and f. Misdemeanor Trespassing Offenses.
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62. BPD will enforce its policy instructing officers that, for Quality of Life Offenses, that the appropriate response is the least intrusive response appropriate under the circumstances as reasonably understood by the officer at the time. In other words, a verbal warning and counseling is preferable to a Citation, and a Citation is preferable to a custodial Arrest. BPD will develop a system for tracking all Citations given for Quality of Life Offenses or for any of the offenses listed above in Paragraph 61(a) through (f). The tracking system will be provided to the Monitor and DOJ in advance for their approval on a timeline established in the Monitoring Plan. BPD will report this Citation data to the Monitor on a quarterly basis. In addition, BPD will analyze Citation data using Peer Group Analysis on at least an annual basis to assess how officers are enforcing Quality of Life Offenses and to identify officers who may benefit from additional guidance or counseling.
63. BPD will require that a permanent rank supervisor approve or disapprove the officer's request to make an Arrest for Quality of Life Offenses and BPD will ensure that its supervisors ensure that any Arrest is based on the existence of probable cause and that the officer adhered to BPD policy when determining when to verbally warn and counsel, issue Citations, or Arrest individuals for Quality of Life Offenses.
64. BPD will require that supervisors take appropriate action to address violations or deficiencies in officers’ Arrest requests and recommendations, including releasing the subject, recommending non-disciplinary corrective action for the involved officer, and/or referring the incident for administrative or criminal investigation. Such action will be documented by the permanent rank supervisor.
65. BPD will require that officers complete all Arrest reports properly documenting the probable cause for the Arrest by the end of the officers’ shifts.
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66. BPD will ensure that it obtains and tracks all data provided by Central Booking about arrestees at the time of presentment at Central Booking, including any evaluations of the arrestee’s injuries and the results of any searches of the detainee for contraband. If emergency treatment is necessary, officers will ensure that the detainee or arrestee receives medical attention from an appropriate medical provider. BPD will require officers to advise the duty Supervisor as soon as practicable of all situations in which emergency treatment is sought or provided and shall include a description of the circumstances necessitating such treatment. The above-referenced notification of a supervisor by an officer should not exceed 24 hours from presentment of the detainee to a medical treatment facility.
G. Stops, Searches, and Arrests Training 67. BPD will provide all officers with training on Stops, Searches, and Arrests, including the requirements of this Agreement, of no fewer than 16 hours within one year of the Effective Date and at least 4 hours on an annual basis thereafter. Such training will be taught by a qualified legal instructor with significant experience in Fourth Amendment issues, and will address Fourth Amendment requirements and related law; BPD policies; and this Agreement’s requirements regarding Investigatory Stops and Detentions, Searches and Seizures, and Arrests, including:
a. The difference between various police contacts by the scope and level of police intrusion; between probable cause, reasonable articulable suspicion and mere speculation; and truly voluntary and consensual encounters;
b. The facts and circumstances that may be considered in initiating, conducting, terminating, and expanding an Investigatory Stop or Detention;
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c. The level of permissible intrusion when conducting Searches, such as “Pat Downs” or “Frisks”;
d. The nature and scope of Searches based on the level of permissible intrusion on an individual’s privacy interests, including Searches conducted pursuant to probation or parole release provisions;
e. The nature and scope of Searches incident to an Arrest; f. Procedures for executing Searches, including handling, recording, and taking
custody of seized property or evidence; g. The effect that differing approaches to Stops, Searches, and Arrests can have on
community perceptions of police legitimacy and public safety. 68. BPD will review these trainings regularly, at least once per year, to ensure that they be updated if necessary to continue to reflect current law and constitutional requirements. H. Supervisory Review of Stops, Searches, and Arrests 69. BPD will ensure that a Supervising Officer will review all documentation of Investigatory Stops and Detentions, Searches, and Arrest reports for completeness and adherence to law and BPD policy. This review will be completed within 72 hours of when the Stop, Search, or Arrest occurred, unless the review finds deficiencies and additional investigation or corrective action is required. 70. BPD will ensure that a Supervising Officer document and report:
a. Investigatory Stops and Detentions that appear unsupported by reasonable articulable suspicion, or that are otherwise in violation of BPD policy or this Agreement;
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b. Searches that appear to be without legal justification or are in violation of BPD policy or this Agreement; or
c. Stops or Searches that, while comporting with law and policy, indicate a need for corrective action or review of agency policy, strategy, tactics, or training.
71. BPD will ensure that a Supervising Officer review each Arrest report of officers under their supervision and will memorialize their review in writing, indicating any need for corrective action, within 72 hours of when the Arrest occurs, absent exceptional circumstances, and the exceptional circumstances should be documented.
72. BPD will ensure that Supervising Officers review reports and forms for deficiencies including:
a. “Boilerplate” or conclusory language, inconsistent information, lack of articulation of the legal basis for the action, or other indicia that the reports or forms may contain information that was not accurate at the time it was reported;
b. Arrests following Stops where the Stop was based solely on information or evidence discovered after the Stop was initiated or the fact that individual was ultimately arrested;
c. Arrests that are unsupported by probable cause, or are otherwise in violation of the law, BPD policy, or this Agreement.
73. BPD will ensure that it provides training and conducts audits of supervisory reviews of Investigatory Stops or Detentions, Searches, and Arrests to evaluate the supervisor’s review and conclusions within seven days of their completion and ensure that officers understand and apply appropriate legal standards in conducting Investigatory Stops or Detentions, Searches, and Arrests. If misconduct is identified, a commanding officer will evaluate the supervisor’s
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assessment and recommendations and ensure that all appropriate corrective action is taken, including referring the incident to the Office of Professional Responsibility (“OPR”) for investigation. BPD will also take appropriate corrective or disciplinary action against supervisors who fail to conduct complete, thorough, and accurate reviews of officers’ Investigatory Detentions, Searches, and Arrests.
74. BPD will take into account the quality and completeness of these supervisory and commander reviews of officer Stops, Searches, and Arrests, in supervisory and commander performance evaluations.
75. BPD will identify all Arrests for which the District Court Commissioner provides data showing one of the following actions:
a. Released without charge; b. Released based on identity issue; c. Declined to charge; and d. Lack of probable cause finding. 76. In the District Court Commissioner data, the BPD will review the probable cause determinations for: (1) all Arrests that resulted in a disposition of “lack of probable cause”; and (2) all Arrests that resulted in a disposition of “released without charge” or “declined to charge” where the basis of the disposition was a lack of probable cause. This review will not be performed by a supervisor who previously reviewed the probable cause determination. 77. Following this review, BPD will take any appropriate action, which may include recommending training or other non-disciplinary corrective action for the involved officer(s) and/or referring incident(s) for administrative or criminal investigation.
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78. Where BPD’s review finds that an Arrest was not supported by probable cause, BPD will document in writing what actions were taken in response to the review or the reasons that no actions were taken.
79. BPD will maintain a searchable electronic record of all Arrests that meet any of the criteria listed in Paragraph 75(a)-(d). BPD will, on at least a quarterly basis, review this data to assess patterns in Arrest practices by officer, shift, unit, or district. This review will be designed to help evaluate BPD’s enforcement priorities and identify patterns of officer, shift or district behavior that may warrant corrective or disciplinary action.
80. For every Search or Arrest involving the recovery of contraband evidence, BPD will require the supervisor to review and document whether the circumstances by which evidence was recovered was supported by probable cause.
81. BPD will ensure that supervisors take appropriate action to address all apparent violations or deficiencies in Investigatory Stops or Detentions, Searches, and Arrests, including deficiencies in reporting. Appropriate action may include recommending non-disciplinary corrective action for the involved officer, training, and/or referring the incident for administrative or criminal investigation. For each subordinate, the supervisor will be required to track each violation or deficiency and the corrective action taken, if any, to identify officers needing repeated corrective action. BPD will ensure that the supervisor note each violation or deficiency in BPD’s Early Intervention System.
I. Stop, Search, and Arrest Data Collection and Review 82. BPD will modify its Stop, Search, and Arrest data collection and review procedures as set out below to ensure that it is collecting and analyzing Stop, Search, and Arrest data in a manner that allows for a determination of the nature and scope of demographic
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disparities in Stop, Search, and Arrest practices, as well as a determination regarding what Stop, Search, and Arrest practices are most effective and efficient.
83. BPD will modify or develop a written or electronic report format to collect data on all Investigatory Stops and Searches, whether or not they result in an Arrest or issuance of a summons or Citation. This system will allow for summarization and searches and also will be integrated into BPD’s Early Intervention System. BPD’s Stop and Search data collection system will be subject to the review and approval of the Monitor and the United States, and will require officers to document the information described in the “Stops” section of this Agreement.
84. BPD will develop a protocol for comprehensive analysis, on at least an annual basis once the appropriate technology is in place, of the Stop, Search, and Arrest data collected. The protocol will set out steps for determining BPD practices and efficiency on stops, searches and arrests, including whether they are documented with sufficient factual predicates in conformance with this Agreement, what percent of Stops result in weapons Frisks (and what percent of those recover weapons), arrests, or searches. The analysis will analyze whether improved training would be helpful.
85. BPD will ensure that supervisors establish a system for regular review of their assigned officers’ Stop, Search, Citation, and Arrest documentation for completeness, accuracy, legal sufficiency, and compliance with BPD policy and this Agreement.
86. BPD will develop procedures for regularly assessing the effectiveness of its Stop, Search, and Arrest practices. As part of these assessments, BPD shall evaluate, on at least a quarterly basis:
a. The percentage of Investigatory Stops and Detentions that uncover evidence of criminal activity, including warnings, Citations, and Arrests, and the nature of the
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criminal activity uncovered, e.g., the rate at which Stops result in evidence of felonies; b. The percentage of weapons Frisks that result in seizure of unlawful weapons; and c. The percentage of Searches that result in seizure of contraband, and the nature of the contraband seized. V. IMPARTIAL POLICING 87. The Parties recognize that policing fairly and without bias is central to promoting broad community engagement and building partnerships between law enforcement and community members that are an important part of effective policing. Recognizing this principle, BPD has recently taken steps to ensure that its officers provide impartial policing services, including issuing a new policy in April 2015 offering training curricula that provides background information to officers about the City and the communities in which they work. To the extent BPD’s existing policies meet the requirements of this Agreement, further revisions are not required. As described below, BPD will continue to develop systems and build on its policies to further enhance community trust of its policing efforts and ensure that it provides equal protection of the law to all individuals. 88. BPD will ensure that officers document the Demographic Category of all persons who are subjects of Investigatory Stops and Detentions, Vehicle Stops, Frisks, Searches, Seizures, Arrests, and civilian complaints as required by this Agreement. Information about an individual’s transgender status should be included in BPD records only to the extent such information is relevant and necessary to BPD investigations or other law enforcement actions, in order to protect the privacy of the transgender individual. BPD will revise any documents or forms as necessary to ensure that information required by this Agreement is captured.
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89. BPD will, consistent with this Agreement, ensure that its policies and procedures prohibit discrimination on the basis of Demographic Category. BPD will:
a. Ensure that its Fair and Impartial Policing policy extends to all protected classes under state, federal, and local laws, including race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
b. Prohibit officers from considering Demographic Category to any extent or degree when taking, or refraining from taking, any law enforcement action – including pedestrian and vehicle Stops, Frisks, Searches, Arrests, and uses of force – except when such information is part of an actual and credible description of a specific suspect in an ongoing investigation that also includes other appropriate nondemographic identifying factors;
c. Reaffirm that officers will (1) not engage in or condone Discriminatory Policing; (2) be responsible for knowing and complying with BPD’s Fair and Impartial Policing policy; and (3) report all incidents where they observe or are aware of other officers who have engaged in Discriminatory Policing.
d. Require that all BPD employees interact with all members of the public in an unbiased, fair, and respectful manner.
e. Ensure that BPD officers address and in documentation refer to all members of the public, including LGBT individuals, using the names, pronouns, and titles of respect appropriate to the individual’s gender identity as expressed or clarified by the individual. Proof of the person’s gender identity, such as an identification card, will not be required.
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f. Prohibit officers from inquiring about intimate details of an individual’s sexual practices, anatomy, or gender-related medical history, except as necessary to serve valid, nondiscriminatory law enforcement objectives.
90. The Parties recognize that training is an important component of impartial policing. BPD’s training on police actions, including Stops, Frisks, Searches, Arrests, and use of force, will include training on how to take these actions in a non-discriminatory manner.
91. In addition to incorporating impartial policing principles into its training curricula as specified above, BPD will provide Fair and Impartial Policing training to all officers.
92. BPD will ensure its training curriculum includes appropriate modality or combination of modalities (scenario-based, classroom, academy, etc.) and training assessment tools. Such training will emphasize that Discriminatory Policing is a violation of BPD policy. To the extent that BPD determines that it would be beneficial for it to retain consultants in developing this policy, training, and supervisory direction, such consultants shall possess the requisite expertise and be approved by the Monitor and the Department of Justice.
93. BPD’s Fair and Impartial Policing training will include providing all officers with comprehensive training on the following topics:
a. The existence of implicit bias, based on characteristics such as race and gender, and how to minimize its impact on policing;
b. The importance of police legitimacy and how it is impacted by implicit bias and Discriminatory Policing;
c. Methods and strategies for more effective policing that relies upon nondiscriminatory Factors;
d. Police and community perspectives related to Discriminatory Policing;
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e. Constitutional and other legal requirements related to equal protection and unlawful discrimination, including the requirements of this Agreement;
f. The protection of civil rights as a central part of the police mission and as essential to effective policing;
g. The existence and impact of arbitrary classifications and stereotyping; h. Instruction in the data collection protocols required by this Agreement; i. Identification of key decision points where prohibited Discriminatory Policing
can take effect at both the incident and strategic-planning levels; j. Methods, strategies, and techniques to reduce misunderstanding, conflict, and
complaints due to perceived bias or discrimination, including problem-oriented policing strategies; k. The specific history and racial challenges in the City of Baltimore; l. The principles of procedural justice and its goals; and m. Methods, strategies, and techniques for interacting with LGBT individuals. 94. BPD will seek to have members of the community and community-based organizations knowledgeable about various communities and issues in Baltimore, including representatives knowledgeable on issues of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability, participate in the trainings, including, where possible and appropriate, by leading or co-facilitating such trainings. 95. BPD will consider Discriminatory Policing or other bias based on protected characteristics by officers or officer candidates in evaluating officer performance and making hiring and promotion decisions. This includes considering an individual’s history of sustained
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bias-related violations, including any type of unlawful biased policing, sexual harassment, or discrimination against BPD employees. VI. RESPONDING TO AND INTERACTING WITH PEOPLE WITH BEHAVIORAL
HEALTH DISABILITIES OR IN CRISIS 96. BPD is committed to responding to individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and those in crisis in a manner that respects individuals’ civil rights and contributes to their overall health and welfare. Ensuring that BPD uses appropriate crisis response techniques when responding to individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities or in crisis will help prevent situations that could lead to unreasonable use of force, promote connection of people with Behavioral Health Disabilities or in crisis to the behavioral health system, and decrease inappropriate criminal justice involvement for people with Behavioral Health Disabilities or in crisis. 97. The City will coordinate with the Collaborative Planning and Implementation Committee (“CPIC”) to conduct an assessment to identify gaps in the behavioral health service system, recommend solutions, and assist with implementation of the recommendations as appropriate. The assessment will include an analysis of a sample of police interactions with people with Behavioral Health Disabilities to identify systemic barriers and solutions, including what precipitated the crisis, what services could have prevented the crisis, how police became involved, how the response to the crisis could be improved, and what can be done to prevent the crisis in the future. The analysis will include identifying gaps in Behavioral Health Disability services (including assertive community treatment, permanent supported housing, targeted case management, crisis services, and substance use disorder services), problems with the quality or quantity of existing services, and other unmet needs that lead to preventable criminal justice system involvement.
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A. BPD Crisis Intervention 98. BPD will revise its policy to establish a preference for the least police-involved response possible consistent with public safety. In situations that do not involve an Emergency Petition, BPD will divert people with Behavioral Health Disabilities or in crisis to the Behavioral Health service system rather than jail or a hospital emergency room whenever appropriate. 99. A person may be suspected of having a Behavioral Health Disability or being in crisis from a number of factors including self-report, information provided by witnesses or informants to dispatch or to BPD officers, from BPD’s previous knowledge of the individual, or the officer’s direct observation. 100. Officers will be trained to not make assumptions regarding the dangerousness of an individual based on that individual’s disability.
Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Program 101. BPD currently operates the BEST program for responding to individuals in crisis. BPD may continue to utilize the BEST program as its CIT program, as long as the BEST program meets the obligations of this Agreement. 102. BPD will implement a CIT first-responder model of police-based crisis intervention with community, health care, and advocacy partnerships to assist individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and individuals who are in crisis. 103. The goals of the CIT program will continue to be to equip police officers with methods to properly interact with persons with Behavioral Health Disabilities or in crisis safely; de-escalate crises and reduce the unnecessary use of force against individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities or in crisis; minimize arrests; improve the safety of patrol officers, individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities or in crisis and their families, and others within the
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community; refer individuals to the City’s behavioral health crisis system; and reduce the inappropriate involvement of individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities with the criminal justice system.
Collaborative Planning and Implementation Committee 104. BPD will seek to expand the membership of CPIC by encouraging representation from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; judges from the Baltimore City Mental Health Court; Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office; Office of the Public Defender for Baltimore City; the jails that serve Baltimore City; other relevant Baltimore City officials; Disability Rights Maryland (the federally-designated Protection & Advocacy organization); community mental health providers; substance use services providers; local hospitals; and advocates. CPIC will also include the Crisis Intervention Coordinator and Behavioral Health Services Baltimore. 105. BPD will encourage CPIC to identify and implement, as appropriate, strategies to reduce the number of people with Behavioral Health Disabilities who have unnecessary encounters with the police, consistent with the City’s and BPD’s goals of promoting public health, welfare, and safety.
Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Officers 106. BPD will provide enhanced, specialized training in responding to individuals in crisis to certain officers (“CIT officers”). All officers will receive some intervention training for responding to individuals in crisis; that training is separate and distinct from the training and qualifications required to be a CIT officer. CIT officers will continue to be assigned to the patrol division and will maintain their standard patrol duties, except when called upon to respond to incidents or calls involving individuals in crisis.
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107. The enhanced training for CIT officers will be at least 40 hours of in-person training. This enhanced training will be adequate for officers to achieve competence in the following areas: how to conduct a field evaluation, suicide intervention, community behavioral health and Intellectual and Developmental Disability resources, common behavioral health and Intellectual and Developmental Disability diagnoses, the effects of substance misuse, perspectives of individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and their family members, the rights of persons with Behavioral Health Disabilities, civil commitment criteria, crisis deescalation, and scenario-based exercises. This training must include on-site visits to mental health, substance use, and Intellectual and Developmental Disability community programs and interaction with individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities. CIT officers must receive eight hours of annual in-service training on responding to individuals in crisis to maintain their expertise and skills as specialized CIT officers.
108. Training and designation as a CIT officer will be voluntary. To be eligible for consideration, officers must have at least one year of experience as a BPD officer. BPD will provide an in-depth assessment of each applicant to determine the applicant’s fitness to serve as a CIT officer. This assessment will include an examination of the officer’s written application, supervisory recommendations, use of force by the applicant, complaints against the applicant, disciplinary file, and an in-person interview.
109. Supervisors will identify and encourage officers across all shifts and all districts who are qualified to serve as CIT officers.
110. BPD will ensure that CIT officer capacity is sufficient to ensure that, at all times and in all districts, CIT officers can respond to individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and those in crisis. Absent unusual circumstances, at least one CIT officer will respond to all
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calls or incidents where BPD knows or reasonably should know an individual with a Behavioral

Health Disability or an individual in crisis is involved.

111. CIT officers who are dispatched to an incident involving an individual in crisis

will have primary responsibility for the scene unless a supervisor has assumed responsibility. If

a supervisor has assumed responsibility for the scene, the supervisor will seek the input of a CIT

officer regarding strategies for responding to the individual in crisis where it is reasonable for the

supervisor to do so.

Crisis Intervention Training for All BPD Officers

112. BPD will provide CIT training on responding to individuals in crisis to all of its

officers and recruits:

a. All officers will receive at least eight hours of annual in-service training. The

annual training will be adequate for officers to demonstrate competence in the

subject matter and will include these topics:

i.

How non-medically trained law enforcement personnel can

recognize common characteristics and behaviors associated with

Behavioral Health Disabilities or Intellectual and Developmental

Disabilities;

ii.

How to interact with individuals with these disabilities;

iii.

When and how to make reasonable modifications for individuals

with these disabilities;

iv.

That individuals with these disabilities may have alternate

perceptions and how that may affect their interactions with others;

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v.

How to take appropriate steps to ensure effective communication

with individuals with these disabilities;

vi.

How to recognize and respond to conduct or behavior that is

related to these disabilities;

vii.

How to avoid escalating an interaction with individuals with these

disabilities;

viii.

How to use de-escalation techniques to increase safety and to avoid

using force unnecessarily;

ix.

What local resources are available to provide treatment, services,

or support for individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities or

Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and when and how to

draw upon these resources; and

x.

The circumstances in which a CIT officer should be dispatched or

consulted; and how situations involving individuals in crisis should

be addressed if a CIT officer is not immediately available.

b. All new recruits will receive at least 16 hours of training in the Academy;

c. Completion of this training does not qualify an officer as a CIT officer.

BPD Dispatch

113. All BPD dispatchers and their supervisors will receive crisis intervention training

that is adequate to enable them to identify, dispatch, and appropriately respond to calls for

service that involve individuals in crisis.

114. BPD will revise its dispatch policies and protocol as necessary to meet the

requirements of this Agreement, with input from the CPIC, the Monitor, and DOJ. With the goal

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of limiting police involvement in crises where appropriate, calls related to crises that do not necessitate a police response will be sent to other crisis services, such as a Mobile Crisis Team. When a police response is necessary, BPD will ensure that dispatchers use all reasonable efforts to dispatch a CIT trained officer to respond to the call.
Crisis Intervention Coordinator 115. Within 180 days of the Effective Date, BPD will designate an officer at the rank of Sergeant or above to act as a Crisis Intervention Coordinator (“Coordinator”) to better facilitate communication between BPD and members of the behavioral health provider community and to increase the effectiveness of BPD’s crisis intervention program. BPD will ensure that the Coordinator is empowered to fulfill all duties of the Coordinator required by this Agreement. 116. The Coordinator shall receive at least eight hours of training on the role and duties of the Crisis Intervention Coordinator, in addition to the CIT training he or she has already received in the Academy and to become a CIT trained officer. 117. The Coordinator shall identify, develop, and maintain partnerships with program stakeholders and shall serve as a point of contact for advocates, individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities, their families, caregivers, professionals, and others associated with the behavioral health and Intellectual and Developmental Disability community. The Coordinator will solicit input and guidance from the CPIC regarding BPD’s CIT program. 118. The Coordinator will be responsible for ensuring the selection of appropriate candidates for designation as CIT officers consistent with the requirements set forth in this Agreement.
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119. BPD, through the Coordinator, shall also ensure that CIT officer capacity is sufficient to ensure that, at all times of the day and in all districts, CIT officers can respond to individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and those in crisis.
120. BPD, through the Coordinator, will develop and implement a crisis intervention plan (“Crisis Intervention Plan”). The goal of the Crisis Intervention Plan will be to ensure that a CIT officer is available to respond to all calls and incidents that appear to involve an individual in crisis. On an annual basis, BPD will conduct an analysis of crisis intervention incidents to determine whether BPD has enough CIT officers, whether it is deploying those officers effectively, and whether CIT officers, call-takers, and dispatchers are appropriately responding to people in crisis, and will make appropriate changes to policies, procedures, and training regarding police contact with individuals in crisis. The Crisis Intervention Plan will include an assessment of the number of officers necessary to achieve the goal of ensuring that a CIT officer is available to respond to all calls and incidents that appear to involve an individual in crisis; identification of gaps in coverage of particular shifts or districts; and development of mechanisms to fill those gaps. BPD will review and revise the Crisis Intervention Plan in order to identify and address barriers to full coverage. BPD will identify performance measures for the CIT program. These measures will consider quantitative data on key aspects of program operation as well as qualitative data on officers’ and community members’ perceptions of the program. Community members include individuals who have experienced Behavioral Health crises that have included police involvement. BPD may consider engaging a university or other expert partner to guide these data collection and analysis efforts.
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B. Behavioral Health Disability or Crisis Data Collection, Analysis, and Reporting
121. BPD will collect data on suspected Behavioral Health Disability or crisis status of individuals subject to law enforcement actions including Stops, Searches, Arrests (to include type of offense and probable cause), use of force, injuries, and in-custody deaths. For any section of this Agreement that calls for data collection, analysis, or reporting, BPD shall report on the suspected Behavioral Health Disability or crisis status of the individuals involved.
122. BPD will collect, analyze, and report data related to Behavioral Health Disability or crisis status, including:
a. BPD will collect data regarding calls for service that involve possible Behavioral Health Disabilities or people in crisis, including the number of calls, the nature of the crisis, and the extent to which individuals previously interacted with BPD; the disposition of those calls, including whether referred to community services, an emergency room, Emergency Petition, Arrest, booking; whether force was used; the type of forced used; and the steps taken, if any, to de-escalate interactions, especially when confrontations resulted in use of force, injury or death.
b. BPD will analyze the data on an ongoing basis to drive improvement toward the goals of Paragraph 96 and report the data on a quarterly basis to the Crisis Intervention Coordinator and the CPIC.
VII. USE OF FORCE A. Use of Force Principles 123. BPD has recently implemented improved policies regarding officers’ uses of
force, and force reporting, investigations, and reviews. BPD shall build on its recently improved policies, making further revisions where necessary under the provisions of this Agreement and,
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as enumerated below, improve its training, investigations and review regarding officers’ uses of force to ensure that officers uphold the value and dignity of all individuals they encounter. To the extent BPD’s use of force and related policies meet the requirements of this Agreement, the policies need not be revised. As noted below, however, BPD must adhere to those requirements.
124. BPD will ensure that officers: a. Are encouraged to resolve incidents without resorting to the use of force, when possible; b. Use de-escalation techniques and tactics to minimize the need to use force and increase the likelihood of voluntary compliance with legitimate and lawful orders; c. Use tactics that do not unnecessarily escalate an encounter; d. Continually assess the situation and changing circumstances, and modulate the use of force appropriately; e. When force is necessary, use force in a manner that avoids unnecessary injury or risk of injury to officers and civilians; f. Recognize and act upon the duty to intervene to stop any officer from using excessive force; g. Accurately and completely report all Reportable Force used or observed; and h. Are held accountable for use of force that is not objectively reasonable or otherwise violates law or policy.
B. Policies on Officers’ Use of Force 125. BPD will require officers to use de-escalation techniques, including verbal persuasion and warnings and tactical de-escalation techniques such as slowing down the pace of an incident, waiting out subjects, creating distance (and thus the reactionary gap) between the
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officer and the threat, and requesting additional resources (e.g. specialized units, behavioral health care providers, negotiators, etc.), whenever possible, before resorting to force and to reduce the need for force.
126. Prior to using force, BPD officers shall be required to use, as appropriate and reasonably practical, a critical thinking, decision-making framework to analyze and respond to incidents through which officers:
a. Gather relevant facts about the incident; b. Assess the situation, threats, and risks; c. Consider police powers and BPD policy; d. Identify options and determine the best course of action; and e. Act, review, and re-assess the situation. 127. BPD will ensure that if force becomes necessary, officers will use only the amount of force necessary to control the person and immediately reduce the level of force as the threat diminishes. 128. BPD will ensure it maintains a clear and comprehensive use of force policy that includes all critical components to guide officers on using force constitutionally. 129. BPD will ensure its use of force policies guide officers on all force techniques, technologies, and weapons that are available to BPD officers and clearly define and describe each force option and the circumstances under which use of such force is appropriate and consistent with potential types of resistance. 130. BPD will ensure that its policies provide guidance on the circumstances that may warrant engaging in a foot pursuit and the tactics officers should use to avoid the use of
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excessive force during or at the conclusion of a foot pursuit, and to keep members of the public and officers safe.
131. BPD will ensure that its use of force policy provides guidance on specific protocols and practices to use when engaging with Youth, including the circumstances under which force against Youth may be warranted, such as:
a. When feasible, BPD will employ developmentally appropriate and traumainformed de-escalation tactics including, but not limited to, using a calm, neutral demeanor, and avoiding threatening language;
b. If force is necessary, BPD officers will take into account individualized factors of the Youth including, apparent age, body size, and relative strength of the officer relative to the Youth; and risk posed by the Youth;
c. BPD will ensure that officers consider whether a subject may be noncompliant due to a medical or behavioral health disability, behavioral health crisis, physical or hearing impairment, language barrier, or drug or alcohol use; and
d. In case of injury resulting from a use of Reportable Force, BPD will take immediate steps to provide medical attention to the Youth and will notify the Youth’s parent, guardian, or other responsible adult.
132. BPD will ensure that officers do not use more force than necessary to detain a restrained person. BPD will review force used against restrained individuals to ensure that it was necessary and proportional given the offense committed by the subject and the danger the subject posed to others.
133. With regard to using force against persons engaged in First Amendment protected activity, BPD will explicitly prohibit the use of retaliatory force by officers.
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134. BPD shall also explicitly prohibit the use of force for punishment, including that officers shall not use force to punish individuals for fleeing, resisting arrest, or assaulting an officer.
135. Recognizing that tactics leading up to the use of force can influence whether the force used was necessary, BPD will prohibit the use of tactics that unnecessarily escalate an encounter and create a need for force.
136. BPD will ensure that officers only use the weapons that are enumerated in policy and force techniques on which they are trained, unless warranted by extenuating circumstances, which will be scrutinized on a case-by-case basis.
137. BPD will prohibit the use of chokeholds or neckholds unless deadly force is authorized and no reasonable force alternative exists that is within BPD policy.
138. BPD will revise its policies as needed to ensure they specify that use of force that is not objectively reasonable will subject officers to corrective action, discipline, possible criminal prosecution, and/or civil liability.
139. BPD will revise its policies to require that officers who carry a firearm also carry on their person at least one less-lethal weapon which they are trained and certified to use, at all times while on duty, whether in uniform or while working in a plainclothes capacity. Officers who are working undercover or whose role is in an administrative or investigative capacity, unless such duties routinely involve conducting Stops, Searches, or Arrests, are exempted from this requirement.
140. BPD will ensure that it continues to categorize Reportable Force into levels for the purposes of reporting and reviewing each use of force. These levels will be based on the following factors: potential of the technique or weapon to cause injury or disability; degree of
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actual injury or disability; duration of force; potential for abuse or misuse of weapon or force; and physical vulnerability of the subject. Each level of Reportable Force, as defined below, will require increasingly rigorous reporting, investigation, and review.
a. Level 1: Level 1 Reportable Force includes: (1) force that causes only transient pain or disorientation during its application as a means of gaining compliance, including hand control or escort techniques (e.g., elbow grip, wrist grip, or shoulder grip) and pressure point compliance techniques, but that is not reasonably expected to cause injury; (2) pointing a firearm or Conducted Electrical Weapon (“CEW”) at an individual; (3) “cycling” a CEW as a form of warning (“Displaying the Arc”); and (4) forcible takedowns that do not result in actual injury or complaint of injury. It does not include escorting, touching, or handcuffing a person with minimal or no resistance. Pointing a firearm or CEW at a person is a Level 1 use of Reportable Force, subject to the following exceptions: i. SWAT Team Officers and officers assigned to work on a federal task force will not be required to report the pointing of a firearm at a subject as a use of force during the execution of SWAT Team or federal task force duties; and ii. Pointing of a firearm at a subject will not be a use of Reportable Force if done solely while entering and securing a building in connection with the execution of an arrest or search warrant and a supervisor prepares a report detailing the incident.
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b. Level 2: Level 2 Reportable Force includes: (1) force that causes or could reasonably be expected to cause an injury greater than transitory pain but does not rise to a Level 3 use of Reportable Force; (2) any discharge of a CEW in drivestun or probe mode, aimed at a person, that is not Level 1 or Level 3 Reportable Force, including where a CEW is fired at a person but misses; (3) any use of OC spray or other chemical weapons; (4) weaponless defense techniques (e.g., elbow or closed-fist strikes, kicks); (5) any discharge of a less-lethal launcher/munition; (6) any canine inflicted injury, except those that would otherwise constitute Level 3 Reportable Force; (7) any strike, other than a strike with an impact weapon to the head, neck, sternum, spine, groin, or kidney area; (8) any striking of a vehicle or subject with a vehicle that does not rise to Level 3 Reportable Force.
c. Level 3: Level 3 Reportable Force includes: (1) strikes to the head, neck, sternum, spine, groin, or kidney area with an impact weapon; (2) firearm discharges, including unintentional firearm discharges; (3) applications of more than three CEW cycles on an individual during a single encounter regardless of the mode or duration of the application, and regardless of whether the applications are by the same or different officers; (4) a CEW application for longer than 15 seconds; (5) uses of force resulting in death, serious physical injury, loss of consciousness or requiring hospitalization; and (6) uses of lethal force. Level 3 Reportable Force can result from a lower level force option being improperly applied.
141. BPD will require officers to intervene in incidents in which another officer uses excessive force.
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Weapon-specific provisions: Conducted Electrical Weapons (CEWs) 142. BPD will require that only officers who have successfully completed approved annual training on CEWs, including a testing component, and are currently certified may be issued, carry, and use CEWs. 143. BPD will ensure that officers will use CEWs only where grounds for Arrest or detention are present, and such force is necessary to protect the officer, the subject, or another party from immediate physical harm. 144. BPD will ensure that each application (in probe or drive stun mode) or standard cycle (five seconds) of a CEW is a separate use of force that officers must separately justify as objectively reasonable. BPD will ensure that, after the first CEW application, the officer will reevaluate the situation to determine if subsequent cycles are necessary. In determining whether any additional application is objectively reasonable, officers will consider whether the individual has the ability and has been given a reasonable opportunity to comply prior to applying another cycle. 145. BPD will require that officers not employ more than three cycles or 15 total seconds of a CEW against a subject during a single incident unless lethal force is justified. 146. BPD will ensure that officers:
a. Do not use CEWs in drive-stun mode as a pain compliance technique. Officers may use CEWs in drive-stun mode only to supplement the probe deployment to complete the incapacitation circuit, or as a countermeasure to gain separation between the officer and the subject so that officers can consider another force option;
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b. Determine the objective reasonableness of CEW use based on relevant circumstances, including the subject's apparent age, size, physical and mental condition, and the feasibility of lesser force options;
c. Except where lethal force is the only other option, do not use CEWs when it is reasonably evident that a deployment may cause serious physical injury, including if the subject is in danger of falling from a significant height, if the subject is in physical control of a vehicle in motion, or if the subject has been exposed to the MK-9 Pepper Fogger or flammable material, such as gasoline or an alcohol-based pepper spray;
d. Except where lethal force is the only other option, do not use CEWs when a reasonable officer would know that the subject is pregnant, elderly, a small child, visibly frail, has low body mass;
e. Do not use CEWs on fleeing persons who do not pose an imminent threat of physical harm to the officer or others. Flight will never be the sole reason for applying a CEW on a subject;
f. Unless the use of lethal force is justified, do not apply CEWs in drive stun mode to a subject’s head, neck, chest or groin;
g. Are trained to target the CEW in probe mode at the lower center mass and to avoid the head, neck, chest and groin;
h. Do not activate more than one CEW at a time against a subject; and i. Keep CEWs in a weak-side holster to reduce the chances of accidentally drawing
and/or firing a firearm.
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147. BPD will ensure officers will obtain appropriate medical treatment for suspects after a CEW deployment. BPD will ensure that only trained medical personnel remove probes from a subject.
148. BPD will require CEW inspections on a periodic basis to conduct information downloads, ensure CEWs are operable, and to perform necessary maintenance or repairs.
Batons/Impact Weapons 149. Officers will be trained and certified for department-approved batons and espantoons (collectively “Impact Weapons”) before being authorized to carry Impact Weapons. 150. BPD will require that Impact Weapon use will be limited to situations in which such force is objectively reasonable, consistent with the principles outlined above, and BPD’s training, for example, when it is necessary to protect the officer, the subject, or another party from immediate serious physical harm. 151. BPD will require that officers justify each strike with an impact weapon. 152. BPD will ensure that officers will not use Impact Weapons on individuals who are restrained or under control, even if they are non-compliant, unless they present an imminent threat to the safety of the officer or others. Prior to using Impact Weapons on individuals who are restrained, officers must first attempt to exercise additional control over the individual by using hands-on control measures or arrest control techniques before the use of Impact Weapons is justified.
Oleoresin Capsicum Spray (“OC Spray”) 153. BPD will ensure that officers use OC Spray only when such force is objectively reasonable and consistent with the use of force principles above, including when used for crowd dispersal or protection.
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154. BPD will ensure that officers do not use OC Spray to disperse crowds unless individuals within those crowds are committing acts that endanger officer or public safety and security, property, and participants refuse to obey lawful orders to disperse. Where OC spray is used on an individual in a crowd, BPD will ensure that the spray is directed at the person(s) who presents a threat.
155. BPD will ensure that officers shall, whenever practical and reasonable, issue a verbal warning to the subject and allow a reasonable amount of time to allow the subject to comply with the warning.
156. BPD will ensure that after the initial application of OC spray, each subsequent spray must also be objectively reasonable and consistent with the use of force principles above and the officer should reevaluate the situation accordingly.
157. BPD will ensure that officers do not ordinarily use OC Spray on a person who is handcuffed or otherwise restrained. If such a person, however, is still combative or violent, and presents an imminent threat to the safety of the officer or others, officers must first attempt to exercise additional control over the individual by using hands-on control measures or arrest control techniques before the use of OC Spray is justified.
158. BPD will provide officers with proficiency training on the use of OC Spray before they are certified to carry and/or use OC Spray. Such training will include protocols regarding officers’ responsibilities following OC Spray use, including minimizing exposure of nontargeted individuals and decontamination of exposed subjects. Officers will render aid consistent with their training and experience and arrange immediate transport to a hospital for medical treatment for subjects on whom OC Spray has been used under the following circumstances: (1) when they complain of or exhibit continued effects after having flushed the affected areas; (2)
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when they indicate that they have a pre-existing medical condition (e.g., asthma, emphysema, bronchitis, heart ailment) that may be aggravated by chemical spray.
159. BPD will ensure that officers will use only department-issued or approved OC Spray.
Firearms 160. BPD will prohibit officers from exhibiting or pointing a firearm unless the officer reasonably believes that the situation may escalate to create an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death to the officer or another person. BPD will provide officers with policy guidance on the circumstances under which it is appropriate to exhibit a firearm. 161. BPD will develop and implement a plan to ensure that it can track the date of officers’ qualifications and require that officers successfully qualify in accordance with the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission (“MPTSC”) regulations and standards with each firearm they are authorized to use or carry while on duty. Officers who fail to qualify will immediately relinquish the corresponding BPD-issued firearms. 162. BPD will ensure that, when officers discharge firearms, they continually assess the circumstances that necessitated the discharge and modulate their use of force accordingly, including ceasing to use their firearm when the circumstances no longer require it. 163. BPD will ensure that officers, when practical, identify themselves as a law enforcement officer and state their intention to use deadly force before using a firearm. 164. BPD will ensure that officers do not fire warning shots. 165. BPD will prohibit officers from firing at moving vehicles except (1) to counter an imminent threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or another person, by a person in the vehicle, other than the vehicle itself or (2) to counter a situation where the officer or others
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are unavoidably in the path of the vehicle and cannot move safely. Officers should avoid

positioning themselves in the path of a moving vehicle where they have no option but to use

deadly force.

C. Training

166. BPD will provide all current officers with use of force training as determined by

the Monitoring Plan and in conformance with the terms of this Agreement. The use of force

training will include:

a. Proper use of force decision-making under a critical-thinking, decision-making

model which requires officers to:

i.

Gather relevant facts about the incident;

ii.

Assess the situation, threats, and risks;

iii.

Consider police powers and BPD policy;

iv.

Identify options and determine the best course of action; and

v.

Act, review, and re-assess the situation.

b. Role-playing scenarios and interactive exercises that illustrate proper use of force

decision-making, including training on the importance of peer intervention;

c. The Fourth Amendment and related law;

d. De-escalation techniques, both verbal and tactical, that empower officers to make

Arrests without using force and instruction that verbal persuasion, slowing down

the pace of the situation, disengagement, area containment, surveillance, waiting

out a subject, summoning reinforcements, using cover, calling in specialized

units, or delaying arrest may be the appropriate response to a situation, even when

the use of force would be legally justified;

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e. Officers will be trained to consider the possibility that a subject may be noncompliant due to a medical or mental condition, physical or hearing impairment, language barrier, drug interaction, or emotional crisis;
f. The proper deployment and use of all BPD issued or approved weapons or technologies;
g. The risks of prolonged or repeated CEW exposure, including the increased risks on persons who are in in crisis or experiencing a Behavioral Health Disability;
h. The increased risks CEWs may present to a subject who is pregnant, elderly, a small child, frail, has low body mass, or is in apparent medical crisis;
i. That when using an CEW in the drive stun mode it is generally less effective than the probe mode and, when used repeatedly, may exacerbate the situation;
j. That force may not be used when a person is non-compliant, but is restrained and under an officer’s control;
k. Firearms training; l. Identifying and responding to someone who may be armed; m. The circumstances that may warrant engaging in a foot pursuit and appropriate
tactics to avoid the use of excessive force during or at the conclusion of a foot pursuit, and to keep members of the public and officers safe; n. For supervisors of all ranks, as part of their initial and annual in-service supervisory training, training in conducting use of force reviews or investigations appropriate to their rank; strategies for effectively directing officers to minimize uses of force and to intervene effectively to prevent or stop objectively unreasonable force; and supporting officers who report objectively unreasonable
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or unreported force, or who are retaliated against for attempting to prevent objectively unreasonable force; and o. Use of force reporting, investigation, and review requirements. 167. BPD also will provide the use of force training described in the paragraph above to all new officers as part of its Professional Development and Training Academy (“Academy”) training curriculum. 168. BPD will provide all officers with annual use of force in-service training to ensure that officers maintain critical skills as determined by the Monitoring Plan and in conformance with the terms of this Agreement. D. Reporting, Investigating and Reviewing Force 169. BPD will require for every use of Reportable Force, which includes any Level 1, Level 2, or Level 3 use of force as defined in Paragraph 140, regardless of level, the following elements: a. Initial Reporting and Response: requirements that describe officers’ duty to report uses of Reportable Force and BPD supervisors’ duty to respond and direct activities at the scene of Levels 2 and 3 Reportable Force; b. Supervisory Review: requirements that describe who is responsible for the review of Reportable Force and how to conduct that review. Reviews of all levels of force will require critical examination of the incident, pursuant to BPD policy. Level 1 uses of Reportable Force will be reviewed by an uninvolved permanentrank supervisor of the same rank or above of the involved officer. Level 2 uses of Reportable Force will be reviewed by an uninvolved permanent-rank supervisor above the rank of the involved officer. Level 3 Reportable Force will be
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investigated by the Special Investigations Response Team (“SIRT”) and reviewed by the Performance Review Board (“PRB”). Reviews of Reportable Force will review whether the use of force was objectively reasonable, as well as whether it violated any policy, and to identify any concerns regarding training, tactics, equipment, or supervision; c. Departmental Analysis: requirements that describe how use of Reportable Force incidents are reviewed by the BPD command and how information gathered about the incident could be used to increase the effectiveness of the officer and the Department as a whole; and d. Record Keeping and Follow-up: the Administrative Report, Form 95 and Force Report, Form 96 and use of force review form and all associated documentation or other evidence, including photographs and video, related to the incident (collectively “Use of Force Reports”) will be maintained in Blue Team or other database as adopted in accordance with this Agreement, tracked, and used to inform BPD force-related practices and training. Reporting 170. BPD will ensure that officers notify a permanent-rank supervisor immediately, or as soon as practicable, following a use of Reportable Force. The supervisor will notify the Shift Commander by the end of the shift during which the force occurred. The notification will contain basic information concerning the incident. 171. BPD will ensure that officers accurately, thoroughly, and timely report their uses of Reportable Force.
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172. After any officer-involved shooting, any officer that discharged their firearm will provide a Public Safety Statement to their supervisor when they arrive on the scene. The Public Safety Statement will include:
a. Type of force used by the officer and the threat presented by other involved parties;
b. Direction and approximate number of shots fired by the involved officer(s) and suspect(s);
c. Location of any unsecured weapons; d. Location of injured persons; e. Description of outstanding suspect(s) and his or her direction of travel, time
elapsed since the suspect was last seen, and any weapon(s) that were available to them; f. Description and location of any known victims or witnesses; g. Description and location of any known evidence; and h. Other information as necessary to ensure officer and public safety, and assist in the apprehension of outstanding suspects. 173. BPD will ensure that every officer who uses or observes a use of Reportable Force will document all matters that they have a duty to report in a Use of Force Report by the end of their tour of duty: a. For Level 1 Reportable Force, officers have a duty to report: (1) the reason for the initial police presence; (2) a specific description of the acts that led to the Reportable Force; (3) the level of resistance encountered; and (4) a description of every type of Reportable Force used.
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b. For Level 2 and Level 3 Reportable Force, officers have a duty to report each of

the following:

i.

The reason for the initial police presence;

ii.

A detailed narrative account of the incident from the officer’s

perspective, including:

1. A detailed description of the subject;

2. The severity of the crime at issue;

3. The presence and location of witnesses at the scene;

4. A specific description of the acts that led to the use of

Reportable Force;

5. The level of resistance encountered;

6. The threat the subject posed;

7. The force options available to the officer;

8. Any de-escalation techniques used; and

9. A description of every type of Reportable Force used.

174. For Level 2 and Level 3 uses of Reportable Force, BPD will require an

uninvolved permanent-rank supervisor of an officer using such force to respond to the scene.

The supervisor will determine, based on policy and the facts then known, the level at which the

use of force should be categorized. A supervisor may opt for a higher level response than would

usually be required for the level of the force used, depending on the circumstances of the

incident.

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175. When an incident involves multiple types of force or multiple officers, the entire incident will be reported and investigated at the highest level of force used by any officer during the incident.
176. BPD will revise its policies to ensure that officers will not use conclusory statements, boilerplate, or canned language (e.g., “furtive movement” or “fighting stance”) without supporting incident-specific detail in their Use of Force Reports.
177. BPD will revise its policies to clarify that where Use of Force Reports are found to include material omissions or inaccuracies, BPD will take corrective action, including discipline as appropriate:
a. Where the material omissions or inaccuracies are found to be deliberate, the officer will be disciplined for failing to report, up to and including termination, subject to legal limits; and
b. BPD will review the information previously omitted or provided inaccurately to determine the truth of the incident. BPD will thoroughly review the entire incident using the new information to determine the consequences of the new information on the propriety of officers’ actions.
178. BPD will revise its policies to clarify that officers who use or observe a use of Reportable Force but do not report it will be disciplined, up to and including termination.
179. BPD will revise its policies to include particularized reporting and review requirements for CEWs, OC spray, and firearms.
Supervisory response and reviews for Levels 1 and 2 Reportable Force 180. A supervisor of the officer(s) employing a Level 1 use of force will review and document approval or elevate the Level 1 force before the end of the shift during which the
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Level 1 force was used. It is not mandatory for supervisors to report to the scene of a Level 1 use of force.
181. Supervisors will elevate and investigate any Level 1 use of force that appears to have been inappropriate or improperly categorized as a Level 1 use of force. If a supervisor determines that an officer’s report reveals evidence of potential criminal conduct, he or she will promptly notify OPR.
182. BPD will ensure that the uninvolved permanent-rank supervisor of the officer(s) employing a Level 2 use of Reportable Force will thoroughly review the incident for consistency with BPD’s Use of Force policy and the terms of this Agreement. The supervisor will complete the use of force review and within 72 hours of the incident will forward it, via Blue Team, to the lieutenant (or above as necessary) of the officer(s) who used the Reportable Force.
183. If necessary, a supervisor in the chain of command will re-classify a use of force review to the appropriate Reportable Force Level and ensure that any appropriate additional action is taken based on the newly assigned Level of force, if necessary. If a supervisor or above determines that an officer’s report reveals evidence of misconduct or potential criminal conduct, he or she will promptly notify the Office of Professional Responsibility (“OPR”).
184. BPD will ensure that the uninvolved permanent-rank supervisor of the officer(s) using force, upon notification of a Level 2 use of Reportable Force incident, will respond to the scene.
185. BPD will ensure that whenever there is a visible injury, complaint of injury, or medical attention is requested by any individual, officers shall immediately obtain any necessary medical care. An officer will be expected to provide emergency first aid consistent with their training and experience until professional medical care providers are on scene.
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186. The supervisor who responds to the scene to review the Reportable Force used must hold a permanent-rank higher than any involved officer(s) who used Reportable Force or directed that it be used.
187. BPD will ensure that whenever a supervisor uses, directs, or is otherwise personally involved in any type of use of Reportable Force, including participating in the tactical planning that led to the Reportable Force, a higher-ranking supervisor who was not involved in the incident will review the Reportable Force. If a Lieutenant or above is involved, the review may be conducted by a supervisor of equal rank. The Commissioner or his/her designee may, in their discretion, reassign a review of force of any Level to SIRT.
188. For Level 2 uses of Reportable Force, BPD will ensure that upon arrival at the scene, to conduct a thorough, reliable review, the uninvolved permanent-rank supervisor will identify and collect evidence sufficient to establish the material facts related to the Reportable Force. The uninvolved permanent-rank supervisor will:
a. Locate relevant civilian witnesses including the subject and third parties, and arrange for those witnesses to be interviewed. Witnesses should be interviewed separately where possible. Supervisors should use trauma-informed interview techniques where appropriate, and avoid leading questions;
b. Use Department-issued equipment to record interviews with civilian witnesses. Interviews of the subject, or the subject’s refusal to be interviewed, will be also audio or video recorded;
c. Not extend the subject’s detention to facilitate the screening process of the level of Reportable Force if the subject is free to leave. However, the uninvolved permanent-rank supervisor will request the subject’s statement regarding the use
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of Reportable Force and explain that it is for BPD’s administrative review to

determine the propriety of the Reportable Force. The subject will be advised that

he or she is free to leave, when that is the case;

d. Separate all officers involved in a use of Reportable Force incident until

interviewed. Group interviews will be prohibited. Supervisors will not ask

officers or other witnesses leading questions that suggest legal justifications for

the officers’ conduct, where such questions are contrary to appropriate law

enforcement techniques;

i.

All interviews will be conducted in accordance with BPD policy

and the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (“LEOBR”).

ii.

If not in conflict with state law, and consistent with the terms of

this Agreement, all officers who use Level 2 force will provide an

oral use of force statement in person to the supervisor on the scene

prior to the subject’s being booked, or released, or the contact

otherwise concluded;

e. Review and flag for retention any body-worn camera footage capturing any part

of the use of force incident;

f. Canvass the area for any CCTV or other surveillance cameras in the area,

document their locations, and attempt to obtain video voluntarily, review the

footage, and upload it into Blue Team. If unable to obtain the video voluntarily,

document why the footage could not be retrieved;

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g. Photograph the scene and location of the incident to accurately depict lighting, weather, vehicle placement, points of cover, and to identify relevant evidence to be collected if not collected by the supervisor, such as forensic evidence;
h. Photograph any departmental or private property damaged as a result of an officer’s involvement; and
i. Photograph the subject for identification purposes and all injuries or claims of injury to anyone involved, and denote the lack of injury when applicable.
189. The supervisor conducting the use of force review will evaluate in writing all uses of force for compliance with BPD policy, as well as any other relevant concerns (e.g., tactical or threat assessment). The supervisor should provide timely, constructive feedback, where appropriate.
190. For Level 2 Reportable Force, the first-line permanent-rank supervisor’s use of force review will be completed and entered into Blue Team within 72 hours of the use of Reportable Force, unless the supervisor’s commanding officer approves an extension. This documentation will include the following:
a. A detailed narrative description of the incident that will describe the force used by the officers and the subject(s), any injuries sustained by the subject(s) and the officer(s), and the sequence of events comprising the incident. Additionally, it will document the supervisor’s actions in reviewing or screening the incident. The summary should provide a commander, who is reviewing the report, a complete understanding of the incident;
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b. Documentation of all evidence that was gathered, including physical evidence; photographs; and names, phone numbers, addresses, and recorded statements of civilian witnesses to the incident; and reports by witnessing officers; and
c. A review of the incident, including a discussion and resolution of any material inconsistencies in the evidence of statements; whether the force used was necessary, proportional and objectively reasonable, and otherwise within BPD policy.
191. BPD policy will require that where a supervisor determines that force used by an officer may be considered misconduct or potential criminal conduct, the supervisor will notify OPR of their determination.
a. Any review by OPR of the incident will be connected in BPD’s database systems to the use of force review conducted by the supervisor, such that an inquiry into the incident will allow easy and efficient access to the entire review files of both the supervisor and OPR. Assessments of Levels 1 and 2 Use of Force Reviews
192. The first commander in the chain of command who reviews the uninvolved permanent-rank supervisor’s use of force review of Level 1 and Level 2 Reportable Force will ensure that the review is thorough, complete, and makes the necessary and appropriate findings of whether the use of force was consistent with BPD policy. In accordance with BPD policy, each higher-level supervisor in the chain of command will review the use of force review to ensure that it is complete and that the review was thorough.
193. BPD will ensure that a supervisor gather supplementary evidence or statements from officers, witnesses, or subjects when it appears that additional relevant and material
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evidence may assist in resolving any discrepancies, lack of information, or improve the reliability or credibility of the findings. Every supervisor in the chain of command is responsible to assure the accuracy and completeness of the use of force review completed by supervisors, and for initiating corrective action.
194. When it appears that the findings of the use of force review are not supported by a preponderance of the evidence, the supervisor will recommend changes to the findings after consultation with the investigating supervisor and the previous reviewer, and document the specific evidence or analysis supporting the modification. Any supervisor in the chain of command may discuss the modification with the reviewing supervisor or reviewers.
195. For force reviews involving Level 1 uses of Reportable Force, the district or unit commander will ordinarily be the final reviewer. He or she will make the final determinations of whether the findings by the chain of command regarding the use of Reportable Force are consistent with law and policy and supported by a preponderance of the evidence; whether the review is thorough and complete; and whether there are tactical, equipment, or policy considerations that need to be addressed.
196. When the district or unit commander determines that an assessment for Level 2 force is complete and the evidence supports the findings, the force file will be forwarded to the Use of Force Assessment Unit (“UOFAU”). BPD will require that the UOFAU conduct an administrative Use of Force Assessment of all Level 2 Reportable Force incidents. BPD will ensure that the UOFAU is staffed to promote effective and efficient reviews of Level 2 Reportable Force.
197. The UOFAU will review each Level 2 Reportable Force incident and review to determine whether the findings by the chain of command regarding the use of force are
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consistent with BPD policy and supported by a preponderance of the evidence; whether the assessment was thorough and complete; and whether there are tactical, equipment, or policy considerations that need to be addressed.
198. The UOFAU may refer cases to the Performance Review Board for consideration by the full board as appropriate, for example, in incidents containing serious policy violations.
199. At the discretion of the officer’s chain of command, or the UOFAU, a use of force assessment may be assigned or re-assigned for investigation to SIRT, or returned to the unit for further investigation, analysis, or corrective action, if warranted.
200. BPD will analyze the data captured in officers’ Use of Force Reports and supervisors’ use of force reviews on an annual basis to identify significant trends, to correct deficient policies and practices, and to document its findings in an annual report that will be made publicly available pursuant to Section VII(E) below, Data Collection, Analysis, and Reporting. BPD’s analysis will include evaluations and assessments of use of Reportable Force by type, unit or assignment, demographics of the subjects, the shift or time of day, location, the nature of offense, the resistance encountered, and comparisons among officers or units.
Reporting and Investigation of Level 3 Force – Special Investigation Response Team (“SIRT”) 201. BPD will ensure that its SIRT unit investigating Level 3 Reportable Force incidents is multidisciplinary and conducts both the criminal and administrative investigations of Level 3 Reportable Force incidents. To guide SIRT practices and investigations, BPD will develop and implement a SIRT training curriculum and procedural manual. 202. SIRT will respond to and investigate the following types of incidents: a. All Level 3 Reportable Force incidents;
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b. Any fatal motor vehicle crash in which the actions of a BPD member were a contributing cause; and
c. Any incident at the direction of the Police Commissioner or his/her designee. 203. In the incidents listed in the preceding paragraph, SIRT will be the primary investigating entity, and may call upon additional units to offer assistance and technical expertise. The SIRT supervisor will lead all investigative activity, which includes locating and interviewing witnesses, securing the scene and evidence, locating video surveillance that may have captured the incident, and making notifications. The Training and Policy representatives to SIRT will not have an investigative role when present at the scene of a use of Reportable Force, but will attempt to identify any policy or training issues.
a. At least one member of SIRT will be available at all times to evaluate potential referrals from BPD supervisors.
b. SIRT staff members will have appropriate expertise and investigative skills to ensure that uses of force that are contrary to law or policy are identified and appropriately resolved; and that its investigations allow the Performance Review Board to identify trends or patterns of policy, training, equipment, or tactical deficiencies, or positive lessons related to the use of force.
204. The on-scene uninvolved permanent-rank supervisor shall take initial steps in response to the incident consistent with the requirements for Level 2 Reportable Force incidents until turning the scene over to the Shift Commander or arriving SIRT personnel.
205. If the Shift Commander arrives before the SIRT personnel, the Shift Commander will assume control from the uninvolved permanent-rank supervisor and take steps to secure and maintain the integrity of the scene, including witnesses, which will be left intact to be processed
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by SIRT personnel. The Shift Commander will also make reasonable attempts to identify civilian witnesses to the event and request that they stand by for the SIRT personnel’s arrival. The Shift Commander is responsible for separating all involved and witnessing officers and keeping them at the scene until SIRT personnel arrives.
206. SIRT will have the following responsibilities in responding to a Level 3 Reportable Force incident:
a. SIRT personnel will assume control of the use of force investigation upon their arrival;
b. SIRT personnel will record all interviews with civilian witnesses; c. SIRT personnel will ensure that the Shift Commander has separated all officers
involved in or who witnessed a use of force incident until they are all interviewed in accordance with BPD policy and the LEOBR; d. SIRT personnel will ensure all video evidence is immediately gathered and assessed. This evidence may include, but is not limited to, CCTV footage, private or public surveillance, cell phone video footage, and body-worn camera footage. SIRT personnel will arrange for a canvass for any CCTV or privately owned video that may have captured the contact, and attempt to obtain copies voluntarily. If the owner of privately owned video refuses, SIRT personnel will document the location and/or owner of the video. If no privately owned video is discovered, SIRT personnel will document that none was found; e. The SIRT supervisor will arrange for a crime lab technician to process the scene according to the Crime Scene Sciences Section’s technical manual and provide photos as soon as practicable to SIRT;
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f. SIRT personnel will attempt to interview the person upon whom the officer used the Reportable Force to obtain the person’s account of what happened, if possible, as an audio-recorded interview. They will also photograph areas of injury or complaint of injury;
g. The SIRT supervisor responding to the scene will review body-worn camera or other video which may have recorded all or part of the incident and will document the content of such videos. The SIRT supervisor should obtain copies of videos (other than body-worn camera footage) and attach them to the Blue Team use of force entry. SIRT supervisors will review such video downloads as well as witness statements from all witness officers prior to the end of their shift(s) unless impracticable;
h. SIRT personnel will ask involved officers if they are willing to provide a voluntary statement, and if so, administer the Miranda warnings prior to conducting an interview. All interviews with officers must be recorded (audio and/or video) and take place as soon as practical;
i. The SIRT supervisor responding to the scene will arrange for the involved and witness officers to submit use of force written reports as soon as practicable and no later than 24 hours after the incident, except in extenuating circumstances, such as when an officer is injured, in which case, the officer will submit their written report as soon as the extenuating circumstance allows;
j. SIRT personnel will be responsible for notifying the involved officer’s commanding officer, the Police Commissioner, Deputy Police Commissioners, all Chiefs, the Director of the Academy, and the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s
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Office (“SAO”) no later than 24 hours after learning of the use of force, unless impractical. This notification will contain basic facts about the incident as they are known at the time; k. Within 60 days or as soon as possible thereafter, SIRT investigators will present the completed investigation to the Performance Review Board (“PRB”) when it next convenes; and l. If the SIRT investigation indicates potential criminal conduct or administrative misconduct, the SIRT commander will be responsible for notifying the Chief of OPR, and, in cases of potential criminal conduct, notifying the appropriate prosecuting authority. Performance Review Board (“PRB”) 207. BPD will maintain its Performance Review Board in a manner that is consistent with this Agreement. a. The PRB will examine all Level 3 Reportable Force incidents, any fatal motor crash in which the actions of a BPD member were a contributing cause, and any other incident or investigation of the Police Commissioner or his/her designee; b. The PRB will develop procedures, outlined in a manual, to govern its operations; c. The PRB will conduct timely, comprehensive, and reliable reviews of any Level 2 force incidents referred by the UOFAU and all Level 3 force incidents. The PRB also will conduct the administrative review of other incidents, as the need arises; and d. Where additional investigation is necessary to reach administrative findings, the PRB will refer to SIRT for additional investigation.
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208. The PRB will include the Commissioner or the Commissioner’s designee (who will chair the PRB); the remaining membership will be drawn from across the BPD, in accordance with BPD policy.
209. Each member will receive a minimum of eight hours of training on an annual basis, including legal updates regarding use of force and the Training Academy’s current use of force curriculum.
210. The PRB will document its findings and recommendations for SIRT investigations in a memorandum to the Police Commissioner. Unless the PRB Chair grants an extension, the memorandum shall be submitted within fourteen days of the SIRT presentation to the PRB. The PRB will not make recommendations concerning discipline, however, the Chair of the PRB is obligated to ensure a referral to OPR if potential misconduct is discovered in the review process. Any member of the PRB may also refer any potential misconduct to OPR, even if the PRB as a whole does not make such a referral. The PRB’s memorandum shall include observations and recommendations for improvements in training, policies, procedures, tactics, equipment and technology, organization, and any other issues that could improve future performance of the member(s) involved, other members, or the BPD as a whole. The PRB Chair will also ensure that its findings and recommendations are brought to the attention of the relevant commanding officer for appropriate action.
E. Data Collection, Analysis, and Reporting 211. BPD will collect and maintain all data and records necessary to accurately evaluate its use of force practices and facilitate transparency and, as permitted by law, broad public access to information related to BPD’s decision making and activities.
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212. BPD will ensure the collection and tracking of all documents related to uses of force and allegations of misconduct and related materials, including:
a. Officers’ Use of Force Reports; b. Supervisor’s use of force reviews; c. Force investigations by SIRT; d. Reviews conducted by OPR relating to officers’ uses of Reportable Force; and e. All supporting documentation and materials, including relevant CEW downloads,
supporting audio-visual recordings, including witness and officer interviews, and any relevant camera downloads, including from body-worn cameras. 213. BPD will ensure the creation and maintenance of a reliable and accurate electronic system to track all data derived from Reportable Force-related documents, including: a. The type(s) of force used; b. The actual or perceived race, ethnicity, age, and gender of the subject; c. the name, shift, and assignment of the officer(s) who used force; d. the District where the use of force occurred; e. Whether the incident occurred during an officer-initiated contact or a call for service; f. The subject’s perceived mental health or medical condition, use of drugs or alcohol, or the presence of a disability, if indicated at the time force was used; g. The subject’s actions that led to the use of force, including whether the subject was in possession of a weapon; h. Whether the subject was handcuffed or otherwise restrained during the use of force;
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i. Any injuries sustained by the officer or the subject or complaints of injury, and whether the officer or subject received medical services;
j. whether the subject was charged with an offense, and, if so, which offense(s); k. For firearms-related deadly force incidents, the number of shots fired by each
involved officer, the accuracy of the shots, and whether the subject was armed or unarmed; and l. The length of time between the use of force and the completion of each step of the force investigation and review. 214. BPD will be responsible for the routine reporting of relevant data to the Commissioner, PRB, and OPR. 215. BPD will be responsible for an annual evaluation of forms and data collection systems to improve the accuracy and reliability of data collection concerning use of force. This evaluation will be provided to the Monitor, the DOJ and the public. 216. BPD will develop a protocol to accurately analyze the data collected and allow for the assessments required below. This protocol will be subject to the review and approval of the Monitor and DOJ. 217. BPD will annually analyze the prior year’s force data, including the force-related data listed above, to determine trends; identify and correct deficiencies revealed by this analysis; and document its findings in a public report. VIII. INTERACTIONS WITH YOUTH 218. BPD will ensure that officers approach all interactions with Youth in a manner that takes into account the individual characteristics of the Youth, if apparent or known, including age, size, developmental and mental status, disability status, and maturity. Taking into
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account such individualized characteristics and the seriousness of the offense, BPD officers will, as appropriate, use alternatives to arrest, including warn and release; informal counseling; referral to community services and resources such as mental health, drug treatment, mentoring, and counseling organizations, educational services, and other agencies; station house warnings and adjustments; and civil Citations.
219. The City will conduct a comprehensive assessment of the City’s efforts to decrease Youth involvement with the juvenile and criminal justice systems and obstacles to doing so, including the City’s diversion programs, community-based alternatives to incarceration, and treatment options for Youth in need of mental health treatment, drug treatment, or other services. The assessment will include community organizations with particular expertise and/or insight into issues affecting Youth, academics, and Youth advocates. The City will issue a report publicizing the results of its assessment and making recommendations to improve the City’s supports for Youth and its diversion programs.
220. BPD will assess its current policies and training relating to Youth and will revise its policies and training as necessary to ensure that BPD provides officers with guidance on developmentally appropriate responses to, and interactions with, Youth, consistent with the provisions of this Agreement, including for appropriate officer conduct during voluntary interactions, stops, searches, arrests, uses of force, and custodial detentions and interrogations.
221. BPD will ensure that it provides sufficient initial and ongoing training for officers on interacting with Youth to all of its existing and incoming officers. BPD will invite and encourage community-based Youth advocates and community organizations to participate in the development and implementation of Youth-focused training for BPD.
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IX. TRANSPORTATION OF PERSONS IN CUSTODY 222. The Parties recognize that safe and effective transportation of detainees is an
essential step in the process of taking a person into custody, and must be conducted in a manner that protects the wellbeing and personal security of officers, the public, and the people being transported. BPD has recently implemented new and/or amended policies regarding transportation of passengers and persons in custody. To the extent those policies meet the requirements of this Agreement, further revisions are not required. BPD will build upon its recently revised policies as required by this Agreement to ensure that all detainees are treated in a humane manner before, during, and after their transportation, with due regard for their physical safety and protection, consistent with sound principles of prisoner security. BPD will ensure that officers responsible for prisoner transportation are aware of detainees’ physical well-being to ensure that the individual is transported safely.
A. Transportation Equipment 223. BPD will ensure that all vehicles used by BPD for the transportation of persons in custody, including transport wagons or vans and police cruisers outfitted with dividers, contain sufficient and functioning seatbelts for each person in custody they are intended to transport. In addition to a seatbelt, BPD will ensure that all transport vans or wagons are outfitted with a strap located along the rear area of each seat that persons being transported may grip for security during transport. 224. BPD will supplement its existing policies to ensure that all transport wagons or vans that are used during prisoner transport are equipped with a functioning transport vehicle camera (“TVC”) system, which includes video recording equipment within all compartments used for the transportation of persons in custody. The TVC system will display a live video to
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officers located in the driver’s section of the vehicle, and also record the video to be preserved for future viewing. The TVC system will be used to record every instance of transportation of a person in custody, for the duration of the time the person in custody is within the vehicle. BPD officers will be prohibited from turning off or disabling the TVC system at any point while a person in custody is within the vehicle or being loaded into or removed from the vehicle. All transport vehicle video recordings will be maintained by BPD for a period of at least 1 year, or for longer as required by BPD policy.
225. BPD will inspect all vehicles used for the transportation of persons in custody on at least a monthly basis to ensure that all equipment, including video recording equipment, seatbelts, and straps, are fully functional.
B. Transportation Procedures 226. BPD will ensure that every person in custody being transported is secured by a fastened seatbelt or other authorized restraining device, in accordance with existing BPD policy. The number of people being transported in a given vehicle shall never exceed the number of seatbelts or other authorized restraining devices in the vehicle. 227. BPD will ensure that officers periodically check on the persons in custody during the transport process, either by direct observation or through live video transmission, in a manner that ensures the safety and security of the officers and the people being transported. At no time will a person in custody be left unattended in a transport vehicle. BPD will ensure that officers who are transporting persons in custody do not engage in any unrelated enforcement activities unless failure to act would result in imminent risk of death or serious bodily injury. 228. BPD will ensure that officers restrain persons in custody for transport in a manner that does not cause undue pain, undue risk of injury, or actual injury to the individual being
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transported. BPD will prohibit officers from transporting any persons who are restrained in a prone position (including the so-called “hog-tie” position), or handcuffing persons in custody to any part of a vehicle being used for transport.
229. BPD will ensure that males and females are not transported within the same compartment of a vehicle. If a vehicle contains only one compartment used for transporting persons in custody, BPD will use separate vehicles to transport males and females. Similarly, to the extent reasonably apparent, juvenile and adult persons in custody will not be transported in the same compartments. Transgender, Intersex, and/or Gender Non-conforming individuals, as defined in this Agreement, shall be transported with other arrestees of the same Gender Identity and Expression unless the individual expresses a safety concern or the officer identifies a safety concern, in which case the individual shall be transported alone.
230. BPD will ensure that wheelchairs, crutches, prosthetic devices, and other medical equipment required by persons with disabilities are transported to the final destination of the individual who requires them. If possible, without creating potentially hazardous conditions, such medical equipment will be transported in the same vehicle as the individual who requires them.
231. Other than the exception listed below, BPD will ensure that all officers driving a transport vehicle do not exceed the posted speed limit, and that the vehicle is driven in a manner that is calculated to preserve the safety and security of the persons in custody being transported. If a person being transported requires urgent and emergency medical care, the transporting officer may exceed the posted speed limit, as allowed for emergency vehicles under state law.
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232. BPD will ensure that during every instance of transport of a person in custody, the transporting officer will communicate the following information to dispatch or through other field-based reporting, which will be recorded and preserved for review:
a. The location of the vehicle where persons in custody are picked up; b. The time that the transportation unit departs the scene where a person was taken
into custody; c. How many persons in custody are being transported; d. The destination of the vehicle; e. The starting and ending mileage on the vehicle; f. The time of arrival at the destination; and g. Whether at any time the officer perceived the person in custody to be in need of
medical attention. 233. BPD will ensure that its officers periodically check on persons in custody from the time of arrest to the time of transfer of custody for apparent signs of medical distress or emergency. When a person in custody displays signs of medical distress or physical injury, BPD will ensure that officers take immediate action. These actions may vary depending on the particular circumstances, but may include (a) calling for assistance from medical personnel; (b) rendering first aid; or (c) immediately transporting the person to a hospital emergency room. Any time that an officer perceives that a person in custody is in medical distress or has a physical injury, the officer shall communicate this information to his or her supervisor. C. Monitoring of Transportation Practices 234. BPD will develop policies and procedures for determining at the point of transfer to another agency whether arrested persons were placed at undue risk, harmed, or injured while
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being transported. This process will include gathering and preserving data regarding whether persons were adequately restrained by a seatbelt during transport, whether force was used during transport, whether the person was injured during transport, the nature of the injury, and whether first aid or medical care was provided.
235. Every injury that is reported to have occurred during transport will be reviewed as a use of force as provided for in Section VII(D), Use of Force, or, if appropriate, as part of a vehicle crash investigation.
236. BPD will conduct quarterly audits of its transportation process to determine whether officers are properly following correct transportation procedures and that persons in custody who are being transported are not placed at risk of injury. The audits will include:
a. A review of information for at least five randomly selected instances of transport of persons in custody from each police district within the previous quarter, including reviewing all video recordings associated with each instance; reviewing and analyzing location, time, and odometer information to calculate the speed that the transport vehicle was driven; and reading any reports associated with the arrest, detention, and transport of the arrested person;
b. An analysis of the data collected during the previous quarter in Paragraph 232 of this Section;
c. A review of every injury reported to have occurred during transportation to determine if there are any trends related to transport policies and practices;
d. Random and unannounced spot-checks of at least three transportation vehicles from each BPD district to inspect for use of seatbelts and operation of the TVC system.
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237. Whenever, through auditing or otherwise, it is determined that an officer did not comply with BPD policies and procedures, BPD will take appropriate action, including the initiation of disciplinary procedures.
D. Policies and Training 238. BPD will review and revise its policies, procedures, and trainings associated with the transportation of persons in custody to ensure compliance with the requirements of this Agreement. BPD will ensure that all officers who drive transport wagons are provided a training of at least eight hours on safe and humane transportation of persons in custody, including the requirements of this Agreement, BPD policy and procedures related to transport, safe driving methods, the identification of medical distress and injuries, and proper restraint techniques. Up to four hours of the training required under this section may be satisfied by general training programs, which may include units regarding the requirements of the Agreement that are relevant to the safe transportation of detainees, including the identification of medical distress and injuries, and proper restraint techniques. X. FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTED ACTIVITIES 239. The Parties recognize that First Amendment protected expression promotes the free exchange of ideas that is a fundamental value of our nation and leads to better governance and trust in the rule of law. It also engenders transparency and trust in policing, and advances accountability for law enforcement officers and the public. BPD has recently implemented new and/or amended policies designed to safeguard the First Amendment rights of all individuals. To the extent those policies meet the requirements of this Agreement, further revisions are not required. BPD will build upon its recently revised policies as required by this Agreement, and promptly investigate and take appropriate corrective measures for any officer who violates BPD
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policy and training concerning First Amendment activity, to ensure that all BPD personnel respect the First Amendment rights of all persons, including, as defined by the First Amendment:
a. The right to criticize law enforcement or otherwise engage in protected expression in the presence of law enforcement officers without being subjected to retaliation;
b. The right to engage in lawful public protest or assembly; c. The right to observe BPD police officers in the public discharge of their duties in
all public spaces, including sidewalks, parks, and locations of lawful public protests, as well as any other areas where individuals otherwise have a legal right to be present, including an individual’s home or business and common areas of public and private facilities and buildings, so long as the individual does not endanger officers or the public, or physically interfere with the law enforcement action; d. BPD policy will continue to honor a citizen’s right to peacefully record BPD police officers publicly discharging their duty. A. Right to Criticize Law Enforcement or Engage in Expressive Activity, as Protected by the First Amendment
240. BPD will ensure that officers do not take any police action in retaliation for individuals lawfully exercising their right to witness, observe, record, comment on, or peacefully protest police activity. This includes retaliation by ordering individuals or groups to disperse, or by stopping, detaining, searching, arresting, issuing a Citation to, or threatening to stop, detain, search, arrest or issue a Citation to any individual or group.
241. BPD will ensure that officers do not use force in response to an individual engaging in legally protected speech, unless the individual poses an imminent threat to the safety of the officers or others, consistent with the provision of this Agreement in Section VII, Force.
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242. BPD will ensure that officers do not treat protesters differently based on the content or viewpoint of their legally protected speech.
243. BPD will ensure that individuals who observe stops, detentions, arrests, and other incidents shall be permitted to remain in the proximity of the incident unless there is an actual and articulable law enforcement basis to move an individual, such as: an individual’s presence would jeopardize the safety of the officer or others in the vicinity or would physically interfere with an officer’s lawful activity; the individual violates the law; or the individual incites others to violate the law.
244. BPD will ensure that BPD policy and training makes clear what conduct constitutes “interference.” BPD policy and training will provide specific examples to ensure BPD officers understand these concepts and how they apply to scenarios they are likely to encounter so they do not unjustifiably claim that an individual’s presence amounts to interference with law enforcement activity, or otherwise violates the law. BPD will ensure that when the person’s location is causing the interference, the officers recommend, where practicable and consistent with officer safety, an alternative location from which the bystander may continue to record, and/or protest and give the individual reasonable opportunity to comply prior to taking further enforcement action.
B. Right to Engage in Lawful Public Protest or Assembly, as Protected by the First Amendment
245. BPD will ensure that officers do not unlawfully interfere with lawful protests and assemblies.
246. BPD will revise current policies and protocols for policing public protests and assemblies as necessary to accommodate the requirements of this Agreement, and will specifically include:
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a. Factors officers should consider when exercising their lawful discretion to arrest;

b. Clear guidelines that minimize discretionary enforcement decisions by non-

supervisory officers during public protests;

c. Guidelines and limitations on the use of less-lethal force during public

demonstrations, including the criteria and circumstances for the use of different

types of force, required warnings, and documentation; and

d. A requirement that BPD develop a plan for all known significant pre-planned or

anticipated public protests or assemblies, which will include:

i.

An effective traffic control plan for streets and sidewalks; and

ii.

To the extent possible, a plan for public information sharing

before, during and after significant public assemblies;

iii.

For purposes of this subsection, a significant protest or assembly is

one in which the participation of more than 50 individuals is

anticipated.

C. Right to Observe and Record, as Protected by the First Amendment

247. BPD will ensure that its personnel permit members of the public to peacefully

photograph or record police officers performing their law enforcement duties in public, so long

as the individuals who are photographing or recording police activity do not threaten the officer’s

safety or the safety of others; do not compromise legitimate police actions and/or rescue efforts;

and do not physically interfere with the performance of the officer’s duties. Officers may

instruct an individual to cease recording and put away the recording device when that individual

is being placed under lawful arrest, or for any other lawful reason. BPD policy may account for

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preservation of the privacy interest of non-police individuals in a manner that does not interfere with the First Amendment right to record law enforcement activity.
248. BPD will require officers to document any instance in which they order a member of the public to stop recording police activity that occurs in public because there is a threat to the safety of the officer or others, the recording is compromising legitimate police actions and/or rescue efforts, or physically interfering with the officer’s duties.
249. BPD will ensure that officers do not search, seize, or otherwise coerce production of recorded sounds, images, or videos without obtaining a warrant. Where an officer has probable cause to believe that a bystander or witness has captured a recording of critical evidence related to a crime and the exigencies of the circumstances demand it, the officer may secure such evidence while a legal subpoena, search warrant, or other valid order is obtained. The officer will obtain the subpoena, warrant, or other order as soon as reasonably possible with diligent effort. If the subpoena, warrant, or other order is denied for lack of probable cause, the officer may not continue to hold the recording device while seeking additional evidence to support the request for the subpoena, warrant, or other order. Upon seizing such property, officers may not search or review its contents without first obtaining a search warrant unless exigent circumstances exist to justify a warrantless search, such as an immediate threat to public safety.
250. BPD will ensure that officers do not intentionally destroy cameras, other recording devices, sounds, images, videos, or other recorded material, and that they do not order an individual to intentionally destroy the same or otherwise cause such destruction, provided, however, that materials may be disposed of in accord with the record retention and destruction requirements established by law or BPD policy.
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D. Policy and Training for First Amendment Protected Activity 251. BPD will review and revise its policies, procedures, and trainings associated with First Amendment protected activity as needed to comply with the requirements of this Agreement. E. Supervision of First Amendment Related Arrests and Seizures 252. Only a member of BPD Command of the rank of Major or above may declare an assembly to be unlawful, and such a declaration must be subsequently documented in writing. If no officers of the rank of Major or above are available, the declaration may be made by a Lieutenant or Captain who is serving as shift commander. Orders to disperse may only be issued following such a declaration, and may only be initiated by a Lieutenant or above. BPD will ensure that officers obtain supervisory approval, to be documented as soon as practicable, before issuing any Citations or making Arrests related to refusal to obey a dispersal order, or related to public protest activities unless those activities pose an imminent threat to property or public safety in violation of any state or local law. 253. BPD will ensure that officers obtain supervisory approval within two hours when exigent circumstances have required the warrantless seizure of a recording device or recording. If reasonably practical, a supervisor shall respond to the scene and assess the situation in person. 254. At a minimum, a supervisor must be present to approve arrests for obstructing or hindering law enforcement while recording police activity, or for refusal to obey a dispersal order while engaged in public protest prior to arrestees being transported to a holding facility, absent exigent circumstances to be documented as soon as practicable.
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F. Ongoing Assessment and Improvement 255. BPD will conduct annual assessments of its practices related to First Amendment protected activity, which will include, at a minimum:
a. Review and analysis of complaints alleging misconduct related to First Amendment protected activity; and
b. Analysis of law enforcement responses to public protest or assembly. 256. As part of this assessment process, BPD will identify deficiencies and opportunities for improvement; implement any appropriate corrective action or improvement measures; and document measures taken. XI. HANDLING OF REPORTS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT 257. To increase the trust of victims1 of sexual assault in BPD, strengthen BPD’s response to and investigations of reports of sexual assault, and to combat gender bias, BPD shall implement the below measures. A. Policy and Training 258. BPD shall ensure its sexual assault policy and protocols:
a. Identify procedure and practice guidelines for a trauma-informed, victimcentered, multi-disciplinary response to sexual assault cases and thorough investigation of the crime;
b. Articulate the significant role and responsibilities of all officers throughout the sexual assault response and investigation;
1 The Parties respect that individuals who have been subjected to sexual assault are survivors. Because the context of this Agreement refers to the role of police interactions with people as victims of crimes, it refers to them as “victims”.
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c. Articulate the opportunity for forensic examination and comprehensive medical care to the sexual assault victim; and
d. Ensure all victims are offered access to free and confidential support, social service referrals, and information from a trained sexual assault victim advocate.
259. BPD shall provide initial and on-going annual training to all BPD detectives in the Sex Offense, Family Crimes, and Child Abuse Units about its policies and practices applicable to law enforcement response to sexual assault. This initial and annual in-service training shall ensure that these BPD detectives can perform their duties pursuant to this Agreement and include:
a. Guidance to patrol on how to respond to reports of sexual assault, including cases presenting co-occurring crimes such as domestic violence or stalking;
b. Guidance to detectives on strategies that postpone judgment regarding the validity of a case until a thorough investigation is completed;
c. Highlighting methods to minimize further physical and psychological trauma to victims of sexual violence by creating a respectful, objective response;
d. Identification of strategies to keep the investigation focused on the behavior and actions of the suspect;
e. The impact of trauma on victims and adjustments to interview practices to allow sensitivity to victims’ needs and the dynamics of sexual assault, and thus increase the likelihood of continued victim participation with law enforcement, improve the experience for victims cooperating with law enforcement, and strengthen sexual assault investigations;
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f. The dynamics of and relevant core scientific concepts related to sexual assault including trauma-related behavior, tonic immobility, and the effects of trauma on memory;
g. Guidance on working with vulnerable populations, including homeless people, sex workers, people with Behavioral Health Disabilities, and LGBT individuals;
h. Law enforcement response to non-stranger sexual assault, alcohol and drugfacilitated sexual assault, sexual assault where the victim is incapacitated or otherwise unwilling or unable to clearly describe the assault;
i. Report writing and documentation of the investigation undertaken, techniques for investigations of sexual assault, and classification of reports of sexual assault;
j. Trauma-informed interviews of individuals reporting sexual assault; k. Taking statements from, interviewing, and interrogating suspects, including
training about interrogating suspects in non-stranger or drug/alcohol-facilitated sexual assaults; and l. For those detectives with supervisory responsibilities, supervision of sexual assault cases, including sexual assault case reviews and other mechanisms to detect and prevent gender bias in the response to reports of sexual assault. B. Sexual Assault Investigations, Supervision, and Internal Oversight 260. BPD will: a. Assign all reports of sexual assault that meet the criteria outlined in BPD policy to detectives for follow up investigation; b. Thoroughly investigate reports of sexual assault, including any assaults that appear to be non-stranger assaults, assaults facilitated by alcohol or drugs, or
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assaults involving victims who were incapacitated or otherwise unable or unwilling to clearly describe the assault; c. Consult with forensic examiners to obtain and discuss the results of medical/forensic examinations, and include a summary of the findings of the forensic examinations, including findings related to all injuries, in case reports; d. Ensure that investigators of sexual assaults do not have a history of complaints of bias relating to gender or complaints of sexual misconduct that could impair their ability to investigate sexual assault in accordance with BPD policy and training; e. If the victim consents, BPD shall enable advocates to be present during victim interviews, unless doing so would compromise the evidentiary value of the interview; f. Continue to provide a “soft” interview room, equipped with audio and video recording capabilities, for conducting victim interviews; g. Ensure that officers introduce sensitive lines of questioning by first explaining why those questions are relevant to the investigation; and h. Ensure that if there is a specific and articulable investigative purpose, detectives can ask the victim about their desire to prosecute the assailant, but the victim’s responses should not be a determinative factor in law enforcement decisions about whether or how to pursue investigation. 261. BPD will ensure that officers transport victims to the designated medical facility for a forensic exam in all instances in which a forensic exam is warranted and the victim consents to the transport.
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262. BPD shall establish and implement measures to ensure supervision and internal

oversight of sexual assault investigations. These measures should include but not be limited to:

a. Developing a system of automated alerts to trigger supervisory review of open

sexual assault investigations, and a protocol governing the supervisory review.

This system and protocol shall include:

i.

Supervisory review of all sexual assault reports, that fall under the

investigative criteria for the Sex Offense Unit or Child Abuse Unit,

within 48 hours of the report being taken in order to ensure

consistency with BPD policy for initial officer response and

documentation; and

ii.

Supervisory evaluation of the thoroughness of the investigation in

sexual assault cases when: (1) the victim has not been interviewed

within one week of BPD receiving the report of sexual assault; (2)

a case has been classified as “open,” without any investigative

activity, for longer than six months.

b. Before an investigation of a report of sexual assault is closed or a report of sexual

assault is classified as “unfounded,” a supervisor shall assess whether a

comprehensive investigation has been conducted and whether appropriate follow-

up has been completed.

263. With the goal of better identifying serial offenders, BPD shall collect, share, and

track crime-specific information about unresolved investigations of reports of sexual assault,

including, to the extent possible, with law enforcement agencies in neighboring or with

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overlapping jurisdictions who are willing to cooperate, to identify similarities between reported sexual assaults and unresolved cases.
264. BPD will continue to enhance its data collection, analysis, and reporting. The data to be collected and analyzed should include the following:
a. The numbers of sex offenses, broken down by crime category, that are reported to BPD, identifying, where applicable, incidents involving co-occurring crimes (i.e., sexual assaults involving domestic violence or stalking);
b. The number of offenders, both the totals and broken down by gender (i.e., male, female, transgender, queer or non-binary) and the relationship of the offender to the victim (i.e., stranger or non-stranger);
c. The number of victims/complainants, both the totals and broken down by gender, race, and age (i.e., under 18 and 18 and older);
d. The total number of sex offense reports categorized as founded and unfounded, broken down by the BPD unit categorizing the report;
e. The total numbers of sex offense reports, broken down by the BPD unit handling the report, that (1) were cleared by arrest, (2) were cleared by exceptional clearance, including by clearance category, (3) remain open and inactive, and (4) were referred to the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office for the filing of charges; and
f. Data about the processing of forensic medical exams (often referred to as “rape kits”), including: (1) date of reported incident; (2) date of SAFE exam; (3) date detectives request lab analysis of SAFE exam; (4) date detectives receive lab analysis results.
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C. Community Collaboration and External Oversight 265. In a manner permitted by law, BPD shall share the information in Paragraph 264 with the public, and with its community and law enforcement partners and the Sexual Assault Response Team (“SART”), to promote public safety and better support the needs of sexual assault victims. 266. To promote a coordinated, multidisciplinary, and victim-centered response to victims of sexual assault, the City and BPD will evaluate and revise as necessary the policies and protocol governing the functioning of Baltimore’s SART to ensure that it is empowered to engage in periodic systems reviews to improve services provided to victims of sexual assault and ensure they are victim-centered, subject to the limits of applicable law. The SART will continue to be permitted to review cases in accordance with the MOU, including samples of open cases and cases that are classified as “unfounded”. XII. TECHNOLOGY A. Development and Implementation of Updated Technology 267. BPD will provide its officers with the Technology necessary to implement the Material Requirements of this Agreement, as set forth in this Section. The Parties agree that the data collection and review required by this Agreement is dependent upon BPD acquiring or developing the appropriate technology for such data collection and review. 268. Within the first year of the Effective Date of the Agreement, BPD will complete a comprehensive study of the Technology (the “Resource Study”) necessary to satisfy the Material Requirements of this Agreement. The design, objectives, and deadline for completion of the Resource Study shall be set forth in the Monitoring Plan.
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269. BPD will develop a resource plan (“Resource Plan”) for adopting the Technology

necessary to satisfy the Material Requirements of this Agreement. The deadline for submitting

the Resource Plan shall be set forth in the Monitoring Plan.

270. The Resource Study and the Resource Plan shall address how BPD can best and

most cost-effectively:

a. Provide BPD personnel with an adequate number of computers or equivalent

electronic devices for accessing and processing data as necessary to discharge

their duties;

b. Provide BPD personnel with access to law enforcement databases as necessary to

discharge their duties, containing:

i.

Basic information about the civilians with whom they interact;

ii.

The call history associated with the locations to which they are

responding;

iii.

Warrant and driver’s license information;

iv.

Information concerning restraining orders.

c. Create a centralized data and records management system that is:

i.

Capable of storing, in an easily searchable manner, all data

required by this Agreement;

ii.

Capable of using unique numbers or other identifiers to track all

officer activities and supervisory reviews that are required by this

Agreement. For example, the system shall be capable of using a

single unique identifier to identify all documents related to a

pedestrian or vehicle Stop, any Search or Arrest connected to that

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Stop, any Use of Force connected to the Stop, Search, or Arrest, and all reviews, investigations, and complaints arising from a Stop, Search, Arrest, or Use of Force; d. Develop an Early Intervention System (“EIS”) as described in Section XIII(E). 271. In conjunction with the Monitor and with DOJ, BPD will ensure that its policy on body-worn cameras addresses the use of cameras, retention of videos, access and privacy issues, the use of recordings as evidence in force and complaint reviews, and the use of recordings for other criminal justice purposes (such as evidence in prosecutions or evidence required to be turned over to defense attorneys). At a minimum, BPD’s body-worn camera policy will: a. Clearly state which officers are required to use body-worn cameras and under which circumstances; b. Specify the location(s) on the body where the camera should be worn; c. Require officers to articulate in writing their reasons for failing to record an activity that BPD policy otherwise requires to be recorded; d. Require officers to inform subjects that they are being recorded unless doing so would be unsafe, impractical, or impossible; e. Establish a protocol governing the download, supervisory review, and retention of body-worn camera recordings; f. Require officers to document the existence of any camera footage on all required reports, and require officers to report to their supervisor, and document in writing, any non-recorded event that should have been recorded under BPD policy, as well as any interruptions or terminations of recordings; and
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g. Require periodic random review and auditing of officers’ videos to assess whether the officer activity was conducted consistent with law and BPD policy.
272. To the extent that BPD already provides, or is in the process of providing, the items specified above, nothing in this Agreement requires BPD to delay its procurement or use of that technology. The Resource Plan shall identify any of the items specified in Paragraph 270 that BPD either (a) already provides or (b) is in the process of providing to officers. For technology that BPD is in process of providing, the Resource Plan shall indicate how BPD will finish acquiring or implementing the technology.
273. BPD shall submit the Resource Plan to the Monitor and DOJ for review and approval based on the schedule set forth in the Monitoring Plan. DOJ and the Monitor shall assess whether the Resource Plan sets out a reasonable and cost-effective plan for complying with the Material Requirements of this Agreement. If an objection is noted by either DOJ or the Monitor, DOJ, the Monitor, and BPD shall meet and confer to resolve any objections. If the objections are not resolved, the Parties may seek relief from the Court.
274. BPD will employ its best efforts to implement the Resource Plan over the period of time set forth in the approved Monitoring Plan.
275. BPD will annually update the Resource Plan to take into account the needs of BPD regarding the Material Requirements of this Agreement.
276. When acquiring any new type of equipment or technology that is used in enforcement activities or oversight of such activities, including records management systems, computers and mobile data terminals, service weapons and less lethal weapons, and surveillance or tracking equipment, BPD shall timely disclose to the public on its website or disclose to any civilian oversight entity agreed upon by the Parties: (1) the type of new equipment or technology
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sought; and (2) BPD’s intended use of the equipment. BPD shall make these disclosures prior to deploying the equipment or technology. The disclosure requirement shall not apply when BPD is merely purchasing an additional quantity of an existing technology, such as additional patrol vehicles.
277. For equipment or technology procured through the public process conducted by the Baltimore City Board of Estimates, BPD may satisfy the requirements of the preceding paragraph by identifying the new type of equipment or technology on BPD’s website and providing a link to relevant procurement information maintained by the Board of Estimates.
278. If BPD seeks to acquire or develop new technology without advising the public, BPD shall timely disclose the technology to DOJ and the Monitor and explain why BPD believes non-disclosure is necessary to achieve law enforcement objectives. If the Parties are unable to resolve any disagreement about the necessity of public non-disclosure of a particular technology, DOJ may seek an order from the Court to have the technology disclosed to the public. XIII. SUPERVISION
A. Policies Generally 279. The Parties recognize that sound, clear, and fair policies and procedures are the foundation of constitutional policing. The Parties further recognize that officers rely on clear, accessible, and feasible policies in order to effectively do their jobs and preserve public safety. BPD policies must be developed, distributed, and updated in a manner that incorporates public and officer input. 280. Any and all new policies or policy revisions required by this Agreement will be plainly written, logically organized, and use terms that are clearly defined, and written in language that is accessible to officers and community members without formal legal training.
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281. BPD will ensure that it provides all specialized units with policies and protocol to govern their functions.
282. BPD will design a process to ensure that officers affected by newly created or revised policies are given an opportunity to meaningfully review and provide input before the policies are finalized. This process will include specific procedures to solicit input from both supervisors and line officers, as well as the employees who will be most affected by the policies, and employees with expertise in the policy area.
283. BPD will work collaboratively with the Monitor and DOJ on the creation of or revisions to policies relating to the Material Requirements of this Agreement. The Monitoring Plan shall specifically include time for a period of collaboration (“Collaboration Period”). All policies related to the Material Requirements of this Agreement are subject to review and approval by the Monitor and DOJ prior to publication and implementation. Policies that do not relate to the Material Requirements of this Agreement, or revisions that are nonsubstantive, are exempt from collaboration and approval, as well as from the posting and public comment period described below.
284. BPD will submit all newly created or revised policies to the Monitor and DOJ prior to publication and implementation. If BPD believes that a newly drafted policy or revision is nonsubstantive or falls outside the scope of this Agreement, it will indicate as such as part of its submission. For policies that are substantive and related to the Material Requirements of this Agreement, Monitor and DOJ approval will be deemed granted if neither the Monitor nor DOJ responds substantively within 30 days of the submission. Notification that either the Monitor or DOJ will engage collaboratively on drafting or revising the policy shall be deemed a substantive response.
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285. After the Collaboration Period, BPD will post any new or revised policy that relates to the Material Requirements of this Agreement on its website and provide the public and its officers an opportunity to comment within a 30 day period (“the Comment Period”). In response to any comments, BPD shall consider, in its discretion, whether any further revisions are appropriate, or whether to resume the Collaboration Period. Changes implemented in response to public or officer comment will remain subject to approval by the Monitor and DOJ prior to publication and implementation.
286. If circumstances demand that a policy or procedure requires an urgent revision or clarification (e.g., due to a significant change in law), the BPD Commissioner may issue an appropriate temporary memorandum or directive following notice and submission of such to the Monitor and DOJ. Nothing in this provision will exempt a policy or procedure that relates to the Material Requirements of this Agreement from the Collaboration Period, Comment Period, review, or final approval by the Monitor and DOJ.
287. BPD agrees to re-review each new or revised policy or procedure that relates to the Material Requirements of this Agreement after it has been in effect for a year and before 18 months to ensure it provides clear guidance to officers and is consistent with this Agreement and current law. When the Monitor gives BPD notice of a significant policy deficiency, the BPD agrees to collaborate with the Monitor to review and remedy any deficiency.
288. Officers and employees will have access to a readily usable electronic format of all the policies (e.g., accessible through an electronic device within department vehicles or carried on the officer’s person).
289. BPD agrees that all policies will continue to be made available to the public electronically on BPD’s website. The BPD agrees to publish each new or revised policy or
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procedure on its website promptly upon implementation. There will be reasonable exceptions for policies that are law enforcement-sensitive, such as procedures regarding undercover officers or operations.
290. BPD agrees to revise policies required by this Agreement in a timely manner to reflect significant changes in the law, in accordance with the procedures provided by this Agreement.
B. Training Generally 291. The parties agree that proper, effective and comprehensive training is a necessary prerequisite to constitutional policing. The Parties agree that BPD must establish and prioritize a robust training program to ensure that officers and other employees gain full understanding of BPD policies, legal requirements, and practical policing techniques. The Parties recognize that under state law certification of training may be subject to approval by the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission (the “MPTSC”). 292. With BPD’s assistance, the City will ensure that BPD’s training program and academy are reasonably funded. In consultation with the Monitor, the City, and DOJ, BPD will create a plan for renovating and updating training facilities in a cost-effective and reasonable manner to accomplish the training requirements of this Agreement, including the provision of information technology resources. All of the training requirements of this Agreement are set forth in the Training Matrix, Appendix A. The information technology resources required by this Agreement shall be determined in accordance with Section XII, Technology. 293. BPD will ensure that an adequate number of qualified instructors are assigned to the training academy.
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294. BPD will develop a written Training Plan for comprehensive in-service and supplemental training for officers and for enhancing BPD’s field training with a revised Field Training Officer (“FTO”) program. The Training Plan will be developed in consultation with the Monitor and DOJ, and will be consistent with the Monitoring Plan. The Training Plan will:
a. Identify training priorities, principles and broad goals consistent with this Agreement and the substantive training requirements it contains;
b. Include a plan for delivering supplemental basic training, remedial training, inservice training, and roll-call training as necessary to provide the relevant training required by this Agreement;
c. Coordinate the topics of supplemental basic training and in-service training with FTO training;
d. Establish the frequency and subject areas for supplemental basic and in-service training;
e. Develop a plan for annual in-service training; f. Identify available training delivery and related resources, as well as unmet needs; g. Coordinate with the City and others to assist in obtaining necessary training
resources; h. Where appropriate, provide time for obtaining any required approval from the
MPTSC; and i. Establish a method for assessing the content and delivery of training, including
training provided by outside instructors. This method will allow for the measurement and documentation of trainee reaction to, and satisfaction with, the training they received, and learning as a result of training, including the extent to
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which trainees are applying the knowledge and skills acquired in training to their jobs. 295. BPD, pursuant to the Training Plan and in consultation with the Monitor and DOJ, will review all training curricula and lesson plans for consistency, quality, and compliance with applicable law, BPD policy, and this Agreement. BPD will ensure that best practices in adult learning, scenario-based training, and problem-solving practices, in addition to traditional lecture formats, are incorporated into training delivery. BPD will advise the Monitor and DOJ regarding training that can be delivered in roll-call or online, or in large class formats, as opposed to training that will require more intensive delivery. BPD will also assess instructor qualifications and testing materials. 296. BPD will ensure that all instructors responsible for training are proficient in their subject matter and are qualified, including, as applicable, previous instructor experience, training in instruction and adult learning techniques, and instruction skills. In addition, BPD will consider an officer’s performance evaluations, past performance as a police officer, and disciplinary history in selecting instructors. 297. BPD will actively seek out and retain qualified instructors from outside BPD to supplement the skills of its in-house training staff and adjunct instructors. As appropriate, BPD will incorporate experts, community-based instructors, and guest speakers, including mental health service providers and consumers, judges, prosecutors, crime victims, academics in the field of criminal justice, community resource providers, and community members, including Youth, to participate in relevant courses. 298. Where necessary to comply with this Agreement, BPD will develop or adopt supplemental basic training and in-service training curricula and lesson plans. All new curricula
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and lesson plans will be reviewed and approved by the Monitor and DOJ prior to implementation. Any training required by this Agreement that is conducted by an outside instructor or non-BPD entity will be reviewed and approved by the Monitor and DOJ prior to implementation. Approval of curricula and lesson plans submitted to the Monitor and DOJ will not be unreasonably withheld and will be deemed granted if there has been no substantive response within 30 days. Notification that either the Monitor or DOJ will review the training and provide commentary, or similar, shall be deemed a substantive response.
299. BPD will review and update BPD’s Training Plan on a periodic basis. To inform these updates, BPD will conduct a needs assessment, taking into consideration: trainee-toinstructor ratios; trainee feedback and evaluations of trainings; trends in misconduct complaints; problematic uses of force; data concerning stops, searches and arrests; analysis of officer safety issues; and changes in the law or BPD policy.
300. In order to ensure that all trainings are adequately documented, BPD will develop and implement a training data tracking system in consultation with the Monitor and DOJ. The training data tracking system will include a central and comprehensive database containing information on trainings attended by each officer, including in-service training and remedial training. The data tracking system will include information on which officers require trainings, and class attendance, including missed classes. The data tracking system will additionally include performance data and trainees’ results on any tests or scored evaluations. The system will be readily available to supervisors throughout the Department to facilitate their supervisory duties. BPD will ensure that adequate resources are provided to maintain the system up to date and review the data contained therein.
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C. Field Training Officer Program 301. BPD will develop a plan to enhance its FTO program for new recruits in order to attract and retain sufficient numbers of suitable FTO officers. The FTO plan will incorporate established standards for police training officer programs, including effective methods of adult education, and problem-based learning methods. BPD’s plan will include eligibility criteria and methodology to select FTOs based on written applications, performance evaluations, previous performance as police officers, and disciplinary histories. The plan will include a mechanism for recruits to provide confidential evaluations regarding the quality of their FTO training. 302. BPD agrees to ensure that all FTOs receive a minimum of 40 hours of initial training, as well as necessary refresher training, consistent with the Training Plan, after one year of participation in the program. The training will address management and supervision; community-oriented policing; effective problem- solving techniques; and field communication. FTOs will be required to maintain, and demonstrate on a regular basis, their proficiency in managing recruits and subordinates, practicing and teaching community-oriented policing, and solving problems effectively. BPD will maintain current documentation of FTOs’ evaluations and training in the training data tracking system, and remove or add FTOs as appropriate and necessary. D. Supervisory Character, Duties and Training 303. BPD will ensure that supervisors to provide close and effective supervision and accordingly shall:
a. Establish and enforce throughout the department the expectation that officers will police in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution and other laws, and BPD policy;
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b. Provide leadership, counseling, direction, and support to officers as needed; c. Lead efforts to increase public trust; d. Respond to, document, review and investigate stops, searches, Citations, arrests,
uses of force, and other officer conduct as required by BPD policy and this Agreement; e. Identify misconduct and ensure that it is adequately addressed through corrective action, training, or referral for discipline; and f. Identify training and professional development needs and opportunities on an individual, squad, and department-wide level. 304. BPD will ensure that supervisors document the performance of their supervisory duties in BPD’s records management system or the Early Intervention System, as appropriate. 305. Supervisors shall be required to document, at a minimum: a. All disciplinary referrals and non-disciplinary counseling; b. All occasions where supervisors respond to the scene as required by policy; c. All reviews of officer conduct, including reviews of use of force and other reports as required by BPD policy and this Agreement; and d. Any training or professional development needs supervisors identify for officers, as well as the specific actions they take in response to those needs. 306. Supervisors’ performance evaluations and promotions will be based upon the fulfillment of their supervisory duties. 307. The failure to fulfill supervisory duties will result in corrective action, training, or discipline, as deemed appropriate by the Commissioner.
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308. Effective, comprehensive supervisory training prior to the start of a promotional assignment is essential to successful supervision. BPD will develop and implement mandatory supervisory training for all new and current supervisors. This training for new and current supervisors may be different, but both will include the following topics:
a. Techniques for effectively guiding and directing officers and promoting effective and constitutional police practices;
b. De-escalating conflict; c. Evaluating written reports, including identification of canned or conclusory
language that is not accompanied by specific facts; d. Investigating officer uses of force; e. Building community partnerships and guiding officers on this requirement; f. Understanding supervisory tools such as the Early Intervention System and body–
worn cameras; g. Responding to and investigating allegations of officer misconduct; h. Evaluating officer performance; i. LEOBR and Department disciplinary system requirements, and non-punitive
corrective actions; and j. Monitoring use of force to ensure consistency with policies and legal updates. 309. The supervisory training for new supervisors will include a field training component that will allow newly promoted supervisors to better understand the requirements of their positions.
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310. All sworn supervisors will receive annual in-service training concerning management, which may include updates and lessons learned related to the topics covered in the initial supervisor training and other areas covered by this Agreement.
311. BPD will hold supervisors directly accountable for the quality and effectiveness of their supervision, including whether supervisors identify and effectively respond to misconduct and ensure that officers effectively engage with the community.
E. Early Intervention System 312. BPD will design, undertake, and report on an analysis of existing systems used to record, track, review, and evaluate officer activity. 313. BPD will upgrade its Early Intervention System (“EIS”) as required by this Agreement and in accordance with the timeframe set forth in the Resource Plan. BPD will ensure that the EIS functions as a flexible management tool that promotes supervisory awareness and proactive identification of potentially problematic behavior among officers, and facilitates the delivery of individualized interventions to correct identified problematic or potentially problematic officer behavior. 314. BPD may either enhance the current data management system or contract with another qualified service provider to implement the EIS relational database. BPD will ensure it has a reasonable and cost-effective system to fulfill the requirements of the EIS. The City will ensure BPD has reasonable and cost-effective funding levels to implement and maintain the EIS, including its ongoing hardware and support requirements. 315. The EIS will be:
a. Customizable to BPD’s particular needs; b. Adaptive as new information becomes available;
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c. Able to be audited and validated to improve accuracy, reduce false outcomes, and timeliness of intervention;
d. Able to prioritize officers for intervention; and e. Able to assess the efficacy of the intervention. 316. The EIS will include a computerized relational database that will be used to collect, maintain, integrate, and retrieve department-wide, district-wide, and unit-wide data, as well as data for each officer. In consultation with the Monitor and to be approved by the DOJ pursuant to the Paragraph 324, BPD will develop policies setting forth the specific information that the EIS will capture, as well as data storage, data retrieval, reporting, data analysis, pattern identification, supervisory use, supervisory/departmental intervention, documentation, audits, access to the system, and confidentiality of personally identifiable information. 317. The EIS relational database will capture all information necessary to ensure supervisory awareness and early identification of potentially problematic individual and department-wide conduct or signs of stress or other behavior that would benefit from being addressed. The EIS will include appropriate identifying information for each sworn officer (e.g., name, badge number, shift, and supervisors). Among the other information that will be captured will be: a. All uses of force, broken down by level and type; b. All injuries and deaths to persons in custody; c. Vehicle pursuits and traffic collisions involving BPD equipment; d. All instances in which force is used and a subject is charged with Failure to Obey,
Resisting Arrest, Assault on an Officer, Disorderly Conduct, Trespassing, or similar charges; or a Quality-of-Life Offense, as delineated in BPD Policy;
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e. All instances in which an officer issues three or more Citations during a single

encounter;

f. Violations of BPD’s body-worn and in-car camera policies;

g. All instances in which BPD learns:

i.

That a declination to prosecute any crime or municipal code

violation was based upon concerns of the Prosecutor about an

officer’s credibility;

ii.

That a court has made a negative credibility determination

regarding a BPD officer; or

iii.

That a motion to suppress evidence was granted on the grounds of

a constitutional violation by a BPD officer;

h. All misconduct complaints, including the disposition of each allegation;

i. Judicial proceedings where an officer is the subject of a Full Order of Protection

or other restraining order, which BPD policy shall require officers to report;

j. All criminal proceedings initiated against an officer, as well as all civil or

administrative claims filed with or against the BPD or its agents that result from

the actions of sworn BPD personnel;

k. All disciplinary action taken against BPD officers;

l. All non-disciplinary corrective action required of BPD officers;

m. All awards and commendations received by BPD officers, including those

received from civilians;

n. Officer sick leave usage, especially in concert with regular days off and holidays;

and

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o. Training record for each officer. 318. All required information shall be entered into the EIS database in a timely, accurate, and complete manner by BPD supervisors and other responsible individuals. All information captured within the EIS database will be organized and readily accessible in a manner that facilitates identification of potentially problematic officer behavior before it occurs. 319. The EIS will allow for and require close monitoring of officer conduct, including Peer-Group Analysis between officers with similar assignments and duties. BPD will set and implement levels for supervisory review based on the EIS indicators, either cumulatively, separately, or both. The BPD will ensure that once a review of a particular officer has been triggered, each subsequent event indicating increased risk to the officer will trigger supervisory review. The Monitor and DOJ will review and approve BPD’s plan for supervisor review levels. In addition to supervisory review upon reaching a particular level based on EIS indicators, the BPD will ensure that BPD command staff and other supervisors regularly review EIS data to evaluate the performance of officers across all ranks, units, and shifts. 320. The BPD will ensure that BPD command staff collect and, at least quarterly, analyze EIS information related to supervisor, squad, and officer trends. 321. The BPD will ensure that BPD first line supervisors and Lieutenants review EIS data for all officers under their direct command at least monthly, and whenever an officer first comes under their supervision. At least quarterly, supervisors will review broader, pattern-based reports. 322. BPD will ensure that all supervisors are trained on how to use the EIS system, interpret its outputs, and perform appropriate interventions.
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323. BPD will retain or internally develop the expertise necessary to implement individualized interventions to respond to identified problematic or potentially problematic officer conduct. Non-disciplinary interventions will be timely implemented and designed to assist officers in avoiding or correcting potentially problematic behavior. All interventions will be documented in writing and entered into the EIS. BPD will review, evaluate, and document in writing the progress and effectiveness of the intervention strategy.
324. BPD will develop and implement a comprehensive protocol for using the updated EIS, to be approved by the Monitor and DOJ in accordance with the schedule specified in the Monitoring Plan. This information will include data storage, data retrieval, reporting, data analysis, pattern identification, supervisory use, supervisory/departmental intervention, documentation, audits, access to the system, and confidentiality of information protected by law.
325. BPD will properly maintain all necessary equipment and software sufficient to permit maintenance, and use of the EIS as set out in this Agreement and BPD policy. BPD will maintain all officer specific information in the EIS for at least five years following the officer’s separation from BPD, unless prohibited by law. Information necessary for anonymized aggregate statistical analyses will be maintained for 20 years.
326. In addition to providing training to supervisors and others directly responsible for using the EIS, BPD will ensure that all BPD officers are provided with information regarding the scope and function of the EIS within 60 days of its implementation.
327. To ensure the EIS accounts for the unique operations of BPD and the needs and interests of its supervisors, BPD will create an EIS specific compliance plan, with input from the Monitor and DOJ. The plan will, at minimum, set forth a clear explanation of how the different types of data within EIS will be related to each other; what hardware and information
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architecture will be required to achieve that; what source systems will supply the data; what internal or external resources will be required; which BPD personnel will be responsible for implementation; and what the proposed timeline for implementation will be.
F. Ongoing Assessment and Improvement 328. BPD will develop protocols for annually evaluating the effectiveness of the supervision of its officers. As part of this assessment process, the BPD will identify deficiencies and implement and document appropriate corrective action. XIV. MISCONDUCT INVESTIGATIONS AND DISCIPLINE 329. A robust and well-functioning accountability system in which officers are held to the highest standards of integrity is critical to BPD’s legitimacy, and a priority of the Department. A well-functioning accountability system is one in which BPD: openly and readily receives complaints reported by civilians and officers and fully, fairly, and efficiently investigates them; supports all investigative findings by the appropriate standard of proof and documents them in writing; holds accountable all officers who commit misconduct pursuant to a disciplinary system that is fair, consistent, and provides due process; and treats all individuals who participate in BPD’s internal disciplinary process—including complainants, officers, and witnesses—with respect and dignity. To achieve these outcomes, the City and BPD will implement the requirements set out below within their respective spheres of control. A. BPD’s Office of Professional Responsibility 330. The OPR shall continue to be physically located in a facility that is separate from other BPD buildings, is easily accessible to the public and has space for receiving members of the public and for permitting them to file complaints.
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331. Employees working in OPR will not be assigned to duties that may create any conflict of interest, or appearance of conflict of interest, with their investigatory responsibility.
332. The OPR will have sufficient resources and qualified staff to successfully fulfill its mission.
333. The OPR will have the following powers and authority: a. The OPR will investigate all complaints of officer misconduct and will coordinate with CRB on all complaints within CRB jurisdiction that CRB is also investigating or reviewing; b. The OPR will oversee investigations into allegations of misconduct that do not involve police-civilian interactions. These investigations are currently centralized, and may, after appropriate policies and training have been developed, be conducted by supervisors at the officer’s District or Unit;
334. BPD will ensure that the OPR reviews and revises as necessary its policies and protocols to ensure that investigators and supervisors are provided with sufficient guidance to effectively fulfill their mission.
B. Complaint Intake, Classification, and Communication with Complainants 335. BPD will review and revise as necessary its policies governing OPR to ensure its processes for complaint intake, classification, and tracking, and its processes for communicating with complainants, to comply with the terms of this Agreement. 336. BPD will ensure that the complaint intake process is open and accessible for individuals who wish to file complaints about BPD officers’ conduct:
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a. BPD will ensure individuals may make complaints in multiple ways, including in

person or anonymously, by telephone, online, and through third parties to ensure

broad and easy access to its complaint system:

i.

BPD will make complaint forms widely available at public

buildings and locations throughout Baltimore City, and will make

them available to community groups to provide to their members;

ii.

Complaint forms will be made available, at a minimum, in English

and Spanish. BPD will comply with the law to make complaints

accessible to people who speak other languages (including sign

language). The fact that a complainant does not speak, read, or

write English, or is deaf or hard of hearing will not be grounds to

decline to accept or investigate a complaint;

iii.

BPD will ensure that a free, 24-hour hotline exists for members of

the public to make complaints, and will clearly display this

information on its website and other BPD printed materials;

b. BPD will ensure that all complaints they receive about BPD officer conduct will

be accepted and investigated whether submitted by a BPD employee or a member

of the public; whether submitted verbally or in writing; in person, by phone, or

online; whether submitted by a complainant, someone acting on the complainant’s

behalf, or anonymously;

c. BPD will document all complaints in writing;

d. BPD will ensure that complaints about officers in specialized units are accepted,

even if the complainant could not identify the officer’s name or badge number;

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e. BPD’s complaint form will not contain warnings about the potential criminal consequences for filing false complaints;
f. BPD will coordinate with CRB to develop a unified complaint form that will satisfy the requirements of state law and this Agreement;
g. BPD will ensure all officers carry complaint forms in their BPD vehicles, and provide complaint forms to individuals upon request. Alternatively, BPD may provide a card, approved by the Monitor and DOJ, with information about how to file a complaint electronically instead of a complaint form to comply with the requirements of this paragraph. BPD will ensure officers will provide their name and badge number upon request;
h. The City will ensure that civilian complaints of police misconduct it receives through other existing systems, such as CrimeStoppers tip line, the Mayor’s office, or the Civilian Review Board, are timely forwarded to the OPR. BPD will ensure that these complaints, where appropriate, will also be timely forwarded to the CRB;
i. BPD will ensure that individuals who make complaints in person receive a copy of their complaint form upon intake. Each complaint form will prominently display a unique tracking number or barcode. This tracking number or barcode will be linked with any case number ultimately assigned to the complaint, if any. Complainants may use the barcode or tracking number to obtain information about the status of the investigation.
337. BPD shall ensure that there are adequate protocols to encourage and protect officers who report violations of policy by other officers and that every BPD officer, regardless
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of rank, who observes or becomes aware of any act of misconduct by a BPD officer against a member of the public shall report the incident to a Supervisor or to the OPR for appropriate documentation and investigation. BPD will ensure:
a. Where an act of misconduct is reported to a Supervisor, the Supervisor shall timely document and report the information to the OPR;
b. The failure to report an allegation of misconduct, as defined in this Agreement, will be considered misconduct, and will be subject to discipline and/or appropriate corrective action based on the seriousness of the conduct;
c. All forms of retaliation, interference, intimidation, coercion, or adverse action against any person, civilian or sworn officer, who, because that person reports misconduct, attempts to make or makes a misconduct complaint, or cooperates with an investigation of misconduct, are strictly prohibited and shall result in discipline, demotion, and/or appropriate corrective action based on the seriousness of the conduct;
338. BPD complaint classification will be based solely on the nature of the allegations and the facts alleged in such allegations:
a. OPR will develop a protocol to ensure that all complaints are properly classified. The protocol will list all allegation types and provide examples of officer conduct that fits each allegation type. The protocol will be publicly available on BPD’s website;
b. A commander in BPD’s OPR will coordinate the initial classification of internal complaints received by BPD employees and ensure they are consistent with BPD’s complaint classification protocol;
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c. Changes to a complaint’s classification must be documented in writing and approved by a commander in OPR;
d. In accordance with Public Local Law, OPR will promptly refer civilian complaints to the Civilian Review Board, pursuant to the protocol developed under Paragraph 339;
e. Upon being notified of any allegation of misconduct through an internal or external complaint, the OPR will, within 72 hours, make an initial determination of the classification of the alleged offense and will assign a misconduct investigator;
f. When an allegation of misconduct contains multiple categories of offenses or multiple separate policy violations, all applicable policy violations shall be charged, but the most serious violation shall be used for the purposes of classification and to determine whether OPR will investigate. Exoneration for the most serious offense will not preclude discipline for less serious offenses stemming from the same misconduct;
g. The OPR will require that all allegations that, if true, would violate BPD policy, are captured and classified appropriately even if the complainant does not affirmatively identify the violation;
h. BPD will require that at any time an investigator determines that there may have been additional misconduct or violations beyond those initially alleged, OPR shall take all necessary steps to ensure that such misconduct is fully and fairly documented, classified, and investigated;
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i. If supervisors in districts or units conducting investigations into misconduct identify allegations of misconduct that, under BPD policy, should be investigated by OPR, the investigator shall promptly notify OPR;
j. If a supervisor believes that the principal of an investigation may have committed a violation that is criminal, he or she shall promptly notify the OPR.
339. BPD and CRB will each develop a protocol delineating each agency’s responsibilities for complaint intake, classification, investigation and review, and how the agencies will interact throughout the investigation and disciplinary process. The protocols will provide that:
a. The CRB will coordinate the initial classification of complaints received from sources other than BPD;
b. The CRB will have information sufficient to determine whether a civilian complaint falls within the jurisdiction of the CRB, regardless of its source or initial classification; and
c. Changes to a complaint’s classification must be documented in writing and approved by the CRB Director or the OPR Director.
340. OPR shall develop a system to document and address allegations it receives concerning BPD officer conduct from the State’s Attorney’s Office or by a judicial officer during a civil or criminal proceeding. Such allegations will be documented, tracked, and assessed for further investigation. Any decision to decline investigation shall be documented in writing.
341. BPD will ensure that, in response to complaints about officers under their command, supervisors respond to the scene, document the complaint, and report it to OPR:
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a. If an individual indicates to an officer that they would like to make a complaint about that officer, the officer will promptly inform their supervisor and ask the supervisor how long it would take them to respond to the scene. The officer will then inform the individual that their supervisor can respond to the scene to assist the individual in filing a complaint, if the individual desires and is willing to wait for the supervisor to arrive;
b. If the individual desires, the supervisor will respond to the scene, assist the individual, and provide the individual with a copy of the completed complaint form. Otherwise the officer will provide the complainant with information to assist them in filing a complaint, including a copy of the completed complaint form;
c. An officer shall not be required to delay taking law enforcement action while they wait for the supervisor to arrive, including, where appropriate, making an arrest;
d. Where a supervisor receives a complaint alleging that misconduct has occurred, the supervisor shall gather all relevant information and evidence and provide the information and evidence to the OPR. This may include identifying witnesses and their contact information; video or photographic evidence; and any other physical evidence. All misconduct complaints shall be referred to the OPR by the end of the shift in which the misconduct complaint was received, absent exceptional circumstances.
342. In the course of investigating a civilian complaint, the misconduct investigator will send periodic written updates to the complainant by mail and by email, if the complainant provides an email address:
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a. Within seven days of receipt of a complaint, the misconduct investigator will send non-anonymous complainants a written notice of receipt. The receipt shall include the tracking number or barcode originally assigned to the complaint, along with any other case number subsequently assigned, if applicable, and the allegations being investigated. The notice will inform the complainant how he or she may inquire about the status of a complaint. The notice will not contain any language that could reasonably be construed as discouraging participating in the investigation, such as a warning against providing false statements or a deadline by which the complainant must contact the investigator;
b. Periodic updates will be mailed or emailed to the complainant; and c. BPD shall ensure that all investigators communicate with complainants in a
professional and respectful manner; investigators who fail to do so shall be subject to discipline, demotion, and/or appropriate corrective action based on the seriousness of the conduct. C. OPR Administrative Misconduct Investigations 343. BPD will ensure that misconduct investigators will conduct objective, comprehensive, and timely administrative investigations of all allegations of officer misconduct. All findings will be based on the appropriate standard of proof. BPD will clearly delineate these standards in policies, training, and procedures and accompany them with detailed examples to ensure misconduct investigators properly apply them. 344. In each misconduct investigation, investigators shall ensure that they: a. Conduct investigations designed to determine the facts;
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b. Promptly identify, collect, and consider all relevant evidence, including any audio or video recordings;
c. Take all reasonable steps to locate and interview all witnesses, including civilian witnesses and attempt to interview any civilian complainant or witness in person at a time and place that is convenient and accessible for the complainant or witness;
d. Audio record all interviews, and video-record where possible; e. Make all reasonable efforts to identify the officer if the complainant could not
identify the officer’s name; f. Evaluate all relevant BPD officer activity in the incident and any evidence of
potential misconduct uncovered during the course of the investigation, whether or not the potential misconduct was part of the original allegation; g. Consider patterns in officer behavior based on disciplinary history – including complaints in which allegations were not sustained, if available, and officer training records; h. Make credibility determinations, as appropriate, including;
i. Making credibility determinations about civilian, officer and witness statements based on independent, unbiased, and credible evidence;
ii. An officer’s statement must be critically evaluated like any other evidence. Misconduct investigators will not disregard a witness’s statement solely because the witness has some connection to either the complainant or the officer or because the witness or
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complainant has a criminal history, but those factors should be

considered along with other indicia of credibility;

iii. In conducting the investigation, misconduct investigators may take

into account the record of any witness, complainant, or officer who

has been determined to have been deceptive or untruthful in any

legal proceeding, misconduct investigation, or other investigation.

i. Complete their administrative investigations within 90 days of the initiation of the

investigation. Any request for an extension of time must be approved in writing

by the Director of the OPR;

j. Make all reasonable efforts to resolve material inconsistencies between officer,

complainant, and witness statements; and

k. For each allegation of misconduct, explicitly identify and recommend one of the

following dispositions for each allegation of misconduct in an administrative

investigation:

i.

“Unfounded,” where the investigation determines, by clear and

convincing evidence, that the alleged misconduct did not occur or

did not involve the accused officer;

ii.

“Sustained,” where the investigation determines, by a

preponderance of the evidence, that the alleged misconduct did

occur;

iii.

“Not Sustained,” where the investigation is unable to determine,

by a preponderance of the evidence, whether the alleged

misconduct occurred;

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iv.

“Exonerated,” where the investigation determines, by a

preponderance of the evidence, that the alleged conduct did occur

but did not violate BPD policies, procedures, or training;

v.

BPD shall discontinue use of the disposition “administratively

closed”.

345. BPD shall conduct a sexual misconduct incident review at the conclusion of every

investigation of a sexual misconduct complaint against a BPD officer or employee concerning

conduct against a non-BPD employee, unless the report has been determined to be unfounded.

Such review shall ordinarily occur within one month following the conclusion of the

investigation of the allegation. The review team shall include upper-level management officials,

with input from line supervisors and investigators. The review team shall:

a. Consider whether the report or investigation indicates a need to change BPD

policies or practices to better prevent, detect, or respond to sexual misconduct;

b. Consider where the incident occurred and the staffing in that area to assess

whether physical or other conditions in that area may enable abuse; and

c. Prepare a report of its findings, including any recommendations for improvement.

This report shall be provided to BPD leadership.

346. BPD shall document its reasons for implementing or not implementing the

recommendations of the sexual misconduct incident review team.

347. BPD will develop and implement policies to ensure that the officer accused of

misconduct receives notice that he or she is under investigation:

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a. Officers under investigation will not receive notice if it would jeopardize the investigation, and will only receive notice prior to being formally interviewed by OPR;
b. Such notice will comport with due process and the law, and will contain the nature of the investigation, and will not contain any information that may unnecessarily jeopardize the investigation;
c. When BPD provides notice to officers that they are under investigation, such notice will include provisions prohibiting officers under investigation from speaking to witnesses or complainants, reviewing police reports (other than reports about the incident authored by the officer) or body camera footage, or taking other actions that could jeopardize the investigation, until notified by BPD that they are permitted to do so;
d. BPD shall require its employees to cooperate with administrative investigations, including appearing for an administrative interview when requested by a BPD investigator, and providing all relevant documents and evidence under the person’s custody and control. Supervisors shall be notified when an officer under their supervision is summoned as part of a misconduct complaint or internal investigation and shall facilitate the officer’s appearance, absent extraordinary circumstances, documented in writing. If a criminal investigation has been commenced, the head of the prosecuting agency may request that an interview of an officer or employee be postponed during the course of the criminal investigation. If such a request is made the BPD Commissioner or his/her
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designee will determine whether the administrative interview will be postponed.

This determination will be documented in writing.

348. Interfering with a misconduct investigation, colluding with other individuals to

undermine an investigation, including intentionally withholding evidence or information from a

misconduct investigator, will be a terminable offense. BPD will ensure that officers under

investigation do not review any investigative files, reports (except for reports about the incident

authored by the officer), or other evidence, including body camera footage, unless publicly

released by BPD, or other photographic evidence, related to an incident under investigation, in

which they are the principal or a witness in an investigation, until notified by BPD that they are

permitted to do so.

349. BPD will ensure that misconduct investigators do not:

a. Ask leading questions that suggest legal justifications for the officer’s conduct,

where such questions are contrary to appropriate law enforcement techniques,

during interviews of witnesses, complainants, or the principal of an investigation;

b. Make statements that an employee or witness could reasonably understand as

intended to discourage the BPD employee or witness from providing a full

account; and

c. Close an investigation for any of the following reasons:

i.

The complainant seeks to withdraw the complaint or is

unavailable, unwilling, or unable to cooperate with an

investigation; if the complainant is unable or unwilling to provide

additional information beyond the initial complaint, the

investigation will continue as necessary to resolve the original

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allegation(s) where possible based on the available evidence and investigatory procedures and techniques; ii. The complainant pleads or is found guilty of an offense; iii. The principal resigns or retires; BPD and CRB will continue the investigation and reach a finding, where possible, based on the evidence and investigatory procedures and techniques available; iv. The complainant disagrees with the officer’s rationale for stopping or citing the complainant (such as contending that she was not committing a violation), if the complaint also includes an allegation of officer misconduct in addition to a disagreement with the officer’s rationale for the encounter. 350. BPD will ensure that OPR supervisors regularly meet with misconduct investigators to evaluate the progress of an investigation. BPD will ensure that those meetings are properly documented. 351. At the conclusion of each investigation, misconduct investigators will prepare an investigation report. The report will include: a. A narrative description of the incident, including a precise description of the evidence that either justifies or fails to justify the officer’s conduct based on the misconduct investigator’s independent review of the facts and circumstances of the incident; b. Documentation of all evidence that was gathered, including names, phone numbers, and addresses of witnesses to the incident. In situations in which there are no known witnesses, the report will specifically state this fact. In situations in
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which witnesses were present but circumstances prevented the misconduct investigator from determining the identification, phone number, or address of those witnesses, the report will state the reasons why. The report also will include all available identifying information for anyone who refuses to provide a statement; c. Documentation of whether officers or other BPD employees were interviewed, including audio and video and a transcript of those interviews, if available; d. The names of all other BPD employees who witnessed the incident; e. The misconduct investigator’s evaluation of the incident, based on his or her review of the evidence gathered, including a determination of whether the officer’s actions appear to be within BPD policy, procedure, regulations, orders, or other standards of conduct required of BPD officers; f. In cases where credibility determinations must be made, explicit credibility findings, including a precise description of the evidence that supports or detracts from the person’s credibility; g. In cases where material inconsistencies must be resolved between complainant, officer, and witness statements, explicit resolution of the inconsistencies, including a precise description of the evidence relied upon to resolve the inconsistencies; h. If a weapon was used, documentation that the officer’s certification and training for the weapon were current; and i. Documentation of recommendations for non-punitive corrective action or misconduct charges.
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352. BPD will develop a process to ensure that completed misconduct investigations are evaluated for policy, training, tactical or equipment concerns, including any recommendations for how those concerns will be addressed. This evaluation will include:
a. An assessment of whether the law enforcement action was in compliance with training and legal standards;
b. Other tactics were more appropriate under the circumstances; c. The incident indicates a need for additional training, counseling, or other non-
disciplinary corrective actions; and d. The incident suggests that BPD should revise its policies, strategies, tactics or
training. 353. BPD may develop a protocol governing the imposition of discipline in an expedited manner, when an officer agrees to the proposed discipline. BPD shall reserve the right to revoke the expedited disciplinary agreement if BPD discovers additional misconduct arising out of the same incident. The protocol will describe:
a. Those misconduct allegations that qualify for expedited discipline; b. How BPD will ensure that expedited discipline, when it is made available, is
offered in a fair manner, and is appropriately reviewed by chain of command. 354. The reviews of misconduct investigations will be conducted as follows:
a. For investigations into allegations of misconduct that do not involve policecivilian interactions, when carried out by supervisors at Districts, the supervisor shall forward the completed investigation report through his or her chain of command to the District Commander:
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i.

Where the findings of the investigation report are not supported by

the appropriate standard of proof, the supervisor’s chain of

command shall document the reasons for this determination;

ii.

The supervisor’s chain of command shall take appropriate action to

address the inadequately supported determination and any

investigative deficiencies that led to it;

iii.

District Commanders shall be responsible for the accuracy and

completeness of investigation reports into allegations of

misconduct that do not involve police-civilian interactions

prepared by supervisors under their command;

iv.

District Commanders will forward the completed investigation

report to the OPR;

b. For investigations conducted by OPR, the investigator will forward the completed

investigation report through his or her chain of command to the Director of the

OPR:

i.

The Director of the OPR will review the report to ensure that the

report is complete, that it meets the requirements of BPD policy

and this Agreement, and that the findings are supported by the

appropriate standard of proof;

ii.

The Director shall order additional investigation when it appears

that there is additional relevant evidence that may assist in

resolving inconsistencies or improving the reliability or credibility

of the findings;

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iii.

Whenever a superior officer orders additional investigation, it shall

be documented in writing.

355. BPD will ensure that anyone tasked with investigating employee misconduct

possesses excellent investigative skills, a reputation for integrity, the ability to write clear

reports, and the ability to be fair and objective in determining whether an employee committed

misconduct. When selecting new investigators, BPD will consider the candidates’ complaint

history, including any pattern of complaints, the severity of the alleged misconduct, and the

outcome of the misconduct investigation.

356. BPD recognizes the negative impact of actual bias or the appearance of bias on

the legitimacy of internal investigations. For that reason, conflicts of interest in misconduct

investigations or in those assigned by BPD to hold hearings and make disciplinary decisions

shall be prohibited. This provision requires BPD to ensure the following:

a. No employee who was involved in or a witness to an incident shall conduct or

review a misconduct investigation arising out of that incident;

b. No employee who has an external business relationship or close personal

relationship with a principal or witness in a misconduct investigation shall

conduct or review the misconduct investigation. No such person may make any

disciplinary decisions with respect to the misconduct including the determination

of any applicable grievance or appeal arising from any discipline;

c. No employee shall be involved in an investigation or make any disciplinary

decisions with respect to any person who they directly report to in their chain of

command. In cases where BPD is unable to meet this requirement, the

investigation must be referred to an outside authority. Any outside authority

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retained by BPD must possess the requisite background and level of experience of internal affairs investigators and must be free of any actual or perceived conflicts of interest; d. OPR investigators will not be assigned to any assignments which could create a conflict of interest for their administrative investigations, including any assignment in which the investigator would report to or work with the subject of an open investigation. 357. At the discretion of the Director of the OPR, a misconduct investigation may be assigned or re-assigned to another misconduct investigator. This assignment or re-assignment shall be documented in writing. 358. BPD will provide information to the Office of the Public Defender about how to file and follow-up on complaints about officer misconduct. D. Criminal Misconduct Investigations 359. If at any time during the intake or investigation of the misconduct complaint the investigator finds evidence indicating apparent criminal conduct by any BPD personnel, the investigator shall promptly notify the OPR. The OPR shall consult with the relevant prosecuting agency or federal law enforcement agency regarding the initiation of a criminal investigation. Where an allegation is investigated criminally, OPR shall and, when applicable, CRB may continue with the administrative investigation(s) of the allegation, absent specific circumstances that would jeopardize the criminal investigation. In such circumstances, the decision to postpone the administrative investigation, along with the rationale for doing so, will be documented in writing and reviewed by the Commissioner or his/her designee, and, when applicable, the Director of CRB.
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360. When a BPD officer affirmatively refuses to give a voluntary statement and BPD has probable cause to believe the person has committed a crime, BPD shall consult with the prosecuting agency (e.g. State’s Attorney’s Office or the United States’ Attorney’s Office), and seek approval of the Commissioner or his/her designee before taking a compelled statement for the purposes of conducting an administrative investigation. All decisions regarding compelling an interview, all decisions to hold any aspect of an administrative investigation in abeyance, and all consultations with the criminal investigator and prosecuting authority shall be documented in writing.
361. The OPR will ensure that criminal investigators do not have access to any materials protected by Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493 (1967), and shield any compelled interview and its fruits from criminal investigators. To protect BPD officers’ rights under the Fifth Amendment, BPD shall develop and implement protocols to ensure that criminal and administrative investigations of BPD employees are kept appropriately separate and to ensure that any Garrity-compelled statement taken during an OPR investigation will not compromise the criminal investigation or criminal prosecution for the same conduct.
362. Nothing in this Section shall alter BPD employees’ obligation to provide a public safety statement regarding a work-related incident or activity, including Use of Force Reports and incident reports. BPD shall make clear that all statements by personnel in incident reports arrest reports, Use of Force Reports and similar documents, and statements made in interviews such as those conducted in conjunction with BPD’s routine use of force review process, are part of each employee’s routine professional duties and are not compelled statements. Where an employee believes that providing a verbal or written statement will be self-incriminating, the employee shall affirmatively state this and shall not be compelled to provide a statement without
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prior consultation with the prosecuting attorney (e.g., State’s Attorney’s Office or the United States’ Attorney’s Office), and approval by the Commissioner.
363. If BPD refers an investigation of an officer for prosecution and the prosecuting agency declines to prosecute or dismisses the criminal case after the initiation of criminal charges, the OPR shall request an explanation for this decision, which shall be documented in writing and appended to the criminal investigation report.
364. The OPR shall maintain all reports and files concerning criminal investigation of officers after they are completed for the duration of the officer’s employment with BPD. Thereafter, the officer’s disciplinary record shall be maintained as a personnel record by BPD’s Human Resources section in the normal course of business.
E. Referral of Criminal and Administrative Misconduct Investigations to Outside Entities
365. BPD shall develop protocols to govern when to refer allegations of administrative or criminal misconduct by BPD officers to another law enforcement agency or qualified outside investigator to conduct the investigation. There shall be separate protocols for referring a criminal investigation and an administrative investigation. Each protocol will specify the criteria to be considered in making the referral, including how to select the agency or outside investigator to receive the referral.
366. The protocols shall include provisions for dealing with incidents in which there are actual or perceived conflicts of interest that would prevent BPD from effectively conducting the investigation.
367. The protocols shall include provisions that govern when BPD’s review of a referred investigation would be appropriate.
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368. In cases when BPD review is appropriate, OPR shall review the completed investigation to ensure that it is of sufficient quality and completeness. The Director of the OPR shall request the entity conducting the investigation to conduct additional investigation when it appears that there is additional relevant evidence that may improve the reliability or credibility of the investigation.
369. In the case of potentially criminal conduct, should the entity conducting the investigation decide to close the investigation without referring it to a prosecuting agency, this decision must be documented in writing and provided to the OPR. The OPR shall separately consider whether to refer the matter to a prosecuting agency and shall document its decision in writing.
370. If the prosecuting agency declines to prosecute an officer or dismisses the criminal case after the initiation of criminal charges, the OPR shall request an explanation for this decision, which shall be documented in writing and appended to the criminal investigation report.
371. The OPR shall maintain all criminal and administrative investigation reports and files of the outside entities performing the investigation after reports and files are completed.
F. Disciplinary Charges 372. BPD will ensure that disciplinary charges for sustained allegations of misconduct are consistently applied, fair, and based on the nature of the allegation, the evidence, and that mitigating and aggravating factors are identified and consistently applied and documented. 373. Where, after OPR conducts a misconduct investigation and an officer’s actions are found to violate policy, BPD shall ensure appropriate charges are brought and/or corrective action is taken.
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374. Where the investigation concerns misconduct that does not involve police-civilian interactions and is conducted by a Supervisor at a District or a Unit, the District Commander will have the authority to initiate appropriate disciplinary action and/or take corrective action depending on the seriousness of the misconduct.
375. In order to ensure consistency in the imposition of discipline, BPD will review its current disciplinary matrices, policies, and procedures and will amend them as necessary to ensure that they:
a. Establish a presumptive range of discipline for each type of violation; b. Increase the presumptive discipline based on an officer’s prior violations; c. Set out defined mitigating and aggravating factors; d. Prohibit consideration of the officer’s race, religion, gender, gender identity,
sexual orientation, national origin, age, ethnicity, or familial relationships; e. Prohibit consideration of the high (or low) profile nature of the incident; f. Prohibit taking only non-disciplinary corrective action in cases in which the
disciplinary matrices call for the imposition of discipline; g. Provide that the BPD will consider whether non-disciplinary corrective action
also is appropriate in a case where discipline has been imposed; and h. Require that any departures from the discipline recommended under the
disciplinary matrices be justified in writing. 376. Each sustained misconduct allegation shall be considered for the purposes of recommending discipline. 377. BPD will review its policies and procedures regarding resignation of officers under investigation, and referral of officers found to have engaged in misconduct to state and
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federal agencies. BPD will ensure that such policies do not authorize suspending a misconduct investigation solely because the officer resigned.
378. BPD will provide the required notice to the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission, including when an officer resigns while a misconduct investigation or disciplinary charges are pending.
G. Disciplinary Hearings 379. If a disciplinary hearing is convened, BPD will ensure the disciplinary hearing comports with state law and the following requirements. 380. Two civilian voting members will participate and vote in each disciplinary hearing conducted by BPD, if permitted by law. 381. Disciplinary hearings will be audio recorded in their entirety. 382. If an accused officer provides new and material evidence at a disciplinary hearing, the hearing will be suspended, upon the Department’s motion, unless there is good cause to continue with the hearing explained in writing by the hearing panel. If the hearing is suspended, BPD shall ensure that the new and material evidence is properly investigated and evaluated before resumption of the hearing. The OPR shall initiate a new or consolidated misconduct investigation if it appears that the officer intentionally withheld the new and material evidence during the initial misconduct investigation. 383. Where a disciplinary hearing is convened, BPD shall require that the hearing board provide in writing the findings, as well as a recommendation of discipline made pursuant to the BPD disciplinary matrix. When the hearing board decides not to impose discipline or nondisciplinary corrective action, it will set forth its justification for doing so in writing. All documentation from the disciplinary hearing will be included in the Department’s investigative
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file. Dissenting hearing board members may also provide their conclusions and reasoning in writing.
384. Disciplinary hearings shall be scheduled within 30 days of informing the involved officer of the recommended discipline. BPD will use its best efforts to ensure that disciplinary hearings will be conducted within 120 days of informing the involved officer of the recommended discipline.
H. Imposition of Discipline 385. BPD will ensure that discipline comports with due process and is consistently applied, fair, and based on the nature of the charges, the evidence, and that mitigating and aggravating factors are identified and consistently applied and documented. 386. When appropriate, the full investigative file, along with all recommendations of discipline made throughout the disciplinary process, shall be provided to the Commissioner or his/her designee for the ultimate determination of whether to impose discipline. 387. The OPR shall maintain all administrative investigation reports and files after they are completed for the duration of the officer’s employment with BPD. Once the officer leaves BPD employment, that officer’s disciplinary record will be maintained as a personnel record by BPD Human Resources Division in the normal course of business. 388. BPD will eliminate policies that authorize the expungement of records where an employee accepts discipline. I. Community-Centered Mediation of Misconduct Complaints 389. BPD will continue to provide a mediation program designed by community organizations and mediated by community members to act as an alternative to the investigation process described above for certain minor allegations of officer misconduct impacting civilians.
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BPD will ensure that the complaint-mediation program is designed to increase understanding and trust between community members and BPD officers and to prevent future misconduct and complaints of misconduct. The City will support this program when it is involved. The program will specifically provide that:
a. Complaints will only be resolved through mediation where both the complainant (or his or her designee) and the subject officer agree to participation in the mediation process;
b. Only certain minor complaint allegations will be eligible for mediation, as set out in BPD policy; a screening process for identifying complaints that may be suitable for mediation shall include a review of the principal’s disciplinary history, including investigations that resulted in a finding of not sustained, to look particularly for patterns of behavior or allegations of retaliation; and
c. Where the mediator determines that the officer is not participating in the mediation program in good faith, the mediation shall end and the complaint investigation shall resume.
390. BPD and the City, to the extent it is involved, will ensure that the program is effectively administered. BPD will disseminate information to the public about the availability of community mediation.
391. BPD will ensure that any complaints that are sent to community-centered mediation are tracked in its centralized electronic numbering and tracking system for all allegations of misconduct.
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J. Tracking Misconduct Investigations 392. BPD will maintain a centralized electronic numbering and tracking system for all allegations of misconduct, whether internally discovered or based upon a civilian complaint:
a. The centralized numbering and tracking system will maintain accurate and reliable data regarding the number, nature, and status of all misconduct allegations, from initial intake to final disposition, including investigation timeliness and notifications made to the complainant of the interim status and final disposition of the complaint;
b. The system will be used to determine the status of misconduct investigations, as well as for periodic assessment of compliance with relevant policies and procedures and this Agreement, including requirements of timeliness of investigations;
c. The system also will be used to monitor and maintain appropriate caseloads for misconduct investigators, and to monitor supervisory role in investigations;
d. All documents and files – including audio and video – will be kept in a digital format, and shall be accessible via the centralized numbering and tracking system.
393. BPD will develop a protocol to share information from OPR misconduct investigations with prosecuting agencies when appropriate. In developing this protocol, BPD will seek to collaborate with local prosecuting attorneys (e.g., State’s Attorney’s Office or the United States’ Attorney’s Office).
394. BPD will ensure that complainants and the public will be able to assess the status of, and track, misconduct investigations, including the following:
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a. A complainant may contact BPD between 8:30 and 4:30 to determine the status of his or her complaint, and BPD will provide the status;
b. BPD will ensure that individuals who contact any officer or unit of BPD to inquire about the status of a complaint investigation will be promptly routed to OPR;
c. BPD shall aggregate and analyze data about misconduct investigations on at least an annual basis;
d. As permissible by law, BPD shall share this information with the public; 395. The OPR will track, as a separate category of complaints, at least the following:
a. Allegations of discriminatory policing, including allegations that an officer issued a Citation, or conducted a stop or arrest based on an individual’s Demographic Category, or used a slur based on an individual’s Demographic Category;
b. Allegations of unlawful Stop, Search, Citation, or Arrest practices; c. Allegations of excessive force; d. Allegations of misconduct involving individuals who are known to be homeless; e. Allegations of misconduct involving individuals who have a disability, including
mental illness; f. Allegations of theft by BPD officers; g. Allegations of retaliation; h. Allegations that BPD officers interfered with civilians’ constitutionally protected
free expression; i. Allegations that BPD officers engaged in sexual misconduct;
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j. Allegations of inappropriate conduct by officers during investigations of sexual assault or other crimes of violence against women;
k. Allegations of misconduct in officers’ interactions with people who are LGBT; l. Allegations of misconduct in officers’ interactions with sex workers; and m. Allegations of misconduct in officers’ interactions with Youth. K. Transparency Measures 396. The City and BPD recognize the importance of transparency to improving BPDcommunity relations and BPD has already taken significant steps to increasing transparency about its operations, including how it conducts internal investigations into officer misconduct. The City and BPD will continue to take steps to increase transparency, including the following provisions. 397. The City and BPD will develop and implement a program to promote awareness throughout the Baltimore City community about the process for filing complaints about the conduct of BPD officers. The program will address how to inform members of vulnerable communities in Baltimore of the existence of the complaint investigation process, and may include collaborating directly with local community groups. 398. BPD shall make available on its website a detailed written description, in plain language, of the BPD administrative investigative process from the intake of a complaint to imposition of discipline. BPD’s website will also include a description of the CRB complaint option and a link to the CRB website. 399. In addition to a written description, BPD shall create a short video that explains the jurisdiction and duties of entities within BPD, including the Office of Professional Responsibility, the Internal Affairs Section, and the Special Investigative Response Team. The
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video shall be posted on the website of the BPD. BPD shall make publicly available all policies and procedures regarding its internal investigation and disciplinary process.
400. BPD will post and maintain at the reception desk at BPD headquarters and in locations at all District stations that are clearly visible to members of the public permanent placards clearly and simply describing the BPD and CRB civilian complaint intake process. The placards shall include relevant contact information, including telephone numbers, email addresses, and Internet sites. The placards shall be in both English and Spanish.
401. The City and BPD will create complaint forms, and informational materials, including brochures and posters that describe the internal investigation and disciplinary process at CRB and BPD, respectively; provide information about the multiple places and ways individuals may file complaints; information about how and where individuals may check the status of the complaint investigations; and contact information for the OPR and CRB.
402. The OPR and the CRB will separately produce a quarterly public report on misconduct investigations, including, at a minimum, the following:
a. Aggregate data on complaints received from the public, broken down by district; rank of principal(s); nature of contact (traffic stop, pedestrian stop, call for service, etc.); nature of allegation (rudeness, bias-based policing, etc.); complainants’ demographic information (age, gender, race, ethnicity, etc.); complaints received from anonymous or third parties; and principals’ demographic information;
b. Aggregate data on internally-generated misconduct allegations, broken down by similar categories as those for civilian complaints;
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c. Aggregate data on the processing of misconduct cases; the average and median time from the initiation of an investigation to its submission by the investigator to his or her chain of command; the average and median time from the submission of the investigation by the investigator to a final decision regarding whether to impose charges; the average and median time from the decision to impose charges to a final disposition; the average and median time from the receipt of the complaint to the initial contact with the complainant; the number of investigations returned to the original investigator due to conclusions not being supported by the evidence; and the number of investigations returned to the original investigator to conduct additional investigation;
d. Aggregate data on the outcomes of misconduct investigations, including the number of sustained, not sustained, exonerated, and unfounded misconduct complaints; the number of sustained allegations resulting in a non-disciplinary outcome the number resulting in disciplinary charges;
e. Aggregate data on the disposition of charges, including the number resulting in written reprimands, suspension, demotion, and termination;
f. Aggregate data on outcomes of misconduct investigations by allegation, broken down by race, ethnicity, and gender of the complainant and the officer;
g. Aggregate data on officers with persistent or serious misconduct problems, including the number of officers who have been the subject of more than two completed misconduct investigations involving serious misconduct allegations in the previous 12 months; the number of officers who have had more than one sustained allegation of serious misconduct in the previous 12 months, including
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the number of sustained allegations and the number of criminal prosecutions of

officers, broken down by criminal charge;

h. Aggregate data on officers who have been the subject, in the previous 12 months,

of more than 2 complaints of the following categories, regardless of the outcome

of those complaint investigations:

i.

Allegations of biased policing, including allegations that an officer

conducted an investigatory stop or arrest based on an individual’s

Demographic Category or used a slur based on an individual’s

Demographic Category;

ii.

Allegations of excessive force; allegations of unlawful stops,

searches and arrests, including allegations of improper Strip

Searches;

iii.

Allegations of interference with constitutionally protected

expression; and

iv.

Allegations of criminal misconduct, broken down by allegation.

403. BPD will develop a protocol to ensure appropriate transparency concerning the

disciplinary hearing process and outcomes.

404. After final disposition of misconduct complaints, BPD shall make detailed

summaries readily available to the public to the full extent permitted under state and federal law,

in electronic form on a designated section of its website that is linked to directly from BPD’s

home page with prominent language that clearly indicates to the public that the link provides

information about investigations of misconduct by BPD officers.

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405. BPD will audit, on at least an annual basis, BPD’s disciplinary process to ensure quality control. The audit(s) will include complaint intake, investigation, and the imposition of discipline. BPD will make public any of the audits’ findings, to the extent state and federal law permits.
L. Additional Measures to Encourage Proper Oversight 406. BPD shall establish a testing program designed to assess civilian complaint intake. The testing program shall assess whether employees are providing civilians appropriate, accurate, and complete information about the complaint process and whether employees are notifying the OPR and the CRB upon the receipt of a civilian complaint. The testing program shall:
a. Assess complaint intake for complaints made in person at BPD facilities, complaints made telephonically, and complaints made electronically by email or through BPD’s website;
b. Include sufficient random and targeted testing to assess the complaint intake process, using surreptitious video and/or audio recording of testers’ interactions with BPD personnel to assess the appropriateness of responses and information provided, to the extent state law permits;
c. Assess whether complainants of different races, ethnicities, or gender identities are treated differently;
d. Assess whether employees who take complaints promptly notify the OPR and the CRB of civilian complaints and provide accurate and complete information.
407. The testing program shall not:
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a. Assess investigations of civilian complaints, and BPD shall design the testing program in such a way that it does not waste resources investigating fictitious complaints made by testers;
b. Interfere with officers taking law enforcement action; c. Attempt to assess complaint intake in the course of traffic stops or other law
enforcement action being taken outside of City facilities. 408. BPD shall produce an annual report on the testing program. This report shall include, at a minimum:
a. A description of the testing program, including the testing methodology and the number of tests conducted broken down by type (i.e., in-person, telephonic, and electronic);
b. The number and proportion of tests in which employees responded inappropriately to a tester;
c. The number and proportion of tests in which employees provided inaccurate information about the complaint process to a tester;
d. The number and proportion of tests in which employees failed to promptly notify the OPR of the civilian complaint;
e. The number and proportion of tests in which employees failed to convey accurate information about the complaint to the OPR;
f. An evaluation of the civilian complaint intake based upon the results of the testing program; and
g. A description of any steps to be taken to improve civilian complaint intake as a result of the testing program.
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M. Training 409. BPD will provide all investigators assigned to the OPR with at least 40 hours of comprehensive training on conducting employee misconduct investigations. 410. BPD’s training will include instruction in:
a. Investigative skills, including proper interrogation and interview techniques; gathering and objectively analyzing evidence; and data and case management;
b. How to appropriately classify complaints pursuant to BPD policy; c. The particular challenges of administrative law enforcement misconduct
investigations, including identifying alleged misconduct that is not clearly stated in the complaint or that becomes apparent during the investigation; d. Weighing the credibility of witnesses, including properly weighing the credibility of civilian witnesses against officers’ credibility; e. Using objective evidence to resolve inconsistent statements; f. The proper application of the appropriate standard of proof; g. Relevant BPD rules and policies, including protocols related to administrative investigations of alleged officer misconduct; h. BPD policies, including the requirements of this Agreement and protocols related to administrative investigations of officer misconduct; and i. Relevant state and federal law. 411. The training will be provided by sources both inside and outside of BPD, in order to ensure the highest training on investigative techniques that are specific to the Baltimore community, and BPD policies, procedures, and disciplinary rules.
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412. The City will provide all investigators employed by the CRB with at least 40 hours of comprehensive training on conducting investigations into officer misconduct. This training will include instruction in:
a. Investigative skills, including proper interrogation and interview techniques; gathering and objectively analyzing evidence; and data and case management;
b. How to appropriately classify complaints pursuant to CRB policy; c. The particular challenges of misconduct investigations, including identifying
alleged misconduct that is not clearly stated in the complaint or that becomes apparent during the investigation; d. Weighing the credibility of witnesses, including properly weighing the credibility of civilian witnesses against officers’ credibility; e. Using objective evidence to resolve inconsistent statements; f. The proper application of the appropriate standard of proof; g. Relevant BPD and CRB rules and policies, including protocols related to investigations of alleged officer misconduct; h. The requirements of this Agreement and protocols related to investigations of officer misconduct; and i. Relevant state and federal law. 413. BPD will ensure the training that is provided to BPD misconduct investigators pursuant to this Agreement is available to CRB investigators. 414. All BPD Supervisors and personnel who may become responsible for investigating complaints misconduct not involving police-civilian interactions will receive 8 hours of in-service training annually related to conducting misconduct investigations. BPD will
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provide 4 hours of in-service training to all Supervisors on their obligations when called to a scene by a subordinate to accept a civilian complaint about that subordinate’s conduct.
415. BPD will provide training to all police personnel on BPD’s revised or new policies related to misconduct investigations and discipline. This training shall include instruction on:
a. Identifying and reporting misconduct, the consequences for failing to report misconduct and the consequences for retaliating against a person for reporting misconduct or participating in a misconduct investigation;
b. To properly handle complaint intake, including how to provide complaint materials and information and the consequences for failing to take complaints;
c. The proper categorization of complaints including recognizing allegations of misconduct even when not explicitly identified by the complainant;
d. Strategies for turning the complaint process into a positive police-civilian interaction;
e. The consequences for intentionally mis-categorizing complaints related to: discriminatory policing based on an individual’s Demographic Category; allegations of unlawful stops, searches and arrests; allegations of improper Strip Searches; allegations of interference with constitutionally protected expression; and any allegations of criminal misconduct, including sexual misconduct; and
f. The consequences for failing to provide information, or failing to make information available.
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XV. COORDINATION WITH BALTIMORE CITY SCHOOL POLICE FORCE 416. The Parties agree that Baltimore’s partnerships with other agencies are important
to supporting its mission to protect and to serve. In particular, BPD has a collaborative relationship with the Baltimore City School Police Force (“BSP”) in which BPD authorizes BSP to exercise law enforcement powers beyond BSP Primary Jurisdiction, to encompass the entire City, under specific circumstances. BSP Primary Jurisdiction is on City Schools’ premises and on any other property used for educational purposes owned, leased or operated by or under the control of the Baltimore City Schools Board of School Commissioners (“BCSBSC”). BPD authorization to BSP to exercise law enforcement powers throughout the City is memorialized in a Memorandum of Agreement between BCSBSC and the BPD dated Feb 2, 2016 (the “MOU”).
417. BPD will conduct an initial assessment to evaluate how BSP has used BPD’s authorization to exercise law enforcement powers throughout the City pursuant to the MOU. The Assessment will include an analysis of information that BCSBSC makes available to it concerning the frequency with which BSP officers exercise law enforcement powers pursuant to the MOU, calls, incidents, stops, arrests, and uses of force involving officers from BSP exercising law enforcement powers pursuant to the MOU. BPD will use the assessment to identify deficiencies and opportunities for improvement; implement appropriate corrective action and improvement measures; and document measures taken. Following the initial assessment, BPD will conduct a biennial evaluation of its efforts at improving its coordination with BSP, and modify its efforts as necessary to ensure its coordination with BSP is effective.
418. Based on the assessment, BPD will determine areas for improvement in its coordination with BSP and will implement the improvements to the extent they are in BPD’s control. BPD will advocate to change the MOU to require BPD and BSP officers to cooperate
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with each agency’s respective administrative investigations when both agencies’ officers are involved in an incident under investigation unless doing so would jeopardize BPD’s investigation of the matter, and to address issues arising from the assessments in Paragraph 417 above. BPD will propose policies and protocols governing the proper investigation of civilian complaints involving BSP officers exercising law enforcement powers pursuant to the MOU to BSP and seek agreement from BSP on those policies and protocols. XVI. RECRUITMENT, HIRING AND RETENTION
419. To maintain high-level, quality service, ensure officer safety and accountability, and promote constitutional, effective policing, BPD will review and revise as necessary its recruitment and hiring program to ensure that BPD successfully attracts and hires a diverse group of qualified individuals.
420. According to the timeline specified in the Monitoring Plan, BPD will develop a written Recruitment Plan that includes clear goals, objectives, and action steps for attracting and retaining a quality work force that reflects the diversity of the Baltimore community.
421. The Recruitment Plan will, at a minimum, require the following: a. Minimum standards for recruits and lateral hires; b. Recruitment outreach to a broad spectrum of community stakeholders, aimed at increasing the diversity of its ranks, including race and gender, and applicants who are community policing and problem-solving oriented. BPD and the City will explore opportunities for Youth in the City’s high schools to gain exposure to policing through internship or other programs, and create ways to support interested Youth in fulfilling the requirements to join BPD;
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c. Broad distribution of recruitment information, including information regarding career opportunities, compensation, the testing and hiring process, and applicable deadlines and requirements. Such information will, at a minimum, be readily accessible on City and BPD websites and available upon request to City or BPD officials;
d. That candidates be allowed to submit initial applications online to the BPD; and e. Opportunities for officers, civilians, and members of City government to assist the
BPD’s efforts to attract a broad spectrum of qualified applicants. 422. The Recruitment Plan will be submitted for the Monitor’s approval. BPD and the Monitor will meet and confer to resolve any objections the Monitor notes. BPD will implement the Recruitment Plan upon approval and as required by the Monitoring Plan. 423. BPD with the aid of the Monitor will conduct an in-depth review of BPD’s current hiring processes for officers, including Paragraph 424, and state hiring criteria to assess whether any process, criterion, or requirement has a disparate impact based on a Demographic Categories. If BPD determines that any step in the hiring process may result in a disparate impact based on Demographic Categories, the BPD will determine whether there are reasonable alternative selection procedures available that would comply with state requirements and serve the BPD’s needs while having less of a disparate impact and if there are, will implement those alternative selection procedures. 424. BPD’s background investigations for hiring officers will include evaluation of the following factors:
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a. An in-person psychological screening of candidates who are selected for conditional offers of employment by an appropriately qualified and trained psychiatrist or psychologist;
b. A background investigation that includes an evaluation of police records, education, employment, military history, credit history, and driving records;
c. A review of personnel files from candidates’ previous employment, unless the BPD is unable to obtain such files after making all reasonable efforts, and a requirement that BPD seek to speak with the candidates’ previous supervisor(s);
d. A pre-employment investigation that includes requesting a candidate’s history of using lethal and less lethal force, use-of-force training records, and complaint history if a candidate has previous law enforcement experience;
e. Contacting MPSTC to review the license status and any known disciplinary history of potential hires before making an offer of employment;
f. Checking the National Decertification Index (“NDI”) administered by the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training (“IADLEST”);
g. Determining whether the candidate has been named in any civil action; and h. Implementing pre-employment screening mechanisms, including of applicants’
social media platforms, to ensure their suitability, based on skills, temperament, and goals, for policing, including the community policing principles required in this Agreement. 425. The background investigation and screening need not be completed for candidates whose applications do not meet the minimum criteria, or for candidates who do not advance
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beyond the initial interview. The background investigation and screening information will be documented and maintained with the candidate’s employment application. BPD will ensure that the decision to exclude an applicant following the background investigation is documented and independently reviewed by the commanding officer/director of the Recruitment Section.
426. To ensure that BPD is able to retain qualified and experienced officers, BPD will, with the aid of the Monitor, create a Retention Plan to identify challenges and recommend solutions to improve BPD’s retention of employees. The Plan may include:
a. Incentives for experienced officers; b. Access to fitness facilities for all officers, c. Educational reimbursement opportunities; and d. Developmental opportunities with merit-based selection criteria for officers
interested in transferring or temporarily rotating to sections within BPD. 427. BPD will conduct assessments of its recruitment and retention efforts on an annual basis. These assessments will be designed to ensure that BPD’s recruitment and retention practices are achieving the objective of attracting and retaining a diverse workforce of highly qualified officers. Assessments will include review of application and hiring information; review of the background investigation system, including applications rejected on account of the background investigation; surveys of officers to assess employee satisfaction; and analyses of officer exit interviews. As part of this assessment process, BPD will identify deficiencies and opportunities for improvement; implement appropriate corrective action and improvement measures; and document measures taken.
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XVII. STAFFING, PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS, AND PROMOTIONS 428. BPD will complete a comprehensive staffing study to assess the appropriate
number of sworn and civilian personnel to perform the functions necessary for BPD to fulfill its mission, enable supervision, and satisfy the requirements of this Agreement.
429. Based upon the staffing study, BPD will develop a Staffing Plan that provides for each of the following:
a. Personnel deployment to ensure effective community and problem-oriented policing;
b. Sufficient number of well-trained staff and resources to conduct timely misconduct investigations;
c. Sufficient number of officers in patrol in each district, without needing to resort to drafting, except in unforeseeable circumstances;
d. To the extent feasible, Unity of Command; e. Sufficient number of supervisors; and f. The BPD’s and the City’s existing and projected resources. 430. BPD will implement the Staffing Plan, and may do so in a phased manner that reflects the City’s and BPD’s fiscal resources. 431. Performance evaluations will include a written discussion of the officer’s performance during the rating period by the supervisor of any areas of particular growth and achievement and areas where officers require further training and supervision. As part of the annual performance review process, supervisors shall meet with the officer whose performance is being evaluated to discuss the evaluation.
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432. The BPD will use a formalized system documenting annual performance evaluations of each officer, and quarterly evaluations for probationary employees, by the officer’s direct supervisor. When evaluating officer performance, including promotions, BPD supervisors shall consider factors, including:
a. Demonstrated integrity and ethical decision-making; b. Demonstrated commitment to community engagement and building trust with
communities, and effective use of community-policing and neighborhood problem-solving strategies; c. Demonstrated commitment to bias-free policing; d. Effective use of de-escalation and crisis management techniques; e. Communication and decision-making skills; f. Civilian commendations; g. Disciplinary actions; and h. The quality and accuracy of officer reports, search warrants, and supportive affidavits or declarations. 433. Supervisors will meet with their subordinates on an ongoing basis to discuss their performance and will document the supervisor’s ongoing efforts and communications regarding officer performance challenges and areas of growth. 434. Performance evaluations for each supervisor (whether first-line or commander) will include assessment of the supervisor’s ability and effectiveness in conducting the supervisory reviews as required by this Agreement, including monitoring, deterring, and addressing misconduct by officers they supervise.
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435. The BPD will ensure its promotional systems establish clear criteria that prioritize effective, constitutional, and community-oriented policing as factors in promotion. XVIII. OFFICER ASSISTANCE AND SUPPORT
436. BPD will provide an Employee Assistance Program (“EAP”) to all sworn officers, which allows access to no- or low-cost counseling and mental wellness services including: confidential counseling services; crisis counseling; stress management counseling; and mental health evaluations. BPD will provide information about this program in all BPD facilities.
437. BPD will compile, periodically review and revise as necessary, and maintain a list of mental and physical health service providers available as part of the EAP to all officers and employees. BPD will ensure that officers have easy access to this information through email, the BPD website, or other means.
438. The BPD will develop peer support services including: a. A peer support program through which officers provide emotional, social, and practical support to other officers; and b. A peer intervention program through which BPD will provide officers with training, based on theories of active bystandership and passive bystandership, (1) to safely intervene before an officer engages in unethical behavior, to prevent it from occurring; (2) to accept an intervention from another officer when it occurs; and (3) provide emotional, social, and practical support to officers who intervene to prevent or end unethical behavior.
439. BPD will offer to all officers a voluntary mental health evaluation before returning an officer to full duty following a traumatic incident (e.g., serious injury, officerinvolved shooting, officer-involved accident involving fatality, or all other uses of force resulting
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in death or serious injury). Officers may voluntarily seek further mental health services following this meeting.
440. BPD will develop well-being protocols to be activated during officer deployments during public demonstrations or civil unrest. These protocols will include:
a. Close monitoring and periodic affirmative checks of officers’ well-being by supervisors;
b. Availability of mental health and medical professional(s) to provide health care to officers;
c. Inclusion of health and safety guidance during pre-deployment briefings; d. Close monitoring of officer fatigue and indications of stressors; e. During prolonged periods of demonstrations or unrest, the deployment of police
counselors or psychologists to provide individual counseling to officers and their family members. 441. BPD will develop protocols for annually, assessing BPD’s officer assistance and support programs to ensure officers are provided adequate support to maintain their physical and mental health. As part of this assessment process, BPD will identify deficiencies and opportunities for improvement; implement appropriate corrective action and improvement measures; and document measures taken. XIX. AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION AND ENFORCEMENT A. Selection and Role of the Independent Monitor 442. The Parties will jointly select an Independent Monitor (“Monitor”), which will include a team of individuals with expertise in policing, civil rights, monitoring, data analysis, project management, and related areas, as well as local experience and expertise with the diverse
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communities of Baltimore, to assess and report on whether the requirements of this Agreement have been implemented and provide Technical Assistance in achieving compliance.
443. The selection of the Monitor shall be pursuant to a process jointly established by the City, BPD and DOJ, further explained in a Request for Application (“RFA”) that will be mutually developed by the parties. The RFA shall specify the criteria upon which the selection for the Monitor shall be made, including: each team member’s experience and qualifications to perform the tasks outlined in this Agreement; the ability to work collaboratively with BPD and DOJ to enable BPD to reach compliance with this Agreement; and the ability to do so in a costeffective manner. As part of the RFA, applicants will be required to submit a proposed budget for the work to be performed under this Agreement.
444. The Parties agree to file a joint motion asking the Court to appoint the Monitor chosen by the Monitor selection process described herein. The Parties agree that it is important to allow for public input at each stage of the Monitor selection process.
a. As further explained in the RFA, the Parties will publicly seek information from all qualified individuals or groups of individuals who are interested in being considered for the Monitor team. The Parties will publicly announce a time period in which interested parties can make submissions, and will review all information provided. All information submitted by interested parties will be made publicly available.
b. After the deadline for Monitor candidates to submit information as specified in the RFA, the Parties agree to a public comment period, in which members of the public can review candidate information and make recommendations to the Parties about the potential candidates.
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c. After the public comment period, the Parties will evaluate the candidates, considering the recommendations made by members of the public, and agree on a subset of the teams to interview. In selecting whom to interview, the Parties may request additional information from the candidates. Interviews will be in person and conducted in Baltimore. Any travel expenses associated with these or other interviews shall be borne by the candidates.
d. Following the Party interviews, the Parties will then agree upon the teams that are finalists for the Monitor role. If the Parties cannot agree on finalists, the City and BPD, and DOJ may each name up to two teams (two for the City and BPD, and two for DOJ), to the finalist list. In selecting the finalists, the Parties may request additional information from the candidates. After a list of finalists is established, the Parties may conduct a second interview of the candidates, in–person at the parties’ discretion. The Parties will provide an opportunity for candidates to respond to questions and concerns from the Baltimore community. As part of this process, the Parties will provide for a public meeting at which candidates may respond to written questions submitted by members of the public.
e. After the finalists have been interviewed and responded to questions submitted by the public, the Parties will agree on a Monitor to propose to the Court in a joint motion. If the Parties cannot agree on a Monitor, the City/BPD and DOJ may each submit one proposed team to the Court, which will select the Monitor.
f. Candidates for the position of Monitor shall be responsible for their own expenses incurred as a result of the application process to become the Monitor.
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445. The Monitor will be the agent of the Court and subject to the supervision and orders of the Court, consistent with this Agreement. The Monitor will only have the duties, responsibilities, and authority conferred by this Agreement. The Monitor will not, and is not intended to, replace or assume the role and duties of the City or BPD, or any duties of any City or BPD employee, including the Commissioner, or any City official.
B. Term of the Monitor 446. The Monitor shall be appointed for a period of three years from the Effective Date, subject to an evaluation by the Court to determine whether to renew the Monitor’s appointment until the Termination of this Agreement or for another two years, whichever happens first. In evaluating the Monitor, the Court shall consider the Monitor’s performance under this Agreement, including whether the Monitor is adequately engaging the community, completing its work in a cost-effective manner and on budget, and is working effectively with the Parties to facilitate BPD’s efforts to comply with the Agreement’s terms, including by providing Technical Assistance to BPD. The Monitor may be removed for good cause by the Court at any time, on motion by any of the Parties or the Court’s own determination. 447. If the Agreement continues more than five years pursuant to Paragraphs 504-510, the Court shall evaluate the Monitor’s performance and decide whether to extend the term of the Monitor. If the monitoring period is extended under this Agreement, it should be extended only as to those Material Requirements of the Agreement that have not been terminated pursuant to this Agreement. 448. Once the Monitor is retained, the City will pay the Monitor a maximum of $1,475,000 per year for performing all of the Monitor’s duties under this Agreement. The Parties recognize the importance of ensuring that the fees and costs of monitoring the Agreement
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are reasonable, and thus fees and costs will be a factor to be considered when selecting the Monitor and the Monitor’s reappointment. The Monitor will submit a proposed budget annually to the Court for approval, including an accounting of the actual budget for the previous year. The Monitor will maintain a public website and will post its proposed budget and accounting to its public website. In the event that any dispute arises regarding the reasonableness or payment of the Monitor’s fees and costs, the City, DOJ, and the Monitor will attempt to resolve such dispute cooperatively prior to seeking the assistance of the Court. The City and/or BPD will provide the Monitor with office space and reasonable office support such as office furniture, telephones, internet access, secure document storage, and photocopying. The City shall not be responsible for paying for non-working travel time. The Monitor may, at any time after its initial selection, request to be allowed to hire, employ, or contract with additional persons or entities that are reasonably necessary to perform the tasks assigned to the Monitor by this Agreement. Any person or entity hired or otherwise retained by the Monitor to assist in furthering any provision of this Agreement will be subject to the provisions of this Agreement. The Monitor will notify the City, BPD and DOJ in writing if the Monitor wishes to select such additional persons or entities. The notice will identify and describe the qualifications of the person or entity to be hired or employed, the monitoring task to be performed, and any additional fee or cost associated with the proposed selection. If the City, BPD and DOJ agree to the Monitor’s proposal, the Monitor will be authorized to hire or employ such additional persons or entities. The City, BPD and DOJ have ten business days to disagree with any such proposal. If the City, BPD, DOJ, and the Monitor are unable to reach agreement within ten business days of receiving notice of the disagreement, then any Party or the Monitor may seek the Court’s approval for the
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selection. Any fees or costs charged by this additional person or entity will count toward the annual $1,475,000 Monitor budget cap, except as provided in Paragraph 450.
449. The City will deposit $150,000 into the Registry of the Court as interim payment of costs incurred by the Monitor. This deposit and all other deposits pursuant to this Agreement will be held in the Court Registry and will be subject to the standard registry fee imposed, if any, on depositors. The Monitor will submit monthly statements to the Court, with copies to the Parties, detailing all expenses the Monitor incurred during the prior month. These monthly statements shall be posted to the Monitor’s public website. The Court will order the clerk to make payments to the Monitor. Upon receipt of an Order from the Court directing payment, the clerk will ensure timely payment of all approved statements received from the Monitor. Within 45 days of the entry of each Order directing payment, the City will replenish the fund with the full amount paid by the clerk in order to restore the fund’s total to $150,000, or to a lesser amount if the annual cap would be exceeded.
450. The Court has the discretion to increase the Monitor’s cap by a specific amount for a specific year at the Monitor’s request. To grant the request, the Court must find that the increase is necessary for the Monitor to fulfill its duties under the Agreement and is not due to a failure in planning, budgeting, or performance by the Monitor.
451. Before submitting a monthly statement to the Court, the Monitor will submit the monthly statements to the Parties. The Parties will review such statements for reasonableness. Upon completion of the Parties’ review, but in no case more than 30 days after submission of the statements by the Monitor, the Parties will notify the Monitor of their approval of the statement. Upon receipt of the Parties’ approval, the Monitor may submit the statement to the Court for payment. The statement submitted to the Court will indicate that it was reviewed and approved
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by the Parties. In the event the Parties cannot agree on approval of a statement, the Parties will attempt to resolve such dispute cooperatively prior to seeking the assistance of the Court to resolve the dispute.
452. In the event that the Monitor is no longer able to perform its functions, is removed, or is not extended, within 60 days thereof, the City, BPD and the DOJ will together select and advise the Court of the selection of a replacement Monitor, acceptable to both. The Parties’ selection of the Monitor will be made pursuant to a method jointly established by the DOJ, the City and BPD, and the method will include public input. If the Parties are unable to agree on a Monitor or an alternative method of selection within 90 days of the Monitor’s incapacitation, each Party will submit the names of up to two candidates, or two groups of candidates, along with resumes and cost proposals, to the Court, and the Court will select and appoint the Monitor from among the qualified candidates/candidate groups.
453. Should any of the Parties to this Agreement determine that the Monitor has exceeded its authority or failed to satisfactorily perform the duties required by this Agreement, the Party may petition the Court for such relief as the Court deems appropriate, including replacement of the Monitor, and/or any individual members, agents, employees, or independent contractors of the Monitor. In addition, the Court, on its own initiative and its sole discretion, may replace the Monitor or any member of the Monitor’s team for failure to adequately perform the duties required by this Agreement.
C. Compliance Reviews 454. The Monitor will conduct Compliance Reviews. The purpose of a “Compliance Review” is a review to determine compliance with the Material Requirements of this Agreement. Compliance Reviews shall be conducted in a reliable manner based on accepted and trustworthy
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means and methods. Any statistical analysis used as part of a Compliance Review must conform to statistical techniques that are accepted in the relevant field. The Monitor shall provide the City, BPD, and DOJ with the underlying analysis, data, methods, and source of the information relied upon in the Reviews.
455. The Compliance Reviews to be conducted pursuant to this Agreement shall be specifically set forth in the Monitoring Plan.
D. Outcome Assessments 456. In addition to Compliance Reviews, the Monitor will conduct Outcome Assessments as specified in this section of the Agreement to measure whether BPD’s revised practices and procedures are achieving the purposes of this Agreement and are having an overall beneficial effect on policing in Baltimore. Outcome Assessments shall be conducted in a reliable, cost-effective manner based on accepted and trustworthy means and methods. Any statistical analysis used as part of an Outcome Assessment must conform to statistical techniques that are accepted in the relevant field. The Monitor shall provide the City, BPD, and DOJ with the underlying analysis, data, methods, and source of the information relied upon in the Assessments. 457. For at least the first three years of this Agreement, the Monitor will be responsible for conducting the Outcome Assessments required by this section. During this period, BPD will work with the Monitor and DOJ to develop the capacity to conduct these assessments on its own. Beginning three years from the Effective Date or as soon as practicable thereafter, BPD will begin performing the assessments and report these results to the Monitor and DOJ for review. Should the Monitor find that Outcome Assessments not included in this section of the Agreement
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are necessary to determine whether the City and BPD are achieving Full and Effective

Compliance, Court approval will be required.

458. BPD will develop a plan, in consultation with the Monitor to conduct these or

similar assessments following the termination of the Consent Decree. BPD will publish the plan

for continuing assessments on BPD’s website.

459. In accordance with this section, the Monitor will conduct the following Outcome

Assessments:

a. An annual Community Survey that assesses the satisfaction of the community

with BPD’s:

i.

Overall police services:

ii.

Trustworthiness;

iii.

Engagement with the community;

iv.

Effectiveness;

v.

Responsiveness;

vi.

Interaction with Youth;

vii.

Misconduct investigation and discipline systems; and

viii.

Interactions with African Americans, Hispanic Americans, LGBT,

and other significant and distinct groups within the community;

b. An annual analysis of response times for calls of service, accounting for the type

of call, in each police district and different neighborhoods within Baltimore;

c. To assess whether Arrests made by BPD officers are supported by probable cause,

based on constitutional policing practices, and consistent with this Agreement, an

annual analysis of:

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i.

The rate at which Arrests are found to lack probable cause or

otherwise violate the Fourth Amendment by BPD supervisors, and

in any court commissioner data made available to BPD;

ii.

The frequency of civilian complaints to OPR and CRB alleging

unlawful Arrests, the disposition of such complaints, and the

quality of BPD’s complaint investigations;

d. To assess whether officers are using force lawfully; using tactics that minimize

the need to use force; modulating their use of force appropriately in response to

changing circumstances; and critically analyzing, learning from, and holding

officers accountable for uses of force, the Monitor will conduct an annual:

i.

Analysis of use of force incidents, broken down by Reportable

Force type, District, type of Arrest; race, ethnicity, age, and gender

of the subject; and, if indicated at the time force was used, the

subject’s perceived mental health or medical condition, use of

drugs or alcohol, or the presence of a disability;

ii.

Analysis of force complaints, including: number of force

complaints and rate of complaints compared to reported uses of

force, broken down by geographic area, Reportable Force type, and

race, ethnicity, gender, and age of complainant;

e. To assess whether BPD officers make Stops and Detentions based on community

policing principles that protect the constitutional rights of Baltimore residents the

Monitor will conduct analysis of data showing the rate at which officers’ Stops

and Detentions uncover evidence of criminal activity;

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f. To assess whether BPD officers conduct Searches, Frisks, and Strip Searches

consistent with constitutional requirements and the provisions of this Agreement,

the Monitor will conduct analysis of data showing:

i.

The rate at which Frisks result in officers recovering a weapon;

ii.

The rate Searches yield evidence of illegal weapons or contraband.

g. To assess whether BPD delivers police services without an unnecessary

disproportionate impact on individuals based on Demographic Category, the

Monitor will conduct analysis of data showing:

i.

The breakdown of pedestrian and vehicle Stops by race, gender,

and ethnicity, accounting for the demographics of the individuals

residing in the area, crime rates, calls for service, or other relevant

facts and circumstances;

ii.

The outcome of pedestrian and vehicle Stops, including warnings,

Citations, and Arrests, broken down by race, gender, and ethnicity,

for each police district and the City as a whole, accounting for

relevant facts and circumstances surrounding officers’ decisions to

make the Stops;

iii.

The percentage of Frisks or Searches that result in seizure of

contraband, and the nature of the contraband seized, controlling for

available data on facts and circumstances surrounding the Frisk or

Search, broken down by race, gender, and ethnicity;

iv.

The proportion of Arrests for misdemeanor offenses specified in

Paragraph 61(a)-(f) broken down by race, gender, and ethnicity,

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that result in one of the following determinations after booking:

released without charge; released based on identity issue; declined

to charge; and lack of probable cause;

h. To assess whether people with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis are

receiving reasonable modifications, the Monitor will conduct analysis of data

showing:

i.

The number of people subject to Emergency Petitions who were

eligible for community-based services;

ii.

The number of referrals by BPD to community mental health

services or to a hospital emergency room; and

i. To assess whether officers interact appropriately with Youth in a manner that

accounts for their individual characteristics, the Monitor will conduct analysis of

the rate of police interactions with Youth, including Stops, Searches, and Arrests,

that result in officers using force;

j. To assess whether members of the public are able to express themselves freely,

observe and record law enforcement, and engage in lawful public demonstration

and protests without intimidation or retaliation by police, the Monitor will

conduct analysis of:

i.

The number of Citations and arrests requiring supervisor approval

under the First Amendment section of this Agreement, broken

down by police district and arrest charges;

ii.

Complaints in which a person claims he or she was not permitted

to observe, record, criticize, or protest police activity, or was

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retaliated against for such conduct and the disposition of such

complaints;

k. To assess whether BPD responds to sexual assault in a nondiscriminatory manner

that complies with the Constitution and federal law, and improves the safety and

security of sexual assault victims in Baltimore, the Monitor will conduct an

annual review of:

i.

Number of sexual assault reports made to BPD;

ii.

Rate of victim participation in BPD sexual assault investigations;

iii.

Clearance rate in sexual assault cases; and

iv.

Rate of declination of sexual assault cases referred to the Baltimore

City State’s Attorney’s Office for prosecution;

l. To assess whether BPD effectively trains officers and provides them with the

skills and knowledge necessary to conduct their law enforcement activities in

accordance with policy, law, and this Agreement, the Monitor will conduct an

annual review of:

i.

Rates of completion of approved training and performance

assessments of evaluative aspects of training;

ii.

Qualitative measurements of the adequacy of training, including

assessments by officers, feedback from instructors, and evaluations

by civilian reviewers;

iii.

Qualitative and quantitative assessments of the FTO program,

including the availability of sufficient numbers of eligible FTOs

and officer complaints filed against FTOs; and

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iv.

The frequency that training deficiencies are identified through

investigations, internal reviews, complaints, disciplinary

proceedings, civilian oversight, or other mechanisms;

m. To assess whether BPD is providing effective supervision of officers, the Monitor

will conduct an annual review of the number of supervisory interventions initiated

through the EIS, and on a sampling basis a qualitative analysis of the quality of

those interventions;

n. To assess whether BPD is effectively holding officers accountable, the Monitor

will conduct an annual review of the separate OPR and CRB quarterly public

reports and underlying data as necessary, examining data on complaints,

misconduct allegations, misconduct investigations, and officer discipline.

460. In conducting these Outcome Assessments, the Monitor should, to the extent

practicable, use any relevant data collected and maintained by BPD prior to conducting separate

data collections. In the absence of available BPD-collected data, the Monitor may rely on data

collected by the Monitor, and information concerning civil liability of BPD, its officials, officers,

employees, agents, assigns, or successors, provided that it has determined, and the Parties agree,

that this information is reasonably reliable and complete. In reporting on the Outcome

Assessments, the Monitor shall provide the City, BPD, and DOJ with its methodology,

underlying analysis and the source of the information relied upon, including, but not limited to,

data collected and maintained by BPD, information concerning civil liability of BPD, its

officials, officers, agents, or employees, interviews, surveys, including the Community Survey,

or public source material.

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E. Monitoring Plan 461. Within 90 days of assuming duties as Monitor, the Monitor, in conjunction with the Parties, will develop a Monitoring Plan for the first year of the Agreement. This plan will:
a. Provide an overview for how BPD will reach Full and Effective Compliance with all Material Requirements of the Agreement within five years. This overview will include a specific schedule and deadlines for the upcoming year of the Agreement and a general schedule for successive years, including those deadlines for subsection (e), below, that will extend beyond the first year of the Agreement;
b. Set forth a review and approval process for all BPD actions that are subject to review and approval by DOJ and or the Monitor, including reasonable deadlines, a period for consultation; a mechanism for extending deadlines; and provisions describing the consequences for failing to meet the deadlines, including but not limited to notice to the Court and the public of missed deadlines;
c. Clearly delineate how the Material Requirements of the Agreement will be assessed for Full and Effective Compliance so that it is clear when and how Full and Effective Compliance may be achieved;
d. Describe any Outcome Assessments or Compliance reviews that will be used to assess Full and Effective compliance with the Agreement, including a general description of the methodology and whether any requirements will be assessed collectively or separately;
e. Establish a schedule for conducting all Outcome Assessments and Compliance reviews, taking into account that the data and technology necessary to conduct the assessments or reviews may be currently unavailable;
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f. Establish a process for sharing the results of all Outcome Assessments and Compliance Reviews with the Parties, including all source data and information, analysis, and a complete and detailed explanation of any conclusions;
g. Clearly delineate the roles and responsibilities of the Monitor’s team members, including identifying a Deputy Monitor with authority to act in the Monitor’s absence, lead members who have primary authority for each section of this Agreement and achieving Full and Effective Compliance with that section, and specifying whether they or any team member (besides the Monitor and Deputy Monitor) has approval authority for BPD actions;
h. Establish a protocol for communication, engagement, and problem solving with BPD and DOJ;
i. Establish a method of communicating with the public and receiving public input, which shall include quarterly in-person meetings in different Baltimore neighborhoods;
j. Specify any documents that must be preserved pursuant to the Agreement beyond the requirements of applicable retention policies.
462. The Monitor will submit the Monitoring Plan to the Parties for review and approval. The Parties will have 45 days to either approve or propose changes to the Monitoring Plan. Prior to approval, the Parties agree to hold at least one in-person meeting with the Monitor to discuss the Monitoring Plan. If either Party proposes changes the Monitor will have 15 days to accept or object to those changes. If the Monitor objects to any of the proposed changes and/or the Parties suggest changes that are in conflict, either Party or the Monitor will provide
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the rationale for its proposal or objection, in writing, and the Parties and Monitor will have 20 days to confer to resolve the disagreement.
463. The Monitor will submit the Monitoring Plan to the Court for approval after it is approved by the Parties. If after good faith attempts, disagreement remains unresolved between the Parties and/or Monitor so that the Monitoring Plan is not approved by the Parties in accordance with the preceding paragraph the Monitor will submit the Monitoring Plan to the Court, noting the areas of disagreement, and either Party or the Monitor may petition the Court thereafter to resolve the disagreement.
464. To promote flexibility in the implementation of the Agreement, the Parties and the Monitor may change a provision in the Monitoring Plan at any time without Court approval, so long as the Parties and the Monitor are all in agreement that the change should be made, and the Monitor files a written notice of the Change to the Court within five days of making the change. The notice shall state the reasons for the change, the date on which the change was made, and a statement that all parties and the Monitor are in agreement with the change. The notice shall also be posted to the Monitor’s website.
465. For each subsequent year of the Agreement, the Monitor shall revise and update the Monitoring Plan pursuant to the process described above. The Monitor will initiate the development of the Monitoring Plan for the upcoming year at least 90 days before the previous year’s Monitoring Plan will conclude.
466. Where the Monitor and the Parties agree, and subject to Court approval, the Monitor will refrain from conducting a Compliance Review or Outcome Assessment of a requirement of this Agreement previously found to be in compliance by the Monitor where the outcome intended by the requirement has been achieved.
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467. At least 60 days prior to the initiation of any Outcome Assessment or Compliance Review required by the Monitoring Plan, the Monitor will submit a description of the proposed methodology for the Outcome Assessment or Compliance Review to the Parties. The Parties and the Monitor will have 30 days to meet and confer about the proposed methodology. If, at the end of this period, any Party continues to have comments or concerns, the Party will submit the comments or concerns regarding the proposed methodology to the Monitor within 20 days. Within 10 days, the Monitor will modify the methodology as necessary to address any concerns or will inform the Parties in writing of the reasons it is not modifying its methodology as proposed. If any party objects to the Monitor’s decision, the Party may petition the Court for review.
F. Monitor Recommendations and Technical Assistance 468. The Monitor may make recommendations to the Parties regarding measures necessary to ensure timely Full and Effective Compliance with this Agreement and its underlying objectives. Such recommendations may include a recommendation to change, modify, or amend a provision of the Agreement; a recommendation for additional training in any area related to this Agreement; or a recommendation to seek Technical Assistance. Any such recommendation to change, modify, or amend a provision of the Agreement must be in writing and must comply with the requirements to modify the Agreement as described in Paragraph 494 of this Agreement. In addition to such recommendations, the Monitor may also, at the request of the DOJ or BPD and based on the Monitor’s reviews, provide Technical Assistance consistent with the Monitor’s responsibilities under this Agreement.
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G. Comprehensive Re-Assessment 469. Two years after the Effective Date, the Monitor will conduct a Comprehensive Re-assessment (“Comprehensive Re-assessment” or “Re-assessment”) to determine whether and to what extent the Material Requirements of this Agreement have been achieved, and any modifications to the Agreement that are necessary for continued achievement in light of changed circumstances or unanticipated impact (or lack of impact) of the requirement. This Reassessment also will address areas of greatest achievement and the requirements that appear to have contributed to this success, as well as areas of greatest concern, including strategies and Technical Assistance, for accelerating Full and Effective Compliance. The Monitor shall file the Comprehensive Re-assessment with the Court no later than 30 months from the Effective Date. At least 60 days prior to filing the Comprehensive Re-assessment, the Monitor will submit the Re-assessment to the Parties in draft form for review and comment by the Parties, and meet with the Parties to discuss the Re-assessment. The Parties shall have 30 days from receiving the draft Comprehensive Re-assessment to provide comments and objections. The Monitor will make any revisions that it deems appropriate in light of the Party’s comments and file the Comprehensive Re-assessment, any written comments received from the Parties that the Parties request be filed with the Comprehensive Re-assessment, and the Monitor’s response with the Court. These documents will be a public record, and they shall also be posted on the Monitor’s website. Based upon this Comprehensive Re-assessment, the Monitor will also recommend modifications to the Agreement that are necessary to achieve the purposes of this Agreement. These recommendations shall be filed with the Court and posted on the Monitor’s website at the same time the Comprehensive Re-Assessment is due. Where the Parties agree with the Monitor’s recommendations, the Parties will submit such stipulation to the Court and request approval.
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The Court may, at the Court’s discretion, allow public comment regarding suggested modifications. This provision in no way diminishes the Parties’ ability to modify this Agreement, subject to Court approval, as set out in Paragraph 494 of this Agreement. Nothing in this Agreement will empower the Monitor to unilaterally modify the terms of this Agreement.
470. These Comprehensive Re-assessments will be conducted every two years while the Agreement is in place.
H. Monitor Reports 471. The Monitor will file with the Court and post to the Monitor’s website semiannual written reports covering the reporting period that will include:
a. The progress made by the City and BPD under the Monitoring Plan, as well as an overall assessment of the City’s and BPD’s progress to date in complying with the Agreement;
b. A description of the work conducted by the Monitor during the reporting period; c. The methodology and specific findings for each Compliance review conducted,
redacted as necessary for privacy concerns and legal compliance. An unredacted version will be filed under seal with the Court and provided to the Parties; d. The methodology and specific findings for each Outcome Assessment conducted; e. A projection of the work to be completed during the upcoming reporting period and any anticipated challenges or concerns related to implementation of the Agreement; f. For all Material Requirements of the Agreement, the extent to which the requirements have been: (1) incorporated into implemented policy; (2) trained at the levels set forth in this Agreement for all relevant BPD officers; (3) reviewed
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or audited by the Monitor in determining whether BPD has reached Full and Effective Compliance, including the date of the review or audit and the data and materials relied upon for the review or audit; and (4) found by the Monitor to have reached Full and Effective Compliance, and the date of this finding; g. For all Material Requirements of the Agreement, the report will provide the Monitor’s recommendations regarding necessary steps to achieve Full and Effective Compliance; h. For all Material Requirements of the Agreement, the report will provide the extent to which the Monitor has provided Technical Assistance; and i. An appendix listing each requirement of the Agreement that the Monitor reviewed and stating whether the requirement has reached “Full and Effective Compliance,” is “In Progress,” or is “Not Started.” 472. The Monitor will provide a copy of semi-annual reports to the Parties in draft form at least 30 days prior to Court filing and public release of the reports to allow the Parties to comment on the reports. The Monitor will also post the final reports, along with comments by the Parties that the Parties request be posted, and the Monitor’s response, if any, to its website and will establish an electronic mechanism for receiving public feedback on the reports. I. Communication Between the Monitor, the Parties, the Court, and the Public 473. The Monitor will maintain regular contact with the Parties in order to ensure effective and timely communication regarding the status of the implementation of and compliance with this Agreement. To facilitate this communication, the Monitor shall hold regular status teleconferences and in-person meetings with the Parties on a schedule agreed upon by the Parties and the Monitor.
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474. The Monitor will meet interested community stakeholders on a regular basis to discuss the BPD’s progress under the Agreement, to explain the Monitor’s reports, to inform the public about the Agreement implementation process, and to hear community perspectives of police interactions. The Monitor will designate a member of the team as a community liaison, who will serve as a point of contact to community members.
475. The Monitor will meet with BPD officers on a routine basis to inform them about the Agreement implementation process and to hear their questions, concerns, and suggestions regarding its implementation. The Monitor will designate a member of the team as an officer liaison, who will serve as a point of contact to officers, including the Fraternal Order of Police, Vanguard, Hispanic Officers Law Enforcement Association, and other officer associations. Rank and file BPD officers may report misconduct, including retaliation, to the Monitor either anonymously or on the record. The Monitor will not investigate these reports, but will convey information regarding the complaint to Internal Affairs without revealing the officer’s identity if anonymity has been requested, and may track the complaint investigation to ensure it is handled appropriately.
J. Public Statements, Testimony, Records, and Conflicts of Interest 476. Except as required or authorized by the terms of this Agreement, by the Parties acting together, or by authorization of the Court, the Monitor, will not make any public statements or issue findings with regard to any act or omission of the Parties or their agents, representatives, or employees; or disclose non-public information provided to the Monitor pursuant to the Agreement. 477. The Monitor, may testify as to its observations, findings, and recommendations before the Court with jurisdiction over this Agreement, but will not testify in any other litigation
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or proceeding with regard to any policy or practice, act or omission of the City, BPD, or any of their officials, officers, agents, or employees related to this Agreement or regarding any matter or subject that the Monitor may have received knowledge of as a result of its performance under this Agreement. This paragraph does not apply to any proceeding before the Court related to performance of contracts or subcontracts for monitoring this Agreement.
478. Unless such conflict is waived by the Parties, the Monitor will not accept employment or provide consulting services that would present a conflict of interest with the Monitor’s responsibilities under this Agreement, including future retention (on a paid or unpaid basis) by any current or future private litigant or claimant, or such litigant’s or claimant’s attorney, in connection with a claim or suit against the City, BPD or their officials, officers, agents, or employees. The Monitor will not enter into any contract with the City, BPD, or the United States while serving as the Monitor unless the Monitor first discloses the potential contract to the Parties and the Parties agree in writing to waive any conflict. If the Monitor resigns from its position as Monitor, the former Monitor may not enter into any contract with the City, BPD, or the United States on a matter related to the Agreement without the written consent of the Parties while the Agreement remains in effect. If the DOJ wishes to hire a member of the monitoring team to assist in a separate investigation or matter that does not involve the City or the BPD, or their departments, officials, officers, agents or employees, it will notify the Monitor, the City, and BPD in advance of the hiring and discuss any potential conflicts of interest.
479. The Monitor will not be permitted to represent or work for any individual or organization in any criminal, civil or administrative matter adverse to the City or BPD or the United States, including any individual or organization designated as a witness, consultant, victim, defendant, subject, target, or person of interest, for the duration of the monitorship.
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480. The Monitor is an agent of the court and not a state or local agency, or an agent thereof, and accordingly the records maintained by the Monitor will not be deemed public records subject to public inspection. The Monitor will not be liable for any claim, lawsuit, or demand arising out of and substantively related to the Monitor’s performance pursuant to this Agreement brought by non-parties to this Agreement.
K. Consent Decree Implementation Unit 481. During the United States’ investigation, BPD formed an inter-disciplinary unit, the Compliance, Accountability, and External Affairs Division, to facilitate the investigation (“Compliance Unit”). BPD agrees to maintain this unit to facilitate implementation of this Agreement, and to hire and retain individuals, or reassign current BPD employees, with the skills and abilities necessary to ensure that the Agreement is implemented in a timely manner. The Compliance Unit will serve as a liaison between the BPD and the Monitor and will assist with the implementation of and compliance with this Agreement. At a minimum, this unit will: coordinate the BPD’s compliance and implementation activities; facilitate the provision of data, documents, materials, and access to the BPD personnel to the Monitor and the DOJ, as needed; ensure that all data, documents, and records required by this Agreement are maintained in an usable format; and assist in assigning implementation and compliance related tasks to BPD personnel, as directed by the Police Commissioner or the Commissioner’s designee. L. Access and Confidentiality 482. As specified in this Agreement, BPD will collect and maintain all data and records necessary to document implementation of the Agreement and assess compliance. These data and records include documentation of Stops, Searches, Arrests, uses of force, training records, documentation of sexual assault investigations, internal and external complaints,
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complaint investigations, and supporting documentation, and other documentation required by the Agreement and specified in the Monitoring Plan. To the extent that these data and records are routinely purged according to a document retention schedule, BPD will notify the Monitor and DOJ of the schedule for all relevant data and records and the Monitor and the Parties will develop a protocol for maintaining the data and records that balances the burden of maintaining the data and records on BPD with the need to maintain the data and records to adequately assess compliance.
483. To facilitate their work pursuant to this Agreement, the Monitor and DOJ may conduct on-site visits and assessments with reasonable prior notice to BPD and, when necessary to assess compliance, may conduct on-site visits and assessments without prior notice to BPD, although such circumstances should be rare. The Monitor and DOJ will have access to all necessary individuals, facilities, and documents, which will include access to Agreement-related trainings, meetings, and reviews, such as critical incident reviews, use of force review, materials documenting stops, searches, arrests, and uses of force, citizen complaints of officer misconduct and public trial boards. The Monitor will have access to protected employee personnel records, including misconduct complaints and investigations, and non-public trial boards or other disciplinary hearings, and DOJ will have access to the same information in compliance with state and federal law. The role of the Monitor and DOJ during these visits and assessments is solely to observe and monitor. To avoid unnecessary confusion, distraction, duplication of effort, and undue burdens on BPD, the Monitor, DOJ, and the Compliance Unit shall coordinate in making any on-site visits or observations and otherwise seeking access to BPD or its individuals, facilities, and documents. BPD will notify the Monitor and the DOJ as soon as practicable, and
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in any case within 24 hours, of any critical firearm discharge, in-custody death, or arrest of any officer.
484. BPD, through the Compliance Unit, will ensure that the Monitor and DOJ have timely, full and direct access to all BPD staff, employees, critical incident crime scenes, and facilities that the Monitor and DOJ reasonably deem necessary to carry out their duties under this Agreement. The Monitor and DOJ will cooperate with the BPD to access people and facilities in a reasonable manner that minimizes interference with daily operations.
485. Upon reasonable notice and request, the City and BPD will ensure that the Monitor and DOJ have access to all documents and data that the Monitor and DOJ reasonably deem necessary to carry out their duties under this Agreement, except any documents or data protected by the attorney-client or other recognized privileges, or, as to DOJ, where disclosure is prohibited by law. Should the City or BPD decline to provide the Monitor or DOJ access to documents or data based on privilege, or as to DOJ, other legal prohibition, the City or BPD will inform the Monitor and the DOJ that they are withholding documents or data on this basis and will provide the Monitor and the DOJ with a log describing the documents or data and the basis for withholding. If the Monitor or DOJ disagrees with the basis for withholding the Monitor or the DOJ may request that the Court, or the Court may sua sponte, order an in camera review of the protected material to make a determination on disclosure.
486. The Monitor and the DOJ will provide BPD, through the Compliance Unit, with reasonable notice of a request for copies of documents. Upon such request, BPD will provide in a timely manner copies (electronic, where readily available) of the requested documents to the Monitor and the DOJ.
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487. The Monitor and DOJ will have access to all records and information relating to criminal investigations of BPD officers as permissible by law. The Monitor and DOJ will have access to all documents in criminal investigation files that have been closed by BPD after the Effective Date as permissible by law. The Monitor and DOJ also will have reasonable access to all arrest reports, warrants, and warrant applications initiated after the Effective Date whether or not contained in open criminal investigation files as permissible by law.
488. The Monitor and the DOJ will maintain all non-public information provided by the City and BPD in a confidential manner. Other than as expressly provided in this Agreement, this Agreement will not be deemed a waiver of any privilege or right BPD or the City may assert, including those recognized at common law or created by statute, rule or regulation, against any other person or entity with respect to the disclosure of any document.
M. Court Jurisdiction, Modification of the Agreement, and Enforcement 489. This Agreement will become effective upon approval and entry as an order of the Court. 490. The investigation that led to this Agreement was initiated pursuant to the authority granted to the DOJ under 42 U.S.C. § 14141 to seek declaratory or equitable relief to remedy an alleged pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers that deprives individuals of rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution or federal law. 491. This Court has jurisdiction of this action under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1345. The United States is authorized to initiate this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 14141. Venue is proper in the District of Maryland pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391, because BPD is located in and the claims arose in the District of Maryland.
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492. The Agreement will constitute the entire integrated agreement of the Parties. No prior drafts or prior or contemporaneous communications, oral or written, will be relevant or admissible for purposes of determining the meaning of any provisions herein in any litigation or any other proceeding.
493. To ensure that the requirements of this Agreement are properly and timely implemented, the Court will retain jurisdiction of this action for all purposes until such time as the Court determines BPD has achieved Full and Effective Compliance as defined herein and the Court issues an order terminating the Agreement. At all times, BPD will bear the burden of demonstrating by a preponderance of the evidence its Full and Effective Compliance with this Agreement. The DOJ acknowledges the good faith of BPD in trying to address measures that are needed to promote police integrity and ensure Constitutional Policing in Baltimore. The DOJ, however, reserves its right to seek enforcement of the provisions of this Agreement if it determines that BPD has failed to fully comply with any provision of this Agreement. The DOJ agrees to consult with officials from the City and BPD before instituting enforcement proceedings and will make a good faith attempt to resolve any disputes before seeking intervention from the Court.
494. The City and BPD and the DOJ may jointly stipulate to make changes, modifications, and amendments to this Agreement, which will be subject to Court approval. Such changes, modifications, and amendments to this Agreement will be encouraged when the Parties agree, or where the Compliance Reviews and Outcome Assessments of the Monitor demonstrate, that the Agreement provision as drafted is not furthering the purpose of the Agreement, or that there is a preferable alternative that will achieve the same purpose. Where the Parties or the Monitor are uncertain whether a change to the Agreement is advisable, the
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Parties, with Court approval, may agree to suspend the current Agreement requirement for a time period agreed upon at the outset of the suspension. During this suspension, the Parties, with Court approval, may, but are not required to, agree to temporarily implement an alternative requirement. The Monitor will assess and report to the Court whether the suspension of the requirement and the implementation of any alternative provision is as, or more, effective at achieving the purpose as was the original/current Agreement requirement, and the Parties will consider this assessment in determining whether to request that the Court approve the suggested change, modification, or amendment. The Court may, at its discretion, allow public comment on the proposed changes, modifications and amendments.
495. Unless stated otherwise in this Agreement, if any party disagrees with any aspect of the implementation of the Agreement, that party will engage in good faith informal consultation with the other party and the Monitor to attempt to resolve the disagreement. If the disagreement persists, that party will, within 10 days of the apparent impasse, inform the other Parties and the Monitor in writing of the fact of the disagreement. Within 5 days thereafter, the Parties will meet and confer on the disagreement at a mutually agreeable time. If necessary, any party may petition the Court thereafter to resolve the dispute pursuant to the provisions below.
496. In the event of ambiguity or inconsistency in any of the terms of this Agreement, the Agreement shall be interpreted in a flexible and practical manner to achieve the purposes of this Agreement.
497. Subject to the confidentiality protections for collective bargaining negotiations, the City and BPD agree to notify the Monitor and the DOJ when and if the FOP takes a position during negotiations that any of the Material Requirements of the Agreement are not valid or enforceable. In addition, subject to the same confidentiality protections the City and BPD agree
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to notify the Monitor and DOJ when the addition of voting civilian members on disciplinary trial boards will become or has become a topic of negotiations.
498. The Parties will defend the provisions of the Agreement. The Parties will notify each other and the Court of any court, union or administrative challenge to this Agreement. In the event any provision of this Agreement is challenged in any court other than this Court, the Parties will seek removal, transfer or consolidation with this Case in this Court. To the extent any state law, local ordinance, or collective bargaining provision conflicts with any provision of this Agreement or impedes its effective implementation, the City and BPD will use its best efforts to advocate to change the law(s), ordinance(s), or collective bargaining provision(s). This Agreement does not alter or affect current CBAs or collective bargaining rights, or state law. If the City and BPD are unable to eliminate conflicts between the provisions of this Agreement and law(s), ordinance(s), or collecting bargaining provision(s), the City and BPD will comply with the Agreement to the extent permissible.
499. The City and BPD will require compliance with this Agreement by their respective officials, officers, employees, agents, assigns, or successors.
500. The City will be responsible for providing necessary and reasonable financial resources to BPD to enable BPD to fulfill its obligations under the Agreement.
501. The City and BPD deny the allegations in the Complaint and Report. Nothing in the Report, AIP or this Agreement was intended to be used by third parties to create liability by or against the City or the BPD or any of their officials, officers, agents or employees under any federal, state or municipal law, including 42 USC § 1983. This Agreement (including the assessments and reports the Agreement requires to be produced), Report, Complaint, or AIP, are not intended to confer any right on any third-person or entity seeking relief against the City,
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BPD, or any officer or employee thereof, for their conduct or the conduct of BPD officers. This Agreement (including the assessments and reports produced by the Monitor pursuant to the Agreement), Report, Complaint, or AIP shall not be construed or used as an admission of liability by or against the City or BPD under any federal, state or municipal law including, but not limited to, 42 U.S.C. § 1983. By entering into this Agreement, neither the City nor BPD admit or agree that they have violated the law.
502. This Agreement is enforceable only by the Parties. No person or entity is or is intended to be a third-party beneficiary of this Agreement for the purposes of any civil, criminal, or administrative action. Accordingly, no person or entity may assert any claim or right as a beneficiary or protected class under this Agreement.
503. The Parties agree that, as of the Effective Date of this Agreement, litigation is not “reasonably foreseeable” concerning the matters described in this Agreement. To the extent that any Party previously implemented a litigation hold to preserve documents, electronically stored information, or things related to the matters described in this Agreement, the Party is no longer required to maintain such a litigation hold. Nothing in this paragraph relieves any Party of any other obligations imposed by this Agreement, including the document creation and retention requirements described herein.
N. Termination of the Agreement 504. Upon the Court’s determination that the City and BPD have achieved Full and Effective Compliance with this Agreement as defined below and have maintained such compliance for at least one year for any material requirements in the Consent Decree sections delineated as Group A below, and for at least two years for the sections delineated as Group B below, the Court will terminate the Agreement and dismiss the case.
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a. Group A includes: Community Oversight Task Force, Interactions with Youth, Transportation, First Amendment, Technology, and Coordination with School Police.
b. Group B includes: Community Policing and Engagement, Stops, Searches, Arrests, and Voluntary Police-Community Interactions, Impartial Policing, Responding to and Interacting with People with Behavioral Health Disabilities or in crisis, Use of Force, Handling of Reports of Sexual Assault, Supervision, Misconduct Investigations and Discipline, and Recruitment, Hiring and Retention.
505. Five years from the Effective Date, upon the motion of any Party, the Court will hold a hearing to assess the status of the City’s and BPD’s compliance with the Agreement and to determine whether the Agreement should continue. The standards for termination of all or part of the Agreement described in this Section of the Agreement shall apply to the hearing. If the City and/or BPD have achieved Full and Effective Compliance as to some Material Requirements, the Agreement shall not be extended as to those Requirements.
506. To achieve “Full and Effective Compliance,” the City and BPD must demonstrate that they have (a) incorporated all Material Requirements of this Agreement into policy, trained relevant personnel as necessary to fulfill their responsibilities pursuant to the material requirements, and ensured that each material requirement is being carried out in practice; and (b) shown sustained and continuing improvement in constitutional policing as demonstrated by the Agreement’s Outcome Assessments. Full and Effective Compliance must be maintained according to the time periods set forth in Paragraph 504. No specific numerical test shall be required to demonstrate Full and Effective Compliance so long as BPD is demonstrating substantial adherence with the Material Requirements, continual improvement, and the overall
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purpose of the Material Requirements has been met. Non-compliance with mere technicalities, or temporary or isolated failure to comply during a period of otherwise sustained compliance, will not constitute failure to achieve or maintain Full and Effective Compliance. At the same time, temporary compliance during a period of otherwise sustained noncompliance will not constitute compliance with this Agreement.
507. The City and BPD may move the Court at any time to terminate this Agreement upon a showing by a preponderance of the evidence that BPD has reached Full and Effective Compliance and maintained that compliance according to the time periods set forth in Paragraph 504. The Parties may also agree to jointly ask the Court to terminate this Agreement at any time after BPD has been in Full and Effective compliance with this Agreement in accordance with Paragraph 504.
508. If BPD has reached Full and Effective Compliance with a part of the Agreement and maintained that compliance in accordance with Paragraph 504, but not the entire Agreement, even before five years from the Effective Date of the Agreement, the City and BPD may move at any time to terminate that part of the Agreement. To terminate a part of the Agreement, that part must be sufficiently severable from the other requirements of the Agreement that noncompliance with those other requirements does not implicate BPD’s ability to police in accordance with federal law and this Agreement in the part to be terminated. In determining whether there is Full and Effective Compliance with a part of the Agreement, all the requirements of the Agreement may be assessed collectively to determine whether the intended outcome of the part has been achieved.
509. If the Parties disagree about whether BPD has been in Full and Effective Compliance either (1) as to the entire Agreement, or (2) as to any severable part of the
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Agreement at any time, the City and BPD may move to terminate by following the procedures of

this paragraph. Prior to filing a motion to terminate, the City and BPD must notify DOJ and the

Monitor in writing that the City and BPD believe BPD has been in Full and Effective

Compliance with this Agreement or a severable part, for in accordance with Paragraph 504.

Thereafter, the Parties will promptly confer as to the status of compliance. The Parties will

allow for a period of 60 days for consultation or the completion of any Compliance Review that

DOJ and/or the Monitor may wish to undertake, including on-site observations, document

review, or interviews with BPD personnel, to assess BPD’s compliance. After this period of

consultation and review, if the Parties cannot resolve any disagreements, the City and BPD may

file a motion to terminate the Agreement or any severable part. If the City and BPD move for

termination of this Agreement, DOJ will have 45 days after the receipt of the motion to respond

to the motion, and the City and BPD shall have 30 days to file a reply.

510. For any motion to terminate, the Court shall hold a hearing on the motion and the

burden will be on the City and BPD to demonstrate that they are in Full and Effective

Compliance with this Agreement or any severable part and have maintained such compliance in

accordance with Paragraph 504.

XVIII.

DEFINITIONS

511. This section defines terms used in this Agreement. Other terms used in this

Agreement shall be defined consistent with relevant case law and applicable principles of

contractual interpretation:

a.

“Apparent signs of medical distress or emergency.” Signs of medical

distress, injury, or emergency that a reasonable officer, having been

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trained to identify medical distress, injury, or emergency, would recognize

as such.

b.

“Arrest.” Taking of one person into custody by another. To constitute

arrest there must be an actual restraint of the person. The restraint may be

imposed by force or may result from the submission of the person arrested

to the custody of the person arresting him or her. An arrest is a restraint of

greater scope or duration than an investigatory stop or detention. An

arrest is lawful when supported by probable cause.

c.

“Behavioral Health.” Behavioral health includes not only ways of

promoting well-being by preventing or intervening in mental illness such

as depression or anxiety, but also has as an aim of preventing or

intervening in substance abuse or other addictive disorders.

d.

“Behavioral Health Disabilities.” Disabilities associated with substance-

related disorders, addictive disorders, and mental disorders.

e.

“BEST Program.” The Behavioral Emergency Services Team training, a

certification course intended to equip police officers with methods to

properly interact with individuals with behavioral and/or mental health

disorders safely and in a mutually beneficial manner.

f.

“Body Cavity Search.” Any search of an individual involving not only

visual inspection of skin surfaces but the internal physical examination of

body cavities and, in some instances, organs such as the stomach.

g.

“Body-worn camera” or “BWC.” Audio and/or video recording

equipment that is worn affixed to an officer’s person, uniform, or

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equipment, with the capability of capturing, recording, and storing

information for later viewing.

h.

“BPD Command.” Officers of the rank of Captain and above.

i.

“Case.” Complaint filed in United States v. Police Department of

Baltimore City and Mayor and City Council of Baltimore.

j.

“Child.” An individual under the age of thirteen.

k.

“CIT Officer.” An officer who has received enhanced, specialized training

in responding to individuals in crisis.

l.

“Citation.” Official documentation stating that an individual has been

made aware of a violation by a law enforcement officer.

m.

“Civilian Review Board” or “CRB.” An independent agency in the City

that may investigate and/or review certain categories of civilian

complaints involving BPD employee interactions with members of the

Baltimore community.

n.

“Community Survey.” A reliable, comprehensive, and representative

survey, consistent with the criteria of this Agreement, of the Baltimore

community's experience with and perceptions of BPD and public safety.

o.

“Compliance, Accountability, and External Affairs Division” or

“Compliance Unit.” An inter-disciplinary unit the Baltimore Police

Department formed during the DOJ investigation to facilitate the

investigation and implementation of this Agreement.

p.

“Computer Aided Dispatch System” or “CAD system.” A computer-

aided or -assisted dispatch system in which police vehicles are able to send

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and receive electronic information to and from dispatchers, as well as store

and display information.

q.

“Compliance Review.” An assessment that may include audits, statistical

analysis or other reviews to assess compliance by the City for its

obligations and BPD for its overall compliance with this Agreement.

r.

“Conducted Electrical Weapon” or “CEW.” A weapon, including those

manufactured by TASER International, designed primarily to discharge

electrical charges into a subject that will cause involuntary muscle

contractions and override the subject’s voluntary motor responses.

s.

“Consent to Search Form.” Document advising person of his or her

constitutional right not to have a search made of their person or property

without a search warrant being obtained, and notifying person that they do

not have to consent to a warrantless search.

t.

“Court.” The United States District Judge for the District of Maryland

presiding over this case.

u.

“Crisis.” An incident in which an individual experiences or displays

intense feelings of personal distress (e.g., anxiety, depression, anger, fear,

panic, hopelessness) and disruptions in thinking (e.g., visual or auditory

hallucinations, delusions, cognitive impairment). This could be the result

of mental illness, a substance use disorder, an intellectual or

developmental disability, a personal crisis, or the effects of drugs or

alcohol.

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v.

“Crisis Intervention Coordinator.” Designated officer at the rank of

Sergeant or above responsible for facilitating communication between

BPD and members of the behavioral health provider community and to

increase the effectiveness of BPD’s crisis intervention program.

w.

“Crisis Intervention Team” or “CIT.” A first-responder model of police-

based crisis intervention with community, health care, and advocacy

partnerships. CIT provides law enforcement-based crisis intervention

training for assisting those individuals with a mental illness and improves

the safety of patrol officers, consumers, family members, and citizens

within the community.

x.

“Custody.” A person who has been arrested or otherwise detained and is

not free to leave.

y.

“De-escalation techniques.” Tactics used by offices during encounters to

minimize the need to use force and increase the likelihood of voluntary

compliance. These may include verbal persuasion and warnings, as well

as tactical de-escalation techniques such as creating space, slowing down

the pace of an incident, and requesting additional resources.

z.

“Demographic Category.” Race, ethnicity, color, national origin, age,

gender, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, disability status,

religion, or language ability.

aa.

“Developmentally appropriate.” Incorporating an understanding of the

social, emotional, physical, neurological, behavioral, and moral aspects of

development in an individual under eighteen (18) years of age.

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bb.

“Discipline or disciplinary action.” A personnel action for violation of an

established law, regulation, rule, administrative rule, or BPD policy,

including a written reprimand, suspension, or dismissal.

cc.

“Discriminatory policing.” Differential enforcement or non-enforcement

of the law, including the selection or rejection of particular policing tactics

or strategies, that has a disparate impact on individuals of a Demographic

Category.

dd.

“District Commander.” A captain, major or other supervisory BPD

officer with authority to oversee one of BPD’s nine police districts.

ee.

“Drafting.” A term to describe a BPD staffing process in which patrol

officers are required to work overtime after the end of their regular shifts

in order to compensate for staffing shortages, or be subject to discipline.

ff.

Effective Date.” The day this Agreement is approved and entered as an

order of the court.

gg.

“Emergency Petition.” A petition for emergency evaluation as defined

under Maryland Code § 10-622.

hh.

“Employee Assistance Program” or “EAP.” A service for officers that

allows access to no- or low-cost counseling and mental wellness services

including: confidential counseling services; crisis counseling; stress

management counseling; and mental health evaluations.

ii.

“Explorer Program.” Program that offers youth an opportunity to develop

leadership skills and learn about police procedures and policy, while

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getting to know local police officers and how they serve their community

through public service.

jj.

“Field interviews.” Voluntary contacts during which a BPD officer may

ask questions or try to gain information about possible criminal activity,

without indicating or implying that a person is not free to leave or is

obligated to answer the officer’s questions.

kk.

“Field Training Officer” or “FTO.” An experienced or senior BPD officer

responsible for the training and evaluation of junior or probationary level

officers.

ll.

“Firearm” or “service weapon.” A handgun, shotgun, or any other weapon

designed to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.

mm.

“Force.” Any physical effort used to compel compliance, control or

restrain another, or to overcome the resistance of another.

nn.

“Frisk” or “Pat Down.” A brief, non-invasive search of the outer layers of

a person’s clothing for weapons only when the officer possesses specific

and articulable facts creating reasonable suspicion that the subject is

armed and dangerous.

oo.

“Gender Identity.” A person’s internal, deeply-felt sense of being male,

female, or something other or in-between, regardless of the sex they were

assigned at birth.

pp.

“Gender Expression.” An individual’s characteristics and behaviors (such

as appearance, dress, mannerisms, speech patterns, and social interactions)

that may be perceived as masculine or feminine.

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qq.

“Gender Non-Conforming.” People who have, or are perceived to have,

gender characteristics and/or behaviors that do not conform to traditional

or societal expectations.

rr.

“Impact Weapon.” Refers collectively to batons (including crowd control

straight batons and expandable batons) and espantoons.

ss.

“Implicit bias.” Bias that occurs as the result of cognitive processes of

which the individual is not consciously aware.

tt.

“Including, includes, or include.” Including, but not limited to.

uu.

“Intellectual and Developmental Disability.” A severe chronic disability of

an individual that is attributable to a physical or mental impairment, other

than the sole diagnosis of mental illness, or to a combination of mental and

physical impairments; is manifested before the age of 22; and is likely to

continue indefinitely.

vv.

“Intersex.” A person whose sexual or reproductive anatomy or

chromosomal pattern does not seem to fit typical definitions of male or

female.

ww.

“Investigatory stop or detention.” A brief, involuntary restraint of a person

not in a vehicle for investigatory purposes by an officer when she has

reasonable suspicion, based on specific and articulable facts, that the

detained person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in the commission

of a crime. An investigatory stop occurs when a person reasonably

believes that she is not free to leave based on the circumstances and the

conduct of the officer(s), regardless of intent. A weapons Frisk may be

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conducted as part of an investigatory stop only if the officer has additional

articulable facts creating reasonable suspicion that the detained person is

armed and dangerous.

xx.

“Less-lethal Weapon.” A weapon neither intended nor likely to cause

death or serious physical injury, but that can cause death or serious

physical injury. Less-lethal force weapon includes, but is not limited to,

CEW, an impact weapon such as an asp or baton, and OC spray.

yy.

“Lethal force.” Any use of force likely to cause death or serious physical

injury, including the use of a firearm; neck hold; or strike to the head,

neck, or throat with a hard object.

zz.

“LGBT.”A common abbreviation that refers to the lesbian, gay, bisexual,

and transgender community. Intersex and gender-nonconforming, while

not included in the LGBT acronym, are included whenever the LGBT

acronym is used in this Agreement.

aaa.

“Material Requirement.” A requirement of the Agreement that has a

significant relationship to achieving the purposes of this Agreement.

bbb.

Micro-community policing.” A policing strategy based on community

partnerships and problem-solving techniques that are tailored to a

neighborhood or other small geographic area, recognizing that priorities

vary between and within differing neighborhoods or other geographic

communities.

ccc.

“Misconduct.” A violation of BPD policies or procedures; violation of

federal, state, or local criminal or applicable civil laws; constitutional

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violation, whether criminal or civil; violation of administrative rules; or

violation of regulations.

ddd.

“Misconduct indicating apparent criminal conduct by an employee.”

Misconduct that a reasonable and trained Supervisor or misconduct

investigator would conclude could result in criminal charges due to the

apparent circumstances of the misconduct.

eee.

“Misconduct investigator.” Any employee who conducts an

administrative investigation of misconduct, including but not limited to

investigators assigned to the Office of Professional Responsibility,

investigators assigned to the Civilian Review Board, and Supervisors at

the District or Unit level responsible for investigating certain allegations

of misconduct by their subordinates.

fff.

“Monitor.” The person or team of people, including any agent, employee

or independent contractor thereof, who shall be jointly selected to monitor

and report on the implementation of this Agreement.

ggg.

“Mobile crisis team.” A team of service providers that respond to people

at their homes and in other community settings and offer services, support,

and treatment to de-escalate crises without removing the individual from

the community or, when this is not appropriate, ensuring that individuals

are linked with appropriate least-restrictive healthcare services.

hhh.

“Neckholds” or “chokeholds.” Any of the following types of holds: (a)

arm-bar control holds, which inhibit breathing by compression of the

airway in the neck; (b) carotid restraint holds, which inhibit blood flow by

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compression of the blood vessels in the neck; (c) lateral vascular neck

constraints; (d) holds with a knee or object to the back of a prone subject’s

neck.

iii.

“Non-demographic identifying factors.” Information used to identify an

individual that are unrelated to, and are not a proxy for, Demographic

Categories. This information may include, but is not limited to, height,

weight, or clothing.

jjj.

“Oleoresin Capsicum Spray” or “OC Spray.” A natural inflammatory

agent derived from the pepper plant. As an inflammatory agent, aerosol

OC Spray causes a near immediate inflammation of the eyes and breathing

passages. There is an intense burning sensation of the eyes, throat, and

other exposed areas of the skin. When OC is inhaled, the respiratory tract

becomes inflamed and breathing might become restricted.

kkk.

“Peer Group Analysis.” Using internal benchmarks or other appropriate

statistical measures to compare officers’ enforcement activities to the

enforcement activities taken by other officers with similar relevant

characteristics, such as unit, district assignment, and experience.

lll.

“Performance Review Board” or “PRB.” The Performance Review Board

serves as an advisory body to the Police Commissioner. The PRB reviews

serious use of force and other incidents and investigations. At the

conclusion of its review of such incidents and investigations, the PRB

makes a recommendation to the Police Commissioner regarding the

completeness of the investigations, findings, and action items.

201


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 207 of 227

mmm. nnn. ooo.
ppp. qqq. rrr. sss.

“Policies” or “Procedures.” Includes regulations or directives, regardless of their official title, describing the duties, functions, and obligations of BPD officers or employees, specifically directing how to fulfill those duties, functions or obligations. “Presence in a lawful location.” Presence in any location where members of the public may lawfully be present, and that does not pose a threat to officer safety or interfere with the ability of law enforcement officers to perform their jobs. “Procedural justice.” A concept involving four central principles designed to build public confidence in the police: 1) treating people with dignity and respect; 2) giving individuals a chance to be heard during encounters; 3) making decisions fairly and transparently, based on facts; and 4) conveying goodwill and trustworthiness. “Principal.” An employee against whom an allegation of misconduct or wrongdoing has been made and who is a subject of a misconduct investigation. “Prone position.” Body position in which a person’s chest is on the ground and back is facing up. Includes positions in which a person is “hog tied” or hand cuffed and placed on his or her chest or stomach. “Public discharge of duties.” Officer activities that can be observed from any area in which the public may be lawfully present. “Quality of Life Offenses.” Certain infractions of statutes and ordinances enumerated in the Baltimore City Code and the Maryland Annotated

202


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 208 of 227

ttt. uuu.
vvv. www. xxx. yyy. zzz.

Code: Loitering, Trespassing, Public Urination/Defecation, Disorderly Conduct, Failure to Obey, Disturbing the Peace, Hindering, Open Container, Littering, and any other offense added to BPD’s Quality of Life Offense policy. “Reasonable force.” Force which is objectively reasonable under the circumstances and the minimum amount of force necessary to effect an arrest or protect the officer or other person. “Records Management System.” Any department-wide system that provides for the storage, retrieval, retention, manipulation, archiving, and viewing of information, records, documents, or files pertaining to law enforcement operations. “Recruitment Plan.” A written plan that includes clear goals, objectives, and action steps for attracting and retaining a quality work force that reflects the diversity of the Baltimore community. “Reportable Force.” Use or show of force that falls within Level 1, Level 2, or Level 3 force, as defined in this Agreement. “Resource Plan.” A written plan for adopting the Technology necessary to satisfy the Material Requirements of this Agreement. “Resource Study.” Comprehensive study of the Technology necessary to satisfy the Material Requirements of this Agreement. “Request for Application.” The document explaining the process by which the Monitor shall be selected.

203


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 209 of 227

aaaa. bbbb. cccc. dddd.
eeee.

“Search.” Exploration or inspection of a person’s house, body, clothing, property or other intrusion on a privacy interest by a law enforcement officer for the purpose of discovering evidence of a crime or a person who is accused of a crime. “Seizure.” The act of a law enforcement officer taking possession of property; or the words or actions of a law enforcement officer that convey to a reasonable person that he or she is not free to leave. “Sexual Assault.” Attempted or completed rape and sexual offenses, as defined by §§ 3-303 to 3-312 of the Maryland state criminal laws. “Sexual Misconduct.” Any behavior by a BPD officer or employee that uses the employee’s law enforcement authority to commit a sexual act or initiate sexual contact with another person, including a sexual act or sexual contact in response to a perceived sexually motivated cue (from a subtle suggestion to an overt action) from another person. It also includes any sexual communication or behavior by an officer that would likely be construed as lewd, lascivious, inappropriate, or conduct unbecoming an officer. “Special Investigations Response Team” or “SIRT.” BPD unit tasked with conducting investigations of Level 3 Reportable Force, investigations specially assigned to SIRT by the Police Commissioner or designee, and any fatal motor vehicle crash in which the actions of a BPD member were a contributing cause. SIRT is a sub-unit of the Office of Professional Responsibility (“OPR”).

204


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 210 of 227

ffff.

“Stops.” Used herein to generally describe “Investigatory Stops” and

“Vehicle Stops.”

gggg. “Strip Search.” A search of a person for contraband, including weapons or

drugs, that involves either: (a) removing or moving at least some of a

person’s clothing not including shoes, jackets, or other outer wear and

searching part of the person’s body; or (b) visual inspection without

touching the inside of a person’s mouth, nose or ears. Strip Searches do

not include weapons Frisks or Pat Downs for weapons that can be

performed lawfully pursuant to Terry v. Ohio and its progeny.

hhhh. “Supervisor.” A sworn BPD employee at the rank of sergeant or above (or

anyone acting in those capacities) with oversight responsibility for BPD

personnel.

iiii.

“Termination of this Agreement.” The dismissal of the Case.

jjjj.

“Tester.” A person who poses as a civilian making a fictitious complaint

for assessment purposes.

kkkk. “Tonic immobility.” Involuntary muscular paralysis of victim that occurs

during sexual assault from significant stress or injury; also known as

“rape-induced paralysis.”

llll.

“Transgender.” A term for people whose gender identity, expression or

behavior is different from those typically associated with their assigned

sex at birth.

mmmm. “Transport or transportation.” The process of moving detainee from the

place of their detention until the transfer of custody, which usually occurs

205


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 211 of 227

nnnn. oooo. pppp. qqqq. rrrr.

at booking. Transport includes the process of placing a detainee in a transport vehicle, securing and monitoring the detainee, driving a vehicle for any purpose with a detainee inside, and unloading the detainee and moving him or her to any other location until there is a transfer of custody. “Use of Force Assessment Unit” or “UOFAU.” The Use of Force Assessment Unit conducts administrative assessments of all Level 1 and Level 2 Reportable Force incidents. “Undue pain.” Excessive or unwarranted pain knowingly inflicted upon a person by a police officer, when such pain could have been avoided while maintain the safety and security of the officer and other persons. Knowledge is presumed where a reasonable officer would have known that undue pain was being inflicted. “Undue risk of injury.” Excessive or unwarranted risk of injury to which a person is knowingly subjected by an officer, when such could have been avoided while maintaining the safety and security of the officer and other persons. Knowledge is presumed where a reasonable officer would have known the existence of an undue risk of injury. “Unity of Command.” The principle that all officers are assigned to a consistent, clearly identified first-line supervisor and that first-line supervisors are assigned to work the same days and hours as the officers they are assigned to supervise. “Unit.” Any designated organization of officers within BPD, including area and specialized units.

206


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 212 of 227

ssss. tttt. uuuu. vvvv.

“Vehicle stop.” The involuntary detention of a vehicle and the person driving the vehicle or an occupant based on probable cause that the driver has committed a traffic violation, or reasonable suspicion based on specific and articulable facts that the vehicle or an occupant of the vehicle has been, is, or is about to be engaged in the commission of a crime. “Voluntary contacts.” Interactions between BPD officers and community members that do not involve coercion. During the course of a voluntary contact, a community member is free to leave at any time, and is under no obligation to respond to officers’ attempts at questioning or conversation. “Voluntary social contacts.” Voluntary contacts between BPD officers and community members that are intended to serve no specific investigative purpose. Voluntary social contacts do not include questioning about possible criminal activity, but may serve other law enforcement purposes, including building trust and developing rapport with community members. “Youth.” An individual who is younger than 18 years old.

207


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 213 of 227
 It is so ordered, this ______ day of ______, 2017.
United States District Court Judge

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 214 of 227
For Plaintiff UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
~ ~ ----
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Civil Rights Division
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Civil Rights Division
Chief, Special Litigation Section Civil Rights Division
Deputy Chief, Special Litigation Section Civil Rights Division
PUNEET CHEEMA MICHAEL J. SONGER MAUREEN JOHNSTON SETH WAYNE Trial Attorneys, Special Litigation Section Civil Rights Division 950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20530 (202) 5 14-2000

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 215 of 227

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties hereto have caused this Agreement to be signed in their respective names by their respective duly authorized officers as of the date first above written.

ATTEST

MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE

By~ t~

Na~

.

Title: Mayor

POLICE DEPARTMENT of BALTIMORE CITY
By: ~l~QA
Kevin Davis Police Commissioner

APPROVED BY THE BOARD OF ESTIMATES:

J

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 2-2 Filed 01/12/17 Page 216 of 227

APPENDIX A


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB BDaloticmuomreenCto2n-s2ent FDielecdree01/12/17 Page 217 of 227 Training Requirements

Training

Consent Decree Paragraph

Relevant Personnel

No. of Hours

Timeline for Implementation

Cumulative, Structured In-Service Training on Community Policing (establishing formal partnerships with community organizations, scenariobased training, leadership, ethics, and interpersonal skills, principles of procedural justice, conflict resolution, verbal de-escalation of conflict, and cultural awaeness and sensitivity training)

16(a)-(h)

All BPD officers, including Supervisors,
Managers, nad Executives

8 Annually

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

Police-Community Interactions (skills and techniques to effectively engage in voluntary social contacts with community members to build relationships, provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions of the police, and allow police to gather information relevant to criminal investigations)

27, 33

All BPD Officers

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms of the Agreement

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

1


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB BDaloticmuomreenCto2n-s2ent FDielecdree01/12/17 Page 218 of 227 Training Requirements

Training

Consent Decree Paragraph

Relevant Personnel

No. of Hours

Timeline for Implementation

Stop, Search, Arrest Training

(Fourth Amendment requirements and

related law, BPD policies, and the

Consent Decree's requirements

67

regarding Investigatory Stops and

Detentions, Searches and Seizures,

and Arrests)

All BPD Officers

16 (4 annual)

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

Fair and Impartial Policing

Training (Methods and strategies for

more effective policing that relies on

non-dicriminatory factors,

Constitutional and legal requirements related to equal protection and

Impartial Policing/Paras. 93-95

unlawful discrimination, existence and

impact of arbitrary classifications,

stereotypicng and implicit bias,

instruction in data collection protocols

required by the Agreement)

All BPD Officers

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms of the Agreement

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

2


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB BDaloticmuomreenCto2n-s2ent FDielecdree01/12/17 Page 219 of 227 Training Requirements

Training

Consent Decree Paragraph

Relevant Personnel

No. of Hours

Timeline for Implementation

Specialized Crisis Intervention Training (How to conduct a field evaluation, suicide intervention, community mental health and Intellectual and Developmental Disability resources, effects of substance misuse, civil commitment criteria, crisis de-escalation, rights of persons with Behavioral Health Disabilities)

Behavioral Health/Para. 106-107

CIT Officers

40 (8 hours annual inservice training)

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

Crisis Intervention Training (How

non-medically trained law

enforcement personnel can recognize

common characteristics and behaviors

associated with Mental Health

Disabilities or Intellectual

Development Disability; and how to

112

interact with individuals with these

disabilities, how to use de-escalation

techniques knowledge of local

resources available to provide,

treatement, services or support for

individuals)

All BPD officers; and recruits

8 annual for experienced officers); 16 hours in academy for recruits

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

3


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB BDaloticmuomreenCto2n-s2ent FDielecdree01/12/17 Page 220 of 227 Training Requirements

Training

Consent Decree Paragraph

Relevant Personnel

No. of Hours

Timeline for Implementation

Crisis Intervention Training

(Enable personnel to identify,

dispatch, and appropriately respond to call for service of individuals in Crisis, with goal of limited police

113

All BPD dispatchers and their supervisors

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

involvement in behavioral health

terms of the Agreement

crises that do not necessitate a police

response)

Crisis Intervention Coordinator Training (Training on the role and duties of the Crisis Intervention Coordinator)

116

Crisis Intervention Coordinator

8 hours

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

4


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB BDaloticmuomreenCto2n-s2ent FDielecdree01/12/17 Page 221 of 227 Training Requirements

Training

Consent Decree Paragraph

Relevant Personnel

No. of Hours

Timeline for Implementation

Use of Force Training (Proper use of force decision-making, role-playing scenarios, Fourth Amendment law, deescalation techniques, risks of CEWs, firearms training, foot pursuits, and use of force reporting)

166-167

All current officers; All new officers

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms of the Agreement

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

Use of Force In-Service Training

Use of Force/Para. 170

All BPD Officers

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms of the Agreement

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

5


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB BDaloticmuomreenCto2n-s2ent FDielecdree01/12/17 Page 222 of 227 Training Requirements

Training

Consent Decree Paragraph

Relevant Personnel

No. of Hours

Timeline for Implementation

Use of Force SIRT Training (BPD to develop and implement SIRT Training Curriculum)

Use of Force/Para. 201

SIRT

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms of the Agreement

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

Performance Review Board

Training (Training including legal

updates regarding use of force and the

209

Training Academy's current use of

force currriculum)

Performance Review Board Members

8 annually

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

6


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB BDaloticmuomreenCto2n-s2ent FDielecdree01/12/17 Page 223 of 227 Training Requirements

Training

Consent Decree Paragraph

Relevant Personnel

No. of Hours

Timeline for Implementation

Youth (Training on developmentally appropriate interactions with youth)

220-221

All BPD Officers

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms of the Agreement

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

Transportation of Persons in

Custody Training (Safe and human

transportation of persons in custody,

BPD policy, safe driving methods,

238

identitification of medical distress and

injuries and proper restraint

techniques)

All officers who drive transport wagons

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms of the Agreement

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

7


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB BDaloticmuomreenCto2n-s2ent FDielecdree01/12/17 Page 224 of 227 Training Requirements

Training

Consent Decree Paragraph

Relevant Personnel

No. of Hours

Timeline for Implementation

Sexual Assaults Investigations Training (Training regarding investigating sexual assaults)

All BPD detectives in

Sex Offense, Family

Crimes, and Child

Abuse Units;

As determined by the

259

Supervisors, command staff, and other
employees who may be involved in

Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms of the Agreement

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

supervision/oversight of

sexual assault

investigations

Supervision Training Plan (written

Training Plan for in-service and supplemental training; enhancing

294

BPD’s field training)

All BPD Officers

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms of the Agreement

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

8


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB BDaloticmuomreenCto2n-s2ent FDielecdree01/12/17 Page 225 of 227 Training Requirements

Training

Consent Decree Paragraph

Relevant Personnel

No. of Hours

Timeline for Implementation

Field Training Officer Program

Plan (Develop a plan to enhance its

FTO program for new recruits in

302

order to attract and retain sufficient

numbers of suitable FTO officers)

FTOs

40 hours of initial training,

followed by refresher training as determined by
the Monitoring Plan in conformance with the

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

terms of the Agreement

Supervisor Training (Mandatory supervisory training; techniques for effectively guiding and directing officers and promoting effective and constitutional police practices; deescalating conflict; and in-service annual training concerning management)

308 and 310

All new and current supervisors

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms of the Agreement

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

9


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB BDaloticmuomreenCto2n-s2ent FDielecdree01/12/17 Page 226 of 227 Training Requirements

Training

Consent Decree Paragraph

Relevant Personnel

No. of Hours

Timeline for Implementation

Early Intervention System Training

(Training regarding the scope and

function of the EIS, and interpreting

322

its outputs, and performing

appropriate interventions)

All Supervisors

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms of the Agreement

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

Misconduct Investigations and Discipline Training (Comprehensive training on conducting employee misconduct investigations)

409-411

All investigators assigned to the OPR and
all investigators employed by the Civilian Review Board

40 hours

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

Misconduct Investigations and

All investigators

Discipline Training (Comprehensive

assigned to the OPR and

As determined by the Monitoring

training for CRB investigators on

412

all investigators

40 hours

Plan, in conformance with the terms

conducting employee misconduct

employed by the

of the Agreement

investigations)

Civilian Review Board

10


Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB BDaloticmuomreenCto2n-s2ent FDielecdree01/12/17 Page 227 of 227 Training Requirements

Training

Consent Decree Paragraph

Relevant Personnel

No. of Hours

Timeline for Implementation

All BPD Supervisors 8 hours annually for

Misconduct Investigations and

and personnel responsible for

misconduct investigations;

4 hours annually for

As determined by the Monitoring

Discipline In-Service Training (Inservice training annually related to conducting misconduct investigations)

414

investigating misconduct supervisors regarding their Plan, in conformance with the terms

complaints not involving obligations when called to

of the Agreement

police-civilian a scene to accept a civilian

interactions

complaint

Misconduct Investigations and

Disipline Policy Training (Training

on BPD's revised or new policies

415

related to misconduct investigations

and discipline)

All police personnel

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms of the Agreement

As determined by the Monitoring Plan, in conformance with the terms
of the Agreement

11


 
 Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 17 Filed 02/15/17 Page 1 of 4

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

*

Plaintiff

*

v.

* Civil No. JKB-17-0099

POLICE DEPARTMENT OF

*

BALTIMORE CITY, et al.

*

* * * * * * * * * * * *

ORDER SOLICITING PUBLIC COMMENT, SETTING A PUBLIC FAIRNESS HEARING, AND ESTABLISHING RELATED PROCEDURES

The parties have filed a joint motion requesting the Court approve their proposed Consent

Decree (ECF No. 2). These documents are available on the Court’s website at the following web

address: http://www.mdd.uscourts.gov/baltimore-city-consent-decree. The Court is now

actively considering whether it will grant the motion and enter the proposed Consent Decree. In

the motion, the parties have requested that the Court hold a hearing where the public may

address the proposed Consent Decree.

In considering whether to enter the proposed Consent Decree, the Court must determine

whether the Consent Decree is “fair, adequate, and reasonable and is not illegal, the product of

collusion, or against the public interest.” United States v. North Carolina, 180 F.3d 574, 581

(4th Cir. 1999). To assist the Court in making this determination, the Court now solicits input

from the public through participation in a public hearing. The law does not require a hearing, but

the Court agrees a hearing in this case is in the interest of justice. The Court will also consider

written comments from the public. To assure an orderly process, any person wishing to provide

written comments or speak at the hearing must comply with the rules set out in this order.

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 17 Filed 02/15/17 Page 2 of 4
Written Comments: Any person wishing to provide written comments about the proposed Consent Decree may do so by providing a written submission of no more than 10 pages to the parties. No telephone calls or anonymous submissions will be accepted. Persons making written submissions must include their full names on the document they submit, but must not put their address on the letter or document itself in order to protect their privacy. Because these written submissions will be posted on the Court’s website, written comments shall not include irrelevant, threatening, inflammatory, or personally-identifiable or confidential material or information other than the author’s full name. Written submissions must be received no later than March 7, 2017, at 5 p.m. Written submissions may be emailed to: Baltimore.Consent.Decree@usdoj.gov; or hand delivered or mailed to:
United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530 Re: United States v. Baltimore Police Dep’t et al., Civil No. JKB-17-99 (Submissions via email are encouraged.) The parties shall compile all written comments and jointly submit them to the Clerk of this Court on March 14, 2017. The written comments will then be published on the Court’s website. When submitting the written comments to the Court, the parties shall not include irrelevant, threatening, or inflammatory material, or any submissions that reveal confidential information. Speaking at the Public Fairness Hearing: Beginning at 9:00 a.m. on April 6, 2017, members of the public who wish to speak may sign up outside Courtroom 1A at the United States Courthouse, 101 West Lombard Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201. The public hearing will be in session from 9:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. on that day (with occasional breaks). The
2

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 17 Filed 02/15/17 Page 3 of 4
Court will hear public comments directed to whether the Consent Decree is “fair, adequate, and reasonable and is not illegal, the product of collusion, or against the public interest.” North Carolina, 180 F.3d at 581. Counsel and the parties to the case will be given the first opportunity to speak. Members of the public will then make their statements, in the order that people signed up. Other than counsel and the parties, speakers will be limited to three minutes each. The hearing will be on the record and all speakers must supply their name and, if applicable, the organization with which they are affiliated. However, each organization may be represented by only one speaker. The Court will hear individuals in the order they signed up, until the hearing concludes at 5:00 p.m. The Court hopes to hear from all who sign up, but the hearing will conclude at 5:00 p.m. even if all speakers on the sign-up list have not yet been heard.
Space Limitations: Space is limited in the courtroom. If necessary, the Court may require persons to rotate in and out of the courtroom. The courtroom will be open beginning at 9:00 a.m.
Courthouse Rules: All courthouse visitors and their belongings are subject to search upon entering the courthouse. Visitors must pass through metal detectors that are staffed by Court security officers, and all belongings will be screened through x-ray machines. In accordance with Local Rule 506 and the Court’s Standing Order 2016-05, Court proceedings may not be recorded, photographed, broadcast, or transmitted from inside the courtroom. Posting to social media from inside the courtroom is not permitted. Electronic devices may not be used inside the courtroom and must be turned off inside the courtroom (not merely placed on “silent” or “vibrate” mode). Use of electronic devices in violation of this policy may subject the device to inspection and confiscation to determine whether Court proceedings have been
3

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 17 Filed 02/15/17 Page 4 of 4
recorded, photographed, broadcast, or transmitted outside the courtroom. Anyone who violates these procedures may be removed from the hearing.
Proper courtroom decorum is expected and required. The Court anticipates respectful silence and attention during the presentations of all speakers. No eating, drinking or gum chewing is allowed, and signs, poster-boards, and other demonstrative objects will not be permitted in the courtroom. Applause and/or other outward demonstrations will not be permitted.
* * * IT IS ORDERED that a public Fairness Hearing to consider input from the community about the proposed Consent Decree (ECF No. 2-2) will be held on April 6, 2017 at 9:30 a.m. in Courtroom 1A, United States Courthouse, 101 West Lombard Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that written public comment will be received by the Court in the manner described above; IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Parties, Counsel, the Clerk, and participating members of the public adhere to the procedures set out above. Dated this 15th day of February, 2017.
BY THE COURT:
___________/s/_____________________ James K. Bredar United States District Judge
4

 
 Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 39 Filed 04/07/17 Page 1 of 8

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND

*

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

*

Plaintiff

*

v.

*

CIVIL NO. JKB-17-99

BALTIMORE POLICE DEP’T et al.,

*

Defendants

*

** * * * * * * * * * *

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

On January 12, 2017, the United States of America filed a complaint against the

Baltimore Police Department (“BPD”) and the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City (“the

City”). (ECF No. 1.) The United States alleged Defendants had engaged in a pattern or practice

of conduct by law enforcement officers that deprives persons of rights, privileges, and

immunities secured and protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States. The

complaint was brought pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of

1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141; Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d; the Omnibus

Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d; and Title II of the Americans

with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131-12134.

Also on January 12, 2017, the parties jointly filed a motion seeking entry of a consent

decree to resolve litigation of the instant case (ECF No. 2); attached to the motion was a 227-

page proposed consent decree (ECF No. 2-2). Movants seek the consent decree to ensure that

their agreed-upon measures to reform BPD are fully and faithfully implemented. (Mot. Supp.

Mem. 1, ECF No. 2-1.) Defendants do not admit to any wrongdoing. (Id. 2.)

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 39 Filed 04/07/17 Page 2 of 8
I. In considering Movants‟ request for entry of the decree, the Court turns first to the primary statute under which the United States is proceeding, 42 U.S.C. § 14141, which makes it “unlawful for any governmental authority, or any agent thereof, or any person acting on behalf of a governmental authority, to engage in a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers . . . that deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” § 14141(a). Further, the statute authorizes the Attorney General to bring a civil action to “obtain appropriate equitable and declaratory relief to eliminate the pattern or practice.” § 14141(b). The motion now before the Court reflects Movants‟ shared belief that the proposed consent decree grants such “appropriate equitable and declaratory relief.” They “intend through this settlement to ensure that police services are delivered to the people of Baltimore in a manner that complies with the Constitution and laws of the United States, promotes public and officer safety, and improves public confidence in law enforcement.” (Mot. Supp. Mem. 3.) In United States v. North Carolina, 180 F.3d 574 (4th Cir. 1999), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit endorsed “the general principle that settlements are encouraged.” Id. at 581. Even so, a district court should not blindly accept a proposed settlement‟s terms. Id. “Rather, before entering a consent decree the court must satisfy itself that the agreement „is fair, adequate, and reasonable‟ and „is not illegal, a product of collusion, or against the public interest.‟” Id. (quoting United States v. Colorado, 937 F.2d 505, 509 (10th Cir. 1991)). In deciding whether a proposed settlement is fair and adequate, a district court is required to assess the strength of the plaintiff‟s case. Id. In making this assessment, a court need not conduct “„a trial or a rehearsal of the trial,‟” but it must still “take the necessary steps to
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ensure that it is able to reach „an informed, just and reasoned decision.‟” Id. (quoting Flinn v. FMC Corp., 528 F.2d 1169, 1172-73 (4th Cir. 1975)). Factors bearing upon this determination include the extent of discovery that has occurred, the stage of the proceedings, the absence of collusion in the settlement, and the experience of counsel who negotiated the settlement on behalf of the plaintiffs. Id.
The Court has carefully studied Movants‟ submissions, including the full content of the proposed decree. Additionally, the Court conducted a preliminary hearing on February 1, 2017, in which the parties responded to the undersigned‟s inquiries. The Court has reviewed the deeply troubling report prepared by the Department of Justice and referred to in the memorandum in support of the joint motion asking that the proposed decree be entered. (ECF No. 2-1, pp. 5-6.) Also, the Court has received public comment in both written form (ECF Nos. 19 & 21) and in oral statements made at a public fairness hearing on April 6, 2017. No evidence has been presented to the Court, and no discovery has occurred as part of the instant litigation. Nor have Defendants admitted wrongdoing or liability. However, the strength of Plaintiff‟s case can be inferred from Defendants‟ evident cooperation in Plaintiff‟s investigation of Baltimore police practices and their ready embrace of a negotiated resolution of this case based upon that investigation, a resolution that is highly intrusive on the day-to-day operations of the BPD and that requires Defendants‟ commitment to spend millions of dollars. Furthermore, Movants represent to the Court that they have been well represented by experienced and knowledgeable counsel in this case and during their negotiations leading up to the filing of the proposed decree. (Mot. Supp. Mem. 5.) The Court is familiar with many of the attorneys representing the parties and cannot disagree. The lawyers appearing for the Government have been uniformly excellent. And, that such top-flight lawyers have negotiated and willingly
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endorsed this agreement on the defense side in particular is further evidence that the United States has a strong case. Those expert attorneys on the defense side would not have agreed to the proposed terms if they were not convinced of a real and powerful probability that the Police Department and the City would be found liable.
The undersigned has no handy yardstick to measure adequacy and claims no special expertise in that regard. And whether the proposed decree succeeds in all its goals will be known only in hindsight. But the Court reasonably relies upon the expertise underlying the proposed decree and judges the decree adequate to accomplish the reforms sought by Movants. It is comprehensive, detailed, and precise. It appears to be balanced and well-calibrated to achieve the parties‟ shared, jointly-stated objectives. After close review of the proposed decree, and in light of all other submissions on the docket and in open Court, the Court concludes the decree is fair, adequate, and reasonable. Moreover, nothing before the Court remotely suggests that the settlement is illegal or the product of collusion. Finally, taking into account the submissions of the parties but also the written and oral statements of those members of the public who chose to address the Court, and reflecting on the certainty that there must be effective and constitutional policing in order for the City of Baltimore to thrive, the Court determines the proposed decree is in the public interest.
II. Substantially after the agreement settling this case was negotiated and signed by the parties, and just before the long-scheduled hearing to take the views of the public, the Government advised the Court in a motion seeking continuance of that hearing (ECF No. 23) that it requested additional time to “assess whether and how the provisions of the proposed consent decree interact with [certain post-agreement] directives of the President and the Attorney
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General.” (ECF No. 23, p. 4.) However, none of the statements contained in the motion, or in the documents it references, help to address the questions now before the Court, i.e., whether the parties‟ proposed decree is fair, adequate, reasonable, legal, non-collusive, and in the public interest. United States v. North Carolina, 180 F.3d at 581. The Government‟s recent motion can best be interpreted as a request for an additional opportunity to consider whether it wants the Court to enter the decree at all, or at least the current version of it. During the public hearing on April 6 the Government explicitly asked for more time to consider the proposed decree. But this is problematic. The parties have already agreed to the draft before the Court. It would be extraordinary for the Court to permit one side to unilaterally amend an agreement already jointly reached and signed. Moreover, early in the Court‟s review of the joint motion, but after the new administration was in office in Washington, the Government affirmed its commitment to this draft and urged the Court to sign it. (Tr. of Hrg. 7:10-24, ECF No. 20.) The Defendants, for their part, continue to urge entry of the proposed decree, consistent with the earlier joint submission. (Statement of Acting City Solicitor David Ralph in open Court, Hrg. on April 6, 2017, transcript not yet available.)
As between the parties, this case is settled. All that remains is for the Court to make its determinations under United States v. North Carolina, and it has done so above.1 The case is no longer in a phase where any party is unilaterally entitled to reconsider the terms of the settlement; the parties are bound to each other by their prior agreement. The time for negotiating the agreement is over. The only question now is whether the Court needs more time to consider
1 To the extent they are relevant at this point, the general statements in the Government‟s recent motion (ECF No. 23), which include little that ties them directly to facts and circumstances in Baltimore, do not persuade the Court at all that the comprehensive plan previously submitted by the parties is inappropriate or unlikely to address the challenges previously identified by the parties. Nonetheless, if the Government later concludes that amendments to the decree are in order, they may attempt to so persuade the Defendants and/or the Court, invoking the process described in Paragraphs 489-503 of the decree.
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the proposed decree. It does not. Last of all, the full record in this case, and especially the
public statements made in writing and during the recent hearing make clear that time is of the
essence. The problems that necessitate this consent decree are urgent. The parties have agreed2
on a detailed and reasonable approach to solving them. Now, it is time to enter the decree and
thereby require all involved to get to work on repairing the many fractures so poignantly
revealed by the record.
III.
While reviewing the details of the proposed decree, the Court requested Movants to
define the term “permanent rank supervisor”; they responded by proposing the following
definition to be incorporated into the decree in Section XVIII, titled “Definitions”:
“Permanent Rank Supervisor.” A law enforcement officer of the BPD occupying the rank of Sergeant or above.
(ECF No. 15.) The Court approves Movants‟ request and hereby orders the proposed decree is
modified accordingly.
2 During the hearing on April 6, 2017, Government counsel noted that
the new Attorney General and the new Department [of Justice] leadership have some grave concerns about this particular decree and whether it will in fact achieve the goals of promoting public safety and strengthening law enforcement while at the same time protecting civil rights. The new leadership is particularly concerned because there‟s been a recent spike in crime in Baltimore reported through some statistics. And they want to make sure that any remedy that‟s entered and any reform that‟s undertaken will help rather than hinder the public safety.
(Statement of Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Gore in open Court, Hrg. on April 6, 2017, transcript not yet available.) Government counsel also noted that
reasonable minds might differ as to whether this decree is the perfect way forward in this particular instance. Id.
Surely no one can project a perfect solution for all that ails the City of Baltimore and the fraught relationship between its citizens and its police department. The larger point at this juncture is that there has been an investigation, there has been a lengthy negotiation between the parties conducted by skilled and experienced counsel, and that negotiation has yielded a detailed and seemingly reasonable agreement that all parties have signed. There is no suggestion that when counsel for the parties signed their agreement that they did not have the full and complete authority to bind their clients to its terms. The time for expressing “grave concerns” has passed and instead the parties must now execute the agreement as they promised they would.
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In addition, the Court notes the “Joint Notice of Errata” filed by Movants that requests the following amendment to the decree in Paragraph 479:
The Monitor will not be permitted to represent or work for any individual or organization in any criminal, civil, or administrative matter adverse to the City or BPD or the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, including any individual or organization designated as a witness, consultant, victim, defendant, subject, target, or person of interest, for the duration of the monitorship. (ECF No. 6.) The Court approves this request as well and hereby orders the proposed decree is modified to add the language in bold to Paragraph 479. According to the terms of the proposed decree, the day the decree is approved and entered as an order of the Court is deemed the Effective Date. (Proposed Decree, Section XVIII, ¶ 511(ff).) The timeline submitted as Appendix A to the proposed decree shall be redrawn by the parties to reflect the incorporation of the Effective Date and shall be filed with the Court within fourteen days of the Effective Date for the Court‟s approval.
IV. For the foregoing reasons, it is hereby ORDERED: 1. The Government‟s oral request for a thirty-day delay in entry of the Consent Decree is DENIED. 2. The Joint Motion for Entry of Consent Decree (ECF No. 2) is GRANTED. 3. The Consent Decree (ECF No. 2-2), as modified herein by the Court, is APPROVED AND ENTERED as an ORDER of the Court. 4. The Court shall RETAIN jurisdiction over the case until the Consent Decree is terminated.
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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 39 Filed 04/07/17 Page 8 of 8 DATED this 7th day of April, 2017.
BY THE COURT: _____________/s/_____________________ James K. Bredar United States District Judge
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 U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division

Office a/the Assistant Allorney General

Washingtoll. o. c. 20530 August 10,2016

The Honorable Stephanie Rawlings-Blake Mayor City of Baltimore Baltimore City Hall, 100 Holliday Street Baltimore, MD 21202
Re: Investigation of the Baltimore Police Department
Dear Mayor Rawlings-Blake:
The United States Department of Justice has completed its civil pattern or practice investigation into the Baltimore Police Department ("BPD") pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141. The enclosed Report sets forth the findings of our investigation. We have reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution and federal laws, including: making stops, searches, and arrests without the required justification; using enforcement strategies that subject the City' s African-American residents to disproportionate rates of stops, searches, and arrests; using excessive force; and retaliating against individuals for their constitutionally­ protected expression. The pattern or practice results from systemic deficiencies that have persisted within BPD for many years.
We opened our investigation in May 2015 after reviewing infonnation about BPD's police practices and receiving specific requests from you, members of Congress, and other members of the Baltimore community. Throughout our investigation, we have been assisted by the full cooperation of City officials, BPD leadership, and officers throughout the Department's chain of command. We are grateful for their willingness to share valuable insights into the challenges facing the Department through meetings and interviews, numerous ride-alongs with BPD officers, and by providing access to BPD's own records and data.
We found widespread agreement within the City, Police Department, and broader community that BPD needs reform to ensure that officers have the tools they need to police effectively and restore community trust in law enforcement. We also found a widespread desire for reform. Throughout our investigation, BPD leadership has been receptive to our preliminary feedback and technical assistance, and while our investigation was still ongoing, BPD began implementing reforms. Department leadership has worked proactively to update its policies, institute new trainings, and respond to other issues we have identified. The proactive, solutions­

-2­
focused approach of City and BPD leadership is reflected in the Agreement in Principle reached between the City and the Justice Department. That Agreement identifies categories of reforms that the City and Justice Department agree must be taken to remedy the violations of the Constitution and federal law identified in our Report. The Agreement further provides that the City and Justice Department will seek input from all communities in Baltimore that will be used to craft a comprehensive, court-enforceable consent decree that establishes a path to lasting reform.
We fully expect to continue to work collaboratively with the City and BPD to address the issues raised in our findings and institute necessary reforms that will strengthen community trust in BPD. These efforts will not only increase the effectiveness ofBPD's law enforcement efforts, it will advance officer and public safety in a manner that serves the entire Baltimore community.
Sincerely,

cc: Commissioner Kevin Davis Baltimore Police Department
George Nilson 
 Solicitor, City of Baltimore 

Jamie Gorelick 
 Partner, WilmerHale 


Vanita A. Gupta Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Civil Rights Division

 
 Investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
August 10, 2016
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Today, we announce the outcome of the Department of Justice’s investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department (BPD).1 After engaging in a thorough investigation, initiated at the request of the City of Baltimore and BPD, the Department of Justice concludes that there is reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution or federal law. BPD engages in a pattern or practice of:
(1) making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests;
(2) using enforcement strategies that produce severe and unjustified disparities in the rates of stops, searches and arrests of African Americans;
(3) using excessive force; and
(4) retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally-protected expression.
This pattern or practice is driven by systemic deficiencies in BPD’s policies, training, supervision, and accountability structures that fail to equip officers with the tools they need to police effectively and within the bounds of the federal law.
We recognize the challenges faced by police officers in Baltimore and other communities around the country. Every day, police officers risk their lives to uphold the law and keep our communities safe. Investigatory stops, arrests, and force—including, at times, deadly force—are all necessary tools used by BPD officers to do their jobs and protect the safety of themselves and others. Providing policing services in many parts of Baltimore is particularly challenging, where officers regularly confront complex social problems rooted in poverty, racial segregation and deficient educational, employment and housing opportunities. Still, most BPD officers work hard to provide vital services to the community.
1 The Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division conducted the investigation pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141 (“Section 14141”), Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d (“Safe Streets Act”); and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131–12134. The investigation did not examine the actions of officers involved in Freddie Gray’s arrest on April 12, 2015, or the merits of any criminal or civil proceedings connected to that incident.
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The pattern or practice occurs as a result of systemic deficiencies at BPD. The agency fails to provide officers with sufficient policy guidance and training; fails to collect and analyze data regarding officers’ activities; and fails to hold officers accountable for misconduct. BPD also fails to equip officers with the necessary equipment and resources they need to police safely, constitutionally, and effectively. Each of these systemic deficiencies contributes to the constitutional and statutory violations we observed.
Throughout our investigation, we received the full cooperation and assistance of BPD and the City of Baltimore. We interviewed current and former City leaders, including current BPD Commissioner Kevin Davis and former commissioners. We also interviewed current and former officers throughout the BPD command structure. We participated in ride-alongs in each district, interviewed numerous current and former officers individually, and met with the leadership of the Baltimore City Lodge No. 3 of the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents all sworn BPD officers. We also heard from hundreds of people in the broader Baltimore community who shared information with our investigation. We met with religious organizations, advocacy groups, community support organizations, neighborhood associations, and countless individuals who provided valuable information about their experiences with BPD. We thank everyone for sharing their experiences and insights with us.
In addition to these interviews, we reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, including all relevant policies and training materials used by the Department since 2010; BPD’s database of internal affairs files from January 2010 through March 2016; BPD’s data on pedestrian stops, vehicle stops, and arrests from January 2010 to May 2015; incident reports describing stops, searches, arrests, and officers’ use of non-deadly force from 2010 to 2015; all files on deadly force incidents since 2010 that BPD was able to produce to us through May 1, 2016; and investigative files on sexual assault cases from 2013 to 2015. We were assisted by a dozen current and former law enforcement leaders and experts with experience on the issues we investigated, and we retained statistical experts to analyze BPD’s data on its enforcement activities.2
In the course of our investigation, we learned there is widespread agreement that BPD needs reform. Almost everyone who spoke to us—from current and former City leaders, BPD officers and command staff during ride-alongs and interviews, community members throughout the many neighborhoods of Baltimore, union representatives of all levels of officers in BPD, advocacy groups, and civic and religious leaders—agrees that BPD has significant problems that have undermined its efforts to police constitutionally and effectively. As we note in this report, many of these people and groups have documented those problems in the past, and although they may disagree about the nature, scope, and solutions to the challenges, many have also made efforts to address them. Nevertheless, work remains, in part because of the profound lack of trust among these groups, and in particular, between BPD and certain communities in Baltimore. The road to meaningful and lasting reform is a long one, but it can be taken. This investigation is intended to help Baltimore take a large step down this path.
2 In addition, the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) has been engaged in a collaborative reform process with the City and BPD. The COPS office has continued to provide technical assistance to BPD during our investigation, along with other components of the Department of Justice.
2

Recent events highlight the critical importance of mutual trust and cooperation between law enforcement officers and the people they serve. A commitment to constitutional policing builds trust that enhances crime fighting efforts and officer safety. Conversely, frayed community relationships inhibit effective policing by denying officers important sources of information and placing them more frequently in dangerous, adversarial encounters. We found these principles in stark relief in Baltimore, where law enforcement officers confront a long history of social and economic challenges that impact much of the City, including the perception that there are “two Baltimores:” one wealthy and largely white, the second impoverished and predominantly black. Community members living in the City’s wealthier and largely white neighborhoods told us that officers tend to be respectful and responsive to their needs, while many individuals living in the City’s largely African-American communities informed us that officers tend to be disrespectful and do not respond promptly to their calls for service. Members of these largely African-American communities often felt they were subjected to unjustified stops, searches, and arrests, as well as excessive force. These challenges amplify the importance of using policing methods that build community partnerships and ensure fair and effective enforcement without regard for affluence or race through robust training, close supervision, data collection and analysis, and accountability for misconduct.
Starting in at least the late 1990s, however, City and BPD leadership responded to the City’s challenges by encouraging “zero tolerance” street enforcement that prioritized officers making large numbers of stops, searches, and arrests—and often resorting to force—with minimal training and insufficient oversight from supervisors or through other accountability structures. These practices led to repeated violations of the constitutional and statutory rights, further eroding the community’s trust in the police.
Proactive policing does not have to lead to these consequences. On the contrary, constitutional, community-oriented policing is proactive policing, but it is fundamentally different from the tactics employed in Baltimore for many years. Community policing depends on building relationships with all of the communities that a police department serves, and then jointly solving problems to ensure public safety. We encourage BPD to be proactive, to get to know Baltimore’s communities more deeply, build trust, and reduce crime together with the communities it serves.
Fortunately, the current leadership of the City and the BPD already have taken laudable steps to reverse this course, including by revising BPD’s use of force policies, taking steps toward enhancing accountability and transparency throughout the Department by, for example, beginning to equip officers with body worn cameras, and taking steps toward improving and expanding its community outreach to better engage its officers with the community they serve. Still, significant challenges remain.
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Unconstitutional Stops, Searches, and Arrests
BPD’s legacy of zero tolerance enforcement continues to drive its policing in certain Baltimore neighborhoods and leads to unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests. Many BPD supervisors instruct officers to make frequent stops and arrests—even for minor offenses and with minimal or no suspicion—without sufficient consideration of whether this enforcement strategy promotes public safety and community trust or conforms to constitutional standards. These instructions, coupled with minimal supervision and accountability for misconduct, lead to constitutional violations.
• Stops. BPD officers recorded over 300,000 pedestrian stops from January 2010–May 2015, and the true number of BPD’s stops during this period is likely far higher due to under-reporting. These stops are concentrated in predominantly African-American neighborhoods and often lack reasonable suspicion.
o BPD’s pedestrian stops are concentrated on a small portion of Baltimore residents. BPD made roughly 44 percent of its stops in two small, predominantly African-American districts that contain only 11 percent of the City’s population. Consequently, hundreds of individuals—nearly all of them African American—were stopped on at least 10 separate occasions from 2010– 2015. Indeed, seven African-American men were stopped more than 30 times during this period.
o BPD’s stops often lack reasonable suspicion. Our review of incident reports and interviews with officers and community members found that officers regularly approach individuals standing or walking on City sidewalks to detain and question them and check for outstanding warrants, despite lacking reasonable suspicion to do so. Only 3.7 percent of pedestrian stops resulted in officers issuing a citation or making an arrest. And, as noted below, many of those arrested based upon pedestrian stops had their charges dismissed upon initial review by either supervisors at BPD’s Central Booking or local prosecutors.
• Searches. During stops, BPD officers frequently pat-down or frisk individuals as a matter of course, without identifying necessary grounds to believe that the person is armed and dangerous. And even where an initial frisk is justified, we found that officers often violate the Constitution by exceeding the frisk’s permissible scope. We likewise found many instances in which officers strip search individuals without legal justification. In some cases, officers performed degrading strip searches in public, prior to making an arrest, and without grounds to believe that the searched individuals were concealing contraband on their bodies.
• Arrests. We identified two categories of common unconstitutional arrests by BPD officers: (1) officers make warrantless arrests without probable cause; and (2) officers make arrests for misdemeanor offenses, such as loitering and trespassing, without providing the constitutionally-required notice that the arrested person was engaged in unlawful activity.
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o Arrests without probable cause: from 2010–2015, supervisors at Baltimore’s Central Booking and local prosecutors rejected over 11,000 charges made by BPD officers because they lacked probable cause or otherwise did not merit prosecution. Our review of incident reports describing warrantless arrests likewise found many examples of officers making unjustified arrests. In addition, officers extend stops without justification to search for evidence that would justify an arrest. These detentions—many of which last more than an hour— constitute unconstitutional arrests.
o Misdemeanor arrests without notice: BPD officers arrest individuals standing lawfully on public sidewalks for “loitering,” “trespassing,” or other misdemeanor offenses without providing adequate notice that the individuals were engaged in unlawful activity. Indeed, officers frequently invert the constitutional notice requirement. While the Constitution requires individuals to receive pre-arrest notice of the specific conduct prohibited as loitering or trespassing, BPD officers approach individuals standing lawfully on sidewalks in front of public housing complexes or private businesses and arrest them unless the individuals are able to “justify” their presence to the officers’ satisfaction.
Discrimination against African Americans
BPD’s targeted policing of certain Baltimore neighborhoods with minimal oversight or accountability disproportionately harms African-American residents. Racially disparate impact is present at every stage of BPD’s enforcement actions, from the initial decision to stop individuals on Baltimore streets to searches, arrests, and uses of force. These racial disparities, along with evidence suggesting intentional discrimination, erode the community trust that is critical to effective policing.
• BPD disproportionately stops African-American pedestrians. Citywide, BPD stopped African-American residents three times as often as white residents after controlling for the population of the area in which the stops occurred. In each of BPD’s nine police districts, African Americans accounted for a greater share of BPD’s stops than the population living in the district. And BPD is far more likely to subject individual African Americans to multiple stops in short periods of time. In the five and a half years of data we examined, African Americans accounted for 95 percent of the 410 individuals BPD stopped at least 10 times. One African American man in his mid-fifties was stopped 30 times in less than 4 years. Despite these repeated intrusions, none of the 30 stops resulted in a citation or criminal charge.
• BPD also stops African American drivers at disproportionate rates. African Americans accounted for 82 percent of all BPD vehicle stops, compared to only 60 percent of the driving age population in the City and 27 percent of the driving age population in the greater metropolitan area.
• BPD disproportionately searches African Americans during stops. BPD searched African Americans more frequently during pedestrian and vehicle stops, even though searches of African Americans were less likely to discover contraband. Indeed, BPD officers found contraband twice as often when searching white individuals compared to
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African Americans during vehicle stops and 50 percent more often during pedestrian stops.
• African Americans similarly accounted for 86 percent of all criminal offenses charged by BPD officers despite making up only 63 percent of Baltimore residents.
o Racial disparities in BPD’s arrests are most pronounced for highly discretionary offenses: African Americans accounted for 91 percent of the 1,800 people charged solely with “failure to obey” or “trespassing”; 89 percent of the 1,350 charges for making a false statement to an officer; and 84 percent of the 6,500 people arrested for “disorderly conduct.” Moreover, booking officials and prosecutors decline charges brought against African Americans at significantly higher rates than charges against people of other races, indicating that officers’ standards for making arrests differ by the race of the person arrested.
o We also found large racial disparities in BPD’s arrests for drug possession. While survey data shows that African Americans use drugs at rates similar to or slightly exceeding other population groups, BPD arrested African Americans for drug possession at five times the rate of others.
BPD deployed a policing strategy that, by its design, led to differential enforcement in African-American communities. But BPD failed to use adequate policy, training and accountability mechanisms to prevent discrimination, despite longstanding notice of concerns about how it polices African-American communities in the City. BPD has conducted virtually no analysis of its own data to ensure that its enforcement activities are non-discriminatory, and the Department misclassifies or otherwise fails to investigate specific complaints of racial bias. Nor has the Department held officers accountable for using racial slurs or making other statements exhibiting racial bias. In some cases, BPD supervisors have ordered officers to specifically target African Americans for stops and arrests. These failures contribute to the large racial disparities in BPD’s enforcement that undermine the community’s trust in the fairness of the police. BPD leadership has acknowledged that this lack of trust inhibits their ability to forge important community partnerships.
Use of Constitutionally Excessive Force
Our review of investigative files for all deadly force cases from 2010 until May 1, 2016, and a random sample of over eight hundred non-deadly force cases reveals that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of excessive force. Deficiencies in BPD’s policies, training, and oversight of officers’ force incidents have led to the pattern or practice of excessive force that we observed. We identified several recurring issues with BPD’s use of force:
• First, BPD uses overly aggressive tactics that unnecessarily escalate encounters, increase tensions, and lead to unnecessary force, and fails to de-escalate encounters when it would be reasonable to do so. Officers frequently resort to physical force when a subject does not immediately respond to verbal commands, even where the subject poses no imminent threat to the officer or others. These tactics result from BPD’s training and guidance.
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• Second, BPD uses excessive force against individuals with mental health disabilities or in crisis. Due to a lack of training and improper tactics, BPD officers end up in unnecessarily violent confrontations with these vulnerable individuals. BPD provides less effective services to people with mental illness and intellectual disabilities by failing to account for these disabilities in officers’ law enforcement actions, leading to unnecessary and excessive force being used against them. BPD has failed to make reasonable modifications in its policies, practices, and procedures to avoid discriminating against people with mental illness and intellectual disabilities.
• Third, BPD uses unreasonable force against juveniles. These incidents arise from BPD’s failure to use widely-accepted tactics for communicating and interacting with youth. Instead, officers interacting with youth rely on the same aggressive tactics they use with adults, leading to unnecessary conflict.
• Fourth, BPD uses unreasonable force against people who present little or no threat to officers or others. Specifically, BPD uses excessive force against (1) individuals who are already restrained and under officers’ control and (2) individuals who are fleeing from officers and are not suspected of serious criminal offenses.
o Force used on restrained individuals: we found many examples of BPD officers using unreasonable force on individuals who were restrained and no longer posed a threat to officers or the public.
o Force used on fleeing suspects: BPD officers frequently engage in foot pursuits of individuals, even where the fleeing individuals are not suspected of violent crimes. BPD’s foot pursuit tactics endanger officers and the community, and frequently lead to officers using excessive force on fleeing suspects who pose minimal threat. BPD’s aggressive approach to foot pursuits extends to flight in vehicles.
We also examined BPD’s transportation of detainees, but were unable to make a finding due to a lack of available data. We were unable to secure reliable records from either BPD or the jail regarding injuries sustained during transport or any recordings. Nonetheless, we found evidence that BPD: (1) routinely fails to properly secure arrestees in transport vehicles; (2) needs to continue to update its transport equipment to protect arrestees during transport; (3) fails to keep necessary records; and (4) must implement more robust auditing and monitoring systems to ensure that its transport policies and training are followed.
• Our concerns about BPD’s use of excessive force are compounded by BPD’s ineffective oversight of its use of force. Of the 2,818 force incidents that BPD recorded in the nearly six-year period we reviewed, BPD investigated only ten incidents based on concerns identified through its internal review. Of these ten cases, BPD found only one use of force to be excessive.
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Retaliation for Activities Protected by the First Amendment
BPD violates the First Amendment by retaliating against individuals engaged in constitutionally protected activities. Officers frequently detain and arrest members of the public for engaging in speech the officers perceive to be critical or disrespectful. And BPD officers use force against members of the public who are engaging in protected speech. BPD has failed to provide officers with sufficient guidance and oversight regarding their interactions with individuals that implicate First Amendment protections, leading to the violations we observed.
Indications of Gender Bias in Sexual Assault Investigations
Although we do not, at this time, find reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in gender-biased policing in violation of federal law, the allegations we received during the investigation, along with our review of BPD files, suggests that gender bias may be affecting BPD’s handling of sexual assault cases. We found indications that officers fail to meaningfully investigate reports of sexual assault, particularly for assaults involving women with additional vulnerabilities, such as those who are involved in the sex trade. Detectives fail to develop and resolve preliminary investigations; fail to identify and collect evidence to corroborate victims’ accounts; inadequately document their investigative steps; fail to collect and assess data, and report and classify reports of sexual assault; and lack supervisory review. We also have concerns that officers’ interactions with women victims of sexual assault and with transgender individuals display unlawful gender bias.
Deficient Policies, Training, Supervision, and Accountability
BPD’s systemic constitutional and statutory violations are rooted in structural failures. BPD fails to use adequate policies, training, supervision, data collection, analysis, and accountability systems, has not engaged adequately with the community it polices, and does not provide its officers with the tools needed to police effectively.
• BPD lacks meaningful accountability systems to deter misconduct. The Department does not consistently classify, investigate, adjudicate, and document complaints of misconduct according to its own policies and accepted law enforcement standards. Instead, we found that BPD personnel discourage complaints from being filed, misclassify complaints to minimize their apparent severity, and conduct little or no investigation. As a result, a resistance to accountability persists throughout much of BPD, and many officers are reluctant to report misconduct for fear that doing so is fruitless and may provoke retaliation. The Department also lacks adequate civilian oversight—its Civilian Review Board is hampered by inadequate resources, and the agency’s internal affairs and disciplinary process lacks transparency.
• Nor does BPD employ effective community policing strategies. The Department’s current relationship with certain Baltimore communities is broken. As noted above, some community members believe that the Department operates as if there are “two Baltimores” in which the affluent sections of the City receive better services than its impoverished and minority neighborhoods. This fractured relationship exists in part because of the Department’s legacy of zero tolerance enforcement, the failure of many BPD officers to implement community policing principles, and the Department’s lack of
8

vision for engaging with the community.
• BPD fails to adequately supervise officers through policy guidance and training. Until recently, BPD lacked sufficient policy guidance in critical areas, such as bias-free policing and officers’ use of batons and tasers. In other areas, such as its policy governing “stop and frisk,” BPD policy conflicts with constitutional requirements. The Department likewise lacks effective training on important areas, such as scenario-based training for use of force, an adequate Field Training program; and supervisory or leadership training.
• BPD also fails to collect data on a range of law enforcement actions, and even when it collects data, fails to store it in systems that are capable of effective tracking and analysis. Partly as a result, the BPD does not use an effective early intervention system to detect officers who may benefit from additional training or guidance to ensure that they do not commit constitutional and statutory violations.
• In addition, BPD fails to adequately support its officers with adequate staffing and material resources. The Department lacks effective strategies for staffing, recruitment and retention, forcing officers to work overtime after long shifts, lowering morale, and leading to officers working with deteriorated decision-making skills. Moreover, BPD lacks adequate technology infrastructure and tools that are common in many similarsized law enforcement agencies, such as in-car computers. These technology deficits create inefficiencies for officers and inhibit effective data collection and supervision. The City must invest in its police department to ensure that officers have the tools they need to properly serve the people of Baltimore.
* * *
Notwithstanding our findings, we are heartened by the support for police reform throughout BPD the City, and the broader Baltimore community. Based on the cooperation and spirit of engagement we witnessed throughout our investigation, we are optimistic that we will be able to work with the City, BPD, and the diverse communities of Baltimore to address the issues described in our findings and forge a court-enforceable agreement to develop enduring remedies to the constitutional and statutory violations we found. Indeed, although much work remains, BPD has already begun laying the foundation for reform by self-initiating changes to its policies, training, data management, and accountability systems.
To that end, the Department of Justice and the City have entered into an Agreement in Principle that identifies categories of reforms the parties agree must be taken to remedy the violations of the Constitution and federal law described in this report. Both the Justice Department and the City seek input from all communities in Baltimore on the reforms that should be included in a comprehensive, court-enforceable consent decree to be negotiated by the Justice Department and the City in the coming months, and then entered as a federal court order.
As we have seen in jurisdictions across America, it is possible for law enforcement agencies to enhance their effectiveness by promoting constitutional policing and restoring community partnerships. Strengthening community trust in BPD will not only increase the effectiveness of BPD’s law enforcement efforts, it will advance officer and public safety in a manner that serves the
9

entire Baltimore community. Together with City officials and the people of Baltimore, we will work to make this a reality.
10

 
 FACT SHEET: JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CONSENT DECREE WITH BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT AND THE CITY OF BALTIMORE
The Justice Department, the city of Baltimore and the Baltimore City Police Department (BPD) have reached agreement on a consent decree to address systemic problems identified during the department’s investigation of BPD. Key provisions include:
COMMUNITY OVERSIGHT TASK FORCE: • Establishes a Community Oversight Task Force with responsibility to assess civilian oversight of BPD and report publicly on its findings and recommendations.
COMMUNITY POLICING AND ENGAGEMENT: • Establishes mandatory annual training on community policing and problem-oriented policing for all officers. • Requires the development of community-engagement plans to create opportunities for routine and frequent positive interactions between officers and community members. • Requires a public annual report on BPD’s community policing efforts.
STOPS, SEARCHES, ARRESTS AND INTERACTIONS: • Advances policies and training on the constitutional requirements for conducting stops, searches and arrests, and robust supervisory review of stops, searches and arrests to ensure that officers apply proper standards when taking these actions. • Ensures supervision to avoid unnecessary arrests for low-level offenses like loitering and disorderly conduct.
IMPARTIAL POLICING: • Advances policies and training prohibiting discriminatory policing in BPD’s enforcement activities. • Requires training for all officers on the existence of implicit bias and how to mitigate it.
RESPONDING TO AND INTERACTING WITH PEOPLE WITH BEHAVIORAL HEALTH DISABILITIES OR IN CRISIS:
• Advances policies and training for all officers to improve coordination with community behavioral health providers and a comprehensive assessment to identify gaps in the behavioral health service system and to recommend solutions.
USE OF FORCE: • Advances policies and training to emphasize de-escalation, using tactics that defuse incidents and minimizing both the need to resort to force and the risk of harm to the officer. • Ensures requirements for reporting and review of force to continually improve officers’ skills in incidents involving force.
INTERACTIONS WITH YOUTH: • Advances policy and training on officers’ interactions with youth to ensure officers respond in a developmentally appropriate manner to incidents involving young people. • Establishes an assessment involving community organizations, experts and youth advocates of the city’s efforts to decrease youth involvement with the juvenile and criminal justice systems.
TRANSPORTATION OF PERSONS IN CUSTODY: • Advances policies and training to ensure that all people in custody are transported safely.

FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTED ACTIVITIES: • Advances policies and training to ensure that BPD officers respond appropriately to the exercise of rights protected by the First Amendment, including speech, lawful protest and public observation and recording of police activity.
HANDLING OF REPORTS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT: • Advances policy, training, supervision and oversight of sexual assault investigations to promote a victim-centered, trauma-informed approach and combat gender bias.
TECHNOLOGY: • Establishes a plan for deployment of new technology that will assist BPD officers to do their jobs effectively and constitutionally, and measures to ensure that newly implemented technologies are transparent and subject to public disclosure.
SUPERVISION: • Ensures that BPD develops and reviews new and revised policies and procedures in a way that provides for public comment, officer input and court oversight. • Provides for increased and effective officer training, including a revitalization of BPD’s Field Training Officer program.
MISCONDUCT INVESTIGATIONS AND DISCIPLINE: • Advances policies and systems to ensure that all complaints of officer misconduct are thoroughly investigated, and that BPD holds officers to the highest standards of integrity. • Establishes regular, public reporting about practices and trends in misconduct investigation and enforcement.
COORDINATION WITH BALTIMORE CITY SCHOOL POLICE FORCE: • Requires a comprehensive assessment of BPD’s coordination with the Baltimore School Police to identify areas for improvement.
RECRUITMENT, HIRING AND RETENTION: • Requires a review of BPD’s hiring practices to ensure that BPD attracts and hires a diverse group of qualified applicants, including employment incentives, background checks and psychological testing. • Requires a comprehensive staffing study to assess the appropriate number of personnel for BPD to fulfill its mission and police effectively and constitutionally, and appropriate implementation of the study. • Establishes an employee assistance program for BPD officers that allows access to counseling, mental wellness services and peer support.
IMPLEMENTATION AND ENFORCEMENT OF CONSENT DECREE: • Filed in federal court and operates as a federal court order once approved by a judge. • Overseen by an independent monitor, recommended by the parties with public input and appointed by the judge, who will report on the city’s progress in implementing the agreement. • Terminated when the city and BPD have demonstrated that they have achieved and maintained full and effective compliance.

 
 REQUEST FOR MONITOR APPLICATIONS 

Consent Decree Entered April 7, 2017 
 Regarding the Police Department of Baltimore City 

1. The United States, the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, and the Police Department of Baltimore City (collectively, “the Parties”) are seeking applications for an independent monitor to assess and report on implementation of a Consent Decree regarding the Police Department of Baltimore City (“BPD”).1
2. The City and BPD worked collaboratively with the Justice Department to negotiate a Consent Decree designed to ensure lawful and effective policing in Baltimore. The Consent Decree specifies reforms to BPD’s policies, training, supervision, and accountability systems, and establishes mechanisms for transparency and community oversight. Implementation of the Decree will be assessed by an independent monitor (“Monitor”) that will report to a federal court. The Monitor will consist of a head monitor and a team of individuals with relevant expertise, as specified below.
3. On January 12, 2017, the United States filed a Complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, and, shortly thereafter, the Parties filed a joint motion asking the Court to enter the Consent Decree to address the Complaint’s allegations. The Court entered the Consent Decree as a court-enforceable order on April 7, 2017.
4. The Parties are seeking individuals, firms, or organizations to serve as the Monitor to assess implementation of the Consent Decree. The Monitor will serve as an agent of
1 Terms used in this Request for Monitor Applications that are defined in Section XVIII of the Consent Decree shall be interpreted to be consistent with those definitions.

the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Once selected and appointed by the Court, the Monitor’s team will assess implementation of the Consent Decree, provide technical assistance, engage in community outreach, and issue public reports on BPD and the City’s compliance with the Consent Decree.
5. This Request for Applications (“RFA”) is not part of, and shall not be governed by, any formal municipal, state, or federal procurement process. The Parties may solicit information regarding Monitor candidates through means other than this RFA. Interested parties are responsible for all costs associated with responding to this RFA, including costs related to any travel required during the selection process.
6. The RFA provides a summary of the requirements and expectations for the Monitor under the Consent Decree. It is not intended to be an exhaustive explication of the Consent Decree, and the Consent Decree shall control any discrepancies between the RFA and the Consent Decree with respect to the role of the Monitor.
7. Background information and requirements for responding to the RFA are set forth below. Section I describes the scope of the work the Monitor will be required to perform and supervise pursuant to the Consent Decree. Section II describes required qualifications for the Monitor and its constituent team members. Section III describes the Monitor’s responsibility to propose and maintain a budget pursuant to limitations set by the Consent Decree. Section IV sets forth specific requirements for all responses to the RFA. Candidates are instructed to follow closely the instructions laid out in Section IV. Section V informs prospective candidates that all responses to the RFA will be disclosed publicly. Section VI describes the selection process under the RFA and the Consent Decree.
2 


I. SCOPE OF THE WORK

8. The Monitor will assist the Court and the Parties in evaluating BPD and the City’s

implementation of the Consent Decree. The Monitor will provide thorough, objective

assessments of whether BPD and the City have obtained Full and Effective Compliance with the

Material Requirements of the Consent Decree.

9. The Monitor will assist in achieving compliance with the Consent Decree by

offering technical assistance, issuing recommendations, soliciting information from and

providing information to members of the public, and preparing public reports on the Consent

Decree’s implementation.

10. The Monitor will work closely with BPD and its staff, in a cost-effective and

collaborative manner, to ensure both Full and Effective Compliance under the Consent Decree

and positive, constructive, and long-lasting change for BPD, and the community at large.

11. As set forth in Paragraphs 442-488 of the Consent Decree, to realize these

objectives, the Monitor must assume certain concrete responsibilities. Responses to the RFA

must address, in detail, how candidates will meet these responsibilities.

12. The Monitor must develop and implement annual monitoring plans for

implementing the Consent Decree. The Monitor must develop the monitoring plan within 90

days of appointment by the Court.

13. At minimum, the Monitoring Plans shall include the following:

a.

An overview for how BPD will reach Full and Effective Compliance with

all Material Requirements of the Consent Decree within five years, including a

schedule with specific deadlines for the upcoming year and a general schedule for

successive years;

3 


b.

A review and approval process for all BPD actions that are subject to

review and approval by DOJ and or the Monitor;

c.

An explanation for how the Monitor will assess compliance with the

material requirements of the Consent Decree;

d.

A description of outcome assessments and compliance reviews that will be

used to assess compliance with the Consent Decree, including a general

description of the methodologies used;

e.

A schedule for conducting all outcome assessments and compliance

reviews, taking into account that the data and technology necessary to conduct the

assessments or reviews may be currently unavailable;

f.

A process for sharing the results of all outcome assessments and

compliance reviews with the parties, including all source data and information

analysis, and a complete and detailed explanation of any conclusions;

g.

Delineation of the roles and responsibilities of the Monitor’s team

members, including identifying a Deputy Monitor with authority to act in the

Monitor’s absence, lead members who have primary responsibility for each section

of the Consent Decree, and specifying whether the Monitor has delegated approval

authority to a team member in their area of primary responsibility;

h.

A protocol for communication, engagement, and problem solving with

BPD and DOJ; and

i.

Identification of any documents that must be preserved beyond the

requirements of applicable retention policies.

4 


14. The Monitor must communicate with the public and receive public input, which

shall include quarterly in-person meetings with different Baltimore neighborhoods. The Monitor

shall also maintain a public website and will post its proposed budget and accounting to that

website. The Monitor is also expected to conduct outreach to and maintain open channels of

communication with BPD officers and organizations representing officers.

15. The Monitor shall provide technical assistance to the City and BPD, including

recommending strategies to ensure that the City and the BPD are effectively implementing the

Consent Decree.

16. The Monitor shall make recommendations to the Parties regarding measures

necessary to ensure Full and Effective Compliance with the Consent Decree, which may include

recommendations to change, modify, or amend a provision of the Consent Decree,

recommendations for additional training in an area unrelated to the Consent Decree, or a

recommendation to seek technical assistance.

17. The Monitor shall formulate outcome measures and compliance assessments and

conduct qualitative and quantitative assessments of progress under the Consent Decree.

18. The Monitor shall regularly produce reports to the public and the Court. These

reports shall include, but are not limited to:

a.

A description of the work conducted by the Monitor during the reporting

period, including the extent to which the Monitor provided technical assistance;

b.

A projection of the work to be completed during the upcoming reporting

period;

c.

BPD and the City’s progress implementing the Consent Decree;

d.

Any obstacles to effective implementation;

5 


e.

The methodology and specific findings for each outcome assessment

conducted; and

f.

An appendix listing each requirement of the Consent Decree that the

Monitor reviewed and stating whether the requirement has reached full and

effective compliance, is in progress, or is not yet started.

19. Two years after the date the Consent Decree is entered by the District Court of

Maryland, and every two years thereafter, the Monitor shall conduct a comprehensive re-

assessment to determine whether and to what extent the material requirements of the Consent

Decree have been achieved. This re-assessment shall include areas of greatest achievement as

well as areas of greatest concern, as well as strategies and technical assistance for achieving

compliance.

20. The Monitor shall prepare and submit annual budgets for monitoring the Consent

Decree.

21. The Monitor shall regularly communicate with the Parties regarding the status of

the implementation of the Consent Decree.

22. The Monitor shall, on a regular basis, meet with community members and BPD

officers to inform them about the Consent Decree implementation process and to listen to their

questions, concerns, and suggestions regarding its implementation.

23. The Monitor shall make public statements only to the extent permitted by the

terms of the Consent Decree, and shall testify in proceedings only as provided in the Consent

Decree.

24. The Monitor shall maintain the highest ethical standards.

6 


II. QUALIFICATIONS

25. Pursuant to the criteria listed at Paragraph 443 of the Consent Decree, responses

to the RFA shall specify, in detail, the qualifications for Monitor candidates.

26. These qualifications include, but are not limited to, expertise in the following

areas:

a.

Monitoring, auditing, evaluating, or otherwise reviewing performance of

organizations such as law enforcement agencies, including experience monitoring

settlements, consent decrees, or court orders;

b.

Law enforcement practices, including community policing and

engagement; use of force and force investigations; practices for conducting and

reviewing pedestrian and vehicle stops, frisks, searches, and seizures; practices for

conducting and reviewing arrests; crisis intervention and de-escalation techniques;

bias-free policing, First Amendment protected speech and public assembly and

related rights; intake, investigation, and adjudication of complaints of officer

misconduct; civilian oversight; police-youth interactions; and policy development

and officer and staff training;

c.

Assessing legal sufficiency and compliance with constitutional and other

legal requirements;

d.

Familiarity and understanding of local issues and conditions, including

local experience and expertise with Baltimore’s diverse communities, and issues

and challenges facing those communities;

7 


e.

Criminology and statistical analysis, including internal and external

benchmarking techniques, regression analysis, and other relevant statistical

methods;

f.

Familiarity with federal, state, and local laws;

g.

Evaluating organizational change and institutional reform, including by

applying qualitative and quantitative analyses to assess progress, performance, and

outcomes;

h.

Working with government agencies, including municipalities, elected

officials, civilian oversight bodies, collective bargaining units, and other

stakeholders interested in policing issues;

i.

Engaging effectively with diverse community stakeholders to promote

civic participation, strategic partnerships, and community policing;

j.

Mediation and dispute resolution, especially mediation of police

complaints and neighborhood mediation;

k.

Use of technology and information systems, including data collection and

management, and analytical tools, to support and enhance law enforcement

practices;

l.

Appearing in court as a judge, monitor, counsel, or expert witness, or

providing other types of testimony;

m. Writing complex reports for dissemination to diverse audiences;

n.

Providing formal and informal feedback, technical assistance, training,

and guidance to law enforcement agencies;

8 


o.

Reviewing policies, procedures, manuals, and other administrative orders

or directives, and training programs related to law enforcement practices;

p.

Municipal budgets and budgeting processes;

q.

Completing projects within anticipated deadlines and budgets; and

r.

Any other qualifications the Monitor candidates believe are pertinent to

fulfilling the duties of Monitor under the Consent Decree.

27. Monitor candidates shall demonstrate an ability to work collaboratively with the

City, BPD, and DOJ to enable BPD to reach compliance with the Consent Decree, and the ability

to do so in a cost-effective manner.

III. BUDGET

28. The Monitor shall be responsible for proposing and maintaining a budget for the

work to be performed under the Consent Decree.

29. The Parties have agreed that monitoring costs shall not exceed $1.475 million per

year. Under the Consent Decree, the Court has the discretion to increase the cap on monitoring

expenses by a specific amount for a specific year at the Monitor’s request. To grant the request,

the Court must find that the increase is necessary for the Monitor to fulfill its duties under the

Agreement and is not due to a failure in planning, budgeting, or performance by the Monitor.

IV. REQUIREMENTS FOR RESPONSES TO THE RFA

30. All responses to the RFA should be organized by numbered paragraph,

corresponding to the numbered paragraphs listed in the RFA.

31. Applications to serve as the Monitor or the monitoring team should include, at

minimum, the following information:

9 


32. Executive Summary: A brief description of each member of the candidate’s

team; relevant experience of the team members; any distinguishing skills or experiences; and a

summary of the proposed budget.

33. Scope of Work: Responses to the RFA shall include references to the

requirements outlined in Paragraphs 8-27 above and detailed descriptions of how candidates will

meet those requirements.

34. Personnel and Current Time Commitments:

a.

The names of the individuals and/or subcontractor consultants who would

comprise the team;

b.

A summary of the relevant background of each team member;

c.

The internal organization of the team, including the areas of responsibility

for each member;

d.

A description of all other current employment, projects, or other

professional undertakings for each team member, noting the team member’s time

commitments for each; and

e.

Team members’ status, if any, as a small, local, woman-owned, or

minority-owned business, and what percentage of the Monitor’s total work for

which they will be responsible. If any team members have received certification

or official confirmation of such status, they should specify the agency or authority

that has granted certification.

35. Qualifications: Monitor applications should specify each team member’s

qualifications per Paragraphs 25-27, including background information; experience in each of the

10 


areas of expertise identified in Paragraph 26, as applicable, with reference to corresponding subparagraphs; and any other relevant experience.
36. Prior Experience and References: Monitor applications should list current or recent experience (within the last 10 years) for each team member that is relevant to the monitoring duties specified by the RFA, with reference to the numbered paragraph that corresponds to the relevant current or recent experience. This information should include references for each project listed, and, if available, examples of non-confidential work product that is similar to the materials required for this project.
37. Budget: As described in Paragraphs 28-29 of the RFA, and Paragraph 443 of the Consent Decree, Monitor applicants must provide, for at least 5 years, proposed annual budgets for the project based on the above Scope of Work and the requirements of the Consent Decree. Responses to the RFA shall include annual breakdowns of forecasted costs for fulfilling the Monitor’s responsibilities as described in Section I, and for achieving Full and Effective Compliance under the Consent Decree. Forecasted costs and proposed annual budgets will be broken down in detail to the extent practicable. Candidates will be mindful that, if selected as Monitor, their proposed budgets are expected to form the basis of their actual budgets, and any departures without reasonable cause will be disfavored.
38. Collaboration and Cost Effectiveness: Candidates should also respond directly to Paragraph 27 of the RFA, and provide concrete examples as to how they plan to work collaboratively with the parties to achieve Full and Effective Compliance under the Consent Decree, and how they plan to do so in a cost-effective manner.
39. Potential Conflicts of Interest: Monitor applicants should disclose any potential or perceived conflicts of interest involving any members of the monitoring team, associated
11 


firms or organizations, and any employee(s) assigned to the project, or proposed

subcontractor(s). Such conflicts may include, but are not limited to:

a.

Current or former employment contracts or grants with the City of

Baltimore, BPD, the State of Maryland, or the United States;

b.

Any involvement in the last ten years with a claim or lawsuit by or against

the City of Baltimore or BPD, the State of Maryland, the United States, or any of

their officers, agents, or employees;

c.

Any close, familial, or business relationship with any of the mentioned

entities; and

d.

Any member of the monitoring team who has been the proponent or

subject of any complaint, claim, or lawsuit alleging misconduct.

40. To the extent a conflict or potential bias exists, the application must explain why

it does not bar the individual’s or the team’s selection, including any legal or ethical opinions or

waivers upon which the candidate relies.

41. For the duration of the monitorship, neither the Monitor nor any member of the

monitoring team shall be permitted to enter into any contract with the City, BPD, or the United

States unless the Monitor first discloses the potential contract to the Parties and the Parties agree

in writing to waive any conflict. If a member of the monitoring team resigns, the member may

not enter into any contract with the City, BPD, or the United States on a matter related to the

Consent Decree without the written consent of the Parties while the Decree remains in effect.

42. Members of the monitoring team will not be permitted to represent or work for

any individual or organization in any criminal, civil, or administrative matter adverse to the City,

BPD, or the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, including any individual

12 


or organization designated as a witness, consultant, victim, defendant, subject, target, or person of interest, for the duration of the monitorship.
43. All candidates who respond to the RFA, including team members, will be deemed to have read and understood the RFA, and are willing to be bound thereby.
44. All candidates who respond to the RFA, including team members, will also be deemed to have read and understood the Consent Decree, and are willing to be bound thereby.
V. PUBLIC DISCLOSURE 45. The Parties have agreed to make public the applications submitted in response to this request. Applicants are advised not to include in their responses any trade secrets, proprietary information, or other information they do not want made public. VI. SELECTION PROCESS 46. Applications must be submitted to both Department of Justice and the City by June 8, 2017. Applicants should submit materials in both electronic form and hard copy to the individuals listed below. Hard copies should be sent by USPS Priority Mail or overnight carrier to ensure timely delivery. Please state “BPD Monitoring Application” in the email subject line and on the package containing the hard copy application.
For the United States Department of Justice: Puneet Cheema Trial Attorney Civil Rights Division U.S. Department of Justice 601 D Street NW Washington, DC 20579 puneet.cheema2@usdoj.gov
13 


For the City of Baltimore: Erin Sher Smyth Purchasing Agent for Baltimore City 231 E. Baltimore Street – 3rd Floor Baltimore, MD 21202 Erin.Sher@baltimorecity.gov
47. All candidates will be evaluated based on a combination of several factors, including but not limited to team composition, qualification and experience, proposed methodology, proposed annual budgets, potential conflicts or bias, and time commitments. Candidates will also be evaluated on the extent to which their responses to the RFA satisfactorily explain, in detail, how they plan to work collaboratively with BPD, the City, DOJ, and community stakeholders to achieve Full and Effective Compliance under the Consent Decree, and how they plan to do so in a cost-effective manner.
48. Following the submission deadline, there will be a public comment period in which members of the public can review submissions and make recommendations to the Parties. After the public comment period, the Parties will evaluate the candidates, considering the recommendations made by members of the public, and agree on a subset of the teams to interview. In selecting whom to interview, the Parties may request additional information from the candidates. Interviews will be in person and conducted in Baltimore.
49. The Parties will then agree upon the teams that are finalists for the Monitor role. If the Parties cannot agree on finalists, the City and BPD, and DOJ may each name up to two teams (two for the City and BPD, and two for DOJ), to the finalist list. In selecting the finalists, the Parties may request additional information from the candidates. After a list of finalists is established, the Parties may conduct a second interview of the candidates, in–person at the Parties’ discretion. The Parties will provide an opportunity for candidates to respond to
14 


questions and concerns from the Baltimore community. As part of this process, the Parties will

provide for two public meetings in different sectors of the City at which candidates may respond

to written questions submitted by members of the public. After the finalists have been

interviewed and responded to questions submitted by the public, the Parties will agree on a

Monitor to propose to the Court in a joint motion. If the Parties cannot agree on a Monitor, the

City/BPD and DOJ may each submit one proposed team to the Court, which will select the

Monitor.

50. The Monitor is an agent of the Court upon such time as the Court enters an Order

appointing the Monitor.

51. The Monitor shall be appointed for an initial term of three years from the

Effective Date of the Consent Decree, subject to an evaluation by the Court to determine whether

to renew the Monitor’s appointment until the termination of the Consent Decree or for an

additional two years, whichever happens first.

52. The Monitor will be evaluated on its performance under the Consent Decree,

including whether the Monitor is adequately engaging the community, completing its work in a

cost-effective manner and on budget, and is working effectively and collaboratively with BPD to

facilitate its efforts to comply with the terms of the Consent Decree.

53. The Monitor may be removed for good cause by the Court at any time, on motion

by any of the Parties or the Court’s own determination.

*

*

*

The Consent Decree is available at: https://www.justice.gov/crt/casedocument/file/925036/download

The United States’ Findings Report is available at: https://www.justice.gov/crt/casedocument/baltimore-police-department-findings-report

15 


The United States’ Complaint against the City and BPD is available at: https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/file/933296/download
16 


 
 Investigación de la Policía de la Ciudad de Baltimore
Departamento de Justicia de los EE. UU.
División de Derechos Civiles
10 de agosto del 2016
RESUMEN EJECUTIVO
Hoy publicamos el resultado de la investigación por parte del Departamento de Justicia de la Policía de la Ciudad de Baltimore (BPD, por sus siglas en inglés).1 Tras llevar a cabo una investigación completa, solicitada por la Ciudad de Baltimore y la BPD, el Departamento de Justica ha llegado a la conclusión que existen motivos fundados para creer que la BPD tiene un patrón o una práctica de conducta que viola la Constitución o las leyes federales. En concreto, la BPD tiene un patrón o una práctica de:
(1) efectuar detenciones, registros y arrestos inconstitucionales;
(2) emplear estrategias de aplicación de la ley que provocan grandes desigualdades no justificadas en cuanto a las tasas de detenciones, registros y arrestos de afroamericanos;
(3) utilizar fuerza excesiva; y
(4) tomar represalias contra personas por expresarse de una forma protegida al amparo de la constitución.
Este patrón o práctica es impulsado por deficiencias sistemáticas en las políticas, capacitación, supervisión y estructuras de rendición de cuentas de la BPD, que no logran equipar a sus agentes con las herramientas que necesitan para llevar a cabo sus funciones policiales de forma eficaz y dentro de los límites de las leyes federales.
Nosotros reconocemos los desafíos a los que los agentes policiales se enfrentan en Baltimore y en otras comunidades por todo el país. Cada día, los policías arriesgan su vida para ejecutar la ley y proteger a nuestras comunidades. Las detenciones de investigación, arrestos y el uso de la fuerza –lo
1 La Sección de Litigios Especiales de la División de Derechos Civiles llevó a cabo una investigación en virtud de la ley de Control de Delitos Violentos y Aplicación de la ley de 1994, Sección 14141 del Título 42 del Código de los EE. UU. («Sección 14141»), Título VI de la ley de Derechos Civiles de 1964, Sección 2000d del Título 42 del Código de los EE. UU., la ley General del Control de Delitos y Calles Seguras de 1968, Sección 3789 del Título 42 del Código de los EE. UU. («ley de Calles Seguras») y la ley de Estadounidenses con Discapacidades de 1990, Secciones 12131-12134 del Título 42 del Código de los EE. UU. La investigación no examinó las acciones de agentes involucrados en el arresto de Freddie Gray el 12 de abril del 2015 ni tampoco los méritos de ningún proceso penal o civil relacionado con tal incidente.
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que a veces incluye el uso de fuerza letal– son herramientas necesarias que los agentes de la BPD emplean para cumplir con sus funciones y proteger sus propias vidas y las de otros. La prestación de servicios policiales en muchas zonas de Baltimore, donde los policías regularmente se enfrentan a problemas sociales complejos generados por la pobreza, la segregación racial y una falta de oportunidades educativas, empleo y vivienda, es particularmente difícil. No obstante, la mayoría de los policías de la BPD se esfuerzan por brindar servicios vitales a la comunidad.
Este patrón o práctica es el resultado de deficiencias sistémicas en la BPD. La agencia no provee a sus agentes suficiente capacitación u orientación en cuanto a sus políticas; no recopila ni analiza datos en lo que se refiere a las actividades de los agentes y no hace que los agentes rindan cuentas por su mala conducta. Asimismo, la BPD no brinda a los agentes los recursos y equipo necesarios para llevar a cabo sus funciones policiales de forma segura, constitucional y eficaz. Cada una de estas deficiencias sistémicas contribuye a las violaciones constitucionales y estatutarias que hemos observado.
A lo largo de nuestra investigación, contamos con la plena cooperación y apoyo de la BPD y la Ciudad de Baltimore. Entrevistamos a líderes municipales actuales y anteriores, los que incluyen el Comisionado de Policía Kevin Davis, así como comisionados anteriores. Asimismo, entrevistamos a agentes actuales y anteriores que provienen de toda la estructura de mando de la BPD. Acompañamos a los agentes en auto en cada distrito, entrevistamos a varios agentes actuales y anteriores de forma individual y nos reunimos con los líderes de la Logia Número 3 de la Ciudad de Baltimore de la Orden Fraternal de Policía, que representa a todos los agentes juramentados de la BPD. También recibimos los comentarios de centenares de personas de la comunidad más amplia de Baltimore que contribuyeron información a nuestra investigación. Nos reunimos con organizaciones religiosas, grupos de abogacía, organizaciones de apoyo comunitario, asociaciones de vecinos e innumerables personas que proporcionaron información valiosa sobre sus experiencias con la BPD. Estamos muy agradecidos con todos los que compartieron sus experiencias y observaciones con nosotros.
Además de estas entrevistas, revisamos cientos de miles de páginas de documentos, entre ellos todos los materiales de capacitación y políticas relevantes utilizados por la BPD desde el 2010; la base de datos de la BPD de archivos de asuntos internos entre enero del 2010 y marzo del 2016; datos de la BPD sobre detenciones peatonales, paradas vehiculares y arrestos entre enero del 2010 y mayo del 2015; informes de incidente que describen las detenciones, los registros, los arrestos y el uso de fuerza no letal por parte de sus agentes entre el 2010 y el 2015; todos los archivos relacionados con incidentes de fuerza letal entre el 2010 y el 1 de mayo del 2016 que la BPD pudo entregarnos y archivos de investigación sobre casos de agresión sexual entre el 2013 y el 2015. Nos ayudaron una decena de líderes anteriores y actuales del orden público y expertos con experiencia en los temas que investigamos, y contratamos a expertos de estadística para analizar los datos de la BPD en lo que se refiere a sus actividades de aplicación de la ley.2
2 Además, la Oficina de Servicios Policiales de Enfoque Comunitario del Departamento de Justicia (COPS, por sus siglas en inglés) ha sido partícipe, junto con la Ciudad y la BPD, de un proceso colaborativo de reforma. La Oficina de COPS, así como otros componentes del Departamento de Justicia, ha continuado proporcionando asistencia técnica a la BPD durante nuestra investigación.
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Durante esta investigación, descubrimos que existe el acuerdo general de que la BPD necesita ser reformada. Casi todos los que hablaron con nosotros, desde líderes municipales actuales y anteriores, agentes de la BPD y personal de mando al que se acompañó en los vehículos y entrevistas hasta miembros comunitarios de todos los barrios de Baltimore, representantes de los sindicatos de todos los niveles de agentes en la BPD, grupos de abogacía, y líderes cívicos y religiosos, están de acuerdo en que la BPD tiene problemas importantes que ha minado sus esfuerzos por vigilar de forma eficaz y constitucional. Tal y como mencionamos en este informe, muchos de estos grupos y personas han documentado estos problemas en el pasado, y aunque puedan no estar de acuerdo en cuanto a la naturaleza, el alcance y las soluciones de los desafíos, muchos se han esforzado por abordarlos. No obstante, queda trabajo por hacer, en parte debido a la gran falta de confianza entre estos grupos y, en particular, entre la BPD y ciertas comunidades de Baltimore. El camino hacia una reforma duradera y significativa es largo, pero es posible. La intención de la presente investigación es ayudar a Baltimore a tomar un gran paso adelante en dicho camino.
Los eventos recientes resaltan la importancia primordial de confianza y cooperación mutua entre agentes del orden público y la gente a la que sirven. Un compromiso con una vigilancia policial constitucional establece confianza que mejora los esfuerzos policiales por combatir el delito y la seguridad de los agentes. En cambio, relaciones comunitarias deterioradas dificultan la vigilancia eficaz al negar a los agentes fuentes importantes de información y colocarlos más a menudo en enfrentamientos peligrosos y conflictivos. Hallamos que estos principios se han puesto de relieve en Baltimore, donde los agentes del orden público se enfrentan a una larga historia de dificultades sociales y económicas que impactan una buena parte de la ciudad, incluyendo en lo que se refiere a la percepción de que existen «dos Baltimores»: una adinerada y en gran medida blanca y la otra empobrecida y principalmente negra. Miembros comunitarios de los barrios más ricos y blancos de la ciudad nos contaron que los agentes suelen ser respetuosos y responsivos a sus necesidades, mientras que muchos individuos pertenecientes a las comunidades afroamericanas de la ciudad nos informaron que los agentes suelen ser irrespetuosos y no responden de forma oportuna a sus peticiones de servicio. Los miembros de aquellas comunidades que son predominantemente afroamericanas suelen sentirse objetos de detenciones, registros y arrestos no justificados, así como de fuerza excesiva. Estos desafíos amplifican la importancia de emplear métodos de vigilancia policial que construyan asociaciones comunitarias y aseguren una ejecución de la ley justa y eficaz, sin importarse la afluencia o raza, mediante la capacitación robusta, la supervisión de cerca, la recopilación y el análisis de datos y la rendición de cuentas ante la mala conducta.
Sin embargo, comenzando al menos a finales de los años 90, los líderes de la ciudad y la BPD respondieron a los desafíos de la ciudad con una política de «cero tolerancia» en la aplicación de la ley en la calle, que tenía como prioridad para los agentes efectuar un gran número de detenciones, registros y arrestos –y muchas veces recurrir a la fuerza– con una capacitación mínima y supervisión deficiente por parte de sus superiores o mediante otras estructuras de rendición de cuentas. Estas prácticas resultaron en repetidas violaciones de derechos constitucionales y estatutarios, lo que solo menoscabaron todavía más la confianza de la comunidad en la policía.
La vigilancia policial proactiva no tiene porque llevar a estas consecuencias. Por lo contrario, una vigilancia policial constitucional que se enfoca en la comunidad es una forma de vigilancia proactiva, pero es fundamentalmente diferente a las tácticas que se han empleado durante años en Baltimore. La vigilancia policial comunitaria depende del establecimiento de relaciones con todas las comunidades que un departamento de policía sirve y luego, de forma conjunta, la resolución de
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problemas para garantizar la seguridad del público. Animamos a la BPD a ser proactiva, a conocer mejor a las comunidades de Baltimore, a generar confianza y reducir el delito junto con la comunidad a la que sirve.
Por fortuna, el liderazgo actual de la ciudad y la BPD ya han tomado pasos loables para revertir rumbo, lo que incluye revisar las políticas de la BPD para el uso de la fuerza, tomar medidas para mejorar la rendición de cuentas y transparencia por toda la Policía , por ejemplo, comenzar a equipar a los agentes con cámaras que se llevan sobre el cuerpo y hacer un esfuerzo por mejorar y ampliar su extensión comunitaria para que sus agentes participen más en las comunidades que sirven. No obstante, quedan por delante unos desafíos importantes.
Detenciones, registros y arrestos inconstitucionales
El legado de la vigilancia policial de cero tolerancia sigue impulsando las actividades de la BPD en ciertos barrios de Baltimore y resulta en detenciones, registros y arrestos inconstitucionales. Muchos supervisores de la BPD indican a sus agentes que efectúen detenciones y arrestos frecuentes, incluso para ofensas menores y con sospechas mínimas o sin ellas siquiera, sin suficiente consideración de si esta estrategia de aplicación de la ley promueve la seguridad pública y confianza comunitaria o si se adapta a los estándares constitucionales. Estas instrucciones, junto con la poca supervisión y rendición de cuentas actual en lo que se refiere a la mala conducta, llevan a violaciones constitucionales.
• Detenciones. Los agentes de la BPD registraron más de 300.000 detenciones peatonales entre enero del 2010 y mayo del 2015. El verdadero número de detenciones de la BPD durante este período probablemente sea bastante más alto debido a la declaración de niveles por debajo de la realidad. Estas detenciones se concentran en barrios que son principalmente de afroamericanos y suelen carecer de sospechas fundadas.
o Las detenciones peatonales efectuadas por la BPD se concentran en una pequeña porción de los residentes de Baltimore. La BPD efectuó aproximadamente el 44 % de sus detenciones en dos pequeños distritos predominantemente afroamericanos que contienen solamente el 11 % de la población de la ciudad. Por consiguiente, cientos de individuos, casi todos afroamericanos, fueron detenidos en al menos diez ocasiones individuales entre el 2010 y el 2015. De hecho, siete hombres afroamericanos fueron detenidos en más de treinta ocasiones durante este período de tiempo.
o Las detenciones de la BPD suelen carecer de sospechas fundadas. Nuestra revisión de los informes de incidente y entrevistas con agentes y miembros de la comunidad revelaron que de forma rutinaria, los agentes se acercan a individuos que están caminando o parados en las aceras de la ciudad para detenerlos e interrogarlos, así como para comprobar si existe alguna orden pendiente en su contra, a pesar de no tener sospechas fundadas para hacerlo. Solo el 3.7 % de las detenciones peatonales resultaron en un arresto o la emisión de una citación por parte de los agentes. Asimismo, tal y como se indica a continuación, muchos de los que fueron arrestados a base de una detención peatonal consiguieron que se desestimaran las acusaciones en su contra tras una revisión inicial de los supervisores de la Oficina Central de Procesamiento de la BPD o fiscales locales.
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• Registros. Durante un registro, los agentes de la BPD suelen cachear a individuos como cuestión de rutina, sin identificar los motivos necesarios que les hayan llevado a creer que la persona sea peligrosa y que vaya armada. E incluso cuando un cacheo inicial sí es justificado, encontramos que los agentes suelen incurrir en violaciones a la Constitución al exceder el alcance permisible para el mismo. Asimismo, hallamos muchas instancias en las que los agentes realizan un registro sin ropa sin disponer de la justificación legal necesaria para el mismo. En algunos casos, los agentes llevaron a cabo registros sin ropa humillantes en público antes de arrestar al individuo y sin motivos para creer que los individuos registrados estuvieran ocultando contrabando por encima de sus cuerpos.
• Arrestos. Identificamos dos categorías de arrestos inconstitucionales comunes que los agentes de la BPD realizan: (1) los agentes realizan arrestos sin orden y sin causa probable y (2) los agentes realizan arrestos para delitos menores, tales como merodear y entrar en propiedad ajena, sin brindar la notificación requerida en virtud de la Constitución que la persona arrestada esté realizando actividades ilícitas.
o Detenciones sin causa probable: entre el 2010 y el 2015, los supervisores de la Oficina Central de Procesamiento de Baltimore y fiscales locales desestimaron más de 11.000 acusaciones realizadas por agentes de la BPD porque carecían de causa probable o de otra forma no merecían ser procesadas. Nuestro repaso de los informes de incidente que describen arrestos sin orden también reveló muchos ejemplos de agentes que llevan a cabo arrestos no justificados. Además, los agentes prolongan las detenciones sin justificación para buscar pruebas que justificarían un arresto. Dichas detenciones, muchas de las que duran más de una hora, se consideran arrestos inconstitucionales.
o Los arrestos sin notificación: Los agentes de la BPD arrestan a individuos parados , de forma legal, por «merodear» o «entrar en propiedad ajena» o por otros delitos menores sin brindar suficiente notificación de que los individuos estuviesen involucrados en una actividad ilícita. De hecho, en muchas ocasiones los agentes invierten el requisito constitucional de notificación. Mientras que la Constitución requiere una notificación previo al arresto de la conducta concreta que está prohibida, como merodear o entrar en propied ajena, los agentes de la BPD se acercan a individuos que están parados de forma legal en las aceras frente a complejos de vivienda públicos o negocios privados y los arrestan, a no ser que los individuos logren proporcionar una «justificación satisfactoria» de su presencia en tal lugar.
Discriminación a afroamericanos
La vigilancia policial de la BPD se enfoca en ciertos barrios de Baltimore, con una supervisión o rendición de cuentas mínima. Esto tiene un efecto dañino desproporcionado en los residentes afroamericanos. Este impacto racial dispar es evidente en cada fase de las acciones de ejecución de la BPD, desde la decisión inicial de detener a alguien en las calles de Baltimore hasta los registros, los arrestos y el uso de fuerza. Estas desigualdades raciales, junto con las pruebas que
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sugieren una discriminación intencionada, minan la confianza comunitaria que es tan importante para la vigilancia policial eficaz.
• La BPD detiene de forma desproporcionada a peatones afroamericanos. A nivel municipal, la BPD detuvo a residentes afroamericanos con una frecuencia tres veces mayor que a residentes blancos, después de contabilizar la población de la zona en la que las detenciones tuvieron lugar. En cada uno de los nueve distritos policiales de la BPD, las detenciones a afroamericanos representaron una mayor proporción que las detenciones al resto de la población de tal distrito. Y es mucho más probable que la BPD someta a afroamericanos individuales a detenciones múltiples en un período de tiempo corto. En los cinco años y medio de datos que examinamos, los afroamericanos representaron un 95% de los 410 individuos que la BPD detuvo en al menos diez ocasiones. Un hombre afroamericano de cincuenta y pico años fue detenido treinta veces en menos de cuatro años. A pesar de repetidas intrusiones, ninguna de las treinta detenciones resultaron en una citación o acusación penal.
• La BPD también detiene a conductores afroamericanos a una tasa desproporcionada. Asimismo, los afroamericanos representaron un 82% de todas las paradas vehiculares, en comparación con el 60% de la población general de la ciudad que tiene edad para conducir y el 27% de la población general de la zona metropolitana de Baltimore que tiene edad para conducir.
• La BPD realiza registros a afroamericanos en una medida desproporcionada durante una detención. La BPD realizó registros a afroamericanos en mayor medida durante detenciones peatonales y paradas vehiculares, a pesar de que con los registros de afroamericanos era menos probable encontrar contrabando. De hecho, los agentes de la BPD encontraron contrabando con el doble de frecuencia al registrar a individuos blancos en comparación con afroamericanos durante paradas vehiculares y con una frecuencia del 50% mayor durante detenciones peatonales.
• Igualmente, el 86% de todos los delitos penales imputados por agentes de la BPD correspondieron a afroamericanos, a pesar de que solo representan el 63 % de los residentes de Baltimore.
o Las desigualdades raciales en los arrestos de la BPD son más pronunciadas para delitos altamente discrecionales: los afroamericanos representaron el 91 % de las 1.800 personas acusadas únicamente de «incumplimiento» o «entrada a propiedad ajena»; el 89 % de las 1.350 personas acusadas de hacer una declaración falsa ante un agente; y el 84 % de las 6.500 personas arrestadas por atentados contra el «orden público». Más aún, los fiscales y oficiales de procesamiento desestiman acusaciones imputadas contra afroamericanos a una tasa mayor que las imputadas a personas de otras razas, lo que indica que los estándares de los agentes a la hora de realizar un arresto cambian según la raza de la persona arrestada.
o Asimismo, hallamos grandes desigualdades raciales en los arrestos de la BPD por posesión de drogas. Mientras que los datos de la encuesta demuestran que los afroamericanos utilizan drogas a unas tasas parecidas o levemente más altas que
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otros grupos poblacionales, la BPD arrestó a afroamericanos por tenencia de drogas a una tasa cinco veces mayor que la de otras razas.
La BPD empleó una estrategia de vigilancia policial que, por defecto, llevó a una aplicación diferencial de la ley en las comunidades de afroamericanos. No obstante, la BPD no empleó los mecanismos adecuados de política, capacitación y rendición de cuentas para prevenir la discriminación, a pesar de preocupaciones continuas durante mucho tiempo sobre cómo vigila las comunidades afroamericanas de la ciudad. La BPD prácticamente no ha analizado sus propios datos para asegurar que sus actividades de aplicación sean antidiscriminatorias y la Policía clasifica mal o de otra forma no investiga quejas específicas de prejuicios raciales. La BPD tampoco ha hecho a los agentes rendir cuentas por el uso de epítetos raciales o por hacer otras declaraciones que demuestran un prejuicio racial. En algunos casos, los supervisores de la BPD han indicado a los agentes de tener como blanco de sus detenciones y arrestos a los afroamericanos en concreto. Todo esto ha contribuido a las grandes desigualdades raciales en la ejecución de la ley por parte de la BPD que minan la confianza de la comunidad en la justicia de la policía. Los líderes de la BPD reconocieron que esta falta de confianza inhibe su capacidad de formar asociaciones comunitarias importantes.
El uso de fuerza constitucionalmente excesiva
Nuestra revisión de los archivos investigativos para todos los casos de fuerza letal desde el 2010 hasta el 1 de mayo del 2016, así como de una muestra aleatoria de más de ochocientos casos de fuerza no letal, indica que la BPD emplea un patrón o una práctica de fuerza excesiva. Las deficiencias en la BPD en lo que se refiere a sus políticas, capacitación y supervisión de los incidentes en los que sus agentes utilizan fuerza han conducido al patrón o la práctica que observamos de fuerza excesiva. Identificamos varios problemas recurrentes con el uso de fuerza por parte de la BPD:
• En primer lugar, la BPD emplea unas tácticas demasiado agresivas que intensifican innecesariamente los encuentros, incrementan las tensiones, llevan al uso innecesario de fuerza y no logran reducir la intensidad de los encuentros cuando sería lo indicado. Los agentes, de forma rutinaria, recurren a la fuerza física cuando un sujeto no responde inmediatamente a órdenes verbales, incluso cuando el sujeto no representa una amenaza inminente para el agente u otras personas. Estas tácticas son el resultado de la capacitación y orientación de la BPD.
• En segundo lugar, la BPD emplea fuerza excesiva en contra de individuos con discapacidades de salud mental o que están en crisis. Debido a la falta de capacitación y tácticas impropias, los agentes de la BPD se encuentran en confrontaciones innecesariamente violentas con estos individuos vulnerables. La BPD brinda servicios menos eficaces a personas con enfermedades mentales y discapacidades intelectuales, ya que los agentes no toman en cuenta estas discapacidades al ejecutar la ley, lo que conduce al uso de fuerza innecesaria y excesiva en su contra. La BPD no ha realizado modificaciones razonables a sus políticas, prácticas y procedimientos para evitar que se discrimine a personas con enfermedades mentales y discapacidades intelectuales.
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• En tercer lugar, la BPD emplea una fuerza no razonable contra menores de edad. Estos incidentes son el producto de la falta de la BPD de utilizar tácticas comúnmente aceptadas para comunicarse e interactuar con jóvenes. En cambio, los agentes que interactúan con jóvenes recurren a las mismas tácticas agresivas que emplean con adultos, lo que genera un conflicto innecesario.
• En cuarto lugar, la BPD emplea una fuerza no razonable contra individuos que representan poca o ninguna amenaza para los agentes o para otras personas. En concreto, la BPD emplea fuerza excesiva contra (1) individuos que ya están inmovilizados y bajo el control de los agentes y (2) individuos que están huyendo de un agente y que no han generado sospechas penales serias en su contra.
o La fuerza empleada contra individuos inmovilizados: encontramos muchos ejemplos de casos en los que los agentes de la BPD emplearon una fuerza no razonable contra personas que se encontraron sujetadas y que ya no representaban un riesgo para los agentes o el público.
o La fuerza empleada contra sospechosos huyendo: Los agentes de la BPD suelen perseguir a sospechosos a pie, incluso cuando no se sospecha que sean los presuntos autores de delitos violentos. Las tácticas de la BPD de persecución a pie ponen en peligro a los agentes y la comunidad, y en muchas instancias conducen a que los agentes empleen una fuerza excesiva contra los sospechosos en fuga, los cuales representan una amenaza mínima. El abordaje agresivo de la BPD en lo que se refiere a las persecuciones a pie se extiende a las persecuciones vehiculares.
Asimismo, examinamos el transporte de detenidos por parte de la BPD pero debido a una falta de información disponible no hallamos nada. No logramos conseguir registros seguros y fiables, ni de la BPD ni de las cárceles, en cuanto a las lesiones sostenidas durante el transporte, ni tampoco encontramos grabaciones. No obstante, hallamos pruebas de que la BPD: (1) de forma rutinaria no sujeta a sus detenidos de forma adecuada en los vehículos de transporte; (2) necesita seguir actualizando su equipo de transporte para proteger a sus detenidos durante el transporte; (3) no mantiene los registros apropiados; y (4) debe implementar sistemas más robustos de auditoría y supervisión para asegurar el cumplimiento con sus políticas de transporte y capacitación.
• Nuestras preocupaciones acerca del uso de la BPD de fuerza excesiva se ven agravadas por la supervisión ineficaz de su uso de fuerza. De los 2.818 incidentes de fuerza que la BPD registró durante el período de casi seis años que revisamos, la BPD únicamente investigó diez incidentes, con base en preocupaciones identificadas mediante su revisión interna. De estos diez casos, la BPD determinó que se empleó fuerza excesiva en solo uno.
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Represalias por participar en actividades protegidas en virtud de la Primera Enmienda
La BPD viola la Primera Enmienda al tomar represalias contra individuos que participan en actividades protegidas al amparo de la Constitución. Con frecuencia, los agentes detienen y arrestan a miembros del público por hablar de una forma que consideran crítica o irrespetuosa. Asimismo, los agentes de la BPD emplean fuerza contra miembros del público que se expresan de una manera protegida. La BPD no ha brindado a sus agentes suficiente orientación y supervisión en cuanto a sus interacciones con individuos que implican las protecciones de la Primera Enmienda, lo que resulta en las violaciones que observamos.
Indicaciones de prejuicios de género en las investigaciones de agresión sexual
A pesar de que en este momento no hemos identificado un motivo fundado para creer que la BPD se dedique a una vigilancia policial basada en prejuicios de género, en contra de las leyes federales, las acusaciones que recibimos durante la investigación, junto con nuestra revisión de registros de la BPD, sugieren la posibilidad de que algunos prejuicios de género estén afectando la gestión por parte de la misma de casos de agresión sexual. Hallamos indicaciones de que los agentes no llevan a cabo investigaciones significativas de informes de agresión sexual, en particular cuando las agresiones involucran a mujeres con vulnerabilidades adicionales, tales como las que están involucradas en comercio sexual. Los detectives no llevan a cabo ni resuelven investigaciones preliminares; no identifican ni reúnen pruebas para corroborar la versión de las víctimas; no documentan de forma adecuada sus pasos investigativos; no recopilan o analizan datos ni declaran o clasifican informes de agresión sexual; y carecen de revisión de supervisión. Asimismo, tenemos preocupaciones de que las interacciones de los agentes y las mujeres que son víctimas de agresión sexual o con individuos transgénero demuestren prejuicios de género ilícitos.
Deficiencia de políticas, capacitación, supervisión y rendición de cuentas
Las violaciones estatutarias y constitucionales sistémicas de la BPD provienen de deficiencias estructurales. La BPD no emplea políticas, capacitación, supervisión, recopilación de datos, análisis o sistemas de rendición de cuentas suficientes, no se ha comprometido lo suficiente con la comunidad que vigila y no provee a sus agentes las herramientas que necesitan para vigilar de manera eficaz.
• La BPD carece de sistemas de rendición de cuentas significativos para desalentar la mala conducta. La Policía no clasifica, investiga, adjudica o documenta de manera coherente las quejas de mala conducta según sus propias políticas y estándares aceptados de aplicación de la ley. En su lugar, encontramos que el personal de la BPD disuade a las personas que acuden de presentar una denuncia, clasifican mal las denuncias para minimizar su severidad aparente y apenas llevan a cabo investigaciones, si es que las hacen siquiera. Como resultado, perdura una resistencia entre la mayor parte de la BPD a la rendición de cuentas, y muchos agentes son reacios a presentar informes de mala conducta por temor a que esto sea inútil y que provoque represalias. Asimismo, la Policía carece de supervisión civil adecuada: su Junta de Revisión Civil se enfrenta a obstáculos como la falta de recursos, y el proceso disciplinario y de asuntos internos de la agencia carece de transparencia.
9

• La BPD tampoco emplea estrategias eficaces de vigilancia policial comunitaria. Su relación actual con ciertas comunidades de Baltimore está quebrada. Tal y como se indica en lo anterior, algunos miembros de la comunidad creen que la BPD opera como si hubiese dos «Baltimores», donde las zonas adineradas de la ciudad se benefician de mejores servicios que sus barrios empobrecidos y de minorías. Esta relación quebrada existe en parte debido al legado de la Policía de su vigilancia de «cero tolerancia», las deficiencias de muchos agentes de la BPD a la hora de implementar principios de vigilancia policial comunitaria y la falta de visión dentro de la Policía respecto a su compromiso con la comunidad.
• La BPD no supervisa de forma adecuada, mediante orientación normativa y capacitación, a sus agentes. Hasta hace poco, la BPD careció de suficiente orientación normativa en áreas críticas como la vigilancia policial libre de prejuicios y el uso de los agentes de bastones y pistolas eléctricas. En otras áreas, tales como su política de «detener y cachear», la política de la BPD entra en conflicto con los requisitos constitucionales. Más aún, la Policía carece de capacitación eficaz en áreas críticas como la capacitación basada en casos para el uso de fuerza, un programa adecuado de capacitación en el campo o capacitación acerca de la supervisión o el liderazgo.
• La BPD tampoco reúne datos sobre la gama de acciones de aplicación de la ley, e incluso cuando recauda datos, no los guarda en sistemas capacitados para analizarlos y hacerles seguimiento de forma adecuada. En parte, y como resultado, la BPD no emplea un sistema eficaz de intervención temprana para detectar a agentes que podrían beneficiarse de capacitación u orientación adicional para garantizar que no cometan violaciones constitucionales o estatutarias.
• Además, la BPD no apoya de forma adecuada a sus agentes con suficientes recursos humanos y materiales. La Policía carece de estrategias eficaces para la dotación, el reclutamiento y la retención de personal y obliga a sus agentes a trabajar horas extra después de acabar un turno largo, lo que los desmoraliza y conduce a una situación en la que hay agentes trabajando con una capacidad deteriorada para tomar decisiones. Más aún, la BPD carece de una infraestructura tecnológica adecuada y las herramientas que comúnmente se utilizan en otras agencias de aplicación de la ley de tamaño parecido, tales como computadoras en los vehículos policiales. Estas deficiencias tecnológicas generan ineficiencias para los agentes e inhiben la supervisión y recopilación de datos eficaces. La Ciudad debe invertir en su Policía para garantizar que los agentes dispongan de las herramientas que necesitan para servir de forma adecuada a la población de Baltimore.
* * *
A pesar de nuestros hallazgos, nos anima el apoyo que encontramos entre la BPD, la ciudad, y la comunidad general de Baltimore por una reforma policial. Con base en la cooperación y el espíritu participativo que vimos a lo largo de nuestra investigación, confiamos en nuestra capacidad de colaborar con la ciudad, la BPD y las diversas comunidades de Baltimore para abordar los problemas identificados en nuestros hallazgos y forjar un acuerdo ejecutable para desarrollar soluciones duraderas a las violaciones constitucionales y estatutarias que hallamos. De hecho, aunque
10

todavía queda mucho trabajo por hacer, la BPD ya ha comenzado a sentar las bases de su reforma mediante cambios auto-implementados a sus políticas, capacitación, gestión de datos y sistemas de rendición de cuentas.
Para ello, el Departamento de Justicia y la Ciudad de Baltimore han llegado a un Acuerdo de Principio que identifica las categorías de reformas que las partes acuerdan que se deberán efectuar para sanear las violaciones de la Constitución y las leyes federales detalladas en este informe. Tanto el Departamento de Justicia como la Ciudad están buscando aportación de todas las comunidades de Baltimore acerca de las reformas que se deberían incluir en un acuerdo de avenencia ejecutable e integral, el cual sería negociado entre el Departamento de Justicia y la Ciudad durante los próximos meses y registrado como orden del Tribunal Federal.
Como hemos visto en jurisdicciones por todo Estados Unidos, las agencias de aplicación de la ley tienen la posibilidad de mejorar su eficacia al promover una vigilancia policial constitucional y restablecer las asociaciones comunitarias. Fortalecer la confianza comunitaria en la BPD no solo aumentará el nivel de eficacia de los esfuerzos de la misma por aplicar la ley sino que también avanzará la seguridad pública y de los agentes de una forma que sirva a la comunidad entera de Baltimore. Junto con los funcionarios municipales y los residentes de Baltimore, trabajaremos por hacer de esto una realidad.
11

 
 Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 68 Filed 10/03/17 Page 1 of 12

TN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND

UNLTED STATES OF AMERICA,

*

Plaintiff,

*

v.

*

CIVIL NO. JKB-17-0099

BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT, et al.,

*

Defendants.

*

* ***********
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER APPOINTING INDEPENDENT MONITOR

On January 12, 2017, the United States of America filed a complaint against the Police

Department of Baltjmorc Ci ty ("BPff") and the Mayor and Ci ty Councj) of Baltimore ("the

C ity"). (ECF No. 1.) The United States alleged Defendants had eugaged in a pattern or practice

of conduct by law enforcement officers that deprives persons of rights, privileges, and

immunities secured and protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States. The

complaint was brought pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of

1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141: Title Vl of the l964 Civil Rights AcL 42 U.S .C. § 2000d: the Omnibus

Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of t968, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d; and Title 1I of the Americans

with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131-12134.

The Court subsequently issued an order approving the parties' jointly filed motion

seeking entry of a consent decree (the "Consent Decree" or ··Decree") to resolve litigation of the

instant case. (ECF No. 39. moilifying ECF No. 2-2.) The Consent Decree provides for

appointment of an independent monitor ·'to assess and report on whether the requirements of [the

consent decreeJ have been implemented and provide Technical Assistance in achieving

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 68 Filed 10/03/17 Page 2 of 12
compliance.'· (Consent Decree. ECF No. 2-2 at 159. as modified by ECF No. 39.) Now pending
before the Court is the parties· JOINT MOTION TO APPOINT INDEPENDENT MONITOR.
(ECF No. 64.) The Court has fully considered the parties' arguments in supp01t of their jointly proposed monitor candidate and conducted its ov.m independenL interview of the proposed monitor and other senior leadership of the proposed monitor team. for the reasons set forth
below, the parties· motion will be GRANTED and an ORDER will issue appointing Kenneth Thompson as the Independent Monitor of the Consent Decree. 1
L TJ,e Require111e11ts of tl,e Consent Decree In considering Movants' request to appoint the proposed monitor. the Court is guided. as
it must be. by the terms of the Consent Decree. which sels forth the process for selecting an independent monitor. (ECF No. 2-2 at 158-61 , as modified by ECF No. 39; id. at 159 C·Toe
selection of the Monitor shall be pursuant to a process jointly established by the City, BPD and DOJ. ...").) The Decree assigns the parties primary responsibility for evaluating the monitor candidates and selecting a proposed candidate, but assigns the Court ultimate responsibility for
appointing a fully qualified monitor. In addition, the Decree provides that the public should have the opportunity to offer input at specified times during tbe selection process.
Under the terms of the Decree, the parties stipulated that they would work collabOiatively tO\wards the goal of selecting a jointly agreed upon monitor candidate that is qualified to provide the diverse array of subject maner and technical expertise required by the Decree. Specifically,
the Decree provides that "[t]he Parties will jointly select an Independent Monitor ("Monitor'').
In their joint motion, the parties request that the Court "appoint as Independent Monitor a team composed
of members of lhe Exigcr/21 st Century Policing, LLC (21st Century Policing) team. members of the Venable LLP (Venable) team, and Community Mediation Program, Inc. (doing business as Baltimore Community Mediation Center, BCMC)." (ECF No. 64 at I (emphasis added).) The Court notes, however, that the Consent Decree contemplates appointment of an individual as the Monitor to serve as an agent of the Court and to be accountable as such. See, e.g., ECF No. 2-2 al I64. as modified by ECF No. 39 (..[T]he Court, on its own initiative and its sole
discretion. may replace the Monitor or any member ofthe Moniwr ·steam:· (emphasis added)). Therefore, rhe Court
construes the request as one to appoint Kenneth Thompson as the Monitor.
2

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 68 Filed 10/03/17 Page 3 of 12
which will include a team of individuals with expertise in policing, civil rights, monitoring, data analysis. project management, and related areas, as well as local experience and expertise with the diverse communities of Baltimore.'' (ECF No. 2-2 at 158-59, as modified by ECF No. 39.) The Parties were lo ·'mutually developO'' a ..Request for application ('RFA.)'' that ··speciffied) the criteria upon which the selection for the Monitor shall be made"' and required applicants "to submit a proposed budget for the work to be perfom1ed under [the Decree].'· (Id. at 159.) The parties also agreed '·to file a joint motion asking the Court to appoint the Monitor chosen by the Monitor selection process described herein:· (Id. at 159.)
Notably. the Decree also envisions an opportunity for the community to participate in the monitor selection process. (Id at 159 ("The Parties agree that it is important to allow for public input at each stage of the Monitor selection process.'}) For instance. the Decree provides for a "public comment period.. following submission of monitor applications ''in which members of the public can review candidate information and make recommendations to the Parties about the potentiaJ candidates:' (Id) Additionally. the parties agreed that after finalists were selected for the monitor position. they would '·provide an opportunity for [those] candidates to respond to
questions and concerns from the Baltimore community'' at a '·public meeting:· (Id. at 160.) The
Decree is clear. however. that the ''public input" is just that, input; and that the parties. not the public, are responsible for steering the selection process. (See id. at 160 (..[T)he Parties will evaluate the candidates, considering the recommendations made by members of the public, and agree on a subset of the teams to interview.''); id ("[T]he Parties will then agree upon the teams that are finalists for the Monitor role."); id. ('·[T]he Parties will agree on a Monitor to propose to the Court in a joint motion.").) Thus, aJthough public input is an important part of the monitor selection process, it is but one ingredient to be considered by the parties in their comprehensive
3

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 68 Filed 10/03/17 Page 4 of 12
analysis of the monitor candidates prior to selecting a proposed monitor for submission to the Court.
Importantly. the parties· selection is aot self-executing under the terms of the Decree. Rather, the Decree makes the Court the final arbiter, requiring court approval and appointment of the monitor. (Id. at 160 (''fTJhe Parties will agree on a Monitor to propose to the Court in a joint motion. If the Parties cannot agree on a Monitor, the City/BPD and DOJ may each submit one proposed team to the Court, wbicb will select the Monitor.'}) This makes sense because the monitor, although, etted by the parties (with input from the public), is an agent of the Court. (Id at 161 ('·The Monitor will be the agent of the Court and subject to the supervision and orders of
the Court, consistent with this Agreement.").) In this regard, the monitor is fully independent of
the parties. as he shouJd be. The monitor does not answer lo the City, the BPD, or the Department of Justice; the monitor answers only to the Court. Thus, although the Decree largely puts the parties in the driver's seat during the monitor selection process. it is the Court. relying on the parties' expertise and vetting, that is empowered to appoint the Monitor. who will serve as the eyes and ears of lhe Court in overseeing the implementation and execution of the Consent Decree.
II. The Monitor Se/ectio11 Process As Actual(v Executed; Deference
Having reviewed the requi rements of the Decree itselt the Court turns to the selection process as actually executed.
The monitor selection process. as outlined above, envisions a specific ro le for each or the parties and the Court in selecting a monitor. The parties are responsible for evaluating the merits of the potential candidates and then submitting their arguments to tbe Court in favor of the monitor or monitors they believe best satisfy the terms of the Decree. And the Court is
4

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 68 Filed 10/03/17 Page 5 of 12
responsible for evaluating the parties· arguments for or against a proposed monitor and ultimately selecting the monitor that the Court believes is best qualified to fulfill the obligations of that role. The Courtts decision, as always, is dictated by the law and facts as the Court finds them. ln this case. the relevant law by which the Court is constrained is the tem1s of the Consent Decree. and the relevant facts are the available evidence and data regarding the qualifications of the proposed monitor and team. including the Court's personal interview ofthe proposed team leadership. In this regard, the monitor selection process is, in many respects, not unlike the process used to resolve the multitude of Other, more common disputes brought before federal judges.
The selection process. however, is unique in at least one regard that warrants brief mention. Under the terms of the Decree agreed to by the parties, members of the community­
who are not parties to the dispure- were granted a limited, but notable. role in the selection
process. Such nonparty participatfon is not common in our adversarial system and for good reason. The Constitution requires that federal courts exercise their power only over actual
··cases·' and '·controversies." U.S. CONST. art. III, § 2, cl. 1; see, e.g., Flasl v. Cohen, 392 U.S.
83, 94-95 (1968). One corollary of this requirement is that generally only those parties with standing-Le.. ··a personal stake in the outcome of the controvetsy," Baker r. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204 ( 1962), based on an actual or imminent injury that is likely to be redressed by the relief sought from the court-may participate in the case. Aside from whether or not specific individual members of the public have standing to participate in this dispute- an issue the Court does not reach- nonparty participation presents another, equally concerning problem. In our judicial system. an individual generally '·is not bound by a judgment ... in a litigation in which he is not designated as a party or to which he has not been made a party by service of process...
s

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 68 Filed 10/03/17 Page 6 of 12
Hansberry v. Lee. 311 U.S. 32, 40 (1940). This rule stems from our "deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone should have his own day in court:· Richards v. Jefferson Cty., 517 U.S.
793, 798 ( 1996). Thus, allowing excessive participation in litigation by nonparties can raise thorny issues not just v.rith respect to the Courr s jurisdiction but also with respect to the rights of those parties.
The Court raises this issue not to sound alarm bells, but rather to highlight the unique, yet narrowly constrai11ed role that the public has been afforded in lbe parties' dispute. This is no
ordinary dispute, and undoubtedly the stakes are significant not ollly for the parties, but also for
members of the community that will feeJ the most direct impact of the success or failure of the reform measures agreed upon by the parties. Because of the far reaching implications of this
case within the greater Baltimore community, the process adopted by the parties. and approved by the Court, allowed for limited engagement and input from nonparties-i.e.. the public. Indeed. the Court strongly believes that transparency was a crucial aspect to the monitor selection process and will remain a crucial aspect of the Consent Decree implementation process. And the Court is confident that the public's input was beard and that the monitor and team ultimately selected by lhe parties are stronger as a resuJt of the community's engagement in the process.
The fact remains, however. that this is the remedy phase of a lawsuit between two adverse parties, and the Coun is constrained to act only within that context. Tbe Court is nol granted the broad authority given legislatures and elected executives to set policy- rather,just the opposite. The Court is limited by mJes of procedure, statutes. the Constit11tion. and here, very specifically, the terms of the Decree. ln other words. the Court does not write on a blank slate and is not free to frame policy or adopt reform measures that the Court (or the public) might
6

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 68 Filed 10/03/17 Page 7 of 12
think is best under the circumstances. While the Court has conducted its own public hearing and witnessed both public forums and considered the public comments submitted in writing. at the end of the day. the Court must function within the confines of its designated role in our tripartite system of government. This means that the Court must resolve any issue before iL largely as framed by the parties, according to the relevant law and facts. Here. the Court's role is narrowly defined: It must decide whether the parties• jointly proposed monitor candidate was selected in accordance with the terms of tbe Consent Decree and is qualified to oversee execution of the specific requirements of the Decree.2
Accordingly, in deciding whether to approve the parties' proposed monitor and team, the Court is sensitive to the input and views of the public but even more so to that ofthe parties. This is so not only for the reasons explained immediately above, but also because the Consent Decree demands it. While the Decree implicitly vests final authority to select the monitor in the Court. the clear intention of the parties· agreement is that they be given significant influence over the selection process. As noted, the parties assigned themselves primary responsibility for evaluating the monitor candidates and selecting a qualified individual and team. And the Cowi is dependent on their e>..7Jertise and resources in that regard. Moreover, nothing about the parties' desire to lead the process violates statutory or constitutional requirements, nor is it inconsistent with how courts generally operate in the settlement context. Accordingly. the Court believes that deference should be given to the parties· selection.
Of course. the Court is responsible for insuring that the proposed monitor and team are
qualified under the terms of the Decree. TI1is means that the proposed candidate must not only
i At this convenient moment. the Court lakes thi.s opportunity to remind all interested parties exactly what this Decree is and \.-.hat it is not: ll is an order entered by che Coun to resolve a specific dispute between parties that calls for certain, specific reforms; it is not a panacea for the wide array of social issues that might affect Baltimore and other similarly situated large metropolitan areas.
7

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 68 Filed 10/03/17 Page 8 of 12
have the necessary subject matter and technical expertise. but also be able to dedicate sufficient time and resources to the project and fulfill his obligations within the strict budgetary confines of the Decree. This is no easy task and the Court does not take its role lightly. But where, as here, the parties have agreed on a proposed solution-in this instance the selectjon of a particular monitor and team- the Court appropriately gives significant deference to that proposal.
m. The Proposed Monitor
Absent any evidence that the parties have mishandled or short-circuited the selection process, it would be inappropriate for the Court to lightly disregard their recommendation. The Court sees no such evidence. Indeed. the Court (which has been involved in the selection process by observing public forums, by offering guidance at the parties' request, and by ultimately personally interviewing the leadership of the proposed monitor team) is impressed with the parties· dedicated. collaborative effort to find the best possible team to oversee this monumental task. Here, the process initially failed to yield a single team that either the parties or the Court believed possessed all the necessary attributes to serve as an effective monitor. (ECF Nos. 60 & 62.) Yet, the parties stayed the course and took Lhe unique step of combining members of two teams.3 at the suggestion of the Court,4 to ensure that the team ultimately selected had the requisite combination of leadership, experience. and expertise to oversee what will be an arduous and extended reform process. The Court commends the parties for the diligent and sincere manner in which they carried out the selection process, which the Court finds adhered to all material requirements stipulated by the Consent Decree.

J

The proposed monitoring team is made up of expens originally associated with two different candidate

teams, Venable LLP and Exiger/2 1st Century Policing, LLC. Both of these teams were finalists in the seleclion

process, and leaders and experts from both teams participated fully in the public portion of lhc selection process.

The Court did not recommend which teams should be combined- only the concept.

8

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 68 Filed 10/03/17 Page 9 of 12
The Court concludes that the parties proposed monitor and team are well-prepared to take on this difficult task. The Consent Decree required the parties to evaluate monitor candidates and select a proposed monitor and team pursuant to specific criteria, including ·'each team member's experience and qualifications to perfom, the tasks outlined in [the Decreet the ability to work collaboratively with BPD and DOJ to enable BPD to reach compliance with [the Decree]: and the ability to do so in a cost-effective manner." (ECF No. 2-2 at l59. as modified by ECF No. 39.)
or The parties contend that the proposed monitor and team ..satisflyJ each these criteria
and qualifications. and fhave] provided a first-year budget that is reasonable and within the budgetary cap set by the Decree:· (ECF No. 64 at 4.) The Coun agrees. There are substantial indicia from the written application materials, the submissions of the parties, and the Court's
or own observation the proposed monitor and team that they are well-positioned Lo carry out the
duties assigned to the monitor by the Consent Decree. The proposed team has a broad array of relevant experience and expertise. both at the national and local level. The proposed monitor. Mr. Thompson, satisfies one of the most important criteria: he is a native Baltimorean with deep tics to a wide swath of the Baltimore community. Mr. Thompson is a seasoned Litigator who understands well the role ofthe monitor and can ably navigate the many challenges. legal and otherwise. sure to arise during the life of the Consent Decree. Moreover, he has an impeccable record in the community. a11d the Courl is convinced. based on its personal interview of Mr.
Thompson~ that he 1s fully committed to thls undertaking. Although Mr. Thompson does not have any prior monitoring experience, he has taken
what could be perceived as a weakness and turned it into a strength by surrounding himself with
an outstanding team. 1n particular. many of the senior leaders of the terun- including Principal
9

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 68 Filed 10/03/17 Page 10 of 12
Deputy Monitor Charles Ramsey and Deputy Monitors Hassan Aden and Theron Bowman­ have previously worked (and continue to do so) as part of monitoring teams responsible for overseeing analogous consent decrees involving the refonn of police departments in large metropolitan areas, including Seattle, NeVv Orleans, and Clevelat:1d. Additionally. these same individuals have extensive personal experience in law enforcement and specifically in developing and implementing constitutional and community policing reform programs. For example, Mr. Ramsey has led two major metropolitan police departments, the District of Columbia and Philadelphia. through collaborative refonn processes with the Department of Justice.5 Additionally. he served as the co-chair of President Obama's President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. which was created to strengthen community policing and trust among law enforcement officers and the communities they serve. The task force produced a report with 59 recommendations and 92 speci fie action items. many of which have been adopted by police departments around the nation.6 Dr. Bowman, during his time as Chief ofPolice for the City of Arlington. Texas, developed and implemented a community policing model known as "geographic policing.. under which officers are assigned lo specific, narrowly defined areas to facilitate consistency and accountability in police-communit> relations.7 And Mr. Aden, as Chief or Police for the City of Greenville, N.C., instituted a program that all<>wed community members to participate in long-term strategic planning for the police department.8 This

5

See Exiger/21 st Century Pol icing, LLC, Applicution to Serve as Independent Monitorfor the City of

Baltimore Police Departmem. at 4 (June 8, 2017), available at

https://consentdec-ree.baltimorecity.gov/sites/default/files/Exiger.pdf.

6

In addition 10 Mr. Ramsey, the ream also includes three other members of1he eleven-person task force.

Interview with Proposed Monitor and Team, at United States Distric1 Court for 1he Distric1 of Maryland in

Baltimore. MD (Sept. 26, 1017).

8

Interview with Proposed Monitor and Team, a1 United States Oistricr Coun for the District of Maryland in

Baltimore, MD (Sept. 26, 2017).

10

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 68 Filed 10/03/17 Page 11 of 12
experience is essentia19: the Court concludes that these individuals likely well know the difference between good policing and bad, and, most importantly, have proven track records of teaching and implementing the former.
While prior, enljghtened law enforcement experience is a critical component necessary to oversee the specific reforms stipulated by the Decree. the team is not limited to individuals who have served as police chiefs. Indeed. far from it- the team includes former federal civil rights prosecutors, including Deputy Monitor Seth Rosenthal, with experience investigating police corruption and use of force. And the team includes leading academics in behavioral sciences and criminology such as Dr. Randolph Dupont. a nationally recognized leader in developing crisis intervention protocols for dealing with i"ndividuals with mental health issues.
Last. but certainly not least, the Court commends the parties and the proposed team for reaching out direct!)' to local organizations to ensure that the community's voice is heard throughout the implementation of the Consent Decree. 1n particuJar. the proposed team includes Baltimore Communily Mediation Center (BCMC). a local organization led by Ms. Shantay Guy. that is well-established and respected in the Baltimore community. As discussed above. the Consent Decree envisions continuing community participation throughout the life of the Decree to insure that the specific reforms adopted are being felt within lhe communities most likely to be impacted. Moreover. improving the relationship between members ofthe Baltimore community and the BPD is a key overarching goal of the Consent Decree. The Court believes that engaging BCMC is a stTong first step towards achieving these goals. While there is still much work to be done by the monitor and team in U1is area. the Court is encouraged by this initial step.

9

These are bul examples of rhe many innovative police refonn initiatives in which these team leaders have

been involved.

11

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 68 Filed 10/03/17 Page 12 of 12

In sum. the Court believes the proposed monitor and team possess the requisite expertise

and experience to successfu l1y assist and oversee execution of the reforms mandated by the

Consent Decree, and lo do so in an efficient, transparent. and accountable manner.

*

*

Accordingly, it is ORDERED that the Parties' JOlNT MOTlON TO APPOINT

INDEPENDENT MONITOR (ECF No. 64) seeking the appointment of Kenneth Thompson as

Lbe Jndependent Monitor of the Consent Decree jg GRANTED, and he is now so APPOINT.ED.

serving at the pleasure of the Court (ECF No. 2-2 at 161. 164, as modified by ECF No. 39).

or DATED this _£_ day October, 2017.

BY THE COURT:

James K. Bredar United States District Judge

12

 
 INDEX: Public Comments on Monitor Applicants
Submissions on behalf of groups

1. Baltimore Action Legal Team 2. Baltimore City NAACP 3. No Boundaries Coalition of Central West Baltimore 4. Disability Rights Maryland 5. NAACP Legal Defense Fund 6. Jews United for Justice 7. CASA 8. Campaign for Justice Safety and Jobs 9. Murphy, Falcon, and Murphy
Submissions on behalf of individuals
10. Megan McShea 11. Alison Reingold 12. Rabbi Ruth Smith 13. Ryan Artes 14. Dan Richman and Samantha Blau 15. Ray Kelly 16. David Cramer 17. James Scanlan 18. Lisa Bleich 19. Keesha Ha 20. Carolina Paul 21. Elizabeth Spradley 22. Polly E. Heninger 23. Alexandra Busching 24. Tyler Kelly 25. David Avruch 26. Hilary Hellerbach 27. Kenneth Morales 28. Phyllis Lansing 29. Dr. Joseph Costa 30. Martha McKenna 31. Jodie Zisow-McClean 32. Eric Stephenson 33. E. Joy Gould 34. Hannah Jeremiah 35. Sara Hurwitz 36. Professor Michael Pinard 37. Donna D. Brown 38. Louise Harmony 39. Kathryn Munnell 40. Liz Simon-Higgs 41. Maura Dwyer 42. Emilie Pichot

43. Professor Stan Becker 44. J.E. Randall 45. Anna Kaufman 46. Claire Landers

1. Baltimore Action Legal Team

July 16, 2017
U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530
RE: BALT’s Comments on BPD Consent Decree Monitor Applications
To Whom It May Concern:
We write to urge you to include the following recommendations for the consent decree Monitor and to call for substantial community input in the monitoring process. Our recommendations were drafted by several volunteer lawyers with expertise in criminal justice reform, racial equity, gender justice, and restorative practices. Together, we represent adults and juveniles, whose communities bear the brunt of disparate policing practices; residents and community organizations, whose civil rights have been violated; and a range of Baltimore residents who are impacted by the collateral consequences of BPD’s practices on opportunities for affordable housing and quality jobs.
BALT is dedicated to politically-conscious lawyering and to using creative, collective solutions to support the Movement for Black Lives in Baltimore. BALT is committed to increasing the awareness of injustices rooted in structural racism and economic inequality. To that end, we are also committed to anti-racist practices and to black leadership.
While BALT applauds the City and DOJ for entering into a consent decree, we are very skeptical of its efficacy or ability to dismantle Baltimore’s deep roots of racial injustice.1 The very process alone limits the solution to the four corners of the consent decree and doesn’t touch on years of oppression in the areas of housing, economics and health (to name a few) or offer any reparations to those who have been directly impacted by BPD’s pattern and practice of discrimination. Any solution that does not consider systematic removal of Black wealth in Baltimore will fall short in addressing the unconstitutional behavior in BPD or any other aspect of city government.
To that end, BALT does not support or endorse any single applicant for Monitor. None of the applications to become the Consent Decree Monitor met BALT’s requirements for the participation of impacted people, transparency, or a formal infrastructure for stakeholders to engage in the court process. However, the following applications either addressed some of those requirements, inadequately addressed some of the requirements, or did not meet the requirements at all. We provide the following information with the hopes that it will help others evaluate the proposals commitment to the involvement of impacted individuals, transparency, and allowing the community to engage directly with the Court.
1 http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-freddie-gray-history-20150502-story.html
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BALT maintains that many areas of reform are needed, but we previously directed our comment and recommendations on the following critical areas: 1) unconstitutional stops, frisks, searches, and arrests; 2) the current and historical role of BPD in the greater system of structural racism; 3) infringement on individuals’ rights of free speech and assembly; 4) gender bias in policing; and 5) implementation of a community­led monitoring system over BPD and the Consent Decree.
In the report the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) investigation (“Report”) of the Baltimore Police Department (“BPD”), DOJ found that BPD engages in a pattern and practice of unlawful stops, frisks and searches. During stops, BPD officers often conducted weapons frisks, or strip searches, without any reason to believe the person subjected to the unlawful search was armed. The DOJ noted that these practices “escalated” street encounters, including arrests without probable cause, and excessive use of force. A large number of arrests following these encounters led to vague and discretionary misdemeanor arrests for offenses such as “loitering,” “disorderly conduct,” and “failure to obey.”
The DOJ’s report found that BPD officers likely make several hundred thousand stops per year, despite a population of only 620,000 residents. From 2010 through 2014, BPD officers recorded more than 111,500 stops concentrated in the Central and Western districts of Baltimore. These are the least populated police districts with a combined population of only 75,000 residents (12% of the city’s population). The DOJ’s investigation uncovered a pattern of BPD officers using stops to improperly detain persons, and for the sole purpose of checking for warrants, which in turn, would permit the officers to arrest and search the individuals. One African American man was stopped 34 times during this period and several hundred residents also reported being stopped at least 10 times.
Some may believe the sheer volume of stops says nothing about the constitutionality of BPD officer activity. However, the DOJ found BPD regularly stopped individuals for nothing more than standing, walking or sitting in public places. In a sample of 7,500 stops reviewed during the course of DOJ’s investigation, only 3.7 percent of stops lead to officers issuing a citation or arrest. “Expressed another way, BPD officers did not find and charge criminal activity in 26 out of every 27 pedestrian stops.” Perhaps the most concerning aspect of BPD’s unlawful practices is its routine use of pre­arrest strip searches, sometimes in public spaces. During a routine traffic stop for a missing headlight, one African American woman was subjected to a pre­arrest cavity search, in public, with a male supervisor reportedly standing close enough to watch. The Report indicates mid­level supervisors turn the other way when wrongdoing is reported and even promote stop­and­frisk without justification. Offers questioning a superior’s directive to “clear corners” reported lack of overtime or other reprimand. The supervisory support for illegal conduct, coupled with failings by Internal Affairs, further compound the problem of officer behavior.
BALT recommends that any monitor must understand that BPD’s use of stops, frisks and searches has been for purposes other than investigating crime or enforcing the law. As used by BPD, the tactics are tools of social control. The DOJ’s frightening picture of policing in predominantly Black neighborhoods of Baltimore dispels the illusion that constitutional policing can be the only reform objective. Rather, BPD should embrace experimenting with policies and procedures to root out officers’ callous disregard for constitutional mandates
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and BPD’s own policies. A true commitment to professional and fair policing would involve BPD curtailing unlawful practices and even limiting the use of lawful practices.
In order for any Monitor to evaluate whether that commitment is evident, a just and formally equal process must elevate the voices of the oppressed and shifts power to those who have not been heard. Accordingly, individuals with direct experience with police brutality must receive an enhanced opportunity to be fully engaged in the monitoring process. The monitoring process should include community involvement where the community members, affected persons, and community stakeholders participate in the monitoring process. The participation of Black residents of Baltimore is critical for any monitoring team, as is a range of professionals outside of law enforcement – those with experience in social research and civil rights enforcement. Too many of the monitor proposals we reviewed were stacked with law enforcement specialists who focused entirely on engagement with the City of Baltimore and BPD as chief stakeholders – promising constant engagement with the City and BPD but not extending the same amount of resources to community outreach.
BALT was heartened to see the Loyola Team’s proposal places BPD reform in the context of organizational change management and culture change with a leadership assessment, which was unique among the proposals and absolutely necessary. In addition, the team was led by a Black woman and the majority of the team members are located in Baltimore City. We felt the Loyola proposal took the most comprehensive view of organizational change and the kinds of systems necessary to shift organizational psychology and practice using the framework of community policing. The proposal has very direct and clear statements about the communities’ sentiments about the consent decree process. Loyola’s proposal includes an emphasis on building and creating trust in communities. Organizational and leadership assessments and supports (like coaching) are core to this proposal. Unfortunately, the proposal did not adequately commit to involving affected individuals.
BALT recommends the monitoring team should include individuals most impacted by decisions made by the monitoring team. There should be implementation of a monitoring structure that will facilitate community groups input in the decision-making process. The Independent Monitoring Team should be required to hire community members, affected persons, and community stakeholders as consultants. A defined percentage of the monitoring budget should be designated for this group.
In their application, the Burke Group proposed hiring a paid Community Staff consisting of 3 youth currently enrolled in Baltimore City Public Schools and 2 formerly incarcerated individuals. The Burke group also committed to holding bi-weekly community coalition meetings open to anyone and a paid position as co-chair of a Community Coalition. Burke’s group has set aside a sizeable portion of its budget for the Community Coalition ($150K yearly not including compensation for Community Staff). This was the most intensive commitment by a monitoring team to including impacted people and creating regular structure for receiving community feedback.
By way of comparison, the Baltimore Group proposed creating a Community Advisory Board (CAB), but did not emphasize or discuss prioritizing impacted community members, indeed their only suggested members were the State’s Attorney and the School Police. However,
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the application did include a proposal BALT supports – submitting their report drafts first to the CAB for review and comment before submitting to the court.
BALT recommends the monitoring process should be transparent . The process should ensure community access to information about the Independent Monitor’s practices and procedures. The practices and procedures should include a method for community members, affected persons, and community stakeholders to provide information, including dissenting information, to the monitor. The monitor should be required to publically disclose dissenting information. Many of the current applications only briefly touch on transparency – like mentioning the creation of a website or posting documents without detailing any methods for how they will inform the public or disseminate the information more broadly. Very few proposals have a neighborhood-specific outreach strategies or feedback mechanisms for those without immediate ability to use or access to computer technology.
For example, while the Robert Bobb Group (RBG) was buoyed by team members with wealth of experience in civil rights law and litigation, it lacked a concrete plan for significant community engagement and only two team members cite any experience living or working in Baltimore or Maryland. The RBG proposal does not sufficiently create a formal structure for community input and engagement outside the creation of a dashboard website and steering committee. Similarly, while the Venable team is focused on data analysis and crisis intervention techniques, the proposal has no cited plan for the transparent dissemination of information to the broader community.
BALT recommends the monitoring process should be required to create a formal infrastructure for community members, affected persons and community stakeholders to engage in the court process. None of the current applications require the monitor to include all dissenting information in reports, motions, and other documents provided to the court. A few proposals detail providing a forum for community members, affected persons, and community stakeholders, but none detail how they will facilitate a means for those voices to be heard in open court, before the monitoring judge, prior to the approval of any and all settlement agreements being approved by the court.
The Baltimore Action Legal Team is happy to discuss any of these recommendations further. If we can provide any further information or clarification please feel free to contact us via email at info@baltimoreactionlegal.org .
Submitted,
Baltimore Action Legal Team
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2. Baltimore City NAACP

Comments from the Baltimore City Branch of the NAACP on the Independent Monitor Applications
July 17, 2017
The Baltimore City Branch NAACP is deeply concerned about the selection of the Independent Monitor because the identity of the Monitor team will be essential to the success of the consent decree. Black Baltimoreans are tired of surface-level attempts at police reform that result in minor reshufflings and programs with new names, but no real fixes for serious injustice. The Monitor team will only be successful if the community recognizes its work as legitimate. We are not writing to recommend a particular team, but we want to make sure the Court chooses finalists who have a demonstrated connection to the Baltimore community while having no vested interest in justifying past or present police practices.
The Independent Monitor team is supposed to “include individuals with expertise in policing, civil rights, monitoring, data analysis, project management, and related areas, as well as local experience and expertise with the diverse communities of Baltimore.” Without a prior connection to the community and a track record for integrity, it will be impossible for the monitoring team to fulfill its mission. The right team must be accessible to Baltimore residents so that the team can reliably receive and solicit input, and it must be invested in Baltimore’s success.
Another important aspect of legitimacy is showing that the Monitor is not just rubber stamping the actions of the police department. In addition to racial, ethnic, and gender diversity, the team composition should include a diversity of professional backgrounds and life experiences. This means that the ideal Monitor team should not be dominated by law enforcement and former law enforcement officials; it should substantially incorporate community advocates and those experienced in eliciting and enhancing community input. The team’s composition is important because it cannot be perceived as having a vested interest in defending past or present Baltimore policing practices.
With so many options for an Independent Monitor team, we are confident that the Court can appoint a team that will be responsive to community needs and will have credibility in the eyes of all. This decision will make the difference between more of the same and real change.

3. No Boundaries Coalition

July 17, 2017
Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington D.C. 20530
RE: United States v. Baltimore Police Dep’t et al., Civil No. JKB-17-99
The No Boundaries Coalition of Central West Baltimore respectfully requests that the Parties consider the following community input in selecting the Consent Decree Monitor.
ORGANIZATIONAL BACKGROUND: The No Boundaries Coalition is a resident-led advocacy organization of 8 neighborhoods in Central West Baltimore, zip code 21217. The No Boundaries Coalition organizes residents to improve the quality of life in Central West Baltimore and address systemic inequities for racial and economic justice. Our current programs center around improved public safety, increased police accountability, getting healthy foods into CWB, and organizing with and for young people. The No Boundaries Coalition has over 200 individual members from 21217. Our extensive grassroots relationships have led to results for Central West Baltimore including quadrupling voter turnout in Sandtown-Winchester, opening a community-run produce market, and developing a trained team of youth organizers.
The No Boundaries Coalition has been leading the effort to increase police accountability and improve community-police relations since 2015. During the DOJ investigation into the Baltimore Police Department, the No Boundaries Coalition conducted its own investigation with the West Baltimore Community Commission on Police Misconduct. The commission published its own report on police

misconduct called: ​“Over Police and Under Served”.​ The 25 page report chronicles 57 incidents of police misconduct told by 39 witnesses, and ends in the our recommendations for policy change. Stories include incidents of physical assault, verbal disrespect, police non-response to emergency calls, corruption and harassment. The West Baltimore Community Commission on Police Misconduct engaged in an intensive fact-finding mission starting in May of 2015. The report was cited in the DOJ’s Finding Letter.
The No Boundaries Coalition has continued to advocate for a robust consent decree with strong community input throughout the process. In September of 2016, the No Boundaries Coalition published The People’s Decree of Central West Baltimore,​ a list of demands for necessary and common sense reform of the Baltimore Police Department including 1. Civilian Oversight; 2. Training; 3. Community Policing; 4. Transparency; 5. Accountability for problematic officers; and 6. A Community Driven Process. The Coalition then advocated for the DOJ and Baltimore City to enter into the Decree and we were pleased that the parties signed the Decree and that the Court entered the Decree. Since the Decree has been entered, we have been advocating for both a community-driven monitor selection process and the ultimate selection of a strong monitor for Baltimore City residents. In partnership with the Campaign for Justice Safety and Jobs, we co-hosted a public forum with 23 of the candidates for monitor that over 200 people attended. Below are our recommendations for the selection of the monitor for the Baltimore Consent Decree.
COMMUNITY DRIVEN QUALIFICATION FOR MONITOR SELECTION: Through public forums and community meetings we have heard what criteria residents feel an ideal monitor candidate would possess. We urge Baltimore City and the Department of Justice to take this community-driven criteria into account when choosing the finalists for monitor
Baltimore-Based: The members of the No Boundaries Coalition feel strongly that the Monitor should be based in Baltimore. The monitor should be easily accessible to Baltimore residents and community based organizations. Not living in Baltimore would not allow the monitor to regularly meeting with community leaders, attend community meetings and respond quickly to residents’ concerns as they come up. Internet-based community outreach would not reach many affected Baltimore residents and cannot replace in person and on the ground community engagement.
Proposal Funds Community Outreach and Contracts with Community Groups:

Successful implementation of the Consent Decree is not possible without robust community engagement and involvement. While receiving community feedback is required by the Consent Decree, we feel that preference should be given to monitor candidates whose commitment to community engagement is reflected by the allocation of funds in their budget. We believe it is essential for the effectiveness of the proposed monitor to have Baltimore-based community liaisons and propose to contract with community groups and/or hire people from the community.
Monitoring Team is Led by and/or Includes Blacks, Latinos and Women: The DOJ findings report confirmed racial and gender bias in the Baltimore Police Department. Baltimore has a majority Black population with consistently growing Latino populations who are the most impacted communities affected by BPD’s racist and unconstitutional policing. It is important that those who are most affected by the unconstitutional policing outlined in the Findings Letter are leading the efforts for implementation of the Consent Decree. It is important that the monitor have a focus on how BPD Officers engage with women in effort to not reinforce violence and trauma already being imposed on women in communities. Community members voiced preference for monitoring teams that are led by Black and Latino people and women; second to that, prefers teams that include Black, Latino people and women.
Full Time Commitment: Monitoring the Consent Decree is a huge task that, to be carried out effectively, will be time-intensive for whichever candidate is selected. We are concerned to see that many applicants would have other professional obligations that would seriously limit or intermittently hinder the time and attention they would be able to devote to their role as monitor. We have heard from colleagues in Ferguson that this has been an issue with their monitor. Baltimore City taxpayers are investing a great deal of money and aspiration in not just the Consent Decree, but in the monitor itself. We believe it is critical that candidates who would be working on the Consent Decree be full time or have staff who would be dedicated, exclusively, to the monitoring processes of the Consent Decree.
Not Majority Law Enforcement: While we recognize that law enforcement expertise can be an asset on a monitor team, we believe that monitoring teams that are majority former or current law enforcement professionals and/or the lead monitor as a law enforcement professional should not be considered to monitor the Consent Decree for two reasons. First, for the Consent Decree to be successful, communities that have experienced police brutality, harassment and misconduct for decades will need to be engaged in the implementation process.

These communities, for good reason, have a deep mistrust of police and are unlikely to develop a trusting and productive working relationship with a monitor that is made up of majority law enforcement or law enforcement led. Second, we are also concerned that current or former law enforcement may have bias (conscious or unconscious) in favor of the police as well as bring perspective that reinforce systemic values within law enforcement departments that have proven harmful to vulnerable communities. It is important that the monitor is able to fully investigate BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree and report to the judge any noncompliance objectively and fully.
Monitor Team Experience: We believe that the monitoring team should include individuals that demonstrate experience in monitoring a Consent Decree, addressing racial and gender bias in policing, and conducting community outreach and engagement.
Engagement of Those Most Affected: We believe that community outreach and engagement proposed by the monitor candidate should center those who are most affected by the unconstitutional policing outlined in the DOJ’s Finding Letter, specifically Black and Latino communities, low-income neighborhoods, sexual and domestic violence survivors, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities (including mental illness), homeless people, formerly incarcerated people, youth and people struggling with substance abuse. While the Consent Decree requires community feedback, we prefer candidates who have a specifically outlined and funded process in their proposal for engaging with affected communities.
SUPPORT FOR MONITOR CANDIDATE SUSAN BURKE: The membership of the No Boundaries Coalition has voted to endorse candidate Susan Burke to be the Monitor for the Baltimore Consent Decree. We support Susan Burke as the monitor because a.) her volunteer work with the No Boundaries Coalition b.) her professional background in effectively addressing human rights abuses c.) her proposal includes funding community groups and hiring people from the community.
Susan Burke is a Central West Baltimore resident and member of the No Boundaries Coalition. Burke volunteered on the board of the Coalition for three years. As a past board member, Burke volunteered her legal expertise and helped the No Boundaries Coalition in its efforts to address police accountability. Burke drafted legislation to reform Baltimore’s Civilian Review board that was advanced by the No

Boundaries Coalition. After the police-involved killing of Sandtown resident Freddie Gray, NBC’s efforts to address police brutality and misconduct intensified. Burke helped the No Boundaries Coalition create the West Baltimore Community Commission on Police Misconduct. During this time, Burke assisted NBC staff and volunteers in setting up a public hearing on Police Misconduct. Burke created an interview template for private interviews that created the content of the Commission’s report and were shared with the DOJ investigation team. To assist the commission, Burke went door to door in West Baltimore and interviewed residents about their experiences with the police. Burke already has deep relationships and trust in the West Baltimore communities greatly affected by the unconstitutional policing outlined in the Findings Letter. She also has a proven track record of building relationships with affected communities, talking to residents about police misconduct in a culture of fear and mistrust, and documenting police misconduct using community voice and input.
Susan Burke has a strong professional background in using the judicial system to hold large institutions/systems accountable for human rights abuses. Burke represented torture victims in Iraq, sexual assault survivors from the US military and prisoners being overcharged for phone calls by prison companies, among others. Burke has a track record of being able to work with victims of trauma and with victims who have experienced intimidation and/or retaliation for speaking up, which, through our report, we found is common amongst victims of police brutality in Baltimore.
The No Boundaries Coalition knows that meaningful community engagement requires the allocations of real funds. We prefer for these funds to be allocated to community groups and residents, so that implementation of the Consent Decree will build Baltimore’s capacity to continue to hold the Police Department accountable after the Consent Decree is over. The main reason why membership of the No Boundaries Coalition voted to endorse Susan Burke is that her monitoring proposal allocates a substantial amount of the proposed budget to community groups and residents. Burke’s proposal includes hiring a team of youth and formerly incarcerated people full time. She proposed to hold public update meetings every other week, which reinforces community trust, respect and engagement, more frequently than any other candidate. Burke has also set aside $150,000 a year for community grants. We found Burke’s proposal to be the strongest in terms of community engagement of any candidate.
There were no other candidates who compared contextually nor budgetarily to Susan Burke’s proposal. Burke’s proposal encompassed all of the factors that gave consideration to the whole of community and an implementation process that would nearly assure the desired outcomes as a result of this monitoring

process. While this is our endorsement as a coalition, we hope the criteria we have delineated and the standards set within Susan Burke’s proposal are applied in the review of other candidates.

4. Disability Rights Maryland

5. NAACP Legal Defense Fund

6. Jews United for Justice

July 17, 2017
Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington D.C. 20530
RE: United States v. Baltimore Police Dep’t et al., Civil No. JKB-17-99
Dear Ms. Cheema:
I write to you on behalf of Jews United for Justice (JUFJ) in regards to the selection process for the independent monitor for the consent decree between the City of Baltimore and the Department of Justice. As an organization of Jews living in the greater Baltimore area guided by our tradition of tikkun olam (repairing the world), we are deeply invested in the successful implementation of the consent decree as a step towards robust police accountability and reform in Baltimore.
As a member of the Coalition for Justice, Safety, and Jobs (CJSJ), we strongly endorse the principles for the monitor selection that the coalition has put forward, and that will be sent to you in a separate letter.
Before bringing up some specific concerns, we would like to make an observation about the monitor selection process. Community participation in the implementation of the consent decree is vital to its success. Given the short time between the submission of applications and the deadline for public comment, the Baltimore community has had only a brief time to assess the applicants. While we appreciate the need for alacrity in putting the consent decree into place, we urge the parties to open a second public comment period after the public meetings have been held with final candidates for the monitor position.
In the time we have had to survey the monitor applicants, we have identified areas that are central to the best implementation of the consent decree, and to remedying the abuses cited in the Department of Justice report on the Baltimore Police Department (BPD), but that are not addressed in enough detail by all of the applicants. We believe that the parties to the consent decree must include the following criteria in their assessment of the applicants in selecting both the finalists and the monitor team that will be appointed:
 The independent monitor team must be locally based, with strong mechanisms to include the community during the implementation of the consent decree. Designated community liaisons on the monitor team must have strong ties to Baltimore, deep local knowledge and contacts, and the trust of multiple stakeholders—in particular, the communities who have borne the brunt of unconstitutional policing. A monitor should establish ongoing, local presence by maintaining an office that is staffed and regularly accessible to community members.
 The independent monitor team must specifically plan and budget for work to be contracted to community organizations. Key tasks that the monitor team must complete, such as surveying of and outreach to community members, are best accomplished by established, community-based grassroots organizations. These organizations should be led and staffed by individuals with ties to the residents of

neighborhoods most directly impacted by aggressive, unconstitutional policing practices. A budget that includes resource-sharing with such grassroots community organizations is an important indicator that the monitor applicant is serious about including the perspectives and concerns of the public in the implementation of the consent decree.  The monitor team must include members with expertise in shaping law enforcement responses to individuals grappling with mental and behavioral health issues, with an emphasis on de-escalating police responses. The Department of Justice has acknowledged that BPD “routinely” uses unreasonable force against individuals with mental health disabilities or those experiencing a crisis, a problem exacerbated by deeply inadequate training given to officers. In order to ensure that BPD’s training regimen and operations are brought up to speed and that the civil rights of those with behavioral health issues are protected, a designated member or members of the monitor team must have appropriate experience in this area.  The monitor team must include members with expertise in handling sexual assault investigations that respect survivors and ensure adequate investigation. As outlined in the Department of Justice report, BPD has failed to adequately handle sexual assault investigations. A member or members of the monitor team must have experience implementing best-practices training that respects survivors of sexual violence. The monitor team must also outline a rigorous process for ensuring that thorough sexual assault investigations are prioritized.  The monitor team must demonstrate an understanding of structural racism and an ability to convey that understanding to BPD. While many of the potential monitor teams discuss anti-bias training for police officers, this necessary step does not go far enough. The current state of both Baltimore City and police/community relations is directly shaped by structural racism, and if the monitor is to meaningfully address BPD’s failings, it must be able to explain to BPD the effects of structural racism on the communities they serve.
We appreciate the opportunity to participate in the monitor selection process. Incorporation of community feedback on an ongoing basis is crucial to ensuring the success of the consent decree. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or further opportunities for comment.
Sincerely,
Molly Amster Baltimore Director Jews United for Justice 301-529-3875 2221 Maryland Avenue, 2nd Floor Baltimore, MD 21218 www.jufj.org Think Jewishly, Act Locally.

7. CASA

July 17, 2017
Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington D.C. 20530
RE: United States v. Baltimore Police Dep’t et al., Civil No. JKB-17-99
Dear Sir/Madam:
CASAs mission is to create a more just society by building power and improving the quality of life in low-income immigrant communities. Our vision is for a future in which diverse and thriving communities live free from discrimination and fear, and work together with mutual respect to achieve full human rights for all. In Baltimore, our membership includes over 6,000 city residents, the vast majority of whom are first and second generation immigrants from Central America, South America, Africa, and the Caribbean Islands.
Over the last four years, CASA has worked to implement policies at the city and state level to ensure that Latino and immigrant residents receive adequate protection and service from BPD, and that victims of crime are able to contact police without fear of repercussions. Some significant progress has been made – in 2012 Mayor Rawlings Blake issued an executive order prohibiting BPD from inquiring about immigration status or from proactively communicating with federal ICE officials. Several commissions, task forces, and advisory councils have been formed in attempts to address the persistent fear and lack of reporting among Latino and immigrant residents. But significant barriers to community trust of Baltimore Police officers still remain.
As the City of Baltimore and the Department of Justice deliberate their decisions regarding the monitor team for the Baltimore City Consent Decree, we urge the parties to ensure that the monitor team selected has a plan in place for including Limited English Proficient (LEP) residents of the city, as well as first generation immigrant residents, in considering the department’s progress toward reform. For several years, well intentioned advocates from within and outside of the police department have encountered a series of significant obstacles to measuring and improving BPD service to immigrant community members in Baltimore. These include:
1) Lack of systems to track ethnicity or language need of individuals who interact with officers. Without this, it is impossible to track any trends in victimization of Latino residents, police harassment or excessive use of force complaints by Latino residents. Language access is measured only when officers or operators access language line interpretation services, but is otherwise not tracked if an officer attempts to communicate (effectively or ineffectively) in a language other than English.
2) Lack of enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance with Executive Order. While both the current and past Police Commissioner have publicly stated that they support the Mayor’s Executive order prohibiting officers from inquiring about immigration status or otherwise treating Limited English Proficient residents or

immigrants differently. The vast majority of complaints received by CASA from members about the police involve harassment based on English language ability, immigration status, and ethnicity. Repeated complaints have also alleged that officers assumed gang affiliation based solely on ethnicity or that they threatened to contact ICE.
3) Lack of training and enforcement of language access laws and policies. While access to interpretation equipment exists and efforts have been made to recruit bilingual officers, there are no systems are in place to ensure that all officers have been trained and held accountable to language access policies or laws, and no clear system for a resident to report lack of language access.
As the monitor team is selected and designs its community engagement and assessment processes, we urge them to carefully consider this vulnerable community and to take steps to ensure that these voices are heard and considered when measuring the success of reform in the department. We are hopeful that the monitor will serve as an advocate for improving the overall systems governing accountability, training, and overall community policing standards.
As the systems are developed to collect and monitor data to measure compliance with the consent decree, CASA urges the parties to ensure that these systems incorporate ethnicity and language into all measurement criteria. This includes ensuring that community policing training also includes specific training regarding this vulnerable population, incorporation of language and ethnicity tracking mechanisms into the community engagement assessment, and explicit participation in any community engagement efforts.
Finally, CASA urges the parties to ensure active and robust participation of Baltimore residents, including immigrant community members, in every stage of the consent decree process, particularly in the monitor selection and annual assessment processes. This will be critical to rebuilding community trust and ensuring that reforms or systems changes implemented at the department level are not considered adequate until their impact is felt at the community level.
CASA looks forward to continuing to work with the parties to improve trust and accountability between BPD and all of the city’s diverse residents.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Alex, Regional Director CASA www.wearecasa.org

8. Campaign for Justice, Safety, and Jobs

July 12, 2017
Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington D.C. 20530
RE: United States v. Baltimore Police Dep’t et al., Civil No. JKB-17-99
Dear Ms. Cheema:
On behalf of the Campaign for Justice, Safety and Jobs (CJSJ), we write to provide feedback regarding the selection of the independent monitor, as outlined in the consent decree between the City of Baltimore and the Department of Justice. The selection of the monitor is a critical process to ensuring the ultimate success of the consent decree, and we strongly encourage the parties to carefully consider all input from the public as they develop their list of final candidates for the position.
CJSJ is a coalition of over 30 organizations representing local and national youth leaders, community organizations, policy advocates, civil rights organizations, and labor unions. CJSJ formed in 2015 in the wake of the Baltimore police in-custody death of Freddie Gray, an unarmed Black man. Since then, we have created and advanced policing reforms and economic solutions to improve the quality of life for Baltimore City residents.
Earlier this year the DOJ and City of Baltimore filed a 227-page consent decree in federal court which seeks to address the constitutional and legal violations detailed in the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigative report of the Baltimore City Police Department (the City). That was the result of thousands of hours of work and represents a hope for change in our city to the hundreds of residents that participated in community forums, met with DOJ and BPD representatives, and brainstormed ways to improve policing in Baltimore. While the DOJ report does not include all of the recommendations made by community members our coalition has engaged, it does represent the beginning of a roadmap forward. If the path forward is to be effective, we think it is imperative that community members be actively involved in every level of reforming and overseeing their own police department. To this end our comments will outline specific recommendations to ensure that the monitor team shares this vision and is structured in a manner that will allow maximum levels of community partnership and engagement throughout the monitoring process.
As community leaders, we believe that policing in Baltimore will never truly by reformed, nor police-community trust established, until the current systems of accountability allow for and encourage robust community participation and oversight of the Baltimore City Police Department. We are encouraged to see that the consent decree contemplates community
1

involvement in the implementation of the agreement, including “public input at each stage of the Monitor selection process.”1 To carry out this provision, the CJSJ submits the following recommendations for community input and involvement in the selection process of and the development of mandates for the monitor:
Process for Selection of Monitor Team:
We believe that community members should have as much opportunity as possible to provide feedback and input into the monitor selection process. On July 6th, CJSJ held a town hall meeting attended by 23 monitor teams and over 200 community residents to provide initial opportunity for monitor candidates to ask questions of monitor candidates and to engage in the process. We look forward to working with the parties to hold additional public input sessions once the finalists are selected, as outlined in the RFA for the selection of the monitor. Further, in addition to the public meetings, we recommend that:
 At least one community member from each neighborhood that is directly impacted by the policing reforms outlined in the consent decree should participate in initial interviews of candidates.
 While not specifically required in the consent decree, we think that the public should be afforded an opportunity to provide feedback to the parties and the court on the final candidates prior to the selection of the Monitor. We suggest a second public comment period after the public meetings have been held with final candidates for the monitor position.
Composition and Qualifications of Independent Monitor Team:
We believe that the most successful monitor teams will meet the composition and qualifications outlined below. We strongly encourage the parties to consider each of these elements in selecting the Independent Monitor team.
 As stated in paragraph 442 of the consent decree, the Monitor should comprise a team of persons, and not an individual. This team should be diverse as it relates to race, ethnicity, gender, age, socio-economic status and expertise.
 The Monitor team must include several persons who serve as community liaisons. They must be residents of Baltimore City, particularly those neighborhoods most impacted by the reforms in the consent decree, who have established working relationships and trust with activists, the business community, and other community stakeholders.
 The Monitor team should include persons with diverse expertise, including: o Activists with experience in community organizing; o Former law enforcement officers and/or executives with experience in implementing best practices for community policing and/or problem-oriented policing; o Local attorneys with expertise in civil rights litigation and criminal defense; o Individuals with at least 10 years of experience in:  appropriate interactions with persons with mental, behavioral, and physical disabilities;  the elimination of the school-to-prison pipeline;
1 Id. at ¶ 444.
2

 anti-bias and de-escalation training, problem-oriented policing, adolescent development, and crisis intervention trainings;
 analyzing policing statistics;  appropriate investigation of sexual assault complaints; and  trauma/trauma-informed care for victims of crime.  Language access laws and best policing practices in immigrant communities  The members of the Monitor team should be independent of any local government entity and politically unaffiliated from any local government entity.  Members of the Monitor team should be prepared to fully commit their time and energy to monitoring the City’s compliance with the consent decree.  After reviewing the monitor applications, we would also suggest taking extra due diligence steps during the interview phase for any members of monitor teams who are former law enforcement, judges, or prosecutors. In order to ensure transparency and build community confidence in the monitor teams we suggest that: o Monitor teams consisting of at least 1 current or former law enforcement officer should be questioned on and required to provide detailed information on any lawsuits against or involving the individual(s), and any disciplinary matters against or involving the individual(s). o Monitor teams consisting of at least 1 current or former prosecutor should be questioned on and required to provide detailed information on the prosecutions against law enforcement officers by the individual(s). o Monitor teams consisting of at least 1 current or former judge should be questioned on and required to provide detailed information on any opinion concerning law enforcement officers by the individual(s).
Mandates of the Monitor Team:
We recommend that the following criteria should be given significant consideration as the monitor is being selected and the process and responsibilities of the monitor finalized:
 Community liaisons must be charged with meeting regularly with community stakeholders; especially those representing individuals most impacted by the reforms in the consent decree.
 The Monitor team should hold periodic (at least quarterly) public meetings in which the public can weigh in on the City’s progress under the consent decree. This requirement must be over and above meetings the community liaisons have with community stakeholders.
 Paragraph 446 of the consent decree requires an evaluation of the Monitor after three years, including whether the Monitor is “adequately engaging the community.” The DOJ, City, and Court should develop a process by which members of the public may submit comments regarding the adequacy of the Monitor’s community engagement activities.
 Paragraph 456 requires the Monitor to conduct outcome assessments to determine whether the Baltimore Police Department’s revised policies and practices “are having an overall beneficial effect on policing in Baltimore.” Members of the public should be permitted to provide input on what outcomes should be measured.
 Paragraph 462 requires the Monitor to submit a Monitoring Plan to DOJ and the City for review and approval. Members of the public should be permitted to comment on the Plan prior to approval by the parties and the Court. We recommend a 30-day comment period.
3

 Community stakeholders should be able to review semi-annual Monitor reports to the court and offer supplemental reports if they believe the Monitor reports fail to include issues of their concern.
 Court status conferences concerning the monitoring of the consent decree should be done in open court. The Court should endeavor to hear from community stakeholders and community members most impacted by the reforms in the consent decree.
 The Monitor should be required to designate community-based organizations in Baltimore to assist in the implementation of provisions of the consent decree. Accordingly, the City should be required to provide the resources necessary for the designated community-based organizations to adequately assist in the implementation of certain provisions within the consent decree.
 The monitor should be required to provide resources and support, including relevant data and legal analysis, to the members of the COTF as they convene to provide policy recommendations.

We look forward to further participation in this important process. CJSJ members welcome the opportunity to discuss further our recommendations during a meeting with the parties. Please do not hesitate to contact Elizabeth Alex at ealex@wearecasa.org with any questions.

Sincerely,

The Campaign for Justice, Safety, and Jobs members

1199 SEIU ACLU of Maryland Amnesty International Baltimore Algebra Project Baltimore Women United Beats, Rhymes, and Relief Baltimore United for Change CASA Coalition of Concerned Mothers Communities United Council on American-Islamic Relations Equity Matters Empowerment Temple Freddie Gray Project Fusion Group Jews United for Justice

Justice League Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle Liberty Village Project Making Change Mothers on the Move NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc No Boundaries Coalition Peace by Piece Pleasant Hope Baptist Church Power Inside SEIU 32BJ Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Southern Engagement Foundation Ujima People’s Progress Universal Zulu Nation

4

9. Murphy Falcon, and Murphy

10. Megan McShea

From: To: Cc: Subject: Date:

Megan McShea Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Daphney.Williams@baltimorecity.gov; Bill.Henry@baltimorecity.gov Baltimore city consent decree monitor applications public comment Monday, July 17, 2017 1:50:49 PM

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to you as a resident of Baltimore who is concerned about the unconstitutional and discriminatory behavior of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD). I have a vested interested in the consent decree and in ensuring that the voices of impacted residents are heard throughout the process. To that end the monitor of the consent decree will only succeed if it includes African-Americans, formerly incarcerated people, and young people impacted by these unconstitutional practices, and an accessible transparent method for the impacted community to engage in the monitoring of the consent decree. Their plan must include impacted residents in a substantial role, not just providing a feedback mechanism, but active roles for community members. Their plan must be based in direct experience with consent decrees aimed at ameliorating the effects of police brutality in predominantly African American communities, and with disabled persons.
Although very few of the applicants to monitor the Baltimore consent decree meet all these standards, two applicants stands out from the rest.
The Loyola application is exceptional in its local expertise and experience, and in particular, their specific attention to the consent decree sections on interactions with persons with disabilities is very well thought out. The team is majority African American, a critical factor in the success of the consent decree. Their application demonstrates a strong understanding of the specific affected communities and centers trust building between multiple communities and institutions that serve them, such as schools (and school police), medical providers, and other stakeholders that must be engaged if the consent decree is to be successful.
Susan Burke's team application is the proposal that is most inclusive of impacted people in a substantial way through the establishment of paid positions for community members and the inclusion of youth and formerly incarcerated person in central monitoring roles. The applicant's history of seeking justice and reform around military sexual assault and harrassment in prior work is also strong and welcome. The applicant's local affiliations and professional histories will be important to navigating the implementation of such a complex process.
Thank you for the opportunity to weigh in on this important selection process.
Sincerely,
Megan McShea 21218

11. Alison Reingold

From: To: Subject: Date:

alisonreingold . Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Baltimore Consent Decree Monitor Monday, July 17, 2017 4:35:38 PM

I write to you on behalf of Jews United for Justice (JUFJ) in regards to the selection process for the independent monitor for the consent decree between the City of Baltimore and the Department of Justice.

I believe that the parties to the consent decree must include the following criteria in their assessment of the applicants in selecting both the finalists and the monitor team that will be appointed:
The independent monitor team must be locally based, with strong mechanisms to include the community during the implementation of the consent decree. Designated community liaisons on the monitor team must have strong ties to Baltimore, deep local knowledge and contacts, and the trust of multiple stakeholders —in particular, the communities who have borne the brunt of unconstitutional policing. The independent monitor team must specifically plan and budget for work to be contracted to community organizations. These organizations should be led and staffed by individuals with ties to the residents of neighborhoods most directly impacted by aggressive, unconstitutional policing practices. The monitor team must include members with expertise in shaping law enforcement responses to individuals grappling with mental and behavioral health issues, with an emphasis on de-escalating police responses. The Department of Justice has acknowledged that BPD “routinely” uses unreasonable force against individuals with mental health disabilities or those experiencing a crisis, a problem exacerbated by deeply inadequate training given to officers. The monitor team must include members with expertise in handling sexual assault investigations that respect survivors and ensure adequate investigation. A member or members of the monitor team must have experience implementing best-practices training that respects survivors of sexual violence. The monitor team must also outline a rigorous process for ensuring that thorough sexual assault investigations are prioritized. The monitor team must demonstrate an understanding of structural racism and an ability to convey that understanding to BPD. While many of the potential monitor teams discuss anti-bias training for police officers, this necessary step does not go far enough.
We appreciate the opportunity to participate in the monitor selection process. Sincerely,
Alison Reingold

12. Rabbi Ruth Smith

From: To: Cc: Subject: Date:

Rabbi Ruth Smith Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Molly Amster Baltimore Consent Decree Monday, July 17, 2017 3:51:56 PM

Dear Madam,
I am writing to comment on the monitor selection process. I was able to attend a public comment community meeting. This was a meeting put together by the community, and not a part of the actual process. I am disappointed that there has not been more opportunity for the public to be involved in this historic process, and I hope that this is not a harbinger of what is to come.
If When choosing a monitor team, I hope the the team's record will be closely examined. Many of the team's touted their vast experience in monitoring consent decrees in other cities. However, it would be important to evaluate how well they did, not just how flashy their presentation was.
What community groups in other states say is that the monitors have been lax in following through on the comminity participation part of the consent decree. Since community buy-in is essential, I hope that evaluating how well the team follows through on their promises will be a significant factor on your consideration. We are in a time of much community distrust. If trust is to be gained, and I hope it can be, the community will need to see that at least the monitors are doing their jobs and getting input from the community.
As a member of JUFJ, I hope you will take into consideration the points raised by our director, Molly Amster, in a letter dated today, July 17.
I wish you strength and courage in choosing a team that can best accomplish the monumental task that is set before it.
Rabbi Ruth Smith

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

13. Ryan Artis

From: To: Subject: Date:

ryan artes Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT); marypat.clarke@baltimorecity.gov; daphney.williams@baltimorecity.gov BPD Monitor Team Recommendations Wednesday, July 12, 2017 6:13:51 PM

To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing to you as a resident of Baltimore who is concerned about the unconstitutional and discriminatory behavior of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD). I have a vested interested in the consent decree and in ensuring that the voices of impacted residents are heard throughout the process. To that end, I have three main concerns:
- monitoring teams should include individuals most impacted by decisions made by the monitoring team
- the process should be transparent;
- the process should be required to create a formal infrastructure for community members, affected persons, and community stakeholders to engage in the court process.
BPD uses enforcement strategies that disproportionately impact African-Americans in the city of Baltimore. The monitoring team must include African-Americans, formerly incarcerated people, and young people impacted by these unconstitutional practices.
Community feedback and input must be central to the monitoring process. Any team chosen should be required to hire community members, affected persons, and community stakeholders as consultants. A defined percentage of the monitoring budget should be designated for this group.
Individuals with direct experience with police brutality must receive an enhanced opportunity to be fully engaged in the monitoring process.
Jump Outs (aka Stop and Frisk) are a tool of oppression and intimidation that do little to keep our communities safe. The chosen monitor should demonstrate an understanding of why ending stop and frisk is critical to the health and safety of our community.
Any monitoring team chosen by the City of Baltimore and DOJ should be required to create a formal infrastructure for community members, affected persons and community stakeholders to ENGAGE in the process not just be informed. The monitor should be required to include all dissenting information in reports, motions and other documents provided to the court.
The team should be required to provide a forum for community members, affected persons, and community stakeholders to be heard in open court, before the monitoring judge, prior to the approval of any and all settlement agreements being approved by the court.
A majority of the monitoring team should reside in the city of Baltimore.
The Loyola University and Susan Burke are individually good starts and both contain some necessary elements-- but both need further development to be completely adequate. This first stage of development of BPD Monitoring Teams is particularly crucial and I demand the process be treated with utmost integrity and sincerity. The remaining proposals, those I have not named at the beginning of this paragraph, are all severely inadequate and solely seem to maintain an unspoken status quo.
Please consider my recommendations.
Sincerely,

Ryan Artes 21218

14. Dan Richman and Samantha Blau

From: To: Cc: Subject: Date:

Dan Richman Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Samantha Blau Comment on Monitor selection from Dan Richman and Samantha Blau Sunday, July 16, 2017 3:32:14 PM

To the Parties in U.S. v. Police Dept. of Baltimore City:

The following is a public comment on Consent Decree Monitor selection. Having reviewed Monitor applications and witnessed many applicants answer community questions at a town hall meeting, we are concerned that many of the applicants are not suitable for this task, especially those that are not Baltimore-based and do not have civil rights backgrounds.
We recommend that the Parties pay particular attention to the following attributes in selecting the Monitor:
1. The Monitor team or its main players should have substantial personal and professional backgrounds in Baltimore and be based here for their work as Monitor. Many of the applicants are national consulting firms/teams with no familiarity with Baltimore and its particular history and issues.
2. The Monitor team should include expertise in civil rights, community policing, deescalation and anti-bias trainings, sexual assault, and mental health and traumainformed care. Also, the team should understand the history and continuing consequences of Baltimore’s housing segregation and issues such as the school-toprison pipeline. Many of the applicants do not speak about how central these issues are to the substance of the Consent Decree. One excellent exception to this concerning pattern appears to be Baltimore Monitor Project.
3. The Monitor should make specific commitments to work with community groups. Many applicants’ responses to how they would do this have been vague, generic, or condescending. A key exception appears to be Susan Burke, whose application gives a concrete plan for soliciting interaction with an unbiased cross-section of community groups.
4. The Monitor application should be specific about the Monitor's approach, budget, and time commitments of the team members. We have found that many of the applications and the applicants’ spoken statements are saturated with consultantspeak and buzzwords, and they fail to clearly articulate their plans. Again, Susan Burke’s application is an exception and is a good example of specificity and clarity (please note this repeated mention is not intended to be an endorsement or vote).
We hope that when choosing finalists you keep these considerations in mind in choosing finalists so Consent Decree monitoring is maximally effective and the Police Department is held accountable to the people of this city.

Sincerely, Dan Richman and Samantha Blau Baltimore, Maryland (21202)

15. Ray Kelly

Ray C. Kelly

July 14, 2017

To: United States Department of Justice - Civil Rights Division
Dear Sir or Madame,
My name is Ray Kelly and I am proudly a lifetime resident of Baltimore City, specifically zip code 21217, or Central West Baltimore as we like to call it. I’m a product of my personal endeavor through life and experienced many of the plights we’ve identified through multiple findings. I currently serve in Multiple capacities in our commUNITY, Co-Director of the No Boundaries Coalition, Vice Chair of the Executive Committee of St. Peter Claver/Pius V Church.
Throughout the entire DOJ process the Coalition and the residents of Central West Baltimore have been committed to influencing changes in the ways our communities are policed, are determined to see the mandates negotiated in the Consent Decree implemented. We have spearheaded multiple engagements and community events focused on the impacted neighborhoods having a seat at table and having a voice in the changes that impact them personally, both with the Department of Justice as well as the Police Department, and stand firm to the idea that no matter how thing progress, we will continue to create access and sustain a community informed process.
Recognizing the importance of the Monitor to success of the implementation of the Consent Decree I must support the efforts of Susan Burke and recognize her displayed and continued engagement in this process as a resident of Central West Baltimore, as well as Board member of the No Boundaries Coalition. As Chair of the Coalitions Safety Action Committee, I have worked closely with Susan with issues of Police/Community relations, drafting language to strengthen Baltimore’s Civilian Review Board and Partnered directly we me to form the West Baltimore Community Commission on Police misconduct. Our report has gained international attention, been reviewed by the United Nations and even referenced in the DOJ’s finding report. Years before the riots and unrest of April 2015, Susan Burke had demonstrated her fortitude in the fight for Equitable, Civil and Constitutional treatment of marginalized people throughout her carreer and continued since I met her.
Her proposal stands out for two distinct reasons 1) the largest portion of her team will be community and grassroots organization, which if we are to be true to the language of the Consent Decree, should be a requirement. Secondly, she has placed in her budget, to hire indegeonous people, both youth and returning citizens, to insure the most affected populace is represented and and have a guaranteed conduit for feedback and concerns, where nothing is lost in translation.

During our research into the monitoring proposals with the Campaign for justice Safety and jobs, one of our partners,NAACP-LDF, drafted a snapshot of all of the candidates which I have attached, there are multiple highlights in Susan Burkes proposal as well as the framing of her team, but most importantly she is one of us and she recognizes things have to change and is proven time and time again that she’s willing to give her all to make it happen.
Thank You for your time and Consideration
Ray C. Kelly West Baltimore Resident Co-Director of the No Boundaries Coalition Vice Chair, Executive Committee, Sts. Peter Claver/Pius V Parish

16. David Cramer

Baltimore City Consent Decree Monitoring Applications Review Introduction
The following 26 reviews are not intended as a comprehensive analysis of each proposal nor to determine threshold eligibility for evaluation; rather, they are intended more as reflections on other aspects that deserve merit.
These comments reflect a quick read of each proposal – due to lengths of many applications, some hundreds of pages, one to two hours were required to read, re-read and comment using the 8 criteria below (note that all criteria are not answered when information was hard to glean). As such some important information and subtleties may have been overlooked.
After stepping back, I realized that a threshold of experience in police consent decree monitoring and ability to establish rapport with police at all levels was essential and therefore should be a threshold requirement of which most but not all of the applicants possessed. In addition, my sense of Baltimore’s racial politics would require that the monitor himself/herself would need to be minority, i.e., Black, and his/her team be locally based and diverse. Finally, after possessing all of these qualities, the team and its leadership would need to demonstrate that they are serious about and capable to facilitating lasting institutional change of the reforms that have the potential for outlasting city and police leadership changes. To do this would require going beyond the confines of the proscribed monitoring role and address underlying racial disparities and police culture. No one applicant possesses all of the above qualities; however, aspects of one or several could achieve this end if reconfigured and combined, which the RFP allows for. To accomplish this, however, may take more time to negotiate and resolve. Perhaps the time delay may be worthwhile given the opportunity the CD provides. Given the substantial budget allowed for this effort, the delay may prove to be more costeffective in the long run.
Comparison Criteria:
1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy, whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity
3. Team management: Point person – project manager 4. Time availability of team members for this assignment 5. Local community involvement 6. Budget credibility, emphasis 7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of
reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders 8. Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features
Applicants that meet most of the criteria are starred “*”
David Cramer

ADP Consulting
Comparison Criteria:
1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy, whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Police officer (ret.) emphasis, very detailed monitoring approach
• Seem to be familiar with inner-working of BPD • Included Policy, training, implementation continuum with detailed research methods
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Experience with monitoring by many of the team members’ monitoring involvement (mostly police officers) and as evidenced in how each of the 17 core elements will be addressed • Two/11 of the team members are local - Sabrina Tapp-Harper, ret BPD Major • Team make-up is heavy on police and tracking progress, light on legal, diverse
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Major Alfred Peters, Monitor – not local, questionable time commitment
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Mixed, some more available than others, most have other substantial other assignments
5. Local community involvement • Addressed in the context of community policing • Stressed work with oversight task force
6. Budget credibility, emphasis • Very detailed budget, reasonable travel but other high general expenses
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • Recognized need for BPD to sustain effort after 5 years
8. Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features • Have all that is need to technically monitor

Arnaldo Claudio
Comparison Criteria:
1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy, whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized a. No detail on how the team would implement a monitoring effort nor a detailed budget reflecting this activity
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity a. Ret police officers plus professors – all with extensive experience in police work b. Diverse, no local team members
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Colonel (ret.) Arnaldo “Arnie” Claudio
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Hard to determine
5. Local community involvement • No special approach
6. Budget credibility, emphasis • No details, just one annual figure
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • No sense
8. Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features • One member, Marcos Soler, is the former Deputy Executive Director for Policy and Strategic Initiatives at the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) of the City of New York. As such, he may act as a CME on civilian review board

Baltimore Monitor Project
Comparison Criteria:
1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy, whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized a. Acknowledge race as a major factor
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity a. Retired judges (2) and lawyer saturated (5), 3 professors, 2 data experts, Faulk – mostly local City and MD, diverse b. No police expertise which is acknowledged, process for selection is inclusive, once selected will be part of team. May need a long learning curve about police operations and specifically the BPD c. Little police CD monitoring experience
3. Team management: Point person – project manager a. Co-monitors: Legg and Williams b. Local point person, Curlett (attorney) experience with Detroit Consent Decree – wrote reports. May run for City States Attorney, now representing clients against police officers.
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment a. Most have substantial current employment positions, others are consultants with flexibility
5. Local community involvement a. Strong “community” presence through Faulk (“Circles of Voices”). b. Will establish a “community advisory board”
6. Budget credibility, emphasis a. General budget of hours/rates, no travel, consistent with emphasis on data collection and analysis
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders a. Local leaders committed to Baltimore
8. Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features a. “co-monitors” with Curlett as project manager – awkward management

Barnes & Thornburg Comparison Criteria:
1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy, whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Did not address how they would handle scope of work
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • All attorney team, mostly from DC, mostly minority • No apparent police involvement nor experience with police Consent Decrees
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Howard
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Most have ongoing legal practice
5. Local community involvement • Will select local community partner later
6. Budget credibility, emphasis • Only provide 90 day budget
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders
8. Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features

*Baxter, Baker, Sidle, Conn & Jones P.A
Comparison Criteria:
1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy, whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Addressed each monitoring tasks in detail with which team member brings expertise and some ideas on implementation. • Seem to understand local situation • From perspective of offering advice – not clear on process, i.e., analyses, intervention/training, monitor/assess implementation
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Mostly minority team from around the country led by a local firm: two police chiefs, local attorney, Ashton, minority who has represented the FOP and individual officers, a test developer for early detection of behavior issues, Dr Ashton, Consent Decree Monitor, Examination Supervisor, in Providence, Rhode Island, , • LAPD, met the requirements of the LAPD/DOJ Consent Decree. • Attorney, Civic Works, IT expert, BNIA-Director is local.
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor, Sanchez, and Deputy Monitor, Quijas, are minority retired police chiefs, non-local • Local firm appears in the lead on managing the process
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment o Handy chart on hours not available implying that the remaining hours are for monitoring – some key people seem already committed to other assignments. Key researcher will be in India until Nov.
5. Local community involvement • Claim they will have f2f meetings with all of Baltimore’s neighborhoods
6. Budget credibility, emphasis • Flat fee
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders
• Includes “addressing and eliminating conscious and unconscious bias in interactions between officers and citizens as well as in the recruitment, retention, and promotion of law enforcement officers”. (Dr Ashton may be key in addressing this)
• Suggest modifying the CD depending on outcomes of monitoring efforts
8. Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features

BithGroup Comparison Criteria:
1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy, whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity
• Local Maryland minority firm • Team consist of a variety of individuals related to law enforcement and security, academicians,
entrepreneurs in various miscellaneous professions – private investigators in the DC area – many team members have non-relevant experiences to this assignment • Minority IT and project management company headquartered in Baltimore • Didn’t describe experiences or how they would address each of the monitoring tasks • Many members to be determined • No monitoring experience, criminology professors are noted as legal experts 3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Minority monitor, Hughes, with police (MCD) experience • Emphasized ability to manage a complex assignment
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Monitor will be full time as well as the “Director of Implementation, Bozman,
5. Local community involvement
6. Budget credibility, emphasis • Hourly rates were a rate for mix of team members
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders
8. Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features

CAG Consulting
Comparison Criteria:
• Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy, whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Each monitoring task is addressed comprehensively and with specific relevance to that particular task, e.g. training raised quality and current relevancy and how tracked for impact • Most extensive explanation of data collection and analysis – a comprehensive insight into the day-to-day interactions of how monitoring is done – emphasizing impact • Sophisticated data collection and tracking devises
• Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Team of ex and current police commanders, many playing various roles in IACP and in 15 past and current consent decree monitoring – have SME needed • Mostly non-local, some diversity
• Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor Gruber, head of CAG • Deputy monitor, Plitt, is local (Harford County)
• Time availability of team members for this assignment • Deputy Monitor, local, full time, others part time (monitor will be full time within the year) • Other members have substantial positions but make credible argument for availability
• Local community involvement • Local partners to be selected
• Budget credibility, emphasis • Detailed, normal out-of-town T&E expense percentage • Close to the maximum
• Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders
• Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features • Recognized LEOBR, relations with the states attorney as other contextual issues to address

*CNA
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized
• Familiar with Baltimore community, BPD and Consent Decree • Strategy emphasizes TA and training, stakeholder and BPD buy-in • Detailed approach to 15/17 topic areas
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Large team with direct police experience, managing data/research, IT matters, • Minority led, • Strong local Baltimore component of community engagement leaders • Broad experience with DOJ agreements and consent decree monitoring throughout the country • CME in every area needed to implement monitoring plan including citizen advisory
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor and deputy monitor – both non-local (although monitor may reside in DC) • Both will be directly involved with managing team • Local point person for community engagement • Well thought out plan for managing team
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Monitors and key leaders appear to have the time needed to devote to this assignment
5. Local community inclusion • Use local partner: individuals at Coppin State College and other Baltimore community leaders • Extensive resources devoted to community engagement including a “Community Council” in support of the Community Oversight Task Force
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Budget reflects not only monitoring tasks but includes TA and training (offer training in areas already addressed by BPD – perhaps improving training is more advisable). • Because many of the team are located throughout the country, T&E is a significant portion of the budget • No individual rates are identified
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • Strategy includes extensive building community and BPD support
8. Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features
1

Daigle Law Group
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Appear to have legal perspective • No feel for Baltimore • No detail, no mention of Monitoring Plan and how it would be developed • Did not address 17 topic areas except to mention team’s general experience in each •
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Strong on legal, police experience, • Weak on data/research, • Small team that is diverse • Solid police experience (“Equally important, we have the patience, experience, and restraint to provide monitoring services in a manner that minimizes the intrusion into the day-to-day affairs of the police department.”) • Members involved in several monitoring assignments, including one of the first
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor, a lawyer, will act as project manager, Deputy Monitor experienced in police and monitoring •
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Many on the team already work full time, leaving questionable time for this assignment
5. Local community inclusion • To be selected in first 60 days (“recognize the importance of picking the right leaders”) • involved (Professor Tyler) in the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice. • No sense of importance of community engagement
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Very detailed, consistent • Significant T&E – all team members are out-of-towners
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • Application leaves no sense of how this would happen
8. Other advantages or disadvantages

DLA Piper
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • As a local based group, familiar with issues (added concern about violent crime rate – did not
connect with basic cause, ie. “trust”) • Responded thoroughly to qualifications but did not provide details of how a monitoring effort
would be conducted.
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Local lawyers, significant police chiefs, local institutional partners – MSU, JHU, UMAB, UB – high level IT. • Diverse but not Black led • Drs Greenberg and Webster are notable for police research on best practices and training • Only list who would address each of the 17 topic areas – no details on how each would be addressed • Only general comments on Monitoring Plan – does not reflect much insight into internal police workings • Lots of local involvement – studies, surveys, professional interventions
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Involved in other high profile Consent Decree (Penn State) •
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Most, if not all, of the team members have other full-time commitments, some with substantial responsibilities especially Johnson the most notable for police work
5. Local community inclusion • Local elite institutions – not grassroots • Approach is reasonable but done by institutional leaders •
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • List specific hourly rates commensurate with each team member • Normal rates are much higher, willing to provide discount rates and pro bono contributions
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • Not specifically addressed although as a locally based group, the institutional base of this group would most likely help to sustain reforms
8. Other advantages or disadvantages • Claim connections in the philanthropic community to leverage more funds for BCP

EbevyYG
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Doesn’t seem to have a full picture of what the Consent Decree entails • Takes a community engagement decision-making approach • Do not address each of the 17 topic areas except in listing who will address and their
qualifications
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Minority led • Have a team with all the credentials at some level, but very focused on training • No experience in Consent Decree monitoring
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor, Dr Young, minority, will be point person – has police background and understanding of what others will need to complete tasks •
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Baltimore will compete with other assignments but availability seems ok
5. Local community inclusion • Only list general approaches consistent with how police might approach
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Budget reflects approach • Has specific rates commensurate with each team member • Heavy on T&E and overhead
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • Not specifically mentioned
8. Other advantages or disadvantages • Most team members live in Harrisburg/Philly area

Elite Performance (EPAC)
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Seems to put more emphasis on auditing • Don’t seem to have a “feel” for Baltimore and local environment
• Offered only general outlines of how they would approach assignment • Appear to only see this assignment from a legal/police perspective
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Broad array of skills and backgrounds mostly as former officers of the LAPD • One team member, Weinstein, has experience with police unions • One team member, Casimere, is an SME and was former president of IACOLE – International Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement • Gender diversity • Extensive experience with law enforcement • Familiar with implementing CD from police perspective
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Led by attorney as monitor, Reynolds • “Executive Advisor” led LAPD effort to comply with CD
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • No mention of other competing assignments, only what hours would be devoted to 17 topic areas • Team members are either on staff or are retired
5. Local community inclusion • No mention of how the community would be involved • Basic approach seem to be from a police perspective
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Only personnel hours and time were described • No T&E which would have to be extensive since most are West coast • Individual hourly rates commensurate with each team member
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • No sensibility of how to maintain reforms
8. Other advantages or disadvantages • SMEs on civilian oversight and police union • West-coast based

Exiger
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Seem to have a feel for Baltimore’s situation • One team member, Davis, has worked extensively since 2014 with Baltimore thru COPS program • Very coherent and strategic approach to developing monitoring plan • Each of the qualifying areas were extensively addressed
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity
• Broad array of top notch experts – many police commanders and most have monitoring experience
• One team member, Smoot, has experience with police unions • Appear to have insight into monitoring details thru monitoring roles in LA, Seattle, and
Cleveland • Diverse gender and race
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor, Schlanger, and deputy, Ramsey (minority, 21st Century) will lead team, have extensive monitoring experience • Monitor and other team members “wrote the book” on monitoring
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Most are staff of consultant firms and have time • Both monitor and deputy are a “train ride away”
5. Local community inclusion • Will establish a local advisory board with a TBD Baltimore leader as liaison • Seem unaware of the Mayor’s monitoring task force • One team member, Drake, worked in Baltimore in community engagement (Living Classrooms) and manages COPS grants • Use of surveys, technology but no mention of informal contact
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Fixed price – used in LA with results of no increases and all deliverables • Uses blended rate with 10% for T&E • One page of details
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • Propose developing internal monitoring that can be sustained over time
8. Other advantages or disadvantages

Gallagher, Evelius and Jones
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Local, familiar with Baltimore community • Seem to view BPD as already doing everything in the CD • Seem to lack insight on how a police department operates
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Mostly lawyers, front-line previous police, internal IT, sociologist researchers • Diverse team, white led • Not much in-depth experience with monitoring and police work • Monitor has related monitoring experience, no one else (will id experts to include later)
1. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor, Kieth, attorney •
2. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Most team members are attorneys and academics and can adjust their schedules
3. Local community inclusion • Intend to conduct many community meetings, focus groups, informal connections • Team members are involved in Baltimore charity groups but not minority based groups •
4. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Monitor and back office support and IT some hours donated, reduced rates • No budget for T&E (because all team members are local) but later selected outside experts may require T&E
5. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • As a committed local group want to see reform sustain but don’t describe how
6. Other advantages or disadvantages • Local • Lack of police experience

Gansler and Ivey
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Recognizes issues as systemic • Appear to understand day-to-day dynamics of police operations • Very detailed approach – very clear on informal vs formal information gathering
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Diverse team – co-led W/B • Have all the qualifications for team – lawyers, police, data/research – gained locally in Baltimore City and PG • May lack data collection experience (mostly analysis) • One team member had direct experience with implementing CD (James), another overseeing (Ivey) • Have played investigative but not monitoring role • No specific comment on heart of issue – racial bias – but have experience in area
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • “co-monitors”, Gansler and Ivey, minority
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • All team members serve as lawyers, professors, pastor – as such, they have full time jobs.
5. Local community inclusion • Led by local pastor (Yeary, Douglas Mem.) who is involved in local safety issues – not necessarily connected to grass-roots efforts.
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Gansler – pro bono • Provide break down of rates commensurate with person
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • No discernable reference to what happens after 5 years
8. Other advantages or disadvantages • “co-monitors” – who is the point person?

Kroll
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • At high level • No comment on 17 topic areas and how they would be addressed
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Headed by retired Dallas Police Commissioner, Brown • Academic and local community members TBD • Comprehensive team of active employees • Appears diverse • Major police experience • No police CD monitoring experience, although many succinct, specific areas of investigations
1. Team management: Point person – project manager • Brown is full-time employee of Kroll and will spend 25% on this assignment •
2. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Hard to determine what other assignments will compete with this one
3. Local community inclusion • Community liaison selected after award • Very extensive design to determine opinions and changes in resident views of police • No design of community involvement •
4. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Claim reduced rates, pro bono work • Will provide additional information if selected
5. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • Want to build in self-assessment tools that will last beyond the five years
6. Other advantages or disadvantages • Prestige leader, Brown with competent back-up team

Lemire
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • General understanding • Responded to qualification questions, no detail on approach
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Have basic team members necessary except for community engagement and local presence • One team member, Tidwell, has experience with community oversight • Diverse, • Police, lawyers, experience with CD monitoring assignments
1. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor, Lemire, will be team lead
2. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Available as part of regular employment of the team, no specific sense of what else is competing
3. Local community inclusion • Will add local Baltimore members for engagement after award
4. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Rates commensurate with individuals
5. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders
6. Other advantages or disadvantages

Loyola
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Driven by an organization change approach • Focused mainly on organizational change with minor roles for team members who understand
policing
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Local team of academics, lawyers, individuals with police experience • Diverse, emphasis on racial justice • May not understand the nuances of monitoring
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor and lead is professor of Psych at Loyola, minority
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Have flexibility to move around assignments
5. Local community inclusion • Acknowledged BPD current reform efforts • One member, Johnson, volunteered after uprising in W Baltimore – circles of grief to process •
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • General budget may not have understanding of what it will take • Claim reduced rates but rates quoted appear to be regular rates
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • Lasting change due to organizational change
8. Other advantages or disadvantages • Local and unique approach, i.e., emphases on organizational change and racial equity

Ness and Associates
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • More as a monitor, less emphasis on Baltimore • legalistic
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Phoenix based team • Diversity – not addressed • No understanding of local conditions • Mix of police experience • No experience with Police CD
3. Team management: Point person – project manager
• Monitor, Ness
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Each have reasonable availability
5. Local community inclusion • Missing •
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • missing
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders
8. Other advantages or disadvantages

Pallas Global
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Oriented toward enforcement • Mostly describe experience to carry out assignments, no details of how
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Have basic police, technical, prosecutors, and is diverse • Based in NYC • Investigating, monitoring other non-police CD
1. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor/prosecutor, WBE
2. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Time commitment seem reasonable and credible
3. Local community inclusion • Local presence is former BPD lieutenant who seems to have been in charge of many of the aspects that currently need reforming, is currently Coppin professor •
4. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Blended rate, general • Claim pro bono hours
5. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • No sense, seem restricted to assignment
6. Other advantages or disadvantages

*Powers Consulting
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • “get” police/community dynamics: “double consciousness - that simultaneously recognized the
need for effective policing to serve and protect the people and to dramatically reduce crime; and that all too often made the people that were to be protected the victims of both cops and robbers” • Emphasis police/community collaboration • Describes very detailed step-by-step process for implementation grounded in collaboration • Recognizes current BPD efforts
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Have the requisite team member composition, diverse • Majority are local, Black led, mostly minority • Have sensitivity to police and community perspectives, particularly racial bias issues • Team member, Oliver, has police CD implementation experience • Team member, Lucchi, has experience with L.E.O.B.R. • Blythe is on Balto’s Civilian Review Board
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor, Powers, is Baltimore resident, minority
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Monitor will be full time • Other team members have credible availability
5. Local community inclusion • Local meetings, and other broad ways to communicate formally and informally – e.g. surveys, website, social media, also mentioned TV25, radio • Recognized formal and informal groups and meeting venues by lists (but failed to mention some of the minority groups most active, e.g. Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle)
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Very general but list individual rates with broad guesstimates of hours, less than usual T&E • Willing to go beyond budget with pro bono hours
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • Grounded in local community
8. Other advantages or disadvantages • Describe a managing entity that is thorough, practical and sensible - unique

Robert Bob Group
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • No specific approach • Merely repeated RFP requirements
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Has all need experts: police, legal, limited local understanding, diverse • Mostly East coast based • No police CD implementation
1. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor, Bob, will be project manager as his consulting firms lead • Minority
2. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Not clear
3. Local community inclusion • No discernable involvement or how to involve except to set up a steering committee •
4. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • General expenses, no individual rates/hours • One partner, Lawyers Committee, uses pro bono lawyers to reduce cost
5. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders
6. Other advantages or disadvantages

*Susan Burke
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Emphasizes community participation • Proposal lists step-by-step technical details on monitoring implementation including providing
specific examples of BPD policies and training topics and how they will be reviewed and addressed – the most thorough. • Plan list 52 weekly steps in first year, quarterly the second year
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • Led by Balto resident lawyer, have necessary team SMEs • diverse • Team member, Green and Braun on monitoring team for Cinci, LA sheriffs, Seattle, Cleveland
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor, Burke, local attorney, will lead
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Most team members have substantial current obligations but have committed to making adjustments to be available.
5. Local community inclusion • Local hired resident staff: 3 youth and 2 formerly incarcerated • Funding Community Coalition • W Balto native, Smith, will handle community engagement but will also be running for elected office (district 40) • Burke involved in No Boundaries •
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Provides cost savings (including reduced rate and cap for Burke) and included paying for local staff • Very detailed budget for rate/hourly work and other expenses, T&E is the lowest • May have underestimated the amount of effort and costs
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders
8. Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features • Local hired resident staff: 3 youth and 2 formerly incarcerated • A potential adversarial relationship with police because emphasis is prosecution/enforcement

The Bromwich Group
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Did homework, seem to grasp local challenges • Gain confidence of police, clarify monitoring role • Provided initial steps in starting monitoring process with strong indications of familiarity of what
needs to be done • Merely list experiences with qualifications without how each would be addressed
2. Team make-up, experience: police Consent Decree (CD) implementation, policing experience, research/IT, local Baltimore understanding, diversity • DC based with most team members from around the country, somewhat diverse, • Strong on monitoring skills, weak on data/research and local presence • Emphasis on mental health and youth team members, James and Watson •
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor and point person, Bromwhich, led monitoring effort (MPD) and 6-yr post follow up
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Most team members have other obligations but availability can be justified except for Bromwhich
5. Local community inclusion • Assumed as part of regular police relations • No particular insights or strategies
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • No details, only annual amounts and some narrative justification
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • Have great insight in what a reform effort looks like after 6 years
8. Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features • Clarify role of monitor with parties • 6 year post monitoring follow up • Meet first with DOJ CD investigators for briefing

*Venable
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Monitoring role is limited (and seems to be reflected in protecting budget) • Unclear whether TA and training will be included in assignment • Appear to understand and appreciate current BPD efforts • Have detailed plan of implementation
2. Team make-up, experience: consent decree implementation police matters, data/research, local understanding, diversity • Monitoring five police departments • Most team members are non-local, diverse and cover all subject matter areas
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Monitor is Thompson, local minority law partner, and two deputies: lawyer and police commander •
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Most team members with monitoring experience and consultants currently monitoring • Others have substantial positions who are either retiring or can minimize other obligations
5. Local community inclusion • A liaison to be selected • Not described
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Two options – fixed fee, at a savings and hourly with reduced rates • T&E high
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • Recognizes need to institutionalize self-correcting reforms
8. Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features • Practical Monitoring Plan content outline • Monitor served on Mayor’s transition team (wife is deputy director of Balto Public Works)

Whiteford Taylor
Criteria: 1. Understanding and approach to assignment: thoroughness and detail of how to proceed, strategy,
whether each of the 17 CD Core Elements are addressed and inherent culture of racial inequity is recognized • Legalistic • Detailed plan of evaluation • Addressed each section of the application thoroughly
2. Team make-up, experience: consent decree implementation police matters, data/research, local understanding, diversity • Somewhat diverse, most non-local, have appropriate SME • No apparent police CD monitoring experience • Some team members are listed without any particular role or assignment •
3. Team management: Point person – project manager • Local monitor, law partner, Zollicoffer
4. Time availability of team members for this assignment • Listed hours for each team member but no sense of other responsibilities
5. Local community inclusion • No discernable plan
6. Budget internal consistency – reflects emphasis • Confusing but detailed
7. Sustainability after monitors are gone – what’s left behind and constituency to support longevity of reforms – from community, elected officials, police – front-line and leaders • Acknowledge the need to leave behind tools to continue
8. Other advantages or disadvantages, unique features • Very detailed explanation of each of how the 17 Core Elements will be evaluated for compliance

17. James Scanlan

Comments of James P. Scanlan Regarding Selection of Monitor for Consent Decree in United States v. Police Department of Baltimore City et al., No. 17-cv-00099 (June 26, 2017)

These comments are submitted pursuant to the June 15, 2017 Amended Notice Regarding Comment on Monitor Selection in United States v. Police Department of Baltimore City and Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, No. 17-cv-00099.
Introduction
In earlier comments1 regarding this case, I explained that a central premise of the proposed Consent Decree was the opposite of reality. I also urged the court to postpone action on the matter until the parties fully understood how the premise was mistaken. The Consent Decree was nevertheless entered without any party’s addressing the mistaken premise. The purpose of the instant comments is to explain the pertinence of points made in the earlier comments to the selection of a Monitor and the activities of the Monitor and to suggest that the Monitor candidates be requested to provide supplemental submissions indicating whether they are capable of analyzing demographic differences in a statistically sound manner.
As explained in the earlier comments, consistent with a great many things the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other government agencies have done in recent decades, the Consent Decree is premised on the belief that relaxing standards or otherwise reducing the frequency of adverse outcomes will tend to reduce (a) relative (percentage) racial and other demographic differences in rates of experiencing those outcomes and (b) the proportions African Americans and other groups more susceptible to the outcomes make up of persons experiencing the outcomes.
In fact, relaxing standards or otherwise reducing the frequency of adverse outcomes tends to increase, not reduce, both (a) and (b). That is, restricting any adverse outcome to persons most susceptible to it, while tending to reduce relative differences in rates of experiencing the corresponding favorable outcome, tends to increase relative differences in the adverse outcome itself.2 Similarly, such restricting of an adverse outcome, while tending to increase the proportions groups most susceptible to the outcome make up of persons experiencing the corresponding favorable outcome (hence, reducing all measures of difference between the proportions such groups make up of the relevant pool and the proportions they make up of persons experiencing the favorable outcome), also tends to increase the proportions the most susceptible groups make up of persons experiencing the adverse outcome itself (hence, increasing all measures of difference between the proportions such groups make up of the relevant pool and the proportion they make up of persons experiencing the adverse outcome).
1 To facilitate consideration of issues raised in documents such as this I include links to referenced materials in electronic copies of the documents, in some cases, for the reader’s convenience, providing the links more than once. Such copies are available by means of the Measurement Letters page of jpscanlan.com. The online version of the document may be corrected or annotated, in which case such fact will be noted on the first page.
2 I cast the matter in terms of restricting the adverse outcome to those most susceptible to it in order to make the matter easier to understand. But the pertinent statistical pattern arises from restricting any outcome (whether adverse or favorable) to persons most susceptible to it. Doing so tends to reduce relative differences between rates of experiencing the corresponding opposite outcome and increase relative differences between rates of experiencing the outcome itself.

I have presented the key statistical points fairly succinctly in “Things DoJ doesn’t know about racial disparities in Ferguson,” The Hill (Feb. 22, 2016), “Misunderstanding of Statistics Leads to Misguided Law Enforcement Policies,” Amstat News (Dec. 2012), and “The Paradox of Lowering Standards,” Baltimore Sun (Aug. 5, 2013). I have explained them more fully, with a focus on the instant Consent Decree, in “Compliance Nightmare Looms for Baltimore Police Department,” Federalist Society Blog (Feb. 8, 2017). See also discussion of DOJ actions regarding Baltimore police practices in “Misunderstanding of Statistics Confounds Analyses of Criminal Justice Issues in Baltimore and Voter ID Issues in Texas and North Carolina,” Federalist Society Blog (Oct. 3, 2016), “Will Trump Have the First Numerate Administration?” Federalist Society Blog (Jan. 4, 2017), and “Racial Impact Statement Laws in New Jersey and Elsewhere,” Federalist Society Blog (Mar. 20, 2017). The February 8 and March 20, 2017 Federalist Society Blog posts both discuss that the process of finalizing the Baltimore Consent Decree, including the selection of a Monitor, could provide an opportunity for the DOJ to educate itself regarding a matter where its civil rights enforcement policies have long been based on a fundamental misunderstanding of statistics.
The pertinent patterns are also discussed at length in my comments for the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking (Nov. 14, 2016) (at 2-3, 24-29), while referencing DOJ actions in Baltimore, Maryland, and Ferguson, Missouri. The fifth through seventh recommendations to the Commission (at 46) are aimed at law enforcement and other government activities based on the mistaken understanding of the effects of reducing the frequency of adverse outcomes on measures of demographic difference regarding the outcomes.
A recent attempt to explain this matter to DOJ may be found in my April 13, 2017 letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Acting Assistant Attorney General T. E. Wheeler, III (Sessions letter). My earlier attempts to explain this matter to the DOJ may be found in letters to the agency dated May 9, 2015, and April 23, 2012. I have also addressed this matter in emails to DOJ attorneys handling this case, among other things, stressing their obligation to explain to the court that a central premise of the Consent Decree is incorrect. But, as discussed in the Sessions letter, there are many areas where DOJ has led courts, policy makers, and the public to believe that actions will tend to reduce certain measures of racial and other disparities when in fact the actions will tend to increase those measures, and where the agency has an obligation to correct the misunderstandings it has caused or contributed to. For example, DOJ, in conjunction with other agencies, has led lenders and public schools to mistakenly believe that relaxing lending and school discipline standards will tend to reduce relative racial/ethnic differences in adverse borrower outcomes and adverse school discipline outcomes. DOJ has an obligation to inform such entities that the agency’s views of such matters were mistaken.
Such obligations are among the reasons that DOJ should fully avail itself of the opportunity afforded by the Consent Decree Monitor selection process to educate itself on a matter that it has long misunderstood. Once DOJ fully understands the matter, it should immediately recognize an obligation to correct the misunderstandings its actions in this case have caused for the court, the defendants, and the citizens of Baltimore.
I illustrate the pertinent statistical principles with six tables below. Table 1 though 3, which are also Tables 1 through 3 of the Sessions letter, show that lowering test cutoffs or
2

income or credit score requirements will tend to increase relative differences in rates of failing the test and failing to meet the income or credit score requirements (while also showing, expressly or impliedly, that lowering the cutoff or requirements will tend to increase the proportion disadvantaged groups make up of persons failing to reach the test cutoff or failing to meet the income and credit score requirements). Table 4 shows how a dramatic reduction in searches by the U.S. Customs Service between 1998 and 2000 was accompanied by a dramatic increase in the proportion blacks made up of persons searched. Tables 5 and 6 show how modifying preschool discipline policies such as to give all students a reprimand rather than what would otherwise be their first suspensions would increase the proportion black children and male children make up of suspended preschool students.3
These comments principally focus on two matters. One involves ensuring that the selected Monitor understands that, contrary to the premise of the decree, relaxing standards or otherwise reducing the frequency of adverse criminal justice outcomes would tend to increase, not decrease, relative racial differences in such outcomes and the proportion African Americans and other disadvantaged groups make up of persons experiencing the outcomes, as well as ensuring that the Monitor also understands certain related issues concerning the measurement of demographic differences. A second matter involves ensuring fairness and efficiency in the selection of a Monitor, given that currently the statistical experts identified in the Monitor proposals, like most persons who analyze demographic differences, are likely to share the misunderstandings reflected in the aforementioned premise of the decree and are likely to fail to understand important related issues.
In particular regarding the latter matter, consistent with the beliefs long explicitly or impliedly reflected in government policies and largely unquestioned by the statistical and social science research communities, the statistical experts identified in the Monitor proposals probably all believe that relaxing a standard or otherwise reducing the frequency of an adverse outcome will tend to reduce relative differences in rates of experiencing the adverse outcome and the proportions groups most susceptible to the outcome make up of persons experiencing it. As discussed, and as will be illustrated below, the opposite is the case.
In the criminal justice context, to use an example based on a DOJ misunderstanding discussed in February 22, 2016 Hill item mentioned above and the Sessions letter (at 11), the experts identified in the Monitor proposals probably all believe that increasing the number of missed court appearances necessary to trigger issuance of an arrest warrant would tend to reduce the proportions groups with higher rates of missed court appearances make up of persons against whom warrants are issued for missed court appearances. To use an example implied in the February and March 2017 Federalist Society Blog posts mentioned above, the experts probably all believe that increasing the threshold for use of force by police would tend to reduce the proportions African Americans make up of persons against whom force is used.4 Similarly, to
3 Tables 1 though 3 also show the effects on the measures of difference as to the opposite (favorable) outcomes, while Table 4 though 6 do not.
4 I often cast the matter in terms “relaxing a standard or otherwise reducing the frequency of an adverse outcome” because of a focus since 2012 on perceptions about relative differences in adverse borrower or adverse school discipline outcomes. In the case of police use of force the matter might be cast in terms of raising the standard for
3

use an example based on Table 4 below, the experts probably all believe that generally restricting searches in Baltimore would tend to reduce the proportions African Americans make up of persons searched. The experts probably also believe that the implementation of the alternatives to arrest and incarceration discussed in Paragraphs 218 and 219 of the Consent Decree would tend to reduce the proportions African Americans make up of young people arrested or incarcerated. Again, such actions are more likely to increase those proportions.
Further, Paragraph 423 of the Consent Decree requires that the Baltimore Police Department, with the aid of the Monitor, conduct an in-depth review of police hiring procedures to identify practices with a disparate impact on any demographic category and implement less discriminatory alternatives to such practices. As explained in the earlier comments in this case and the Sessions letter, while relaxing hiring standards will tend to reduce relative differences in rates of meeting the standards, it will tend to increase relative differences in failing to meet the standards. Thus, one will commonly reach opposite conclusions as to whether a modification to a practice has increased or decreased a disparate impact depending on which outcome one examines. Probably, however, all or most of the experts identified in the Monitor proposals are unaware that it is even possible for the relative difference in the favorable outcome and the relative difference in the corresponding adverse outcome to change in opposite directions as a standard is raised or lowered, much less that this will tend to occur systematically.
Effectively analyzing the data on demographic differences will be a crucial Monitor function. Currently, it is probable than none of the Monitor candidates’ statistical experts has the knowledge and understanding to perform such function, though all may have the expertise to deal with pertinent issues once they have considered the points made in these comments and the Sessions letter and materials it references. 5 It would seem neither fair nor efficient to select candidates for interview from among entities that currently cannot perform a key monitoring function and then to educate the selected candidates or the ultimate selectee on performance of that function. It would be both fairer and more efficient for the Parties to request that the Monitor candidates provide supplemental submissions addressing the measurement issues discussed here and in referenced materials and explaining how they would deal with those issues. Then, after review of the supplemental submissions (and public comment thereon), the Parties
the use of force. Raising the standard for imposition of the adverse outcome is the same thing as lowering the standard for experiencing the corresponding favorable outcome.
5 It is, of course, possible that some of the experts in fact have an understanding of these issues since the patterns I describe are implied in many things most persons with statistical training do understand. Further, I have previously contacted at least two of the experts identified in Monitor proposals regarding measurement issues related to the issues addressed here. But, as discussed in my “Race and Mortality Revisited,” Society (July/Aug. 2014), “The Mismeasure of Health Disparities,” Journal of Public Health Management and Practice (July/Aug. 2016), Comments for the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking (Nov. 14, 2016), and Comments for the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking (Nov. 28, 2016), understandings of the ways measures tend to be affected by the frequency of an outcome is extremely rare even among persons whose principal activities involve the analyses of data on group differences. If any experts identified in the Monitor proposals have already demonstrated an understanding of the issues discussed here (including those in the concluding paragraphs), such fact should be an important consideration favoring the particular proposals.
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can determine which applicants to interview from among candidates that appear capable of effectively analyzing demographic differences regarding the matters addressed in the Consent Decree.
There are substantial benefits of proceeding in this manner. First, the supplemental submissions would greatly aid the Parties in determining whether Monitor candidates are capable of addressing all relevant the statistical issues.
Second, given that the Consent Decree is premised on the mistaken understanding discussed above, Monitor candidates whose statistical experts now understand the pertinent issues (or whose statistical experts come to understand them as a result of review of this document or materials it references) may be reluctant to address those issues with the Parties out of concern that doing so will reduce the candidates’ chances of selection. The request for supplemental submissions should materially assuage that concern, especially if, in requesting the supplemental submissions, the Parties acknowledge that the points made here are essentially correct.
Third, the request for supplemental submission can serve as means of informing the citizens of Baltimore of the reasons that the Consent Decree may not dramatically reduce the measures of disparity employed in the DOJ’s underlying report and may in fact increase those measures. The Parties should, however, also take more formal and comprehensive actions to alert the citizens of Baltimore regarding mistaken impressions as to the consequences of the Consent Decree that DOJ actions here and elsewhere have promoted.
Fourth, once the candidates’ statistical experts have been focused on the unsoundness of the statistical approaches long employed by the DOJ and other federal agencies, those experts, by means of the supplemental submissions and otherwise, may substantially assist DOJ in its own understanding of the pertinent statistical issues. That could be so with respect both to the Consent Decree itself and to the many other matters where the agency’s failure of understanding has undermined its civil rights enforcement activities.
Description of pertinent statistical patterns
For reasons related to the shapes of underlying distributions of factors associated with experiencing an outcome or its opposite, all standard measures of differences between outcome rates (i.e., the proportions of demographic groups experiencing a binary outcome) tend to be affected by the frequency of an outcome. The pattern most pertinent here is that whereby the rarer an outcome, the greater tends to be the relative difference in experiencing it and the smaller tends to be the relative difference in avoiding it (i.e., experiencing the opposite outcome). A corollary to this pattern is a pattern whereby the rarer an outcome, the greater tend to be the proportions groups most susceptible to the outcome make up of both persons who experience the outcome and persons who avoid the outcome.
The patterns can be easily illustrated with normally distributed test score data. Table 1 below shows the pass and fail rates of an advantaged group (AG) and a disadvantaged group (DG) at two cutoff points in a situation where the groups have normally distributed test scores
5

with means that differ by half a standard deviation (a situation where approximately 31 percent of DG’s scores are above the AG mean) and both distributions have the same standard deviation. The table also shows (in columns 5 through 8) measures that might be used to appraise differences in test outcomes of AG and DG.
Column 5, which presents the ratio of AG’s pass rate to DG’s pass rate,6 shows that at the higher cutoff, where pass rates are 80 percent for AG and 63 percent for DG, AG’s pass rate is 1.27 times (27 percent greater than) DG’s pass rate. If the cutoff is lowered to the point where AG’s pass rate is 95 percent, DG’s pass rate would be about 87 percent. At the lower cutoff, AG’s pass rate is only 1.09 times (9 percent greater than) DG’s pass rate.

Table 1. Illustration of effects of lowering a test cutoff on measures of differences in test outcomes

Row (1) AG Pass Rate

(2) DG Pass Rate

(3) AG Fail Rate

(4) DG Fail Rate

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

AG/DG DG/AG DG Prop DG Prop

Pass Ratio Fail Ratio of Pass of Fail

1

80%

63%

20%

37%

1.27

1.85

44%

65%

2

95%

87%

5%

13%

1.09

2.60

48%

72%

That lowering a cutoff tends to reduce relative differences in pass rates is well understood and underlies the widespread view that lowering a cutoff tends to reduce the disparate impact of tests on which some groups outperform others.

But, whereas lowering a cutoff tends to reduce relative differences in pass rates, it tends to increase relative differences in failure rates. As shown in column 6, initially DG’s failure rate was 1.85 times (85 percent greater than) AG’s failure rate. With the lower cutoff, DG’s failure rate is 2.6 times (160 percent greater than) AG’s failure rate.

Columns 7 and 8 show the proportions DG makes up of persons who pass and fail the test at each cutoff in a situation where DG makes up 50 percent of persons taking the test. Column 7 shows that lowering the cutoff increases the proportion DG makes up of persons who pass from 44 percent to 48 percent (hence, reducing all measures of difference between the proportions DG makes up of persons who took the test and persons who passed the test). Column 8 shows that lowering the cutoff increases the proportion DG makes up persons who fail the test from 65

6 While I commonly refer to patterns of relative differences in this letter, the table actually presents rate ratios (also termed risk ratios or relative risks). The relative difference is the rate ratio minus 1 where the rate ratio is above 1 and 1 minus the rate ratio where the rate ratio is below one. In the former case, the larger the rate ratio, the larger the relative difference; in the latter case, the smaller the rate ratio, the larger the relative difference. It is more common to employ the disadvantaged group’s rate as the numerator for the favorable as well as the adverse outcome, which is the approach as to favorable outcomes of the “four-fifths” or “80 percent” rule for identifying disparate impact under the Uniform Guideline for Employee Selection Procedures. I have sometimes employed this approach, as in “Can We Actually Measure Health Disparities?,” Chance (Spring 2006). More recently, however, I have usually used the larger figure as the numerator for both rate ratios, in which case, as to both favorable and adverse outcomes, the larger the ratio, the larger the relative difference. Choice of numerator in the rate ratio, however, has no bearing on the patterns by which as the frequency of an outcome changes, the two relative differences tend to change in opposite directions.

6

percent to 72 percent (hence, increasing all measures of difference between the proportions DG makes up of persons who took the test and persons who failed the test).

Inasmuch as the pattern by which the proportions more susceptible groups make up of persons experiencing and avoiding an outcome tend to be affected by the frequency of an outcome is a corollary to the pattern by which the two relative differences tend to be affected by the frequency of the outcome, in the discussion that follows I limit discussion of those proportions to situations where that matter is pertinent.

The aforementioned pattern by which the two relative differences tend to be affected by the frequency of an outcome is not peculiar to test score data or the numbers I chose to illustrate it. Rather, it can be found in virtually any setting where two groups have different, more or less normal, distributions of factors associated with experiencing some outcome. Income and credit score date, for example, show how lowering an income or credit score requirement, while tending to reduce relative racial differences in meeting the requirement, will tend to increase relative racial differences in failing to meet the requirement.

Such pattern is illustrated in Tables 2 and 3 below, which are abbreviated versions of Tables 1 and 2 of the Income and Credit Score Examples subpage of the Lending Disparities page of jpscanlan.com, which also explains the origins of the data. Tables 2 and 3 follow the format of Table 1 above (without the last two columns), while presenting, in place of the AG and DG pass and fail rates, the white and black rates of falling above and below various income levels or credit scores. Movement down the five rows of the tables illustrates the effects of lowering the income or credit score requirements on the two relative differences, revealing the patterns just described. That is, the lower the requirement, and thus the greater the overall rates of meeting the requirement and the smaller the overall rates of failing to meet the requirement, the smaller is the relative difference in meeting the requirement (column 5) and the larger is the relative difference in failing to meet the requirement (column 6). One will observe the same pattern for all 16 rows of Table 1 and all 14 rows of Table 2 on the referenced webpage.

Table 2. Illustration of effects of lowering an income requirement on relative differences in meeting the requirement and relative differences in failing to meet the requirement

Income
$100,000 $85,000 $75,000 $60,000 $50,000

(1) Perc of Wh Abv
27.0%
34.6%
41.1%
52.5%
61.0%

(2) Perc of Bl Abv
12.1%
17.3%
22.7%
31.3%
39.2%

(3) Perc of Wh Bel
73.0%
65.4%
58.9%
47.5%
39.0%

(4) Perc of Bl Bel
87.9%
82.7%
77.3%
68.7%
60.8%

(5) Wh/Bl Abv Ratio
2.23
2.00
1.81
1.68
1.56

(6) Bl/Wh Bel Ratio
1.20
1.26
1.31
1.45
1.56

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Table 3. Illustration of effects of lowering a credit score requirement on relative differences in meeting the requirement and relative differences in failing to meet the requirement

Score
740 720 700 680 660

(1) Perc of Wh Abv
46.80%
57.77%
67.83%
76.73%
83.90%

(2) Perc of Bl Abv 19.50%
27.01%
35.67%
45.42%
55.70%

(3) Perc of Wh Bel 53.20%
42.23%
32.17%
23.27%
16.10%

(4) Perc of Bl Bel 80.50%
72.99%
64.33%
54.58%
44.30%

(5) W/B Abv
Ratio 2.40
2.14
1.90
1.69
1.51

(6) B/W Bel
Ratio 1.51
1.73
2.00
2.35
2.75

Table 4 is based on data from June 28, 2001 Washington Post article titled “New Policies Aim to Discourage Racial Profiling.” The article discussed that between 1998 and 2000 the U.S. Customs Service implemented a number of reforms aimed at reducing racial disproportionality in searches by generally restricting the use of searches. Reforms included requiring supervisory approval for intrusive searches. The article discussed the program, which dramatically reduced the number of searches, as one that in fact was reducing racial disproportionality. Data in the article, however, showed that the proportion blacks made up of persons searched increased from 14.1% to 27.1%.

Table 4. Change in black proportion of persons searched by U.S. Customs Service between 1998 and 2000 (a period during which the Service enacted reforms restricting the use of searches, including by, inter alia, requiring supervisory approval for intrusive searches)

Year
1998 2000

Total Searches
43,606 9,020

Black Searches
6,141 2,441

Black Proportion of Persons Searched
14.1% 27.1%

The information in Tables 5 and 6 is drawn from a March 2014 Department of Education publication titled “Data Snapshot: School Discipline.” The document provided information on the proportions demographic groups made up of preschool students suspended one time and suspended multiple times. From the information provided, one can then determine the
proportions the groups made up of persons suspended one or more times and more than one time, which information is presented for black students in the two rows of the table.7

7 Demographic differences in rates of experiencing things like single suspensions cannot be effectively analyzed, just as differences in rates of receiving grades of C or experiencing fair health cannot be effectively analyzed. See the Intermediate Outcomes subpage the Scanlan’s Rule page of jpscanlan.com. It is possible the Department of Education has come to appreciate aspects of this issue. In the agency’s 2016 publication on school discipline titled “2013-2014 Civil Rights Data Collection – A First Look,” the agency included single suspensions within the category of “one or more suspensions.”
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Table 5 shows that if the standards were relaxed such that all persons suspended one or more times were given a reprimand instead of their first suspension, the proportion black children make up of suspended students would increase from 44% to 48%.

Table 5. Illustration of effect of giving all persons a reprimand instead of their first suspension on proportion black preschool students make up of persons experiencing one or more suspensions

Outcome
One or more suspensions Two or more suspensions

Black Proportion of Students Experiencing the Outcome
44% 48%

Table 6 shows that if the standards were relaxed such that all persons suspended one or more times were given a reprimand instead of their first suspension, the proportion boys make up of suspended students would increase from 80 percent to 82 percent.

Table 6. Illustration of effect of giving all persons a reprimand instead of their first suspension on proportion male preschool students make up of persons experiencing one or more suspensions

Outcome
One or more suspensions Two or more suspensions

Black Proportion of Students Experiencing the Outcome
80% 82%

If standards were further relaxed such that all persons were given reprimands for what would otherwise be their first two suspensions, the 44 percent and 82 percent figures would almost certainly rise still further. Rarely will one fail to observe such a pattern.

In the school discipline context, in point of fact, one observes that all across the country recent reductions in discipline rates have been accompanied by increased relative racial/ethnic differences in discipline rates. See the following web pages discussing such patterns with respect to the jurisdictions indicated in the page titles: California Disparities, Colorado Disparities, Connecticut Disparities, Florida Disparities, Maryland Disparities, Minnesota Disparities, Oregon Disparities, Rhode Island Disparities, Utah Disparities, Beaverton, OR Disparities, Denver Disparities, Henrico County, VA Disparities, Los Angeles SWPBS, Minneapolis Disparities, Montgomery County, MD Disparities, Portland, OR Disparities, St. Paul Disparities, South Bend Disparities. These patterns are occurring notwithstanding that school districts may well be doing many things beyond relaxing standards in attempting to reduce racial/ethnic differences in discipline rates.

In sum, as explained more fully in the Sessions letter and the materials it references, the patterns described above are hardly debatable. They will, of course, not be observed in every situation, since other factors also play a role. Given the way in which certain adverse outcomes disproportionality occur in Baltimore neighborhoods where African Americans comprise a very

9

high proportion of residents, it is hard to predict effects on overall measures of difference of general reductions in aggressiveness of enforcement (or police presence) in particular neighborhoods. A similar issue exists with respect to changes in approaches to different types of crimes. And to the extent that any observed differences in outcome rates are functions of biased policing, and aspects of the Consent Decree reduce that bias, all measures of racial difference should decrease.
But it is not possible for an entity to effectively monitor a decree like that entered in this case or any like matter without understanding the patterns, much less while entertaining beliefs about the effects of reducing adverse outcomes on measures of disparity that are the opposite of those reflected in the tables above.
The experts identified in the Monitor proposals probably also fail to understand issues concerning the analyses of demographic differences that go beyond the subject discussed above, though the issues are implicit in that discussion. For, example, as discussed in the Sessions letter, in a situation where the pass and fail rates of Table 1 are the favorable and adverse outcome rates resulting from subjective judgments of decision-makers, there is no rational basis for maintaining that one row of the table reflects a greater likelihood of biased decision-making than the other. As also discussed in the Sessions letter, in a situation where the pass and fails rates of Table 1 are the rates of failing to use force and using force of officers instructed to limit the use of force to extreme situations, other things being equal, the more officers attempt to follow those instructions the more their results will tend to look like those in the second row than those in the first row. It is unlikely that the identified experts currently understand such things.
Further, the above-discussed failures of understanding are but part of a larger failure of persons analyzing demographic differences to recognize patterns by which commonly employed measures tend to be affected by the frequency of an outcome and to consider those patterns in endeavoring to understand underlying processes. It is thus essential that the Monitor’s statistical experts understand the range of issues discussed in “The Mismeasure of Discrimination,” Faculty Workshop, University of Kansas School of Law (Sept. 20, 2013), “Race and Mortality Revisited,” Society (July/Aug. 2014), and most parts of the Comments for the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking (Nov. 14, 2016). It is also essential that they understand the problematic issues discussed in the Addendum to the Ferguson, Missouri Arrest Disparities subpage of the Discipline Disparities page of jpscanlan.com.
Therefore, the Parties should request the Monitor candidates to address all such issues in their supplemental submissions.
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18. Lisa Bleich

From: To: Subject: Date:

Lisa Bleich Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Comments regarding the independent monitor Thursday, July 06, 2017 1:11:16 PM

Dear Puneet Chema, Esq.,

I’m writing to submit my opinion for the selection of a candidate for the Independent Monitor for the Consent Decree in Baltimore. I wish to be clear that while I am an engaged citizen in Baltimore and as all citizens do, have had interaction with Baltimore City’s Police department, my opinion is not based on any particular expertise. As an African American woman, I have experienced both the worst and best aspects from members of the department and as the Executive Director of a local nonprofit that works with school children, I am passionate that the Police Department become true partners in the turnabout of this city. It is clear to me that trust between the citizens and those engaged to serve and protect is vital to a successful revitalization for this city.

I believe it is important that the monitor be well versed in the legal issues, have a full understanding of Baltimore City culture and have an equity lens. Having reviewed many of the proposals, I was most impressed by the following:
1) Baltimore Monitor Project, 2) Gansler and Ivey 3) Gallegher, Evelius & Jones 4) Loyola University
I believe for this process to work and for the citizens of Baltimore to have confidence in law enforcement (applied fairly and justly) it is vital that former city officials and lobbyist be avoided completely. Since we have so many qualified local applicants, I believe it would be problematic to engage a monitor from outside of the State of MD. I thank you for conducting this open and transparent process for selection and allowing citizens to participate.
With kind regards, Lisa Bleich

Lisa Bleich Executive Director ACTS- Alliance for Community Teachers and Schools
4701 North Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21210
www.ACTS-Alliance.org
Main #: 410-332-0234

19. Keesha Ha

A Native Baltimorean’s Take on 26 Monitor Applications
Independence for Consenting to Reform Bad Policy and Practices
Born and raised in the public housing projects depicted in the HBO series The Wire in the 1970s and early 80s and educated in the public school systems all-too accurately portrayed in the same, I succeeded.
After graduating high school and then college with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from Towson University, I left the city in 1998 for a long spell (but not before obtaining a Masters from Morgan State University). In 2013, I returned to the city not far from where I grew up in West Baltimore and even closer to where Freddie Gray would be arrested. But then as a college professor, small business owner, considerably more gray and not as spry, I plan to deepen my roots in this city.
It is under this backdrop as an educator, journalist, reluctant activist and lover of all things Baltimore, that I submit my feedback after scouring over the 26 applicationsi to monitor the implementation of the consent decree.
RECOMMEND: ​Susan Burke​ - Singularly the best combination of local and national ​expertise with more than a nod towards community engagement. I have zero reservations about this application and no other comes close. Not only is project management, constitutional expertise, and experience with consent decrees top notch, Burke possesses an existing commitment to empowering the residents of west Baltimore.
While I see the choice- SUSAN BURKE - as a clear cut one; nonetheless, I have provided the top three in sequential order noting cautions. I’ve selected to comment on Daigle, Exiger, BMG (and Loyola) as I feel that the “powers that be” and historical practices suggest that they would be at the top of the list. ( I would suggest Powers and Venable as likely nods, but I’m hoping that the conflicts of interests would be too great to attempt to justify -- but this is Baltimore - anything is possible).
The top three (also-ran) applicants are as follows:
1. Daigle (impressive for consent decree monitoring, but lacks a reflection of the importance of the culture of politics in Baltimore or willingness to engage the community. Caution that execution of monitoring supersedes implementation of reform.
2. Exiger (too predisposed to law enforcement - lacks innovation. Inclusion of women and minorities appear perfunctory. Oozes testosterone for a city with the last three mayoral elections won by women. Even if awarded, anticipate a project management nightmare.
3. Baltimore Management Project (the sentimental favorite) The judges - instead of law enforcement personnel is likely to make many feel secure in the independence and blind justice applied to the process. However, no one on the team has taken any meaning part in a consent decree plan implementation and this is too serious to learn on the job. (Which is why Loyola University should also not be awarded the job).

Letter to the Editor Submitted to The Baltimore Sun
By Keesha Ha
7/14/2017
In With the New; Out With the Old:
Forging New Results by Passing By Old Practices
Besides the obvious, there are more crucial concerns to consider in deciding which of the ​26 applicants​ to award a potential $7 million contract to in order to monitor and assist in the implementation of the police reform agreement commonly referred to as the DOJ’s Consent Decree.
For sure, we all want to spend the least amount of money to get the most results. (Yeah, like asking for more grapes in our fruit salad at Lexington Market until the lid can barely close).
Not surprisingly, we want the process to be transparent and responsive to public will (Yeah, exactly like the ​TIFF deal​ given to Under Armor’s Kevin Plank for the Port Covington/Sagamore development over clear public discontent).
Most importantly, we want the uprising of community voices who lead the city to this point in history to be a major consideration and not simply given lipservice as appealing to token “stakeholders” as this surely will result in masses taking their discontent to the streets.
And in the “duh” category, we don’t want a cadre of law enforcement officers (whether cozy and familiar with BPD or if they are from Timbuktu) to serve as guardian of the city’s hen house.
With these givens, the city should award the contract to the group headed by Susan L. Burke, but I’ll start with who ​not​ should be chosen.
Loyola University has an innovative conflict resolution approach to the monitoring process, but its conflicts of interests include political appointments, city grant awards, and the sticky wicket of employing Baltimore City Police officers when off duty to maintain campus safety (a big part of the independent monitoring assignment is to be independent, not the actual employer of people you are monitoring!). However, most worrisome naming as the community policing expert Paul Ominsky who has 43 years in law enforcement who has been a named party in multiple lawsuits and complaints (mostly on the nation’s college campuses). In 2016, Ominsky opposed an ​open records request​ to indicate the demarked jurisdictions for the university police verses the city’s police as primary

respondants. Not exactly the first hand experience the city is looking for as it moves forward.
With so many boxes checked in the win column, CNA makes an inexplicable move by naming its chief monitor, a police chief – a mere two years out of uniform. Why this is so disconcerting is because CNA boasts a five member “local team” as subject matter experts from the Coppin Community in addition to naming Coppin University’s Johnny Rice as Liaison for Community Outreach and Engagement. But the lead monitor, Rodney Monroe, is a former police chief from North Carolina who participated in the investigation (and subsequent no charges being filed) in the death by gunshot in the head of ​Jamar Clark​ while in Minneapolis police custody and the subsequent uprising in Minnesota. (It’s like choosing Anthony Batts to serve as monitor into the Philando Castile inquiry – also from Minneapolis).
Luckily, we have the Susan L. Burke law group’s team. Of the three senior advisors she is the only one with direct Baltimore connection (the other two have led impressive monitoring processes with the LAPD). Included in proposal is a the bevy of highly skilled professions, promised open meetings every other week, and paid positions to community members who will serve as adviors.
Ms. Burke, a renowned litigator, sits on the board of ​No Boundaries Coalition​, a community group working to decrease violence in West Baltimore. She must disclose whether she plans to keep or vacate those responsibilities if awarded the monitoring contract.
And in true Baltimore fashion, some parting shade:
Former candidate for Governor Gansler whose scandal published in ​The Washington Post​ of him partying with teens while campaigning against stronger legislation for – wait for it – underaged drinking.
Media friendly Tyrone Powers of the Powers Group who recently reportedly knocked heads with then-mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake over whether he would serve on a committee investigating the implementation of mandatory ​body cameras (he didn’t serve). As for conflicts of interests, the Powers’ group’s proposed project manager lead, Leslie Parker Blyther, is a recent inductee onto the Civilian Review Board (doing tremendous and arduous work there) reviewing citizens complaints against BPD -- most commonly harassment, excessive force and abusive language.
And with its hand perennially out for taxpaper’s dollars, Venable, a virtual recycling bin of names associated with the mess citizens are to this day trying to clean up.
(739 word count)

20. Carolina Paul

From: To: Subject: Date:

Carolina Paul Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT); daphney.williams@baltimorecity.gov Consent decree comments Monday, July 17, 2017 7:08:50 PM

Good evening,

I'm writing to express my thoughts on the applicants to be decree monitors.

For a monitoring team to be effective, it must be comprised mostly of non- law enforcement personnel. The Baltimore Police Department already has internal monitor, which has obviously not been very effective in combatting discriminatory practices. The monitoring team should have regular community meetings that are open to the public but should also include of team of community members who are paid for their outreach and monitoring work.

These community members must come from neighborhoods affected by discrimatory policing and should include youth and formally incarcerated people. Community members must have a voice before the monitoring judge.

The consent decree is just one part of the measures Baltimore must take to correct the years of discriminatory policy that have gotten us to our current state of affairs. Baltimore has an obligation to make sure that the consent decree and monitoring process are as effective as possible in ending discriminatory policing.

All the best,

Carolina Paul

21. Elizabeth Spradley

From: To:
Subject: Date:

Elizabeth spradley
Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT); Daphney.Williams@baltimorecity.gov; Robert.Stokes@baltimorecity.gov; Shannon.Sneed@baltimorecity.gov; MaryPat.Clarke@baltimorecity.gov; Kristerfer.Burnett@baltimorecity.gov; Ryan.Dorsey@baltimorecity.gov; Zeke.Cohen@baltimorecity.gov
consent decree from a concerned citizen in 21202
Thursday, July 13, 2017 7:13:38 AM

To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing to you as a resident of Baltimore who is concerned about the unconstitutional and discriminatory behavior of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD). I have a vested interested in the consent decree and in ensuring that the voices of impacted residents are heard throughout the process. To that end, BPD used enforcement strategies that disproportionately impact African-Americans in the city of Baltimore.
After reading most of the proposals and getting lost in what and how they will exactly monitor the BPD, I just want to emphasize whatever proposal is the most appealing to both parties please take into consideration what the finalists' proposals should include:
The monitoring team must include African-Americans, formerly incarcerated people, and young people impacted by these unconstitutional practices.
Community feedback and input must be central to the monitoring process. Any team chosen should be required to hire community members, affected persons, and community stakeholders as consultants to ENGAGE in the process not just be informed. Individuals with direct experience with police brutality must receive an enhanced opportunity to be fully engaged in the monitoring process. A defined percentage of the monitoring budget should be designated for this group.
The monitor should be required to include all dissenting information in reports, motions and other documents provided to the court. The team should be required to provide a forum for community members, affected persons, and community stakeholders to be heard in open court, before the monitoring judge, prior to the approval of any and all settlement agreements being approved by the court. A majority of the monitoring team should reside in the city of Baltimore.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Spradley, zip 21202

22. Polly E. Heninger

From: To: Subject: Date:
Hello,

Polly Heninger Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Consent decree monitor applications Thursday, July 06, 2017 6:58:03 PM

I am a citizen of Baltimore. I have learned all I know about consent decrees in the last few months. I was asked to provide my thoughts on the monitor applications.

A friend reviewed all 26 of the proposals and recommended that I take a look at 5 of them. From a brief review of those 5, I think that Exiger or Venable, LLP, would be the best for this project. Exiger brings tremendous experience in cities across the country. Venable, LLP, is committed to dedicating personnel with a wide variety of experience to the project. On one hand, I would like to have a Baltimore firm undertake this as they already have experience with the city. On the other hand, that may make them slanted so an outside firm may be better. As you can see, I don't have a definite recommendation. I don't know which components are most important when making a decision like this.

Please use my comments as you see fit.

Sincerely, Polly E. Heninger

Polly E. Heninger |

23. Alexandra Busching

July 17, 2017
Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington D.C. 20530
RE: United States v. Baltimore Police Dep’t et al., Civil No. JKB-17-99
Dear Ms. Cheema:
I write to you to respectfully submit my comments on the selection process for the independent monitor for the consent decree between the City of Baltimore and the Department of Justice. As a resident of Baltimore City and social worker committed to building a more equitable and inclusive city, I am glad to see the positive steps the city has taken to move the consent decree process forward and ensure the process is community-driven. Incorporating the principles of the Coalition for Justice, Safety, and Jobs coalition and soliciting public comment are important steps to ensure the successful reform of our policing system.
The most important indicator of the consent decree monitor’s future success will be its ability to effectively engage the community. To address the deep-rooted structural inequities, bias, and distrust that have grown between communities and law enforcement, it is essential to provide multiple mechanisms for community participation, input, and decision-making at every stage. Therefore, I urge you to extend the public comment period for monitor selection to allow more local residents the opportunity to learn about the strengths and weakness of each candidate, and who will be best suited to represent their interests and ensure rigorous compliance with the consent decree.
Monitor candidates should be assessed on their demonstrated track record and detailed strategy for how they will engage diverse city stakeholders, including grassroots community organizations, neighborhood leaders, and hard-to-reach vulnerable populations. This approach must also include a strong analysis of structural racism, law enforcement responses which are sensitive to individuals with mental health concerns and survivors of sexual assault, and how to build meaningful partnerships with community organizations to deepen their understanding of the local complexities of the consent decree implementation. Given that the monitor will be awarded a significant expenditure of city resources and will rely on the time and expertise of local organizations to fulfill it’s mission, candidates must also demonstrate a commitment to equitably sharing resources with all parties engaged in supporting their work.
Thank you for your efforts to solicit and review public comment and promote participation in the monitor selection process. I welcome any questions you may have or any future ways to provide further feedback. Sincerely,
Alexandra Busching

24. Tyler Kelly

From: To: Subject: Date:

Tyler Kelly Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Consent decree monitor Monday, July 17, 2017 12:03:04 AM

Hello,

I'm a resident of Baltimore city. As the process of selecting a monitor for the DOJ Consent Decree continues, I am thinking about the potential our city has right now to make some significant and positive progress on our criminal justice system. I hope that we use the potential to is fullest extent. The following are crucial elements to consider as you select a monitor.

At the root of it all, those who are most affected by policing must have a predominant voice in the monitoring process. Specifically:

-African American, young people, and formerly incarcerated people have been disproportionately affected by discriminatory policing in the BPD. They must be included in the monitoring

-community input and feedback must be central to the monitoring process. A defined percentage of the monitoring budget should be allocated to hiring community members and those most affected onto the monitor team

-opportunities and outreach should be made to involve people in monitoring who have been directly affected by and/or experienced police brutality

-the monitoring team must be required to create an official infrastructure for community members, community stakeholders, and those most affected to participate in the process, not just be informed

-before any settlement agreements can be approved by the court, the monitoring team must be required to provide a forum for community members to be heard in open court before the monitoring judge

-most of the people on the monitoring team need to reside in Baltimore

Thank you for taking this into consideration. I hope you will choose a monitor team that will genuinely work with and respond to the communities of Baltimore, particularly Baltimore's black and brown communities.

Sincerely, Tyler Kelly

25. David Avruch

From: To: Subject: Date:

David O. Avruch Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Consent decree monitor Monday, July 17, 2017 1:37:19 PM

Dear DOJ,

My name is David Avruch and I'm a resident of Baltimore City.

I strongly encourage you to select a monitor who will ensure rigorous compliance with the consent decree, and will incorporate feedback from the community. This is essential to rebuilding trust between the BPD (which, through the FOP, has become almost entirely selfserving) and the community (which is desperately in need of a dedicated, ethical, professional, and accountable police force).
Thank you, David

26. Hilary Hellerbach

To: Department of Justice and Mayor Catherine Pugh,
I am writing to submit my feedback regarding selection of a monitoring team for Baltimore City’s Consent decree. Having attended a community forum where representatives of many of the teams spoke, as well as having reviewed at least summaries of all applications (and more details of some), there are some that stand out to me, yet none that address all of the components that I believe are important to be a part of the plan. The corrupt history and institutionalized oppression that was noted in the DOJ report must be fully addressed. Given this, I will list below the issues/components that I believe must be a part of the plan of the oversight team:
- The Baltimore Police Department enforcement strategies have disproportionally impacted people of color in our city. I believe strongly that the monitoring team must include people of color, formerly incarcerated people, victims of police brutality, and young people impacted by these unconstitutional practices.
- It is also important that this team works closely with, and ideally includes as hired consultants, representatives of other marginalized groups in our city such as recent immigrants, women, LGBTQIA community members, people with limited income, people who are homeless, and those with disabilities and/or mental health issues.
- In an effort to gain subjective insight as well as an objective perspective it is important that the monitoring team include professionals (law enforcement, legal, social psychology, research and educational representatives) from both within and outside of Baltimore City.
- The monitoring team should be required to create a formal infrastructure for all community members/stakeholders and affected persons to engage in the process, not just be informed. As a part of this, input from representatives from ALL neighborhoods need to be included in reports to the court, as well as dissenting views.
- The monitoring team must have a plan to support and empower the Citizen’s Review Board to become a part of a system of checks and balances that can truly impact consequences (reprimand, training, community service, suspension, dismissal) of internal investigations of brutality/wrongdoing by police officers.
- The monitoring team must be committed to END unconstitutional stop and frisk (jump outs) as a tool of violence and oppression.
- The team must at least consult with experts who have worked on other consent decree monitoring teams to gain information about what has and has not been effective to make real change in other cities.
- The team must have a plan to address implicit bias, institutionalized oppression, and structural racism. They must utilize resources informed by research in social and organizational psychology to work towards creating a system in Baltimore City that can focus on community caretaking/policing, non-violent (safe) crisis intervention, and support of public education to continue to help Baltimore heal and grow long after the team is gone.
As I mentioned before, I do not believe that any of the group’s applications fully cover all of these concerns, although there are some that address more than others. As a long time Baltimore City resident who cares deeply about making this city safer for all of its residents, I hope that you take my input into consideration.
Sincerely,
Hilary R. Hellerbach
Baltimore City Resident

-

27. Kenneth Morales

From: To:
Subject: Date:

Ken Morales Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT); daphney.williams@baltimorecity.gov; councilpresident@baltimorecity.gov; robert.stokes@baltimorecity.gov Consent Decree Wednesday, July 12, 2017 5:40:42 PM

To my mayor, my councilmen, and the Department of Justice,

I am writing to express my opposition to the proposal submitted by the Baltimore Monitor Project. Any proposal whose spokeperson, running for the DA, conceives of crime in Baltimore City as being primarily a problem of "effective policing and the effectiive functioning of the state's attorneys office" is not equipped with the proper mentality to address the true causes of injustice in our city.

I am writing in support of the Loyola, Burke, and Gansler & Ivey teams. All three have merits that some of the others lack. I applaud Loyola for a comprehensive, civilian oversight of the police, but I fault them for failing to layout a comprehensive commitment to community involvement. I applaud Susan Burke's proposal for its dedicattion to involving (and paying for their expertise) the community members of Baltimore. In particular, this proposal's commitment to involving formerly incarcerated people, a crucial demographic and perhaps the most experienced with the carceral state, is laudable. Also, the Burke team addresses gender and sexual minorities and victims of sexual assault, a crucial community that has been too often set aside by these proposals. Additionally, I am supportive of the team proposal from Gansley and Ivey for their emphasis on the community, local control, and local expertise.

While I would be content with any of the three proposals mentioned above, Susan Burke's team, though not entirely Baltimore residents, is by far the most committed to community involvement, and they receive this taxpayer's full support.

Thank you for your time, your consideration, and your ability to ensure Baltimore becomes a powerful symbol of how police reform can be done right, with the community.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Morales District 12 Baltimore City, Maryland

28. Phyllis Lansing

From: To: Subject: Date:

Phyllis Lansing Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Evaluation of monitor proposal & personnel Sunday, July 16, 2017 9:00:32 PM

Priority should be given to monitor teams that have significant personnel with strong Baltimore ties, preferably Baltimore residents. Baltimore's problems and potential solutions are unique to this city.

The selected monitor team proposal should have strong commitment to community involvement as well as law enforcement.

The monitor team should honestly address the problems of race and racism.

Phyllis Lansing

29. Dr. Joseph Costa

From: To: Subject: Date:

Cheema, Puneet (CRT) Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) FW: In Support of SLB FRA Submission for Police Monitoring Monday, July 17, 2017 5:56:26 PM

From: Joseph Costa-David Hart [

]

Sent: Monday, July 17, 2017 10:48 AM

To: Cheema, Puneet (CRT) <Puneet.Cheema@crt.usdoj.gov>

Subject: In Support of SLB FRA Submission for Police Monitoring

Mr. Cheema -

My name is Joseph Costa, and I have been a resident of Baltimore City for more than 32 years. I am writing to support the proposal of Susan Burke and her team to participate as monitors for the Baltimore City Police. I have personally known Ms. Burke for many years, and I am constantly impressed by her intellect and perceptiveness, especially regarding matters of social justice. Moreover, I have always found her to be balanced in her views and able to listen to all parties involved in a matter such that all feel and are fairly treated and represented.

As medical director of the intensive care unit at Mercy Hospital, I have the opportunity to interact with members of the police department often. I am certain that Ms. Burke would be able to engage the police in a way that would be beneficial to both the force and the community.

I strongly support her bid for this important role in Baltimore.

Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Joseph Costa, MD Medical Director, ICU Mercy Hospital Baltimore

30. Martha McKenna

From: To: Subject: Date:

Cheema, Puneet (CRT) Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) FW: Recommendation for Baltimore Monitor Team Monday, July 17, 2017 5:50:09 PM

From: Martha McKenna [mailto:

]

Sent: Monday, July 17, 2017 1:30 PM

To: Cheema, Puneet (CRT) <Puneet.Cheema@crt.usdoj.gov>

Subject: Recommendation for Baltimore Monitor Team

Dear Puneet Cheema:

As a twenty five year Baltimore City resident and community activist, I am writing to give my strong recommendation to the monitor team led by Susan Burke. Susan's personal connection and involvement in Baltimore City, her knowledge of state and local issues and her vast personal network in Baltimore will be a strong asset to all involved in implementation of the Consent Decree.

Susan's ability to listen and build trust with people is her greatest strength. She doesn't subscribe to conventional wisdom. She evaluates situations with fresh perspective and insight. Baltimore's problems with police and community are complex and difficult to remedy. We desperately need a leader like Susan Burke who is fair, tough and tireless to help guide the process.

Lastly, I firmly believe that the monitor needs to be from Baltimore. Susan Burke is in an excellent position to succeed in this role because she's not set in her ways about Baltimore, but has an incredible personal network in the community. She has a knowledge of life in Baltimore without the baggage that a lifetime in this city might bring.

Thank you for all your work to make life better in Baltimore City.

Martha McKenna

-Martha McKenna McKenna Media

31. Jodie Zisow-McClean

From: To: Subject: Date:

Jodie Zisow-McClean Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) independent monitor team Monday, July 17, 2017 2:58:52 PM

Good afternoon Ms. Cheema, I am a member of Jews United for Justice and a resident of Baltimore City in Waverley.

I strongly support JUFJ and Coalition for Justice, Safety, and Jobs (CJSJ), and I strongly support the principles for the monitor selection that the coalition has put forward.

This commission has the responsibility to select a monitor who will ensure rigorous compliance with the consent decree and incorporate feedback from the community.

Sincerely, Jodie Zisow-McClean

32. Eric Stephenson

From: To: Subject: Date:

Eric Stephenson Cheema, Puneet (CRT); Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Monitor Feedback Tuesday, July 11, 2017 2:54:00 PM

Hello, My name is Eric Stephenson, I am a resident of West Baltimore and president of the Sandtown South Neighborhood Alliance, a community group based in the now infamous Sandtown neighborhood. I bought my home there in December of 2015, after the riots that put my community on the national map. I did so because I believe in the community and the City of Baltimore at large, which is also why I began volunteering, working in every capacity I can to make my community better immediately after moving in.

I believe that crime reduction and police reform, which go hand in hand, are an essential part of improving our city. The monitor agency that is selected to oversee the consent decree will be instrumental in making sure that the court order is effective and that we get the desired outcomes that we all want: a safer city for everyone.

Last week I attended a town-hall meeting hosted by the Campaign for Justice, Safety, and Jobs at Coppin State University. Many of the monitor candidates attended to answer questions. While the number of applicants is a bit overwhelming, there was one group that stood out to me as uniquely qualified.

Susan Burke on behalf of her group offered the most specific and carefully considered answers that I heard. She was the only applicant that committed to hiring local individuals including young people and returning citizens which is essential. In addition, she described a pro-active strategy of going into the communities and interviewing citizens instead of waiting for complaints to come to her. I believe this strategy is the only way to get the necessary information and it was not clear that any other group had thought of that. This insight may have been because her team is the only team truly, at its core, based in Baltimore City. Some other groups had a Baltimore representative or a Baltimore-based partner, but not did not truly seem to be locally conceived.

Ms. Burke's very distinguished career as a social justice and human rights lawyer also places her on a tier above other applicants. She has made a career out of defending the defenseless against large powerful institutions. That is the type of experience that the citizens of Baltimore need in their corner.

What we do not need is a gang of retired cops or failed police chiefs to be charged overseeing the reform of our troubled system. Nor do we need an opportunist agency specializing in consent decree administration. These groups have made it their business to profit off of the failures of our civil institutions and would view Baltimore as just another "inner city."

How the contract money is going to be spent is very important. Again, I'm reminded of Ms. Burke's commitment to hiring local people for the administration of this monitorship, and that is important. I also noticed that she appears to be the the only team leader to cap their personal earnings. On other groups' applications, I noticed alarming things like up to $250,000 for local housing and furniture and housekeeping. I think that money is better spent hiring a group who already lives here.

For all of the reasons above, I ask that you strongly consider choosing Susan Burke and her team to be the monitors of Baltimore's consent decree. There are many in my community that share my view. If I can provide any additional information, please let me know.
With hopes for a brighter future,
Eric Stephenson Sandtown South Neighborhood Alliance www.sandtownsouth.com

33. E. Joy Gould

From: To: Subject: Date:

Joy Gould Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Monitor for Consent Decree Sunday, July 16, 2017 3:50:45 PM

Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20530
Dear Mr. Cheema:
The person chosen to be the Monitor for the implementation of the Baltimore Consent Decree should have the following characteristics:

live in Baltimore be able to work on the consent decree full time have a record of working with community groups, particularly in helping them address systemic injustice have experience working on a variety of civil rights issues including racially-based policing reform have experience with monitoring the implementation of a court order/legal decree.

Only the handful of monitoring teams that built into their proposals a significant role for the community have a chance to create the environment where real and meaningful change can happen in Baltimore policing.[1] The monitoring team applicants composed primarily or exclusively of legal professionals and/or law enforcement simply do not have the skill set and mindset to do the job that needs to be done. The August 2016 investigative report of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) by the Department of Justice (DOJ) notes on page 4 that many have tried to make improvements in Baltimore policing but "work remains, in part because of the profound lack of trust among these groups, and in particular, between BPD and certain communities in Baltimore."
That means that considerable work needs to be done on building trust between the community and the police department. Such trust cannot be developed unless and until the community is seen as a full partner in the attempts to reform policing policies and practices. The City of Baltimore and BPD have plenty of resources available to make sure their perspectives on issues are heard. Monitoring teams comprised of law enforcement and law professionals could be much more comfortable listening to the BPD voices throughout the Consent Decree implementation process while overlooking or ignoring the community's perspectives.
Only one monitor group, Susan Burke,[1] has made the community aspect the largest percentage of the team, committing to data collection by and from the community and regular participation by a broad swath of the community. This team also has the other professionals with experience in meeting the police training and technological deficiencies the DOJ cited as needing remediation by the Baltimore Police Department (BPD). BUT, providing training and upgrading technologies will not be sufficient to remedy the history of distrust and racism that has built up due to past practices.
In my career as a public health nurse, I worked in several different cities similar to Baltimore. One thing that always benefited my work was that people in the community trusted nurses and would always give us entry into their community and homes, even in times of civil unrest. Generations of nurses built up that trust. Police once had that same kind of trust in our communities. But that trust has been eroded and it will take effort and

communication and trial and error to find the way back to building community policing that works. The Consent Decree Monitor that is chosen by the court must understand and know how to work with the communities of Baltimore that have suffered the most under recent BPD practices: Black neighborhoods, low-income neighborhoods, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ community, those who suffered sexual assault, homeless people, the immigrant community, youth, and the formerly incarcerated.
Although I live in a retirement community on the southwest edge of Baltimore, what happens in Baltimore directly affects me and my neighbors. Many of the more than 1,000 people who work here live in Baltimore, some in the Sandtown area where the uprising took place in 2014 after Freddy Gray's death. A group of us Charlestown Retirement Community residents have been working collaboratively with communitybased groups in Sandtown. We are so impressed with the Sandtown residents who have been doing meaningful work to sustain their community, but they have been ignored or hampered by those in power, including the BPD.
The DOJ investigative report referenced findings from the report "OverPoliced, Yet Underserved"[2] by the West Baltimore Commission on Police Misconduct and the No Boundaries Coalition. That report documents the fear and the problems and the neglect suffered by many Sandtown residents over many years because of BPD misconduct. There are signs of hopeful change, but much more needs to be done.
I look forward to one day reading a report that includes reports of people from Sandtown and all over Baltimore telling how the BPD has helped them and protected them. The proper and thorough implementation of the DOJ Consent Decree is one big step toward making that day possible. Choosing the best Monitor and monitoring team that knows how to bring into the Consent Decree implementation process the voices and expertise of the various communities in Baltimore is key to making that day come sometime in the not too distant future.
Sincerely,
Joy Gould
[1] See the one-page summaries of all monitor proposals by Legal Defense

Fund to look at the pie-charts titled "Professional Background of Team" showing the percentage of each proposed monitor team with a background in law enforcement, legal professional, academic/analyst, community/nonprofit, etc. Summaries are posted here: http://www.noboundariescoalition.com/wpcontent/uploads/2017/07/Monitor-one-page-snapshots-FINAL.pdf
[2] The full March 8, 2016 report "Over-Policed, Yet Underserved" by the West Baltimore Commission on Police Misconduct and the No Boundaries Coalition can be found here: http://www.noboundariescoalition.com/wpcontent/uploads/2016/03/No-Boundaries-Layout-Web-1.pdf
Joy Gould
~> -:¦:- <~...¸¸..·´*-:¦:-¸¸.·´*~> -:¦:- <~   
"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." Dr. Martin Luther King

34. Hannah Jeremiah

From: To: Subject: Date:

Hannah Jeremiah Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Monitor Team Applications Thursday, July 13, 2017 1:28:49 PM

I hope to submit the following comments on the Monitor team applications. I urge you to choose the Consent Decree Monitoring Team proposed by Loyola University and require some key changes to the proposal. As an artist who works with Baltimore City Youth, I am very concerned about the future of policing in the city.
I support the program proposed by Loyola University for the following reasons: The program is lead by a Black woman. Most of the team members reside in Baltimore City. The team will focus on changing the organizational psychology of the BCPD. The team will assess the leadership of the BCPD.
I urge you to require the following changes to the Loyola University Proposal: The monitoring team should include people affected by police violence and unconstitutional police practices. The monitoring team must be required to hire people from the communities that experience the highest rates of police violence. The team must develop a formal infrastructure for the public to provide feedback. The monitor must include all dissenting information in reports, motions, and other documents provided to the court. The team must create an open forum for community members to speak in open court before the monitoring judge prior to the approval of any and all settlement agreements being approved by the court.

Thank you for your time. Best, Hannah Jeremiah

35. Sara Hurwitz

From: To: Subject: Date:

Sara H Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) monitoring team- resident concerned Wednesday, July 12, 2017 6:22:08 PM

To Whom It May Concern:
We the people of Baltimore are glad that efforts are moving forward to address the crisis in our city: a crisis of police who do not serve the people, but rather brutalize them. The report released by your office showed a clear pattern of unconstitutional and discriminatory behavior. Such a crisis has casualties: Freddy Gray, Tyrone West, Keith Davis Jr, and so many more.
The monitoring team MUST be sufficient to meet the demands of solving this huge problem!
I am deeply worried over the proposals submitted for the monitoring team. Only one team involved formerly incarcerated people, and only one team was led by a Black woman. A large percentage of the proposals were teams not even based in Baltimore! Most troublingly, the majority of the proposals did not include a formal structure for community members to be engaged in the process. There must be a comprehensive plan for eliciting feedback and then using that feedback in the decision-making process.
And needless to say, proposals involving majority law enforcement is like proposing that hens guard the chicken coup! The entire point of the monitoring process is to establish a check on police power, and to establish policing guidelines that will benefit the community and meet the needs of the people, not just benefit cops who have a motive to downplay the severity of the crisis and the necessity of change.
In conclusion: (1) the majority of the monitoring team should be Baltimore city residents (2) the voices of affected persons such as formerly incarcerated should affect the direction of the work of the monitoring team.
Sincerely,
Sara Hurwitz 21218

36. Professor Michael Pinard

Michael Pinard Francis & Harriet Iglehart Professor of Law
Co-Director, Clinical Law Program
500 West Baltimore Street Baltimore, MD 21201 410 706 4121
mpinard@law.umaryland.edu
July 18, 2017
Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Division 950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20530 Via Electronic Mail
Re: Public Comment, United States of America v. Police Department of Baltimore City et al., Civil Action No. 1:17-cv00099-JKB
I am a law professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. I have spent the entirety of my career, the last fifteen of which have been in Baltimore, working on criminal justice issues. I have closely followed the Department of Justice investigation of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD), which has led to the Consent Decree that will hopefully culturally transform the BPD and build the relationships between law enforcement and communities that are absolutely critical to Baltimore’s future.
I have read all of the Monitor applications. I also attended a public meeting at Coppin State University on July 6, 2017, hosted by the Campaign of Justice, Safety, and Safety, whose members include No Boundaries Coalition, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., the ACLU and others. This meeting allowed residents to meet, hear from and pose questions to the applicants. It was further indication that residents are vested in this process. For decades they have lived with the unconstitutional policing practices detailed in the DOJ Report. As such, they demand—rightfully so—a Monitor who will work to enforce every word of the Consent Decree and hold the parties accountable. They deserve nothing less. Thus, I do not offer any thoughts or recommendations regarding the teams that have applied for this important position. Rather, I write to offer thoughts on some qualities that the Monitor should possess.
This is Baltimore’s consent decree. As such, the Monitoring Team should be vested both in the Consent Decree and in Baltimore. That team should know and appreciate that it is accountable to the individuals, families, and communities in Baltimore that have borne the brunt of unconstitutional policing. As such, it is imperative that the nucleus of the Monitoring Team be from and/or reside in

Baltimore. The team needs to be proximate to those who are directly impacted by the practices and issues that the decree entails.
Part of this proximity requires that community members be an integral part of the Monitoring Team. As team members, directly impacted residents would bring issues to the team that other members might miss, would more deeply connect the team to communities, would hold other team members accountable, and would add legitimacy to this entire process. It should come as no surprise that the team will have to earn and keep the trust of many to be effective. Having directly impacted residents on the team would help with the trust process. Quite simply, these valuable members of the team have relationships that others do not.
Also, the work of enforcing a Consent Decree that aims to culturally transform the BPD will be all-encompassing and lengthy. Baltimore deserves a Monitoring Team with some members that will work full-time to do all that this decree requires. It will not be sufficient to have a team comprised of members who will work part-time on these issues. The team must have at its core some members who will devote their entire professional energy on this process.
In addition, the Monitoring Team should leave no doubt that it is committed to ensuring that the mandates set forth in the Consent Decree are realized in full and enforced vigorously. The team will have to possess the steel to push and prod when it is necessary to do so. It has to understand, until all the work is done, that its fidelity is to the Court and Baltimore’s residents. It must work to move this process.
Last, while law enforcement expertise is necessary to the monitoring process the Monitoring Team must be professionally diverse and not dominated by law enforcement professionals. Also, potential team members who are present or former law enforcement officials must be vetted by the parties. This vetting process should include a review of their personnel files to determine whether they were ever the subject of any citizen complaint, any investigation and/or any disciplinary proceeding and, if so, the nature of any complaint, investigation and/or disciplinary proceeding, and the end results of each of these processes.
I appreciate the opportunity to be heard at this critical juncture.
Respectfully, Michael Pinard
2

37. Donna D. Brown

July 17, 2017
Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington D.C. 20530
RE: United States v. Baltimore Police Dep’t et al., Civil No. JKB-17-99
DDBrown, LLC dba, Making Change
Making Change is a developing organization who’s focus has been around restorative justice through advocacy around juvenile justice (youth charged as adults), re-entering citizens, incarcerated women, providing supports to re-entering citizens, advocacy for impoverished communities affected by urban renewal and development, undoing racism (dismantling systemic racism), advocacy for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
After the riot in Baltimore City, I joined broader initiatives throughout Baltimore City to focus on the overshadowing issue of police brutality. While Baltimore is plagued with a number of distresses, over policing with racial bias reinforces every dynamic that impacts the vulnerable communities of this city. As a lifelong resident, I have witnessed the impact of racial bias and police brutality in Baltimore’s neighborhoods. As I raised my own son, witnessing the innocence of a young boy’s admiration and respect for law enforcement turn to fear and disdain as a result of his encounters and disappointments in dealing with law enforcement. Even after engaging with the police department as a volunteer, myself, and being met with grave disappointment over the behavior of trusted Officers, led me to believe that it is futile to support something that has such an animus within that there is no possibility of reform without some external enforcement. As a community, the air of defenselessness suffered by communities impacted by the BPD, has continually diminished the virtue of our neighborhoods.
With the victory of gaining the Consent Decree, it is the hope of our city to provide the oversight necessary to bring about equity and a sense of justice to our communities. Hence, it is equally necessary to assure that the selected monitor work to assure the overdue changes take place to assure that we have a police department that works in the interest of all of the citizens of this city to create sacred space for all of this city’s inhabitants to feel protected and respected, not marginalized by oppressive policing.
While the public does not have input in the selection process, through review of public commentary, it is our hope that due consideration is given to the perspectives of the constituents of this city as to what is desired and expected from the monitor. Much collaboration has been done in gathering a consensus of expectation of any potential candidate. After reviewing proposals and attending the public forum held by CJSJ

(Coalition for Justice, Safety and Jobs) there are some critical essentials that I believe are necessary for any potential candidate.
1. It is imperative that the proposed candidate have residency in Baltimore in order to effectively and efficiently engage with the broader community with the level of consistency and continuity to make their engagement effective and build trust from the community. In addition, having the ability and flexibility to respond as necessary. Proposed candidates should have the capacity to be full-
time or have staff designated to work, exclusively, on the monitoring processes.
2. Proposed candidates be inclusive of most impacted members of the community, to include: Blacks and Latinos, Black and Latino communities, low-income neighborhoods, sexual and domestic violence survivors, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities (including mental illness), homeless people, formerly incarcerated people, youth and people struggling with substance abuse. The awareness and engagement from all of these groups will bring greater acuity in how to bring the desired and necessary outcomes of this process and assure the transformation of the Baltimore Police Department and its relationship with the overall community.
3. The proposed candidate is led by or has Black, Latino and women in leadership roles within their teams. Being inclusive of individuals of these groups reinforce a trusted connection with vulnerable communities and reinforce the values of the collective community.
4. While I believe that having law enforcement is an asset to any proposed team, in the interest of establishing trust within the community, the organization/team cannot be led by law enforcement.
5. The proposed candidate should have team members who have some experience with monitoring. While our hope is to create a process that addresses the uniqueness of our city, I do believe that it is necessary to have some prior experience to have understanding and insight to the implementation of this process.
6. Preference should be given to monitor candidates whose commitment to community engagement is reflected by the allocation of funds in their budget. It is essential for the effectiveness of the proposed monitor to have Baltimore-based community liaisons and propose to contract with community groups that have been long invested and trusted advocates for our communities. In addition, provide opportunities by hiring people from the community.
7. Although, I am aware that there is no process of engaging community in the selection process, I would uplift the proposal of Susan Burke. While she has been a credit to the Baltimore community through her own commitment to address the issues that affect neighborhoods, she brings prowess and dedication through her own experience that, I believe, would be beneficial to the city in the monitoring process. In addition, upon reviewing and comparing the proposals, her proposal, singly, stood out as it

reflected all of the aspects, criteria and insight in its planning and implementation that encompasses all of the interest of the affected communities.

38. Louise Harmony

From: To: Subject: Date:

Louise Harmony Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Public Comment for Selection of Independent Monitoring Team Monday, July 17, 2017 2:31:42 PM

I hope you will select a monitor or monitors who will ensure rigorous compliance with the consent decree and incorporate feedback from the community. Community feedback and Community involvement will be essential for Baltimore to become a safe and welcoming place for ALL of it's citizens.

Louise Harmony

39. Kathryn Munnell

10 July 2017
Puneet Cheema
United States Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Puneet Cheema:
After reading the twenty-six proposals I have narrowed field to three that I think would do an excellent job of monitoring the Baltimore Consent Decree: one national, Exiger and two local groups, Loyola University and Susan Burke. I evaluated them according to the qualifications of the team members, the process of presenting their plans of action, the budget and use of time of the group members, analytic sophistication of team and conflict of interest. Each was stronger in some areas than they were in others.
There are pros and cons for having a team comprised almost exclusively of out of state members as well as problems with having a totally local team. A highly experienced national team can bring substantial experience from other parts of the country and size up the situation quickly; they are not involved in local politics and therefore are more likely to look at the situation with new eyes. The local team has the benefit of knowing the city, its citizens and where the problematic issues might lie. However, they may be easier swayed by people in power.
Exiger, the national team, comprised of 17 members, (6 women and 11men of which there are 5 people of colour) has on paper the strongest experience and expertise in the monitoring of or leading the implementation of consent decrees and monitoring of police departments: LA, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit. The lead monitor designed and implemented of the monitoring method used with the LAPD. One member was Chair of the Obama Task Force in 21st Century Policing and two members served on this task force. Each participant has a specific role on the team; many are experts in their areas. The team draws from experts nationwide but there are only two people who know Baltimore well, one woman (white) will work with the community. Unless she is highly skilled in community work, the preponderance of police on the team may be problematic as well as her race. On the other hand the police may understand the workings of the police department better and be more accepted by the police. It is essential to have the trust and cooperation of both groups.
While Exiger discusses their Plan of Action, and has laid out roles and responsibilities of each team member on a detailed organization chart, their work with the community is not developed. They do

discuss more generally their work with communities with teleconferencing and texting with members of the community, but it is not clear how often they will actually be in the communities talking with people face to face. This is a concern since the community is essential for the successful outcome of this consent decree. The people most affected may not have computers or be available for teleconferencing or video conferencing.
They have at least two highly qualified people with statistical and analytical backgrounds who have worked on previous monitoring teams and can analyse the collected data on Use of Force, First Amendment Protection, Sexual Abuse, etc. They have also stated they will set up a data room which will process the information collected. This provides security that is called for in the Consent Decree.
While the proposal states that the group will be on budget for the duration of the project and they say they will invest about 5,950 hours per year, they do not specify hours per team member which is important to see where their emphasis lies.
Overall, I would give this group 4.25/5
The two local candidates, Loyola University and Susan Burke, have strong Plans of Action (Burke being the stronger) with strong community involvement and interesting perspectives. Loyola looks at solutions to the problem from a psychological change in organisational culture and leadership development stand point and Susan Burke incorporates local high school graduates from the community and two exoffenders who have participated in community rehabilitation programs in community outreach, research and other activities to give them a view of law enforcement work.
Both have strong and interdisciplinary balanced teams with local and national members. Loyola has 11 members, (5 women, 6 men, 4 people of color). The Loyola team includes 4 professors and graduate students, 4 lawyers, a judge and an expert in cultural proficiency and training in racial equity in law enforcement as well as experts in data analysis and 2 police officers. They have included people with experience in monitoring other consent decrees. These police representatives however do not have the same caliber of experience as those from Exiger.
Loyola stresses building good relationships with all stakeholders and understanding the organization, which seems reasonable since they have psychologists heading the team and other social science members. The proposal specifies the team will train police force members in identifying racial bias. Loyola provides a chart indicating the division of labour among members of the team and divides its implementation plan into stages, providing coaching in each step as needed. They will have a community outreach team, semi-annual publications and meetings, and a website. They seem to have a strong, experienced analytic team with one member having expertise in police analysis.
Loyola falls within the budget allocation by the city and demonstrates that it will provide over 4000 hours of labour each year, about 2000 less than Exiger.
Because of the team mix, there is more room for objectivity and transparency than in a completely local team.
Overall, I would give this group 4.5/5.

Sarah Burke has a 12 member team, (three women, nine men, four blacks) plus five community members. Four of the team are lawyers, five are in law enforcement, one has done policing statistics, three live in Baltimore and the others are national. Four members of the team have monitored other consent decrees or other police actions in Cincinnati, Detroit, Oakland Maricopa County; one has been director of COPS appointed by Eric Holder. The analytical member has worked in crime and criminal justice in Oakland and bias in stop and frisk in Chicago. Another has worked with police leadership
As laid out in the implementation plan, the team will work on the four major tasks simultaneously, not sequentially. Each step is carefully laid out in the Plan of Action. They discuss goals and process for each step and for each task. The first year’s plan is developed week by week while the other four years are on a quarterly basis. There will be weekly community meetings to monitor the community reaction to the implementation of the consent decree. In looking at the implementation chart, even though there are twelve people on the team, it seems as if some of the members will be overworked, including the lead Sarah Burke, who will be directly involved in every aspect of the project. There is a community liaison who will work directly with the five community participants as they surveys communities and do data entery. They have a system of secured lines where only two head monitors have access.
The budget is considerably less $893,000 for first year, well under the $1.4+ million of the others and gives more than twice the hours of Exiger and three times more than Loyola. However, it is important to note that 9000 hours of this team are allocated to the five community workers, leaving the remaining 3960 for the professional staff, equal to Loyola.
I am a bit concerned by the presence of one member who may have conflicts of ineptest having worked for Brian Frosh’s campaign and who is thinking about running for office. Another concern I have is the allocation of $155,000 for leaders of community meetings and community projects. The third concern is the intensity of involvement of several team members, especially the lead. That being said, I think this is the strongest of three teams with a balance of high caliber and experienced local and national staff with a clearly laid out plan of action and the strong use of direct community interaction.
Overall, I would give this group 4.75/5.
I commented of three groups because I thought all three were very strong in different ways, but would be satisfied with anyone of the three getting the contract.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Munnell

40. Liz Simon-Higgs

From: To: Subject: Date:

Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Public comment on Prospective Monitors Monday, July 17, 2017 11:17:55 PM

Dear Ms. Cheema:

I am a resident of Baltimore city (308 E Randall St, 21230) and am contacting you in regards to the selection process for the independent monitor for the consent decree between the City of Baltimore and the Department of Justice.

I appreciate your tireless efforts on this!

As you know, community input was vital to the DOJ's investigative report and its subsequent consent decree with Baltimore Police Department (BPD).

Community input will be even MORE critical as the monitors work with the BPD to implement the consent decree.

I urge you to seriously consider Susan Burke or Loyola University as the monitors. And more broadly, here are some criticalcriteria for monitor selection:

The independent monitor team must be locally based and have strong relationships with community members / organizations most affected by local policing and criminal justice practices.

The monitor team must include members who really understand and emphasize de-escalation and mental health. As a parent of a child with autism, I am deeply worried about how police respond to non-neurotypically-presenting folks.

The monitor team must include members with expertise in handling sexual assault investigations that respect survivors and ensure adequate investigation. As outlined in the Department of Justice report, BPD has failed to adequately handle sexual assault investigations.

Most critically, the monitor team needs to understand structural racism and be able to communicate local (and broader) history -- and empathy -- with BPD. BPD's practices did not evolve in an historical vacuum. We cannot stem BPD's abuse of community members without everyday cops having a different framework (which includes a little history).

Thank you! Sincerely, Liz Simon-Higgs

41. Maura Dwyer

From: To: Subject: Date:

Maura Dwyer Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) public comment on the Consent Decree Monitor Applications. 21218 resident. Saturday, July 15, 2017 4:51:03 PM

Dear leaders of Baltimore City,
I am writing to you as a resident of Baltimore who is concerned about the unconstitutional and discriminatory behavior of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD). I have a vested interested in the consent decree and in ensuring that the voices of impacted residents are heard throughout the process. To that end I can only expect that the final monitor team chosen is one who includes at least 1/3-1/2 African-Americans, formerly incarcerated people, and young people impacted by these unconstitutional practices.
In order to achieve this, community feedback and input must be central to the monitoring process, aka active in making decisions, not just being informed! Any team chosen should be required to hire community members, affected persons, and community stakeholders as consultants. A defined percentage of the monitoring budget should be designated for this group. It would also be helpful to have members of the team that are from Baltimore, or at least who have spent more than a decade in this city fighting to make it more equitable so they already have connections to community stakeholders.
Additionally, individuals on the team should have direct experience with police brutality- Stop and Frisk or "Jump Outs" are a tool of oppression and intimidation; the chosen monitor should demonstrate an understanding of why ending these methods is crucial to the health of our community!
Lastly, the chosen team should be willing and required to provide a forum for community members, affected persons, and community stakeholders to be heard in open court, before the monitoring judge, prior to the approval of any and all settlement agreements being approved by the court.
In reading the applications, there were some very vague proposals. I hope that you will make your decision based on proposals that demonstrate a concrete knowledge of how Baltimore works, policies and forthcoming practices so this process can sustain itself in the years to come.
Sincerely,
Maura Dwyer 21218

--

42. Emilie Pichot

From: To: Subject: Date:

Emilie Pichot Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Requests Regarding Consent Decree Monitor Monday, July 17, 2017 10:51:13 AM

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to you as a resident of Baltimore who is concerned about the unconstitutional and discriminatory behavior of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD). I have a vested interested in the consent decree and in ensuring that the voices of impacted residents are heard throughout the process. To that end, please consider the following points:

BPD used enforcement strategies that disproportionately impact African-Americans in the city of Baltimore. The monitoring team must include African-Americans, formerly incarcerated people, and young people impacted by these unconstitutional practices. Additionally, Individuals with direct experience with police brutality must receive an enhanced opportunity to be fully engaged in the monitoring process.

Any monitoring team chosen by the City of Baltimore and DOJ should be required to create a formal infrastructure for community members, affected persons and community stakeholders to ENGAGE in the process not just be informed. The monitor should be required to include all dissenting information in reports, motions and other documents provided to the court.The team should be required to provide a forum for community members, affected persons, and community stakeholders to be heard in open court, before the monitoring judge, prior to the approval of any and all settlement agreements being approved by the court.

Sincerely, Emilie Pichot 21218

43. Professor Stan Becker

2017.07.16
Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20530
Puneet Cheem and others whom it may concern:
Greetings from Baltimore.
I was sent a link to your letter via the Quaker Meeting (Homewood Friends Meeting) in Baltimore which has been active in monitoring the criminal justice system since the Freddie Gray death. I have served on NIH review panels so am familiar with reviews and rankings of proposals for a given RFP/RFA.
It seemed appropriate to look at all five that you recommended. I have given my criteria and then rankings of each proposal in a table. The clear recommendation I would have would be that the proposals of Susan Burke and Exiger are the best and either of those would be an excellent choice.
Thank you for asking for advice in this matter.
Toward a better future,
Stan Becker Professor, Johns Hopkins Univ.

Summary of criteria used to rank proposals

Criteria

Things to consider

Leadership

PI knows Baltimore; experience with law enforcement; experience with other consent decrees;

Team

Balanced on sex, race; professions, breadth of experience, i.e. not loaded with one profession

responsiveness details of what portion is being responded to to consent decree

data collection

innovative, comprehensive, team experience in relevant data collection; up-to-date data collection methods

statistical expertise and ideas

team member with statistical expertise; expertise in law enforcement statistics; ideas for monitoring and analyses

Independence
Community involvement
Budget

Not too tied to Baltimore; no potential vested interests Budget for community participation, feedback, etc.
not top-heavy; reasonable for what is being offered; salaries reasonable

Table comparing the 5 proposals

Susan Burke

Leadership

4 Excellent; Ms. Burke has varied experience

team

fine

responsiveness 5 fine

scope of work 5 areas: data, policy, training, implementation

data collection 4 Ridgeway will know what to collect

statistics

5 Ridgeway is superbly qualified

independence

4 Seems ok; several key people from outside

community invol 5 Great idea to hire ex-cons and youth

budget

3 hourly fees seem extravagant (>$350 per hour for three persons) 5-year: $6M; $250K for Burke each year ok?

Total score

39

Exiger

Leadership

5 excellent; worked on LA consent decree which was a huge success apparently; PMO is unclear

Team

4 not much in Baltimore it seems

responsiveness

fine, it goes point by point; listening at beginning

5 is excellent idea

scope of work 4 seems adequate

data collection 5 excellent experience from LA work

statistics

5 Adequate; Prof. Taylor teaches grad and undergrad stat courses; team has experience with ‘profiling’ data

independence

5 exellent; outsiders

community invol 3 somewhat weak on this aspect

budget

4 $7M; $225 “blended rate”

Total score

40

Loyola

Leadership

4 Two Loyola faculty who will be on leave

Team

2 two psychologists at top

responsiveness 3 less precise in citing consent decree text

scope of work

3 “Top-down” seems inappropriate in some sense; there needs to be “buy-in” at all levels and top-down is often a poor way to get that; emphasis on “sustaining reform” is very good

data collection 4 feedback on ideas before data collection is good idea

statistics

4 Golom has needed experience in statistics but apparently has not worked much with police data

independence

4 unclear

community invol 4

regular meetings with community in each of BPD districts

budget

4 $7.4M

Total score

32

Venable LLP

Leadership

5 Thompson knows Baltimore well and has worked in leadership roles

Team

3 too many lawyers; slightly weak on women in the team it seems

responsiveness 4 fine

scope of work 4

data collection 3

statistics

4

independence

4

community invol 3

budget

4

seems adequate
not much detail given
Lamberth has qualifications but has not published statistical work recently it seems, though did early work on profiling
hopefully
setting up office to receive input is good but public meetings after reports are published seems inadequate
about $6.9M; budget is slightly unclear

Total score

34

Baltimore Monitoring Team

Leadership

3 two retired judges

Team

3 seems top-heavy with men

responsiveness 4 not point by point but seems quite adequate

scope of work 4 themes are: community, accountability, independence

data collection 5

Community survey planned. Ms. Cole has adequate experience with police data

statistics

5 Dr. Lynch is capable and has done considerable work with criminal justice statistics and published on same

independence

this is a major theme but co-monitor was mediator in 3 settlement with family of Freddie Gray

community invol 4

Community Advisory Board is “at heart of” plan; membership on it is unclear

budget

2 Lots of folks with high salaries (ten have $300 or more per hour)

Total score

33

44. J.E. Randall

From: To: Cc: Subject: Date:

J.E. Randall Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Laurenceau, Danielle; J.E. Randall Ruining Our City Tuesday, July 04, 2017 5:14:11 PM

To Whom it May Cncern;

My colleagues, neighbors & associates are angry and disgusted that your irresponsible actions have undermined our police and left our communities vulnerable to the now rampant crime that your measures have ensured.

As Baltimore is known worldwide as a city with prevalent drug and violence issues, your "Consent Decree" reflects pure contempt for your constituency. Coupled with your absurd decision to remove plainclothes police, it is obvious that you have grown negligent and complacent in your duty to represent us. Officials in every branch of city government, most of whom live here, are also disgusted and angry that your "leadership" has betrayed us. I have repeatedly addressed everyone from my inept local councilman to the United States Attorney General's office regarding this dereliction.

Here are excerpts from my numerous complaints to various city agencies;

The area of South Monroe & McHenry Streets have degenerated so completely that it's destroying small business owners and has made a drug-shooting gallery and whorehouse out of the neighborhood. On any given day, these streets resemble 'night of the living dead', so infested are we with severe addicts.

Every day I come to my shop, I must sweep away drug "works" and spend ALL DAY calling for police we don't have to enforce laws they ARE PROHIBITED FROM ENFORCING. Drug dealers, junkies, and prostitutes proliferate the entire area COMPLETELY UNABATED.

If you cannot see fit to repeal these travesties, come election time, be assured we will vote you out with the same contempt you have shown us.

Most Sincerely, ~J.E.Randall

Virus-free. www.avast.com

45. Anna Kaufman

From: To: Subject: Date:

Annie Kaufman Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) We need a serious monitor. Monday, July 17, 2017 2:40:05 PM

Dear DOJ,

Please make sure Baltimore gets a serious monitor who will ensure rigorous compliance with the police department's consent decree. It is especially important the monitor gather input from experts in racial and sexual violence and rely heavily on the local community for guidance. Baltimore residents need to be a driving force in improving our police department.

Please let me know how you plan to proceed in selecting a community grounded monitor and how we can stay involved. Thank you, Anna Kaufman

46. Claire Landers

From: To: Subject: Date:

Claire Landers Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Require monitor teams with expertise in Mental Health + Sexual Assault reponse Monday, July 17, 2017 4:32:29 PM

July 17, 2017

Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington D.C. 20530

RE: United States v. Baltimore Police Dep’t et al., Civil No. JKB-17-99

Dear Ms. Cheema:

I moved to Baltimore 19 years ago and almost immediately became aware of the discrepancy in the treatment by law enforcement officers between white people, like me, and residents who are black (regardless of income level or zipcode). I thought I had heard or read examples of every kind of police misconduct that occurs on the streets of Baltimore City - and then I read the extremely disturbing and eye-opening Dept. of Justice Report on Baltimore Police Dept. practices. The rigorous investigation, reporting and documentation by DOJ attorneys and staff established that routine acts of misconduct (or silence about misconduct) by police officers and their supervisors are, indeed, part of a system and culture that accepts and perpetuates unconstitutional practices and even human rights violations 'as part of the job' on the streets of Baltimore City.

Today I only have hope that the BPD can be transformed because the issues documented in the DOJ report will be addressed under a Consent Decree overseen by an independent monitor team. Baltimore City residents deserve only the 'best' monitor to ensure that deep reform of the BPD's culture and practices actually occurs and will be permanent and irreversible. Who is chosen to serve as monitor will make or break the trajectory of reform efforts around the BPD.

As I scanned through many of the monitor applications on-line, it appeared that the majority had no team members with meaningful experience in two critical areas which received major attention in the DOJ report: police de-escalation in response to individuals in mental health crisis and police response to sexual assault victims. I felt compelled to write especially to urge that, in evaluating applications, you give particular attention to choosing a monitor that is staffed with experts who are focused on addressing the grave deficiencies in the BPD's practices related to responding to sexual assault victims and individuals experiencing mental health crises.

I am very concerned that, if the selection process does not take account of any deficiencies in

applicant proposals now, effective reform measures in those two critical areas will be given short-shrift from the outset of the monitor team's work. Any applicants chosen to move forward as "finalists" in this process should be required to supplement their proposals immediately, if necessary, by including additional team members with recognized expertise in law enforcement response to mental health crises and sexual assault victims.
The future of Baltimore city lies in the success of the police reform process in the next several years.The success of the consent decree in making that happen rests chiefly in the hands of a strong and diversely equipped monitor team. Thank you for inviting public input into the selection of who that monitor team will be. I appreciate the opportunity to have my perspective considered.
Sincerely, Claire Landers

 
 INDEX: Submitted Questions for Monitor Finalists
Submissions on behalf of groups
1. Baltimore Action Legal Team 2. Campaign for Justice, Safety, and Jobs 3. Disability Rights Maryland 4. NAACP Legal Defense Fund 5. Immigration Outreach Service Center
Submissions on behalf of individuals
6. Barbara Tunstall 7. Betty Robinson 8. Hilary Hellerbach 9. David Cramer 10. Jerome Briscoe 11. Karis Haslam 12. Kim Trueheart 13. Keesha Ha 14. Marilyn Howard 15. Mary Jane Oelke 16. Stan Becker 17. Yvette Muhammad

1. Baltimore Action Legal Team


BA.LT
BALTIMORE ACTION LEGAL TEAM
Baltimore Consent Decree Monitor Finalist Interview Questions Submitted to Baltimore Action Legal Team on 8/2/17
Questions for all six finalists
Submitted by Richard Ochs (Zip code: 21214) 1. What can be done to stop the ‘no snitch’ practice amongst police? 2. Will you oppose FOP Lawsuit against Marilyn Mosby? 3. Will you recommend amnesty for persons arrested for Freddie Gray uprising? 4. Will you call for review of the Tyrone West case? 5. Will you support Police cameras that cannot be turned off? 6. Do you support jury trials for all police accused of murder or manslaughter?
Submitted by Mary Elsesair (Zip Code: 21218) 1. What can be done to stop the ‘no snitch’ practice amongst police? 2. Will you oppose FOP Lawsuit against Marilyn Mosby? 3. Will you recommend amnesty for persons arrested for Freddie Gray uprising? 4. Will you call for review of the Tyrone West case? 5. Will you support Police cameras that cannot be turned off? 6. Do you support jury trials for all police accused of murder or manslaughter?
Questions for CNA
Submitted by Kathryn M. (Zip Code: 21210) 1. Why does such a high percentage of your budget go to Coppin State? 2. Will you oppose police practices of putting their knees on the neck of prone persons?
Question for Powers
Submitted by Kathryn M (Zip Code: 21210) 1. Some of your team are from PG County and may have a working relationship with Commissioner Davis. How are you going to separate your interests?
Question for Exiger
Submitted by Kathryn M. (Zip Code: 21210) 1. Only two members of your team are from Baltimore City. How do you plan to get to know the community in a relational way, not just through community meetings and data collection?

BALT
BALTIMORE ACTION LEGAL TEAM
Interview Questions for Consent Decree Monitor Finalists Applicant: All
1. The monitoring team should include individuals most impacted by decisions made by the monitoring team. Please provide concrete examples of how the team plans on engaging those impacted by this consent decree.
2. The monitoring process should be transparent and ensure community access to the entire process. How does the team plan on ensuring a transparent process from beginning to end?
3. Please provide concrete examples of how you will engage affected persons and community stakeholders to engage in the court process (i.e. allow persons to be heard in open court during the process).
Specific Question for Venable 1. Venable has represented the City of Baltimore on several matters, please address how the group plans to address this conflict of interest.
Specific Question for CNA Consulting
1. Michael Berlin is a member of your team and a former BPD officer. Please address how Mr. Berlin will remain independent throughout the process.

2. Campaign for Justice, Safety, and Jobs


-

CAMPAIGN FOR -

JUSTICE

SAFl:TY

BJOBS

August 12, 2017
Electronic Mail (Baltimore.Consent.Decree@usdoj.gov)
Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20530
Re: U.S. v. Police Dep’t of Baltimore City, et al, Civil Action 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Questions to Independent Monitor Finalists
Dear Ms. Cheema:
On behalf of the Campaign for Justice, Safety and Jobs (CJSJ), we write to submit questions for the finalists for the Independent Monitor, as outlined in the consent decree between the City of Baltimore and the Department of Justice. The selection of the monitor is a critical process to ensuring the ultimate success of the consent decree, and we have engaged residents across the city to identify criteria that the people of Baltimore feel should be carefully considered in the selection of the Independent Monitor for Baltimore’s Consent Decree
CJSJ is a coalition of over 30 organizations representing local and national youth leaders, community organizations, policy advocates, civil rights organizations, and labor unions. CJSJ formed in 2015 in the wake of the Baltimore police in-custody death of Freddie Gray, an unarmed Black man. Since then, we have created and advanced policing reforms and economic solutions to improve the quality of life for Baltimore City residents. After engaging hundreds of Baltimore residents to solicit their feedback, we respectfully submit the questions below.
1. Community Engagement: According to the consent decree, “the Monitor will designate a member of the team as a community liaison, who will serve as a point of contact to community members.”
a. How will your community liaison(s) interact regularly with Baltimore residents and the monitor team?
b. How will your team select an individual or entity to design, distribute, and analyze the community survey required by the consent decree? Do you plan to, or would you be willing to contract with community based organizations to conduct the annual survey?
c. What steps do you plan to take to ensure that you are inclusive of ALL Baltimore residents, including youth, immigrants, people with disabilities, and others who may be more difficult to reach?
d. Baltimore is a city of neighborhoods. How do you plan to engage people in every corner of the city? Who do you have on your team that has the depth of local

1


knowledge and connections to local grassroots organizations and neighborhood leaders to be able to accomplish this?
2. Monitor Team Composition: Each monitor finalist has either designated a former law enforcement official as the lead monitor or has a large representation of law enforcement officials on its team.
a. What steps will you take to address any distrust felt by Baltimore residents who have been victims of police misconduct and may not want to communicate with team members because of their law enforcement backgrounds?
b. To the extent that your law enforcement team members have been named as defendants in law suits or have been the subject of misconduct complaints, how will you assure the parties and Baltimore communities that these team members are qualified to assess and recommend policing reforms detailed in the consent decree?
3. Track Record: According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigative report, significant racial disparities exist in the Baltimore Police Department’s (BPD) pedestrian stops, vehicle stops, searches, arrests, and use of force.1 The report also uncovered evidence of gender bias in BPD officers’ treatment of transgender individuals and their investigation of reports of sexual assault.2
a. What is your team’s experience in identifying and addressing biased policing; specifically, racial, ethnic, and gender bias?
b. Please share examples of law enforcement agencies that realized a reduction in incidents of biased policing after receiving assistance from members of your team.

We appreciate your consideration of these questions, and hope to hear answers from the finalist candidates at the upcoming public meetings. We urge the parties to carefully consider these answers in selecting the best monitor team for Baltimore. For any follow up questions, please contact Elizabeth Alex at ealex@wearecasa.org.

Sincerely,

The Campaign for Justice, Safety, and Jobs members

1199 SEIU ACLU of Maryland Amnesty International Baltimore Algebra Project Baltimore Women United Beats, Rhymes, and Relief Baltimore United for Change CASA

Coalition of Concerned Mothers Communities United Council on American-Islamic Relations Equity Matters Empowerment Temple Freddie Gray Project Fusion Group Jews United for Justice

1 See, U.S. Dep’t of Justice Civil Rights Division, Investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department, Aug. 10,
 2016 at 47-62, https://www.justice.gov/opa/file/883366/download,.
 2 Id. at 122-27.


2


Justice League Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle Liberty Village Project Making Change Mothers on the Move NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc No Boundaries Coalition Peace by Piece

Pleasant Hope Baptist Church Power Inside SEIU 32BJ Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Southern Engagement Foundation Ujima People’s Progress Universal Zulu Nation

3


3. Disability Rights Maryland


Disability 
 Rights 
 Maryland
VIA E-MAIL August 13, 2017
Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20530

1-'.rnJ)OVrer1-r1enL, Ti1

nliiy,

1500 Union Ave., Suite 2000, Baltimore, MD 21211
Phone: 410-727-6352 I Fax: 410-727-6389
WWW.Disabi lityRightsM D.org

RE: Disability Rights Maryland's Comments on the Baltimore City Monitor Finalist Applications
Dear Ms. Cheema:
Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments and feedback on the Baltimore City Monitor Proposals that were submitted to the City of Baltimore and the Department of Justice. Disability Rights Maryland is the state's federally designated protection and advocacy organization for persons with disabilities. We have long been concerned about the experience of Baltimore City residents with behavioral health disabilities as they interact with members of the police. We advocate the use of diversion policies that reduce interaction of persons in crisis with the police whenever possible, implementation of crisis response techniques that can help prevent situations that lead to unreasonable use of force, connect people in crisis to behavioral health services, and decreasing inappropriate criminal justice involvement for people with disabilities. We have had the chance to review the Monitor Proposals and the Supplemental Reponses from the finalists and offer the following questions for consideration:
1) How do each of the applicants' view their role in monitoring BPD activities as distinct from their role in providing technical assistance to BPD?

2) What does each applicant, or their relevant subject matter expert, see as the most relevant experience they bring to the issue of police interactions with people with disabilities?

3) What experience does each applicant, or their relevant subject matter expert, have in creating and implementing diversion policies that reduce interaction of persons in crisis with police whenever possible?

4) What experience does each of the applicants, or their relevant subject matter expert, have in implementing crisis response techniques?

5) What would each applicant recommend to BPD or the City for having greater involvement of mental health professionals and services for people in crisis in lieu of police interactions?

6) How will each applicant define successful community engagement? 7) For DLA Piper and Powers Consulting: Please explain your decision to not have a
formal community advisory panel or community council to assist in your community engagement process. For CNA Consulting and Exiger: Please explain the criteria that will be used to select members of the community advismy panel or community council to provide community input to Monitor positions and activities. 8) Please explain how each applicant will approach the disparity of police practices experienced by the "wealthier and largely white neighborhoods," and "largely African­ American communities," in obtaining community input and engagement in implementing the Consent Decree? 9) Each applicant discusses dispute resolution methods for differing opinions and recommendations on the monitor teams, to what extent will community input be sought in addressing disputes of opinion or recommendations within monitor teams? Thank you for considering these questions.
David A. Prater Attorney
2

4. NAACP Legal Defense Fund


TIIE THURCOOD ~1ARSHALL
I \ S' l'ITLT I,:
LDF DEFl':_\JD EDl fO\TE EML-'O\VEH
August 12, 2017
Electronic Mail (Baltimore.Consent.Decree@usdoj.gov)
Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20530
Re: U.S. v. Police Dep’t of Baltimore City, et al, Civil Action 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Questions to Independent Monitor Finalists
Dear Ms. Cheema:
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) appreciates the opportunity to submit questions to the four monitor finalists for the consent decree in the above-captioned case: CNA Consulting; Exiger & 21st Century Policing, LLC; Powers Consulting Group; and Venable, LLP. We respectfully submit the questions below.
1. According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigative report, significant racial disparities exist in the Baltimore Police Department’s (BPD) pedestrian stops, vehicle stops, searches, arrests, and use of force.1 The report also uncovered evidence of gender bias in BPD officers’ treatment of transgender individuals and their investigation of reports of sexual assault.2
a. What is your team’s experience in identifying and addressing biased policing; specifically, racial, ethnic, and gender bias?
b. Please share examples of law enforcement agencies that realized a reduction in incidents of biased policing after receiving assistance from members of your team.
2. The consent decree includes provisions that require the BPD to engage in policing practices that protect an individual’s right to free speech, assembly, and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and the excessive use of force.3
1 See, U.S. Dep’t of Justice Civil Rights Division, Investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department, Aug. 10,
 2016 at 47-62, https://www.justice.gov/opa/file/883366/download,.
 2 Id. at 122-27.
 3 Consent Decree, U.S. v. Police Department of Baltimore City, Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB, 11-93 (U.S. D.MD Jan.
 12, 2017), https://www.justice.gov/crt/page/file/925046/download. 

1


a. What is your team’s experience in identifying and addressing unconstitutional policing practices?
b. Please share examples of law enforcement agencies that realized a reduction in incidents of unconstitutional policing after receiving assistance from members of your team.
3. The Baltimore consent decree requires the BPD to assess and improve its relationship with the Baltimore School Police Force, which has a contract with the BPD to serve as auxiliary police.
a. What is your team’s opinion about the appropriate role of school police officers? b. Should all police officers who patrol city streets under contract with the BPD be held
to the same training, disciplinary, and data collection standards? If not, why not.
4. As indicated in your Request for Application submissions, several of your team members have multiple, ongoing professional commitments. The 227-page consent decree details sixteen areas of reforms to BPD policies and practices.
a. If you are selected as the independent monitor, would you commit team members who will serve full-time over the course of the monitoring term?
b. Have you identified these team members? If so, who are they and what will be their responsibilities?
5. Each monitor finalist has either designated a former law enforcement official as the lead monitor or has a large representation of law enforcement officials on its team.
a. What steps will you take to address any distrust felt by Baltimore residents who have been victims of police misconduct and may not want to communicate with team members because of their law enforcement backgrounds?
b. To the extent that your law enforcement team members have been named as defendants in law suits or have been the subject of misconduct complaints, how will you assure the parties and Baltimore communities that these team members are qualified to assess and recommend policing reforms detailed in the consent decree?
6. According to the consent decree, “the Monitor will designate a member of the team as a community liaison, who will serve as a point of contact to community members.”4
a. How will your community liaison(s) interact regularly with Baltimore residents and the monitor team?
b. How will your team select an individual or entity to design, distribute, and analyze the community survey required by the consent decree?
c. If necessary, would you be willing to expand the number of community liaisons for your team through a transparent selection process?
4 Id. at 184.
2


7. The Venable, LLP and Exiger monitor applications have identified potential conflicts of interests, including members who have worked for the BPD or DOJ, or who provided legal representation to the City of Baltimore. a. If you are selected as the independent monitor, how will you manage potential conflicts of interests and assure Baltimore communities that your service will be impartial? The selection of the independent monitor is one of the most important decisions that the
parties and Baltimore residents and stakeholders will make. Thank you for considering these questions. We look forward to hearing the responses of monitor finalists.
Sincerely yours,
Monique L. Dixon Deputy Director of Policy and Senior Counsel, Policing Reform Campaign Carlton Mayers Policy Counsel, Policing Reform Campaign
3


5. Immigration Outreach Service Center


IMMIGRATION OUTREACH SERVICE CENTER

August 13, 2017

U.S. Department of Justice
 Civil Rights Division,
 Special Litigation Section,
 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.,
 Washington, D.C. 20530


Re: Questions for the candidates for the Consent Decree Independent Monitor (Baltimore, MD) to be held on August 15 and August 16 submitted to Baltimore.Consent.Decree@usdoj.gov.

Dear Civil Rights Division:

We are respectfully requesting a response from the following candidates for the Independent Monitors of the Consent Decree in Baltimore City: • CNA Consulting (Response to Request for Additional Information) • Exiger (Response to Request for Additional Information) • Powers Consulting Group (Response to Request for Additional Information) • Venable LLP (Response to Request for Additional Information)

Recognizing that Baltimore City is home to 50,000 immigrants and that the largest proportion of immigrants are Latinx, followed by Asian immigrants, then African, then European, I would like the candidates to consider the need for a micro-community plan to foster improved relations between the immigrant population of Baltimore City and the Baltimore City Police Department.

This is a complex question that requires the team consider the diversity of the immigrant population and how the police department might need some of the following tools in order to best serve this population. Some of these tools might include:
• Diversity training for all officers in order to recognize, not just the diversity of race, color, and ethnicity, but also to recognize and respect the diversity of language skills, education, and experience with which our immigrants arrive.
• Sensitivity to the search for refuge and safety that is often the driving force that brings immigrants to our country.
• Recognition of the fear of police and armed forces (those in uniform, those carrying weapons, and those with power to jail and detain them) inherent in the country of origin of many immigrants.
• Recognition of the complicity of our country in the forces that drive some people to seek refuge here in the United States.
WWW.IOSCBALTIMORE.ORG - INFO@IOSCBALTIMORE.ORG - TEL: 410-323-8564
 FAX: 410-323-8598 – 5401 LOCH RAVEN BOULEVARD, BALTIMORE, MD 21239


Given the complexity of addressing the needs of immigrants: • What would a micro-community plan for immigrants look like? • How would it be implemented? • How will you (as a candidate for independent monitor) ensure that established immigrant voices (those who have struggled with the immigration process, been successful, and have a wealth of experience) be included in the development and implementation of the plan? • How will you guarantee that immigrant voices that may be undocumented might be included in the conversation and plan?
We would like to send our sincere thanks to the Department of Justice team that has helped so many of us to process and develop our opinions so that we might best serve our communities in the Consent Decree development and implementation process. Thank you for the opportunity to share our questions. We look forward to next steps in the process. Sincere thanks,
Pat Shannon Jones Executive Director
WWW.IOSCBALTIMORE.ORG - INFO@IOSCBALTIMORE.ORG - TEL: 410-323-8564
 FAX: 410-323-8598 – 5401 LOCH RAVEN BOULEVARD, BALTIMORE, MD 21239


6. Barbara Tunstall


From: To: Subject: Date:

Barbara Tunstall Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Questions Tuesday, August 01, 2017 11:15:52 AM

1. Who among you are Baltimore city residents? For those (if any) who are, speak to an interaction with BCPD. What was the reason for that interaction? How did it begin? What was the end result?

2. If any are not residents of Baltimore city, what recent news reports have you seen come from Baltimore city, please list one positive story, one negative story and one neutral story involving Baltimore city police and the citizens. From each story, please detail, from your perspective how the disparate stories can be learning opportunities, that is what can the individuals learn from each corresponding experience?

3. Many of Baltimore city residents have experienced years of systemic trauma. The living environments are sorely in need of not only cosmetic and also structural readjustment. Please name a cosmetic as well of a structural intervention that you experience as a need for this committee to function at its peak.

Barbara Tunstall

7. Betty Robinson


From: To: Subject: Date:

Betty G. Robinson Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Question for the Monitor teams for Baltimore"s consent decree Friday, August 11, 2017 10:02:55 PM

Here is a question for the monitor teams:

Since we know that the DOJ identified racist practices as a crucial area for the BPD to address, how will you ensure if you are selected as the Consent Decree Monitor that you are taking account the underlying factors of structural racism and white supremacy when evaluating compliance?

Betty Robinson

8. Hilary Hellerbach


From: To:
Cc: Subject: Date:

Hilary Hellerbach
 Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT); Daphney.Williams@baltimorecity.gov; CouncilPresident@baltimorecity.gov;
 Ryan.Dorsey@baltimorecity.gov info@baltimorelegalaction.org Re: Interview Question for Consent Decree Finalists Thursday, August 03, 2017 7:48:56 PM

Please direct this question to each finalist:

Four years ago a 44 year old healthy unarmed black man named Tyrone West was stopped by police, allegedly for a traffic violation, pulled from his car, beaten , tazed, pepper sprayed, and kicked, by police officers (10 to 15 of them), and then stood on by a 300 lb officer, resulting in his death. The family was not officially notified of his death until after it had been on the news. The family was told early on that there would be no charges filed. A representative of the police department told the family that a request for internal investigation was submitted on their behalf. Baltimore's CRB has no record of having it. The States Attorney's Office never filed charges against any of the officers involved, although there was a recent civil settlement with Mr. West's children. His sister and other's in the family continue to advocate for accountability and have recently even presented additional evidence to the States Attorney's office.. Given this case, how would you change policies to insure that accountability of the officers is addressed, that the CRB receives all requests for investigations of police brutality/misconduct, enabling them to enact disciplinary measures if necessary, and work to make sure that this response and trauma doesn't happen again to another family? What would you do if selected, to hold those officers involved in Mr. West's death accountable now?

Thank you for your attention to this question.

- Hilary R. Hellerbach Baltimore City Resident

On Thu, Aug 3, 2017 at 6:40 PM, Hilary Hellerbach < Please direct this question to each finalist:

> wrote:

Four years ago in Baltimore City a 44 year old unarmed healthy black man named Tyrone West

Sent from my iPhone

9. David Cramer


To the four monitoring candidates:
Each of you have strong, viable proposals. The RFP did indicate that components of one monitoring team candidate could be combined with another. To that end, each of the four finalists could benefit from aspects of monitoring candidates who have not made the top four.
For example, one of the teams not selected, Loyola University, had a unique approach that none of the top current candidates have included and could benefit from. The Loyola team headed by Heather Z. Lyons, Ph.D. of the Department of Psychology, included an approach to organizational development and racial equity that was unique and could enhance the approach proposed by each of the four leading candidates. Furthermore, the BPD is hiring two additional contract staff funded by the Open Society Institute – a Organizational Development Advisor and a Social Justice Equity Advisor. A Monitoring team member who could relate directly with these two staff and enhance their capacity to affect internal BPD change, has the potential for long lasting impact beyond the five-year Consent Decree period and potentially outlast current city and BPD executive leadership. Would you be willing to include Dr Lyons or another member of her team (if they are willing) as part of your team?
In addition, Susan Burke’s team proposed a unique community engagement strategy of hiring local leaders to be part of the team. Would you be willing to adjust your budget to include such a local hiring option?
Once the final Monitoring team is selected, it is customary to include their proposal as part of the contract they sign with the City by reference. Any additional commitments made in response to questions in writing or verbally at public forums may not be captured in the agreement. Would all of you be willing to incorporate your written and verbal commitments?
Finally, Venable did not include a community liaison person in the response to the RFP but proposed to select a person with the assistance of the City, BPD and DOJ to identify someone*. Would you identify and make public your community liaison person before a final monitoring candidate is selected?
*”In addition, as discussed below, we will work with the parties to identify and retain a community liaison who will facilitate interaction between the monitoring team and members of the community and explore ways— beyond those required by the Consent Decree to improve community-BPD relations.” Page 18

10. Jerome Briscoe


From: To: Subject: Date:

JEROME BRISCOE Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Questions for Forum on Selection of Consent Decree Monitors Sunday, August 13, 2017 8:26:12 PM

Re: Forum for Selection of Consent Decree Monitor

Dear Sirs, My name is H. Jerome Briscoe and I am a Baltimore resident. I understand Venable, LLP. is in the running to be a Monitor pursuant to the Consent Decree. As permitted by the selection process, I ask that Venable LLP explain the nature of the multiple malpractice suits filed against it over the past decade ; how many of those suits were settled and why?; what were the provisions of those settlements?
Thank you for your consideration.
/s/ H. Jerome Briscoe

11. Karis Haslam


From: To: Cc: Subject: Date:

Karis Haslam Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Daphney.Williams@baltimorecity.gov; CouncilPresident@baltimorecity.gov; Ryan.Dorsey@baltimorecity.gov Question for Baltimore Consent Decree Monitor Finalists Sunday, August 13, 2017 11:34:43 AM

This question is for any or all of the consent Decree Monitor Finalists:

What is your team’s position on current Baltimore City policy that prohibits persons who receive cash settlements in police brutality cases from speaking out publicly – or talking to the media? Note that this policy is currently under challenge by the ACLU.

Sincerely,

Karis Haslam

From: To: Cc:
Subject: Date:

Karis Haslam
 Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT)
 Daphney.Williams@baltimorecity.gov; CouncilPresident@baltimorecity.gov; Ryan.Dorsey@baltimorecity.gov;
 civilrights@baltimorecity.gov question for Consent Decree Monitor Finalists Sunday, August 13, 2017 11:29:05 AM

This question is for any or all of the Consent Decree Monitor Finalists:

The complaint types covered under the Civilian Review Board’s current statutory authority include:

Excessive Force False Arrest False Imprisonment Harassment Abusive Language

Does your team support statutory revision to include or specifically note that the following complaint types are covered:

Failure to investigate when responding to a call. Police theft and/or extortion of citizens/detainees. Planting of evidence by police officers.

Sincerely,

From: To: Cc:
Subject: Date:

Karis Haslam
 Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT)
 DaphneyWilliams@BaltimoreCity.gov; CouncilPresident@baltimorecity.gov; Ryan.Dorsey@baltimorecity.gov;
 civilrights@baltimorecity.gov question for Consent Decree Monitor Finalists Sunday, August 13, 2017 11:19:57 AM

This question is for any or all of the Consent Decree Monitor Finalists:

Currently approximately 85% of all police misconduct complaints are filed directly with the Baltimore Police Dept. and 15% filed with the Civilian Review Board. The Baltimore Police Department reviews and decides which police misconduct reports are forwarded to the CRB according to their interpretation of whether the complaint falls under the CRB’s jurisdiction according to statutory guidelines.

Does your team support a transparent process whereby all police misconduct complaints are shared with CRB to verify that reporting is compliant with the Civilian Review Board’s statutory jurisdiction?

Sincerely,

From: To: Cc:
Subject: Date:

Karis Haslam
 Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT)
 Daphney.Williams@baltimorecity.gov; CouncilPresident@baltimorecity.gov; Ryan.Dorsey@baltimorecity.gov;
 mail@stattorney.org; civilrights@baltimorecity.gov Question for Baltimore Consent Decree Monitor Finalists Sunday, August 13, 2017 12:00:56 PM

This question is for any or all of the Consent Decree Monitor Finalists:

Four years ago this summer Tyrone West was detained in a traffic stop. A struggle with police officers ensued and thirty minutes later he was dead. No charges have been brought against any of the police officers involved. This is in spite of new evidence uncovered that includes (but is not limited to) an independent medical examiner review that concluded cause of death to be positional asphyxia, and the revelation that no drugs are held in evidence in this case as claimed by Baltimore police. The two plain clothes police officers who initially detained and engaged Tyrone West were involved in the brutal beating of Abdul Salaam less than three weeks earlier. Salaam won a civil suit against these same officers.

Will your team recommend that the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office re-open the Tyrone Case in light of new evidence uncovered?

Sincerely,

12. Kim Trueheart


From: To: Cc: Subject: Date:

kim trueheart Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) "Catherine Pugh"; Kevin Davis Questions About the Role of the Monitor Monday, August 14, 2017 4:19:54 AM

I have two questions about the role of the Monitor:

1. One of the reforms noted in the Consent Decree is a Staffing Study to ensure a sufficient number of officers and supervisors: a. The BPD is promoting itself as the 8th largest department in the nation. If the results of the staffing study concludes that the department is overmanned, will the monitor ensure the department is right-sized according to the study results?
2. One of the systemic violations noted in the DOJ Findings Report states that BPD Officers have engaged in “Retaliation against people engaging in constitutionally protected expression”. a. This practice continues today as exampled by the overwhelming presence of BPD officers at a city council public hearing on July 11, 2017 on a proposed city ordinance imposing a mandatory minimum sentence for carrying an illegal handgun. It appears that the political officials who sponsored the public hearing requested this heavy police presence to restrict constitutionally protected expression. The morning of the hearing citizens were greeted by officers who formed a gauntlet-like formation on the
sidewalk entrance to city hall; lined the hallway on the 4th floor outside the council chambers as well as numerous officers were posted inside the chambers, which all appeared as a clear attempt to intimidate citizens attending the council hearing and engaging in their constitutionally protected right to express themselves. Will the monitor address this violation which does not yet appear to have a solution identified in the reforms being undertaken by BPD?

Very Respectfully,
 Kim Trueheart, Citizen of Baltimore City


13. Keesha Ha


From: To: Subject: Date:

Keesha Ha Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) five questions for monitor finalists Monday, August 14, 2017 10:39:10 AM

1. Explain your process for the selection and role of Law Enforcement personnel chosen to participate on your team. 2. In what ways have the recent disclosures by defense attorneys of a seemingly pattern and practice within the BPD that encourages the manipulation of evidence to the detriment of innocent citizens and subsequent criminal case dismissals affect your approach to the monitoring process as it relates specifically to the BPD? 3. Reflecting upon your experience on statutory regulations involving the Law Enforcement Bill of Rights (LEOBR), in what ways are you prepared to overcome obstacles that afford officers protections? 4. Under the assumption that that a monitoring teams’ lead monitor(s) reflects an overall philosophy/approach in addressing the process specific to the needs of Baltimore, what does your selection reveal about your insight into the uniqueness of the challenges Baltimore faces that lead to the creation of the need for a consent decree? 5. In what capacity do you see the 1. The office of public defenders 2. And States Attorney’s Office in assisting the monitoring of the consent decree?

14. Marilyn Howard


From: To: Subject: Date:

producer inc Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Question Friday, August 11, 2017 11:39:44 AM

Hi:

I am requesting the forum to include a discussion on "Persistent Surveillance Systems" an arm of Baltimore City Police Department that violates Baltimore City citizens and other residents 1st Amendment rights conducting (24) surveillance by videotaping, audiotaping and monitoring citizens movements into other jurisdictions through out state of Maryland including DC and Virginia.

Police have been allowed to continue to violate citizens rights under this program by keeping program secret using, National Security as a crutch which is bogus.

The program has already been exposed by numerous of news station's, news papers and lawmakers during the Freddie Gray police murder case.

So police can not use National Security or State Secrecy when this program has been exposed as unconstitutional.

Any questions, please contact me at

Sincerely,

Marilyn Howard

From: To: Subject: Date:

producer inc Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Comments Friday, August 11, 2017 11:09:16 AM

August 11, 2017

Puneet Cheema United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20530

Dear Puneet Cheema:

This is a complaint concerning the Monitor Applications concerning the following, described as below.

Venable LLP CNA Consulting Exiger Powers Consulting Group

Venable LLP:

In 1986, I had a discrimination case against (2) White police officers for false arrest and misconduct. A legal action was filed against the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City and the Venable Law firm who represented the Mayor and Baltimore City back then was instrumental in sabotaging my case.

All types of dirty pool and unethical behavior from a hostile bias judge who called me to her bench to countermanding and bullying me into dropping my case. She yelled at me saying, "You can't sue the Mayor."

There was "Jury Tampering" with a jury pool that did not represent me as an African American citizen, with (7) White and only (5) Blacks that would assure I would loose my case against the two White police officers.

Venables allowed police to conduct an investigation on me, instead of conducting an investigation of police officers accused of discrimination who still today engages in harassment against me, still ongoing.

Powers Consulting Group:

As Baltimore City and other surrounding counties are under 24 hour aircraft surveillance by "Persistent Surveillance Systems" under the guidance of Baltimore City Police in conjunction with other government agencies and police jurisdictions which was revealed during the "Freddie Gray" police case.

At this time, numerous of media outlets found the FBI were conducting aircraft surveillance

video taping and photographing citizens over Baltimore, Maryland. This discriminatory program is conducted all over the state of Maryland in counties of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Howard, Montgomery, P. G. County and into the District of Columbia.
For these reasons, I have grave concerns about Annette Douglas credentials. She works in conjunction with the FBI, law enforcement and the Federal Aviation Administration. Has or will Annette Douglas used her expertise as a behavioral scientist in a negative manner against minority communities?
Below is her bio that mentions her working as a consultant. Also, that she worked in aviation and with the FAA.
What role will she play or has played in protection of communities of color 1st Amendment rights involving law enforcements surveillance activities?
Annette Douglas, Ph.D., Support Team Member, is a Consultant, Behavioral Science & Organizational Development specialist. She is an accomplished Behavioral Scientist and Organizational Development Consultant. Her expertise includes Education, Organizational Development and Psychology. Her clinical psychology practice specializes in psychiatric diagnoses, neurotic behavior and substance abuse. She provides consultation services for numerous vocations including law enforcement, mental health, aviation industry, and the Federal Government. In addition to her clinical background, Dr. Douglas has extensive practical experience as a Psychiatric Diagnostician and Addiction Specialist at the Brookdale Hospital Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY; and a Substance Abuse trainer for the Palm Beach County Justice Division’s Sexual Assault Response Team. She developed the Behavioral Tool Assessments for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), New York City Police Department (NYPD) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Dr. Douglass is an author with a host of publications including Mental Models for Safety-Related Positions; Things One Should Know About Drugs; Single One-Parent Households and Cry of the Child (Intergenerational Domestic Violence).
Any questions, please feel to contact me at 443-561-8586.
Sincerely,
Marilyn Howard

15. Mary Jane Oelke


From: To: Subject: Date:

Mary Oelke Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) question about Maryland police misconduct Saturday, August 12, 2017 5:17:46 AM

Sir or Madam,

I have reported police misconduct of Baltimore COUNTY police to DOJ and FBI with no response or investigation or results of any kind.. With a history as riddled with questionable incidents and procedures (ignoring rape kits for example, also the death of Korrin Gaines and Christopher Brown and others I could name and the robbery of evidence against a police officer from a secret IA location known only by fellow officers, etc, etc.) ,I ask wwhy there is not a DOJ restructuring and investigation into COUNTY police misconduct and violation of due process engaged in by COUNTY police. I am relieved to see Baltimore City police finally scrutinized, but the violations of citizens rights by misguided police departments crosses the county line and you need these same hearings out in the county and finally allow community input from witnesses in Baltimore County as well as the city. WHEN WILL THIS HAPPEN? That is my question.

Sincerely,

Mary Jane Oelke

16. Stan Becker


From: To: Subject: Date:

stan Becker Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) question for monitoring candidates Saturday, August 12, 2017 6:28:08 PM

Dear Madam/Sir
Here is my question.
In a rigorous statistical analyses of crime rates in 31 jurisdictions where DOJ has had consent decrees, Rushin and Edwards (2017) found significant increases in property crimes and violent crime in the period 0-3 years after the consent decree settlement. Subsequently (after year 3) there was a decline so rates were not significantly different from those in comparison jurisdictions. Baltimore seems no exception with a record number of homicides so far this year. To what do you attribute these increases post consent decree and how do you think your monitoring will help bring down crime rates as fast as possible?

Rushin, S and Edwards, G. 2017. De-Policing. Cornell Law Review 102.

Thank you for your attention.

Stan Becker
 Professor, Johns Hopkins Univ.


17. Yvette Muhammad


From: To: Subject: Date:

YVETTE Muhammad Decree, Baltimore.Consent (CRT) Question for Panelist Wednesday, August 02, 2017 7:22:38 PM

What makes your team so special for us to trust?
 Your team consist of who & were any pick from the Community ?
 How does one become a part of the team?
 I certainly would like to be part of the team if it hasn't already been picked?
 Yvette Muhammad
 Will be there August 15th

Sent from my iPhone


 
 U.S. District Court District of Maryland (Baltimore) CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 1:17-cv-00099-JKB

Alerts not yet Supported for this Docket

United States of America v. Baltimore Police Department et al Assigned to: Chief Judge James K. Bredar Cause: 28:1331 Federal Question: Other Civil Rights

Date Filed: 01/12/2017 Jury Demand: None Nature of Suit: 440 Civil Rights: Other Jurisdiction: U.S. Government Plaintiff

Plaintiff United States of America

represented by John M Gore US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division 950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20530 2023539430 Fax: 2025140293 Email: john.gore@usdoj.gov TERMINATED: 08/19/2019 LEAD ATTORNEY

Timothy Donald Mygatt United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division 950 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20530 2023053334 Fax: 2025144883 Email: timothy.mygatt@usdoj.gov LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Alexandra Lisa Shandell U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division 4 Constitution Square 150 M St. NE Rm. 101.1112 Washington, DC 20530 2023076123 Fax: 2025140212 Email:

alexandra.shandell@usdoj.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Aparna Patrie 601 D St. NW Washington, DC 20579 2023051107 Fax: 2023533522 Email: aparna.patrie@usdoj.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Cynthia Coe 950 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, DC 20005 2023531121 Fax: 2025144883 Email: cynthia.coe@usdoj.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
David G Cooper US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division 4 Constitution Square 150 M St. NE Rm. 10.925 Washington, DC 20530 2023054733 Fax: 2025144883 Email: david.cooper@usdoj.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Emily C Keller U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division 4 Constitution Square 150 M St. NE Rm. 10.1617 Washington, DC 20530 2023076565 Email: Emily.Keller@usdoj.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Forestine Nicole Porter U.S. Department Of Justice 4 Constitution Square 150 M Street NE/ Room 10.1130. Washington, DC 20530 2025325181

Fax: 2025144883 Email: nicole.porter@usdoj.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Maureen Johnston US Dept. of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20530 2023531146 Fax: 2025144883 Email: maureen.johnston@usdoj.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Puneet Cheema Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc. 1776 K St. NW Ste. 722 Washington, DC 20006 2028046245 x596 Fax: 2128090055 Email: pcheema@lambdalegal.org TERMINATED: 12/07/2018 PRO HAC VICE
Stephen M Ryals Civil Rights Division 950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20530 2026165003 Fax: 2025144883 Email: stephen.ryals@usdoj.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Syeda Mehveen Riaz 4 Constitution Square 150 M St. NE Ste. 10.926 Washington, DC 20530 2023055816 Email: syeda.riaz@usdoj.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Seth Wayne US Dept of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20530 2025323929

V. Intervenor Plaintiff Community Churches for Community Development, Inc. TERMINATED: 04/10/2017
Intervenor Plaintiff Ralph Eugene Moore, Jr. TERMINATED: 04/10/2017
V. Defendant Baltimore Police Department

Fax: 2025140212 Email: seth.wayne@usdoj.gov TERMINATED: 11/06/2017 ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
represented by Monique L Dixon NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund 700 14th Street, NW, 6th floor Washington, DC 20005 202-682-1300 Fax: 202-682-1312 Email: mdixon@naacpldf.org TERMINATED: 03/02/2021 LEAD ATTORNEY
represented by Monique L Dixon (See above for address) TERMINATED: 03/02/2021 LEAD ATTORNEY
represented by Andre M Davis Baltimore City Department Of Law 100 N. Holliday Street, Suite 101 Baltimore, MD 21202 4103968393 Fax: 4106594077 Email: andre.davis@baltimorecity.gov TERMINATED: 03/05/2020 LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Glenn Todd Marrow Baltimore County Office of Law Historic Courthouse 400 Washington Avenue Towson, MD 21204

1-410-887-8447 Fax: (410) 296-0931 Email: gmarrow@baltimorecountymd.gov TERMINATED: 04/25/2017 LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
James L Shea , Sr Baltimore City Law Department 100 N. Holliday Street Suite 101 Baltimore, MD 21202 410-396-8393 Fax: 410-659-4077 Email: james.shea@baltimorecity.gov LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Dana Petersen Moore Office of the City Solicitor 100 N Holliday St. Ste. 101 Baltimore, MD 21202 4103963659 Email: law.danapmoore@baltimorecity.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Daniel C Beck Governor's Office of Chief Counsel 1800Elmerton Avenue Harrisburg, PA 17110 717 705 0847 Fax: 717 7722883 Email: daniebeck@pa.gov TERMINATED: 01/10/2020
Elisabeth Walden Baltimore City Law Department Office of Legal Affairs 100 N. Holliday Street, Suite 101 Baltimore, MD 21202 4103962496 Fax: 4103962126 Email:

Defendant
Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council

lisa.walden@baltimorepolice.org ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Kay Natalie Harding Baltimore City Department of Law 100 N Holliday St. Ste. 101 Baltimore, MD 21202 4103962496 Email: kay.harding@baltimorepolice.org ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Kristin Elizabeth Blumer Department of Law, Baltimore City Legal Affairs, Baltimore Police Department 100 N. Holliday Street Suite 101 City Hall Baltimore, MD 21202 443-605-3961 Email: Kristin.Blumer@BaltimorePolice.org TERMINATED: 03/05/2021 ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Natalie Rose Amato Baltimore City Law Department 100 N. Holliday Street Ste. 101 Baltimore, MD 21202 410-396-2496 Fax: 410-396-2126 Email: natalie.amato@baltimorecity.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
represented by Andre M Davis (See above for address) TERMINATED: 03/05/2020 LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
David E Ralph Baltimore City Department of Law

100 N Holliday St Baltimore, MD 21202 4108071014 Fax: 4105767203 Email: david.ralph@baltimorecity.gov TERMINATED: 09/06/2019 LEAD ATTORNEY
James L Shea , Sr (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Brent J Gurney Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP 1875 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20006 12026636525 Fax: 12026636363 Email: Brent.Gurney@wilmerhale.com TERMINATED: 01/10/2018 ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Dana Petersen Moore (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Debo P Adegbile Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP 7 World Trade Center 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 2129377518 Fax: 2122308888 Email: Debo.Adegbile@wilmerhale.com TERMINATED: 01/10/2018 PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Elisabeth Walden (See above for address)

V.
Interested Party
For BAPD The Independent Monitor

Kristin Elizabeth Blumer (See above for address) TERMINATED: 03/05/2021 ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Natalie Rose Amato (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Suzanne Sangree City of Baltimore Law Department Senior Public Safety Counsel City Hall Room 156 100 N Holliday St Baltimore, MD 21202 14433882190 Fax: 14105390536 Email: suzanne.sangree2@baltimorecity.gov TERMINATED: 11/09/2020 ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
represented by Kenneth L Thompson Venable LLP 750 E Pratt St Ste 900 Baltimore, MD 21202 14102447400 Fax: 14102447742 Email: klthompson@venable.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Seth A Rosenthal Venable LLP 600 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC 20001 12023444741 Fax: 12023448300 Email: sarosenthal@venable.com ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Date Filed 01/12/2017 01/12/2017
01/17/2017 01/18/2017 01/18/2017 01/18/2017 01/18/2017
01/19/2017 01/20/2017 01/20/2017
01/27/2017 01/31/2017 02/01/2017

# Docket Text
1 COMPLAINT against Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council filed by United States Department of Justice.(Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 01/12/2017)
2 Joint MOTION for Settlement Entry of Consent Decree by United States Department of Justice (Attachments: # 1 Supplement Memorandum in Support of Joint Motion, # 2 Exhibit A)(Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 01/12/2017)
3 NOTICE of Appearance by David E Ralph on behalf of Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Ralph, David) (Entered: 01/17/2017)
4 NOTICE of Appearance by Glenn Todd Marrow on behalf of Baltimore Police Department (Marrow, Glenn) (Entered: 01/18/2017)
5 NOTICE of Appearance by Suzanne Sangree on behalf of Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Sangree, Suzanne) (Entered: 01/18/2017)
6 NOTICE by United States of America re 2 Joint MOTION for Settlement Entry of Consent Decree Joint Notice of Errata (Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 01/18/2017)
7 LETTER ORDER SETTING IN HEARING AND SETTING AGENDA FOR HEARING. Hearing is set in for January 24, 2017, at 10:00 a.m. in Courtroom 1A. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 1/18/2017. (vdcs, Chambers) (Entered: 01/18/2017)
8 NOTICE of Appearance by Maureen Johnston on behalf of United States of America (Johnston, Maureen) (Entered: 01/19/2017)
9 MOTION to Continue Initial Hearing by United States of America(Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 01/20/2017)
10 ORDER granting 9 Motion for Continuance of Initial Hearing. The hearing is postponed until Wednesday, February 1, 2017, at 10:00 a.m. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 1/20/2017 (cags, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 01/20/2017)
11 NOTICE of Appearance by Timothy Donald Mygatt on behalf of United States of America (Mygatt, Timothy) (Entered: 01/27/2017)
12 NOTICE of Appearance by Brent J Gurney on behalf of Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Gurney, Brent) (Entered: 01/31/2017)
13 Consent Decree Hearing held on 2/1/2017 before Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Christine Asif) (mds, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/01/2017)

02/10/2017 02/10/2017 02/13/2017 02/15/2017 03/08/2017 03/14/2017 03/19/2017
03/21/2017 03/28/2017 04/03/2017 04/04/2017

14 Supplemental to Proposed Consent Decree (Timeline of Requirements) (Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 02/10/2017)
15 NOTICE by United States of America re 2 Joint MOTION for Settlement Entry of Consent Decree Joint Motion to Supplement Proposed Consent Decree (Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 02/10/2017)
16 TRANSCRIPT REQUEST by United States of America for proceedings held on 02-1-2017 before Judge James K. Bredar.(Johnston, Maureen) (Entered: 02/13/2017)
17 ORDER Soliciting Public Comment, Setting a Public Fairness Hearing and Establishing Related Procedures. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 2/15/2017. (bas, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/15/2017)
18 PAPERLESS ORDER : The Motion in ECF No. 15 is GRANTED, but only on condition that the proposed CONSENT DECREE is otherwise entered. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 3/8/2017. (vdcs, Chambers) (Entered: 03/08/2017)
19 Public Comment re: Proposed Consent Decree (Attachments: # 1 Supplement Compilation of Public Comments)(Johnston, Maureen) (Entered: 03/14/2017)
20 NOTICE OF FILING OF OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Proceedings held on 2/1/2017, before Judge James K. Bredar. Court Reporter/Transcriber Christine T. Asif, Telephone number 410-9629942. Total number of pages filed: 137. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter/Transcriber before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained from the Court Reporter or through PACER. Redaction Request due 4/10/2017. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 4/19/2017. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 6/19/2017.(ca, Court Reporter) (Entered: 03/19/2017)
21 Public Comment re: Proposed Consent Decree (Attachments: # 1 Appendix Attachment With Supplemental Comments)(Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 03/21/2017)
22 NOTICE of Appearance by Puneet Cheema on behalf of United States of America (Cheema, Puneet) (Entered: 03/28/2017)
23 MOTION to Continue Public Fairness Hearing by United States of America (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Exhibit 1: Memorandum for Heads of Department Components and United States Attorneys)(Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 04/03/2017)
24 RESPONSE in Opposition re 23 MOTION to Continue Public Fairness Hearing filed by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council.(Ralph, David) (Entered: 04/04/2017)

04/05/2017 04/06/2017 04/06/2017 04/06/2017 04/06/2017 04/06/2017
04/06/2017
04/06/2017 04/06/2017 04/06/2017 04/06/2017

25 ORDER denying 23 Motion to Continue Public Fairness Hearing. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 4/5/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/05/2017)
26 NOTICE of Appearance of John Gore on behalf of the United States of America (cags, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/06/2017)
27 Public Hearing held on 4/6/2017 before Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Christine Asif) (mds, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/06/2017)
28 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice for Debo P. Adegbile (Filing fee $100, receipt number 0416-6594160.) by Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council(Gurney, Brent) (Entered: 04/06/2017)
29 NOTICE of Appearance by Monique L Dixon on behalf of Community Churches for Community Development, Inc., Ralph Eugene Moore, Jr (Dixon, Monique) (Entered: 04/06/2017)
30 (FILED IN ERROR PER COUNSEL) MOTION to Intervene by Community Churches for Community Development, Inc., Ralph Eugene Moore, Jr (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Memorandum in Support of Motion to Intervene, # 2 Exhibit Proposed Complaint, # 3 Text of Proposed Order)(Dixon, Monique) Modified on 4/7/2017 (kw2s, Deputy Clerk). (Entered: 04/06/2017)
31 Corrected/Amended MOTION to Intervene by Community Churches for Community Development, Inc., Ralph Eugene Moore, Jr (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Memorandum in Support of Motion to Intervene, # 2 Exhibit Proposed Complaint, # 3 Text of Proposed Order)(Dixon, Monique) Modified on 4/7/2017 (kw2s, Deputy Clerk). (Entered: 04/06/2017)
32 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice for Sherrilyn Ifill, Esq. (Filing fee $100, receipt number 0416-6594356.) by Community Churches for Community Development, Inc., Ralph Eugene Moore, Jr(Dixon, Monique) (Entered: 04/06/2017)
33 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice for Christina A. Swarns, Esq. (Filing fee $100, receipt number 0416-6594357.) by Community Churches for Community Development, Inc., Ralph Eugene Moore, Jr(Dixon, Monique) (Entered: 04/06/2017)
34 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice for Janai S. Nelson, Esq. (Filing fee $100, receipt number 0416-6594372.) by Community Churches for Community Development, Inc., Ralph Eugene Moore, Jr(Dixon, Monique) (Entered: 04/06/2017)
35 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice for Jin Hee Lee, Esq. (Filing fee $100, receipt number 0416-6594374.) by Community Churches for Community Development, Inc., Ralph Eugene Moore, Jr(Dixon, Monique) (Entered: 04/06/2017)

04/06/2017 04/06/2017 04/07/2017
04/07/2017
04/10/2017 04/10/2017 04/10/2017 04/21/2017 04/24/2017 04/25/2017 04/25/2017 04/28/2017

36 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice for Rachel M. Kleinman, Esq. (Filing fee $100, receipt number 0416-6594376.) by Community Churches for Community Development, Inc., Ralph Eugene Moore, Jr(Dixon, Monique) (Entered: 04/06/2017)
37 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice for Todd Cox, Esq. (Filing fee $100, receipt number 0416-6594378.) by Community Churches for Community Development, Inc., Ralph Eugene Moore, Jr(Dixon, Monique) (Entered: 04/06/2017)
38 PAPERLESS ORDER granting 28 Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice on behalf of Debo P Adegbile. Directing attorney Debo P Adegbile to register online for CM/ECF at http://www.mdd.uscourts.gov/electroniccase-filing-registration. Signed by Clerk on 4/7/2017. (srd, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/07/2017)
39 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER Denying the Government's oral request for a thirty-day delay in entry of the Consent Decree. Granting 2 Joint Motion for Entry of Consent Decree. The Consent Decree (ECF No. 2-2), as modified herein by the Court, is APPROVED AND ENTERED as an ORDER of the Court. The Court shall RETAIN jurisdiction over the case until the Consent Decree is terminated. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 4/7/2017. (cags, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/07/2017)
40 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER denying 31 Corrected/Amended MOTION to Intervene. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 4/7/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/10/2017)
41 PAPERLESS ORDER denying as moot motions for admission pro hac vice 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , and 37 . Signed by Clerk on 4/10/2017. (srd, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/10/2017)
42 ORDER re: Updating the Timeline on an Ongoing basis. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 4/10/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/11/2017)
43 NOTICE by United States of America Updated Consent Decree Timeline (Cheema, Puneet) (Entered: 04/21/2017)
44 NOTICE of Appearance by Aparna Patrie on behalf of United States of America (Patrie, Aparna) (Entered: 04/24/2017)
45 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney by Baltimore Police Department(Marrow, Glenn) (Entered: 04/25/2017)
46 ORDER granting 45 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Attorney Glenn Todd Marrow terminated. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 4/25/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/26/2017)
47 ORDER approving The Timeline to Be Updated. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 4/28/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 05/01/2017)

05/01/2017 06/12/2017
06/13/2017
06/14/2017 06/15/2017 06/15/2017
06/15/2017 06/26/2017 06/26/2017
07/14/2017 07/20/2017 07/21/2017 07/21/2017

48 NOTICE of Appearance by Daniel C Beck on behalf of Baltimore Police Department (Beck, Daniel) (Entered: 05/01/2017)
49 PAPERLESS ORDER: Counsel shall participate in a conference call at 2:30 today, June 12, 2017. The call shall be arranged for and initiated by counsel for Defendants. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 6/12/2017. (bpgs, Chambers) (Entered: 06/12/2017)
50 NOTICE by United States of America Joint Motion to Issue Notice Regarding Public Comment on Monitor Selection (Attachments: # 1 Supplement Notice Regarding Public Comment on Monitor Selection)(Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 06/13/2017)
51 ORDER re: Amendments to Proposed Notice. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 6/14/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 06/14/2017)
52 NOTICE by United States of America Amended Notice Regarding Public Comment on Monitor Selection (Attachments: # 1 Supplement Amended Notice)(Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 06/15/2017)
53 ORDER directing The Clerk to docket the AMENDED NOTICE (ECF No. 52-1) and to also post it on the Courts website. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 6/15/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 06/15/2017)
54 AMENDED NOTICE REGARDING PUBLIC COMMENT ON MONITOR SELECTION by United States of America (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 06/15/2017)
55 STIPULATION Joint Stipulation to Amend Paragraph 11 of Consent Decree by United States of America(Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 06/26/2017)
56 MARGINAL ORDER APPROVING 55 Joint Stipulation to Amend Paragraph 11 of Consent Decree filed by United States of America. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 6/26/2017. (hmls, Deputy Clerk) Modified on 6/27/2017 (hmls, Deputy Clerk). (Entered: 06/27/2017)
57 NOTICE of Appearance by Elisabeth Walden on behalf of Baltimore Police Department (Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 07/14/2017)
Telephone Status Conference held on 7/20/2017 before Judge James K. Bredar. (hsgs, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 07/20/2017)
58 NOTICE by United States of America Joint Motion to Issue Notice of Public Forums (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Notice Regarding Public Forums for Monitor Selection)(Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 07/21/2017)
59 ORDERED that the parties proposed Notice for the docket (ECF No. 581) in fact be docketed, and that the public thereby be given notice, and that the parties publicize the poster version of the Notice, also supplied to

08/23/2017 08/23/2017 09/08/2017 09/08/2017 09/15/2017 09/19/2017 09/20/2017 09/21/2017 10/03/2017
10/13/2017 10/19/2017 10/19/2017 11/06/2017

the Court, as widely as they deem appropriate. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 7/21/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 07/24/2017)
60 Joint MOTION for Extension of Time to submit proposed monitor by United States of America(Cheema, Puneet) (Entered: 08/23/2017)
61 PAPERLESS ORDER granting 60 Joint Motion for Extension of Time to Submit Proposed Independent Monitor. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 8/23/2017. (vdcs, Chambers) (Entered: 08/23/2017)
62 Joint MOTION for Extension of Time to Submit Proposed Independent Monitor by United States of America(Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 09/08/2017)
63 ORDER granting 62 Joint MOTION for Extension of Time to Submit Proposed Independent Monitor. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 9/8/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 09/08/2017)
64 Joint MOTION for Other Relief to Appoint Independent Monitor by United States of America (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A)(Cheema, Puneet) (Entered: 09/15/2017)
65 ORDER SETTING Date for Monitor Interviews. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 9/19/2017. (hmls, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 09/19/2017)
66 NOTICE by United States of America Joint Notice of Errata (Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 09/20/2017)
67 NOTICE by United States of America re 66 Notice (Other) Exhibit A to Joint Notice of Errata (Wayne, Seth) (Entered: 09/21/2017)
68 ORDER granting 64 Joint MOTION for Other Relief to Appoint Independent Monitor. Signed by Judge James K. Bredar on 10/3/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) Modified on 10/2/2017 (cags, Deputy Clerk). (Entered: 10/03/2017)
Check Received on 10/12/2017 from the Baltimore Police Department. Check Number: 1540235. Amount: $1,475,000.00. (hmls, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 10/13/2017)
69 NOTICE of Appearance by Andre M Davis on behalf of Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Davis, Andre) (Entered: 10/19/2017)
70 NOTICE of Appearance by Kay Natalie Harding on behalf of Baltimore Police Department (Harding, Kay) (Entered: 10/19/2017)
71 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney by United States of America (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Johnston, Maureen) (Entered: 11/06/2017)

11/06/2017 12/08/2017 12/12/2017 12/13/2017
12/19/2017 01/09/2018 01/09/2018 01/10/2018 01/10/2018 01/19/2018 01/26/2018 01/26/2018 01/29/2018 01/31/2018

72 ORDER granting 71 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Attorney Seth Wayne terminated. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 11/6/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 11/07/2017)
73 NOTICE of Appearance by Stephen M Ryals on behalf of United States of America (Ryals, Stephen) (Entered: 12/08/2017)
74 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor RECOMMENDATION OF INDEPENDENT MONITOR (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/12/2017)
75 ORDER approving 74 Notice (Other) filed by For BAPD The Independent Monitor. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 12/13/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (c/e to S. Rosenthal & K. Thompson 12.13.17) (Entered: 12/13/2017)
76 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's October 2017 Invoice. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 12/19/2017. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 12.20.17) (Entered: 12/20/2017)
77 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney by Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Gurney, Brent) (Entered: 01/09/2018)
78 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney Debo P. Adegbile by Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Gurney, Brent) (Entered: 01/09/2018)
79 ORDER granting 77 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Attorney Brent J Gurney terminated. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 1/9/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 01/10/2018)
80 ORDER granting 78 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Attorney Debo P Adegbile terminated. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 1/9/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 01/10/2018)
Check Issued on 1/5/2018 to Venable LLP. Check Number: 79893619. Amount: $ 28,991.22. (hmls, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 01/19/2018)
81 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor Recommendation of Independent Monitor (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 01/26/2018)
82 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's October-November 2017 Invoice. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 1/26/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 1/29/18) (Entered: 01/29/2018)
83 ORDER re: Establishing Time lines for Finalizing First-Year Budget and Monitoring Plan. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 1/26/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 01/29/2018)
84 SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 1/31/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 01/31/2018)

02/08/2018 02/08/2018 02/09/2018 02/14/2018 02/14/2018 02/14/2018 02/14/2018
02/16/2018 02/16/2018 02/16/2018 02/22/2018 02/26/2018
02/27/2018

Check Issued on 02/07/2018 to Venable LLP. Check Number: 81024916. Amount: $191,049.37. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/08/2018)
85 STIPULATION to Amend Paragraphs 14, 33, and 67 of the Consent Decree by United States of America(Johnston, Maureen) (Entered: 02/08/2018)
86 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor Submission of FirstYear Monitoring Plan for Approval (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 02/09/2018)
87 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's December 2017 invoice. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/13/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to Finance 2.14.18) (Entered: 02/14/2018)
88 MEMORANDUM OPINION. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/13/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/14/2018)
89 ORDER re: Amending Consent Decree. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/13/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/14/2018)
90 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor Submission of the Monitoring Team of the Proposed First-Year Budget (Attachments: # 1 Attachment A, # 2 Attachment B)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 02/14/2018)
91 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor Submission of Amended Monitoring Plan (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 02/16/2018)
92 ORDER re: Amending First-Year Monitoring Plan. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/16/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/16/2018)
93 ORDER approving the First Year-Monitoring Budget. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/16/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/16/2018)
Check Issued on 2/21/2018 to Venable LLP. Check Number: 81446218. Amount: $88,034.41. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/22/2018)
94 STIPULATION to Enter Disclosure and Protective Order by United States of America (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A - Text of Stipulated Disclosure and Protective Order, # 2 Exhibit B - Disclosure and Protective Order Agreement)(Johnston, Maureen) (Entered: 02/26/2018)
95 PROTECTIVE/CONFIDENTIALITY ORDER approving terms and conditions of parties re: confidential information. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/27/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/28/2018)

03/01/2018 03/01/2018 03/05/2018
03/05/2018 03/08/2018 03/08/2018 03/20/2018 03/29/2018 04/03/2018
04/09/2018
04/11/2018 04/13/2018 04/17/2018

96 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 03/01/2018)
97 NOTICE of Appearance by Kristin Elizabeth Blumer on behalf of Baltimore Police Department (Blumer, Kristin) (Entered: 03/01/2018)
98 (WRONG DOCUMENT ATTACHED)AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/2/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) Modified on 3/5/2018 (kw2s, Deputy Clerk). (Entered: 03/05/2018)
99 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/2/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 03/05/2018)
100 (FILED IN ERROR PER COUNSEL)NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department of Compliance with CIT Coordinator (Rosenthal, Seth) Modified on 3/8/2018 (kw2s, Deputy Clerk). (Entered: 03/08/2018)
101 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Compliance with CIT Coordinator (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 03/08/2018)
102 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's January 2018 Invoice. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/19/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 3.20.18) (Entered: 03/20/2018)
103 NOTICE of Appearance by Cynthia Coe on behalf of United States of America (Coe, Cynthia) (Entered: 03/29/2018)
104 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER setting a public hearing for Friday, April 13, 2018, at 10:00 a.m., in Courtroom 1A, United States Courthouse, Baltimore, Maryland. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 4/3/2018. (bmhs, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/03/2018)
105 ORDER directing that during further proceedings in this matter, no person may possess or transport into Courtrooms 1A and/or 3D any electronic devices, including cellular telephones, cameras, recording devices of any type including smart watches and smart pens, and/or computers, including laptops and tablets, without the express permission of the presiding judge. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 4/9/2018. (decs, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/09/2018)
106 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 4/11/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/11/2018)
109 Quarterly Public Hearing held on 4/13/2018 before Chief Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Christine Asif) (mds, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/26/2018)
107 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's February 2018 Invoice. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 4/17/2018. (c/d to Finance 4/17/18 bmhs, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/17/2018)

04/25/2018 05/11/2018 05/15/2018
05/16/2018 05/30/2018 06/18/2018 06/19/2018
06/22/2018 06/29/2018 07/03/2018 07/05/2018 07/06/2018

108 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor APPROVAL OF INITIAL EXPANSION OF CPIC MEMBERSHIP (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 04/25/2018)
110 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor Request For Minor Modifications to First-Year Monitoring Plan (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 05/11/2018)
111 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's March 2018 invoice and directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 5/15/2018. (bmhs, Deputy Clerk) Modified on 5/16/2018 (kw2s, Deputy Clerk).(Copy to finance 5.16.18) (Entered: 05/15/2018)
112 ORDER Approving Minor Modifications to First-Year Monitoring Plan. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 5/15/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 05/16/2018)
113 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 5/29/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 05/30/2018)
114 STATUS REPORT by For BAPD The Independent Monitor (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 06/18/2018)
115 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's April 2018 invoice and directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 6/19/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 6.19.18) (Entered: 06/19/2018)
116 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor Notice of Approval of Technology Resource Study Under Paragraphs 268 and 270 of the Consent Decree (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 06/22/2018)
117 NOTICE by Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council on behalf of COTF (Attachments: # 1 COTF Report)(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 06/29/2018)
118 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 07/03/2018)
119 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor re 112 Order of Approval of Revised BPD Mission Statement (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 07/05/2018)
120 MOTION for Other Relief Request for Approval of Certain Updates by For BAPD The Independent Monitor (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 07/06/2018)

07/09/2018 07/11/2018 07/12/2018
07/13/2018 07/13/2018
07/18/2018 07/26/2018 08/14/2018 08/17/2018 08/20/2018
08/23/2018

121 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 07/09/2018)
122 MOTION for Other Relief Request for Minor Modifications by For BAPD The Independent Monitor (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 07/11/2018)
123 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's May 2018 invoice and directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 7/12/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 7.12.18) (Entered: 07/12/2018)
124 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER granting 122 Motion to modify Monitoring Plan to extend deadlines for finalizing Policies as set forth. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 7/13/2018. (dass, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 07/13/2018)
125 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER granting 120 Motion for approval of certain updates to the First-Year Monitoring Plan in the Area of Misconduct Investigations and Discipline; amending the First Year Monitoring Plan as set forth. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 7/13/2018. (dass, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 07/13/2018)
126 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of First Semiannual Report (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 07/18/2018)
127 Quarterly Public Hearing held on 7/26/2018 before Chief Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Martin Giordano) (ds2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 07/27/2018)
128 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Use of Force Reporting and Data Collection System under Development (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 08/14/2018)
129 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Work Plan for Accomplishing Consent Decree Objectives (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 08/17/2018)
130 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's June 2018 invoice and directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 8/20/2018. (c/d to Finance 8/21/18 bmhs, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 08/21/2018)
131 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Timeline for Developing Youth Diversion Programs Assessment (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 08/23/2018)

08/24/2018 08/24/2018 08/29/2018
09/05/2018 09/10/2018 09/11/2018 09/13/2018 09/14/2018 09/14/2018 09/18/2018 09/20/2018 09/27/2018
10/04/2018

132 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Revised Policies regarding Impartial Policing (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 08/24/2018)
133 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 8/24/2018. (dass, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 08/24/2018)
134 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor Notice of Approval of Revised Policies Addressing Transportation of Persons in Custody Under Paragraphs 223-238 of the Consent Decree (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 08/29/2018)
135 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Revised Body Worn Camera Policy (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/05/2018)
136 NOTICE by Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council re 117 Notice (Other) on Behalf of COTF (Final Report) (Attachments: # 1 Cover Letter)(Harding, Kay) (Entered: 09/10/2018)
137 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Staffing Study (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/11/2018)
138 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor Submission of the Updated First-Year Monitoring Plan for Approval (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/13/2018)
139 ORDER approving the Updated First Year-Monitoring Plan. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 9/14/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 09/14/2018)
140 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Revised Policies Addressing First Amendment-Protected Activities (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/14/2018)
141 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Second Set of Revised Use of Force Policies (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/18/2018)
142 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Second Set of Revised Use of Force Policies (Corrected) (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/20/2018)
143 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's July 2018 invoice and directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 9/27/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 9.27.18) (Entered: 09/27/2018)
Check Received on 10/02/2018 from Baltmore Police Department. Check Number: 1590539. Amount: $1,475,000.00. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 10/04/2018)

10/09/2018 10/09/2018 10/10/2018 10/12/2018 10/31/2018 10/31/2018 11/02/2018 11/05/2018
11/06/2018 11/06/2018 11/07/2018 11/16/2018 11/16/2018 11/21/2018

144 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Revised Critical Incident Stress Management Protocol (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 10/09/2018)
145 Quarterly Public Hearing held on 10/9/2018 in open court before Chief Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Christine Asif) (mds, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 10/09/2018)
146 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 10/9/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 10/10/2018)
147 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Brief Extension of SSA and OPR Deadlines (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 10/12/2018)
148 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of General Training Plan (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 10/31/2018)
149 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of SSA Policies (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 10/31/2018)
Check Received on 10/30/2018 from Venable LLP (FBO Baltimore City Police Department). Check Number: 321476. Amount: $1,858.60. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 11/02/2018)
150 ORDER advising when parties with standing wish to communicate information to the court those communications shall be limited to formal channels consistent with ongoing litigation. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 11/5/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 11/06/2018)
151 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Revised Employee Assistance Program (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 11/06/2018)
152 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Revised Sexual Offense Investigations Policy (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 11/06/2018)
153 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Corrected Notice of Approval of Revised Employee Assistance Program (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 11/07/2018)
154 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Crisis Intervention Plan and CIT Officer Selection Process (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 11/16/2018)
155 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 11/16/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 11/16/2018)
156 Consent MOTION for Other Relief by United States of America(Coe, Cynthia) (Entered: 11/21/2018)

11/27/2018 11/28/2018 11/30/2018
11/30/2018
11/30/2018 11/30/2018 12/03/2018 12/03/2018 12/03/2018 12/05/2018 12/06/2018 12/07/2018

157 MARGINAL ORDER granting 156 Consent MOTION for Other Relief. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 11/27/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 11/27/2018)
158 SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 11/28/2018. (hmls, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 11/28/2018)
159 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's September 2018 invoice and directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 11/30/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 11.30.18) (Entered: 11/30/2018)
160 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's August 2018 invoice and directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 11/30/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 11.30.18) (Entered: 11/30/2018)
161 Correspondence re: Request to Reschedule March 7, 2019 Conference (Davis, Andre) (Entered: 11/30/2018)
162 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Brief Extension of Certain Monitoring Plan Deadlines (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 11/30/2018)
163 NOTICE of Appearance by Kenneth L Thompson on behalf of For BAPD The Independent Monitor (Thompson, Kenneth) (Entered: 12/03/2018)
164 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Technology Resource Plan (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/03/2018)
165 ORDER re: First and Second Year Monitoring Plan. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 12/3/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 12/04/2018)
166 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 12/5/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 12/06/2018)
167 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney Puneet Cheema by United States of America (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Johnston, Maureen) (Entered: 12/06/2018)
168 ORDER granting 167 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Attorney Puneet Cheema terminated. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 12/6/2018. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 12/07/2018)

12/10/2018 12/19/2018 12/21/2018 12/26/2018 12/26/2018 12/28/2018 12/28/2018 01/03/2019 01/04/2019 01/18/2019 01/24/2019 02/04/2019

169 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Hiring Process and Policy Report (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/10/2018)
170 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Crisis Intervention Data Form (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/19/2018)
171 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Second Set of Revised Policies Addressing Stops, Searches, Arrests (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/21/2018)
172 Consent MOTION for Extension of Time by United States of America(Coe, Cynthia) (Entered: 12/26/2018)
173 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER Denying 172 Motion for Extension of Time. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 12/26/2018. (bas, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 12/26/2018)
174 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Complaint Intake and Classification Policies (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/28/2018)
175 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor (CORRECTED) Notice of Approval of Complaint Intake and Classification Policies (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/28/2018)
176 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Training Plan for Use of Body-Worn Cameras (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 01/03/2019)
177 STATUS REPORT of Monitoring Team on Compliance Reviews and Outcome Assessments by For BAPD The Independent Monitor (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 01/04/2019)
178 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Monitoring Team's Second Semiannual Report (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 01/18/2019)
179 Quarterly Public Hearing held on 1/24/2019 before Chief Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Mary Zajac) (kmts, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 01/28/2019)
180 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's October 2018 invoice and directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/4/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 2.5.19) (Entered: 02/05/2019)

02/05/2019 02/05/2019 02/08/2019
02/11/2019 02/12/2019
02/19/2019 02/20/2019 02/21/2019 02/25/2019 03/01/2019
03/13/2019

181 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of Second-Year Monitoring Plan for Approval (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 02/05/2019)
182 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of the Monitoring Team of the Proposed Second-Year Budget for Approval (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 02/05/2019)
183 ORDER Approving 182 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of the Monitoring Team of the Proposed SecondYear Budget for Approval filed by For BAPD The Independent Monitor; Approved and Adopted contingent upon the correction 181 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of Second-Year Monitoring Plan for Approval filed by For BAPD The Independent Monitor. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/8/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/08/2019)
184 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of Corrected Second -Year Monitoring Plan (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 02/11/2019)
185 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's November 2018 invoice and directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/12/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 2.12.19) (Entered: 02/12/2019)
186 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/19/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/19/2019)
187 Joint MOTION to Vacate by United States of America(Coe, Cynthia) (Entered: 02/20/2019)
188 MARGINAL ORDER granting 187 Joint MOTION to Vacate. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/21/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/21/2019)
189 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Brief Extension of Monitoring Plan Deadline (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 02/25/2019)
190 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's December 2018 invoice and directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/1/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 3.1.19) (Entered: 03/01/2019)
191 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Request for Extension of Monitoring Plan Deadlines (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 03/13/2019)

03/14/2019 03/14/2019 03/21/2019 03/25/2019 03/25/2019
03/26/2019 04/10/2019 04/23/2019 04/25/2019 04/26/2019
04/26/2019 04/26/2019
04/30/2019

192 ORDER Approving 191 Notice (Other) filed by For BAPD The Independent Monitor. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/14/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 03/14/2019)
193 NOTICE of Appearance by Natalie Rose Amato on behalf of Baltimore Police Department (Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 03/14/2019)
194 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Revision To Baltimore Police Department Policy 1115 (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 03/21/2019)
195 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/25/2019. (jnls, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 03/26/2019)
196 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's January 2019 invoice and Directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from funds in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/25/2019. (jnls, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 03/26/2019)
197 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of OPRCRB Protocols (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 03/26/2019)
198 Quarterly Public Consent Decree Hearing held on 4/10/2019 before Chief Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Christine Asif) (kmts, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/11/2019)
199 TRANSCRIPT REQUEST by United States of America for proceedings held on 04/10/2019 before Judge Hon. J. Bredar.(Coe, Cynthia) (Entered: 04/23/2019)
200 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Request for Extension of Monitoring Plan Deadlines for Training on BWC (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 04/25/2019)
201 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Second Year Collaboration Planning and Implementation Committee Work Plan (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 04/26/2019)
202 ORDER Approving 201 NOTICE filed by For BAPD The Independent Monitor. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 4/26/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/26/2019)
203 ORDER Approving 200 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Request for Extension of Monitoring Plan Deadlines for Training on BWC . Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 4/26/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) Modified on 5/31/2019 (kw2s, Deputy Clerk). (Entered: 04/26/2019)
204 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's February 2019 invoice and Directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from funds in the

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05/30/2019 05/30/2019 05/31/2019 05/31/2019
06/07/2019
06/11/2019 07/02/2019

registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 4/30/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 4.30.19) (Entered: 04/30/2019)
205 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Revisions to Policy 719 (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 05/07/2019)
206 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 5/17/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 05/17/2019)
207 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's March 2019 invoice and Directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from funds in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 5/28/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 5.28.19) (Entered: 05/28/2019)
208 Consent MOTION for Other Relief to Modify Monitoring Plan by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1, # 2 Exhibit 2, # 3 Text of Proposed Order)(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 05/30/2019)
209 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Request for Extension of Monitoring Plan Deadlines for Surveys (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 05/30/2019)
210 ORDER granting 208 Consent MOTION for Other Relief to Modify Monitoring Plan. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 5/31/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 05/31/2019)
211 ORDER Approving 209 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Request for Extension of Monitoring Plan Deadlines for Surveys filed by For BAPD The Independent Monitor. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 5/31/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 05/31/2019)
212 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Officer UOF and FIP I Training Curriculum (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1, # 2 Exhibit 2, # 3 Exhibit 3, # 4 Exhibit 4, # 5 Exhibit 5, # 6 Exhibit 6, # 7 Exhibit 7, # 8 Exhibit 8, # 9 Exhibit 9, # 10 Exhibit 10, # 11 Exhibit 11, # 12 Exhibit 12, # 13 Exhibit 13, # 14 Exhibit 14, # 15 Exhibit 15, # 16 Exhibit 16)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 06/07/2019)
213 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Revision of Definition of Deadly/Leathal Force in BPD Policies 409 719 1111 and 1119 (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 06/11/2019)
214 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's April 2019 invoice and Directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from funds in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on

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7/1/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 7.2.19) (Entered: 07/02/2019)
215 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of the Monitoring Team of the Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2020 for Approval (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 07/09/2019)
216 Consent MOTION for Other Relief to Supplement Monitoring Plan by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 07/10/2019)
217 ORDER Approving 216 Consent MOTION for Other Relief to Supplement Monitoring Plan. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 7/10/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 07/11/2019)
218 ORDER Approving 215 NOTICE of Submission of the Monitoring Team of the Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2020 for Approval filed by For BAPD The Independent Monitor. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 7/11/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 07/12/2019)
219 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Crisis Intervention Policies Under Paragraphs 98 and 114 of the Consent Decree (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 07/15/2019)
220 (FILED IN ERROR PER COUNSEL)NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Monitoring Team's Third Semiannual Report (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1)(Rosenthal, Seth) Modified on 7/22/2019 (kw2s, Deputy Clerk). (Entered: 07/19/2019)
221 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Monitoring Team's Third Semiannual Report (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 07/22/2019)
222 Ouarterly Public Hearing held on 7/25/2019 before Chief Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Christine Asif) (mds, Deputy Clerk) (Additional attachment(s) added on 8/6/2019: # 1 Supplement CORRECTED MINUTES) (mdw, Deputy Clerk). (Entered: 07/25/2019)
223 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Brief Extension of Certain Monitoring Plan Deadlines (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 07/31/2019)
224 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of Report On Officer Focus Groups (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 07/31/2019)
225 NOTICE OF FILING OF OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Proceedings held on 1/24/2019, before Judge James K. Bredar. Court Reporter/Transcriber Mary M. Zajac, Telephone number 410-962-4544. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased

08/12/2019 08/12/2019 08/19/2019 08/23/2019 08/23/2019 08/23/2019 08/28/2019 08/28/2019 09/03/2019 09/05/2019

through the Court Reporter/Transcriber before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained from the Court Reporter or through PACER. Redaction Request due 8/29/2019. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 9/9/2019. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 11/6/2019.(mmz, Court Reporter) (Entered: 08/08/2019)
226 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney John Gore by United States of America (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Johnston, Maureen) (Entered: 08/12/2019)
227 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Brief Extension of Monitoring Plan Deadlines (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 08/12/2019)
228 ORDER granting 226 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Attorney John M Gore terminated. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 8/19/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 08/19/2019)
229 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Brief Extension of Monitoring Plan Deadlines for Training Curriculum on Stops, Searches, Arrests and Related Aspects of Fair and Impartial Policing (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 08/23/2019)
230 MOTION for Other Relief Request for Approval of Certain Updates to the Amended Second-Year Monitoring Plan in the Area of General Assessments by For BAPD The Independent Monitor (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 08/23/2019)
231 ORDER granting 230 MOTION for Other Relief Request for Approval of Certain Updates to the Amended Second-Year Monitoring Plan in the Area of General Assessments. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 8/23/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 08/23/2019)
232 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's May 2019 invoice and Directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from funds in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 8/28/2019.(kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 08/28/2019)
233 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's June 2019 invoice and Directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from funds in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 8/28/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 08/28/2019)
234 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor Submission of Report on Officer Focus Groups (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/03/2019)
235 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council NOTICE OF FILING OF SEXUAL ASSAULT DATA

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09/16/2019 09/17/2019 09/17/2019 09/19/2019 09/23/2019

REPORT (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Final Annual Sexual Assault Report (2018))(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 09/05/2019)
236 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney David E. Ralph by Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 09/05/2019)
237 ORDER granting 236 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Attorney David E Ralph terminated. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 9/5/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 09/06/2019)
238 Consent MOTION for Other Relief to Modify Monitoring Plan by Baltimore Police Department (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 09/10/2019)
239 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Mission Statement and Tech Procurement Policy (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/10/2019)
240 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Negotiated Settlement Policy (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/11/2019)
241 ORDER granting 238 Consent MOTION for Other Relief to Modify Monitoring Plan. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 9/11/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 09/11/2019)
242 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of ELearning Curriculum on Responding to Calls for Service Involving Allegations of Rape and Sexual Assault (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/16/2019)
243 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor Submission of Updated Second-Year Monitoring Plan for Approval (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/16/2019)
244 NOTICE of Appearance by David G Cooper on behalf of United States of America (Cooper, David) (Entered: 09/17/2019)
245 ORDER approving the Updated Second Year-Monitoring Plan. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 9/17/2019. (krs, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 09/17/2019)
246 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Exculpatory Evidence Disclosure Policy (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/19/2019)
247 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Recruit Behavioral Health Awareness Training (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Exhibit, # 3 Exhibit, # 4 Exhibit, # 5 Exhibit, # 6 Exhibit, # 7 Exhibit, # 8 Exhibit, # 9 Exhibit, # 10 Exhibit, # 11 Exhibit, # 12 Exhibit, # 13 Exhibit, # 14 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/23/2019)

09/26/2019 09/26/2019 10/03/2019 10/08/2019 10/23/2019 10/24/2019 10/24/2019 10/25/2019
10/25/2019
10/28/2019 10/29/2019

248 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council re 132 Notice (Other) Policy 720 (Harding, Kay) (Entered: 09/26/2019)
249 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 9/26/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 09/26/2019)
250 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's July 2019 invoice and Directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 10/2/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 10/03/2019)
Check Received on 10/08/2019 from MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE. Check Number: 1636137. Amount: $1,588,736.00. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 10/08/2019)
251 MOTION for Other Relief to Approve Investigation of GTTF Scandal by Baltimore Police Department (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A, # 2 Exhibit B, # 3 Text of Proposed Order)(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 10/23/2019)
252 ENTERED IN ERROR: Quarterly Public Hearing held on 10/24/2019 before Chief Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Christine Asif) (mds, Deputy Clerk) Modified on 11/5/2019 (mds, Deputy Clerk). (Entered: 10/24/2019)
259 Quarterly Public Hearing held on 10/24/2019 before Chief Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Christine Asif) (mds, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 11/05/2019)
253 PAPERLESS ORDER re 251 MOTION for Other Relief to Approve Investigation of GTTF Scandal filed by Baltimore Police Department. The Government is directed to respond to BPD's Motion (ECF No. 251) on or before 10/29/19. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 10/25/2019. (vdcs, Chambers) (Entered: 10/25/2019)
254 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's August 2019 invoice and Directs the directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 10/25/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(c/e to finance 10.25.19) (Entered: 10/25/2019)
255 RESPONSE to Motion re 251 MOTION for Other Relief to Approve Investigation of GTTF Scandal filed by United States of America.(Johnston, Maureen) (Entered: 10/28/2019)
256 ORDER Approving 251 MOTION for Other Relief to Approve Investigation of GTTF Scandal. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 10/29/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 10/29/2019)

10/30/2019 11/04/2019 11/08/2019 11/13/2019 11/13/2019 11/18/2019 11/18/2019
11/22/2019 11/25/2019
11/25/2019 12/10/2019

257 NOTICE of Appearance by Dana Petersen Moore on behalf of Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Moore, Dana) (Entered: 10/30/2019)
258 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Peer Support Program Under Paragraph 438 of the Consent Decree (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 11/04/2019)
260 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department Certification of Delivery of Use of Force/Fair and Impartial Policing I Training (Attachments: # 1 Certificate)(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 11/08/2019)
261 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Brief Extension of Monitoring Plan Deadlines for Completing Train-the-Trainers Training (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 11/13/2019)
262 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Officer in Service Behavioral Health Awareness Training (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Exhibit, # 3 Exhibit, # 4 Exhibit, # 5 Exhibit, # 6 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 11/13/2019)
263 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Public Integrity Bureau Investigations Manual (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 11/18/2019)
264 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's September 2019 invoice and Directs the directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 11/15/2019. (copy to finance 11.18.19)(kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 11/18/2019)
265 SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 11/22/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 11/22/2019)
266 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council re 152 Notice (Other) NOTICE OF APPROVAL OF REVISED POLICY REGARDING RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 11/25/2019)
267 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Certification of Delivery of Sexual Assault Officer Training (E-learning) (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Certificate)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 11/25/2019)
268 Consent MOTION for Other Relief to Modify Monitoring Plan and Notice Regarding Brief Extensions by Baltimore Police Department (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 12/10/2019)

12/11/2019 12/11/2019 12/11/2019 12/16/2019 12/20/2019 12/26/2019 01/09/2020
01/10/2020 01/10/2020 01/21/2020 01/21/2020 01/22/2020

269 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of OfficerInvolved Sexual Misconduct Policy (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/11/2019)
270 ORDER granting 268 Consent MOTION for Other Relief to Modify Monitoring Plan and Notice Regarding Brief Extensions. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 12/11/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 12/12/2019)
271 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 12/11/2019. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 12/12/2019)
272 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department of Approval of Revised Policies (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Blumer, Kristin) (Entered: 12/16/2019)
273 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department of Filing of Community Policing Report (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 12/20/2019)
274 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Retention Plan Under Paragraph 426 of the Consent Decree (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/26/2019)
275 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's October 2019 invoice and Directs the directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 1/9/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(copy to finance 1.9.20) (Entered: 01/09/2020)
276 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney Daniel C. Beck by Baltimore Police Department (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 01/10/2020)
277 ORDER granting 276 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney Daniel C. Beck. Attorney Daniel C Beck terminated. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 1/10/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 01/10/2020)
278 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of Monitoring Team's Fourth Semiannual Report (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 01/21/2020)
279 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Corrected Submission of Monitoring Team's Fourth Semiannual Report (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 01/21/2020)
280 Quarterly Meeting held on 1/22/2020 before Chief Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Mary Zajac) (J. Herndons, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 01/22/2020)

01/23/2020 01/23/2020 01/27/2020 01/28/2020 01/28/2020
02/06/2020 02/06/2020 02/06/2020
02/14/2020
02/14/2020 02/26/2020

281 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Gap Analysis Final Report (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 01/23/2020)
282 ORDER directing the Baltimore Police Department to submit a monthly report. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 1/23/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 01/23/2020)
283 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Youth Interrogations Policy (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 01/27/2020)
284 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of BPDBSP MOU Assessment (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 01/28/2020)
285 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's November 2019 invoice and Directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 1/28/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(Copy to finance 1.28.20) (Entered: 01/28/2020)
286 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department Regarding Hiring and Attrition (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit January 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 02/06/2020)
287 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council of Filing of First Amendment Protected Activity Annual Assessment (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit First Amendment Protected Activity Annual Assessment)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 02/06/2020)
288 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's December 2019 invoice and Directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/6/2020. (copy to finance 2.7.2020)(kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/07/2020)
289 NOTICE OF FILING OF OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Proceedings held on 1/22/2020, before Judge James K. Bredar. Court Reporter/Transcriber Mary M Zajac, Telephone number 410-962-4544. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter/Transcriber before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained from the Court Reporter or through PACER. Redaction Request due 3/6/2020. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 3/16/2020. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 5/14/2020.(mmz, Court Reporter) (Entered: 02/14/2020)
290 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of Third-Year Monitoring Plan for Approval (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 02/14/2020)
291 ORDER approving and adopting the Third-Year Monitoring Plan and the Parties and the Monitoring Team shall comply with all of its terms.

02/27/2020 03/04/2020 03/05/2020 03/05/2020 03/05/2020 03/05/2020
03/12/2020 03/13/2020
03/16/2020 03/16/2020 03/26/2020 03/30/2020 04/01/2020

Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/25/2020. (bmhs, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/26/2020)
292 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Staffing Plan (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 02/27/2020)
293 NOTICE of Appearance by Alexandra Lisa Shandell on behalf of United States of America (Shandell, Alexandra) (Entered: 03/04/2020)
294 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney Andre M. Davis by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 03/05/2020)
295 ORDER re: Monitor's appointment. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/3/2020. (bmhs, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 03/05/2020)
296 ORDER granting 294 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Attorney Andre M Davis terminated. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/5/2020. (bmhs, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 03/05/2020)
297 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Regarding Hiring and Attrition (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit February 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 03/05/2020)
298 NOTICE of Appearance by Emily C Keller on behalf of United States of America (Keller, Emily) (Entered: 03/12/2020)
299 Consent MOTION for Other Relief to Modify Monitoring Plan by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 03/13/2020)
300 ORDER granting 299 Consent MOTION for Other Relief to Modify Monitoring Plan. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/13/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 03/16/2020)
301 ORDER advising parties to no longer submit briefings. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/12/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 03/16/2020)
302 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of Community Survey Report (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 03/26/2020)
303 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department Policy 720 (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Harding, Kay) (Entered: 03/30/2020)
304 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Community Policing Plan (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 04/01/2020)

04/06/2020 04/06/2020 04/06/2020
04/09/2020 04/21/2020
04/28/2020 04/30/2020 05/07/2020 05/07/2020 05/20/2020 05/22/2020

305 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Regarding Hiring and Attrition (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit March 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 04/06/2020)
306 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor Regarding Third Year Monitoring Plan Deadlines (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 04/06/2020)
307 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's January 2020 invoice; directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the fund presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 4/6/2020. (cc finance 4/6/2020)(krs, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/06/2020)
308 ORDER reappointing the Monitor and Monitoring Team. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 4/8/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/09/2020)
309 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's February 2020 invoice and directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 4/21/2020. (cc finance)(krs, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/21/2020)
310 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1, # 2 Exhibit 2)(Harding, Kay) (Entered: 04/28/2020)
311 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Harding, Kay) (Entered: 04/30/2020)
312 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of CPIC Work Plan (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 05/07/2020)
313 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department Regarding Hiring and Attrition (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order April 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 05/07/2020)
314 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Call Takers and Dispatchers Behavioral Health Awareness Training (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 05/20/2020)
315 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's March 2020 invoice and directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court.(c\e to Finance 5.21.2020). Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 5/21/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 05/22/2020)

05/26/2020 06/03/2020 06/08/2020 06/11/2020 06/16/2020
06/16/2020
06/16/2020

316 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department re 311 Notice (Other) Revised (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Harding, Kay) (Entered: 05/26/2020)
317 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council 2019 Annual Sexual Assault Investigations Data Report (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 06/03/2020)
318 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Regarding Hiring and Attrition (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit May 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 06/08/2020)
319 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's April 2020 invoice and directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court.(c\e to Finance 5.21.2020). Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 6/11/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 06/11/2020)
320 NOTICE OF FILING OF OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Proceedings held on 4/6/2017, before Judge James K. Bredar. Court Reporter Christine T. Asif, Telephone number 410-962-4492. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained from the Court Reporter or through PACER. Redaction Request due 7/7/2020. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 7/17/2020. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 9/14/2020.(ca, Court Reporter) (Entered: 06/16/2020)
321 NOTICE OF FILING OF OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Proceedings held on 4/13/2018, before Judge James K. Bredar. Court Reporter Christine T. Asif, Telephone number 410-962-4492. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained from the Court Reporter or through PACER. Redaction Request due 7/7/2020. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 7/17/2020. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 9/14/2020.(ca, Court Reporter) (Entered: 06/16/2020)
322 NOTICE OF FILING OF OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Proceedings held on 10/9/2019, before Judge James K. Bredar. Court Reporter Christine T. Asif, Telephone number 410-962-4492. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained from the Court Reporter or through PACER. Redaction Request due 7/7/2020. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 7/17/2020. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 9/14/2020.(ca, Court Reporter) (Entered: 06/16/2020)

06/16/2020 06/16/2020 06/16/2020 06/16/2020 07/07/2020

323 NOTICE OF FILING OF OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Proceedings held on 4/10/2019, before Judge James K. Bredar. Court Reporter Christine T. Asif, Telephone number 410-962-4492. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained from the Court Reporter or through PACER. Redaction Request due 7/7/2020. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 7/17/2020. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 9/14/2020.(ca, Court Reporter) (Entered: 06/16/2020)
324 NOTICE OF FILING OF OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Proceedings held on 7/25/2019, before Judge James K. Bredar. Court Reporter Christine T. Asif, Telephone number 410-962-4492. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained from the Court Reporter or through PACER. Redaction Request due 7/7/2020. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 7/17/2020. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 9/14/2020.(ca, Court Reporter) (Entered: 06/16/2020)
325 NOTICE OF FILING OF OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Proceedings held on 10/24/2019, before Judge James K. Bredar. Court Reporter Christine T. Asif, Telephone number 410-962-4492. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained from the Court Reporter or through PACER. Redaction Request due 7/7/2020. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 7/17/2020. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 9/14/2020.(ca, Court Reporter) (Entered: 06/16/2020)
326 NOTICE OF FILING OF OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Proceedings held on 7/26/2018, before Judge James K. Bredar. Court Reporter Martin J. Giordano, Telephone number 410-962-4492. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained from the Court Reporter or through PACER. Redaction Request due 7/7/2020. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 7/17/2020. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 9/14/2020.(ca, Court Reporter) (Entered: 06/16/2020)
327 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Regarding Hiring and Attrition (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Exhibit 1 Cover Sheet, # 2 Exhibit June 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition, # 3 Exhibit June 2020 Spreadsheet on Hiring and Attrition)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 07/07/2020)

07/21/2020 07/23/2020 08/07/2020
08/07/2020 08/11/2020 08/25/2020 08/26/2020
08/27/2020 08/28/2020 09/01/2020 09/01/2020

328 FILED IN ERROR - QUARTERLY PUBLIC HEARING (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) Modified on 7/22/2020 (cags, Deputy Clerk). (Entered: 07/22/2020)
329 Quarterly Public Hearing re: Consent Decree held on 7/23/2020 before Chief Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Christine Asif) (kams, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 07/24/2020)
330 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's May 2020 invoice and directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court.(c\e to Finance 8.7.2020). Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 8/7/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 08/07/2020)
331 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department Regarding Hiring and Attrition (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit July 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 08/07/2020)
332 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of the Submission of the Monitoring Team of the Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2021 for Approval (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 08/11/2020)
333 ORDER Approving 332 NOTICE of the Submission of the Monitoring Team of the Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2021 for Approval filed by For BAPD The Independent Monitor. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 8/24/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 08/25/2020)
334 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's June 2020 invoice and DIRECTS the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court.(c\e to Finance 8.26.2020). Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 8/26/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 08/26/2020)
Check Received on 08/27/2020 from MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE. Check Number: 1677581. Amount: $1,560,446.00. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 08/27/2020)
335 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of Updated Third-Year Monitoring Plan for Approval (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 08/28/2020)
336 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Comprehensive Public Integrity Bureau Internal Operations and Training Manual (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/01/2020)
337 ORDER Approving 335 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of Updated Third-Year Monitoring Plan for Approval filed by For BAPD The Independent Monitor. Signed by Chief

09/03/2020
09/15/2020 09/22/2020 09/24/2020
09/30/2020 10/07/2020
10/12/2020 10/15/2020 10/16/2020
10/26/2020 10/29/2020

Judge James K. Bredar on 8/31/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 09/01/2020)
338 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Regarding Hiring and Attrition (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit August 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition Cover Letter, # 2 Exhibit August 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition Spreadsheet)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 09/03/2020)
339 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 9/15/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 09/15/2020)
340 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Command Promotions and Commendations/Award Policies (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/22/2020)
341 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's July 2020 invoice and DIRECTS the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court.(c\e to Finance 9.25.2020). Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 9/24/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 09/25/2020)
342 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of Monitoring Team's First Comprehensive Re-Assessment (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 09/30/2020)
343 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Regarding Hiring and Attrition (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit September 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition Cover Letter, # 2 Exhibit September 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition Spreadsheet)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 10/07/2020)
344 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Sexual Assault Investigator Training Curriculum (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 10/12/2020)
345 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department 2nd Annual Resource Plan (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1)(Harding, Kay) (Entered: 10/15/2020)
346 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's August 2020 invoice and DIRECTS the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court.(c\e to Finance 10/16/2020). Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 10/16/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 10/16/2020)
347 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Policy on Patrol Staffing Shortages (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 10/26/2020)
348 Quartley Public Hearing re: Consent Decree held on 10/29/2020 before Chief Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Christine Asif) (mds, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 10/29/2020)

11/05/2020 11/05/2020 11/06/2020 11/06/2020 11/09/2020 11/09/2020 11/10/2020
11/10/2020 11/14/2020 11/17/2020
11/23/2020

349 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Policy on Promotion to Classified Ranks (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 11/05/2020)
350 NOTICE of Appearance by Forestine Nicole Porter on behalf of United States of America (Porter, Forestine) (Entered: 11/05/2020)
351 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department Certification of Delivery of Sexual Assault Investigations Training (Attachments: # 1 Certificate)(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 11/06/2020)
352 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney Suzanne Sangree by Baltimore Police Department (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Walden, Elisabeth) (Entered: 11/06/2020)
353 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department re 282 Order October Hiring and Attrition (Attachments: # 1 Cover Letter, # 2 Data)(Harding, Kay) (Entered: 11/09/2020)
354 PAPERLESS ORDER granting 352 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Attorney Suzanne Sangree terminated. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 11/9/2020. (vdcs, Chambers) (Entered: 11/09/2020)
355 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's September 2020 invoice; directing the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 11/10/2020. (ols, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 11/10/2020)
356 ORDER granting 352 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney Suzanne Sangree filed by Baltimore Police Department. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 11/10/2020. (ols, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 11/10/2020)
357 NOTICE of Appearance by Syeda Mehveen Riaz on behalf of United States of America (Riaz, Syeda) (Entered: 11/14/2020)
358 NOTICE OF FILING OF OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Proceedings held on 10/29/2020, before Judge James K. Bredar. Court Reporter Christine Asif, Telephone number 4109624492. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained from the Court Reporter or through PACER. Redaction Request due 12/8/2020. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 12/18/2020. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 2/16/2021.(ca, Court Reporter) (Entered: 11/17/2020)
359 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Regarding 2019 Q4 Misconduct Investigations

12/02/2020 12/07/2020
12/08/2020 12/09/2020
12/14/2020 12/15/2020 12/15/2020 12/16/2020 12/17/2020
12/23/2020 12/31/2020
01/05/2021

Report (Attachments: # 1 2019 Q4 Misconduct Investigations Report)(Blumer, Kristin) (Entered: 11/23/2020)
360 SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 12/1/2020. (hmls, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 12/02/2020)
361 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Regarding Hiring and Attrition (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Exhibit November 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 12/07/2020)
362 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of SSA Policies (Set 3) of Lesser Offenses (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/08/2020)
363 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's October 2020 invoice and directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 12/9/2020. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(c/e to finance 12.9.2020) (Entered: 12/09/2020)
364 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Field Training Plan (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/14/2020)
365 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of EPIC Curriculum (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/15/2020)
366 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Performance Review Board Policy (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/15/2020)
367 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Duty to Intervene & Anti-Retaliation Policies (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/16/2020)
368 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council of Filing of Officer Assistance Assessment Report (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Officer Assistance Assessment Report)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 12/17/2020)
369 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Patrol Supervisor Policy Manual (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 12/23/2020)
370 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Assessment of Arrests Resulting in a Release Without Charge (Second Quarter 2020) (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 12/31/2020)
371 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of UOF Assessment on Use of Force Incidents (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 01/05/2021)

01/06/2021 01/06/2021 01/21/2021 01/21/2021 01/21/2021 01/21/2021 02/02/2021 02/08/2021 02/08/2021
02/09/2021

372 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Performance Evaluation Policy and Manuals (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 01/06/2021)
373 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Regarding Hiring and Attrition (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit December 2020 Monthly Report on Hiring and Attrition)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 01/06/2021)
374 (FILED IN ERROR PER COUNSEL)NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council of Entry of Appearance of James Shea (Walden, Elisabeth) Modified on 1/21/2021 (kw2s, Deputy Clerk). (Entered: 01/21/2021)
375 NOTICE of Appearance by James L Shea, Sr on behalf of Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Shea, James) (Entered: 01/21/2021)
376 ORDER approving the Monitoring Team's November 2020 invoice and directs the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 1/21/2021. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk)(c/e to finance 1.21.2021) (Entered: 01/21/2021)
377 Quarterly Public Hearing held on 1/21/2021 before Chief Judge James K. Bredar.(Court Reporter: Christine Asif) (mds, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 01/21/2021)
378 AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/2/2021. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/02/2021)
379 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Regarding Hiring and Attrition for January 2021 (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Exhibit)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 02/08/2021)
380 NOTICE OF FILING OF OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of Proceedings held on 1/21/2021, before Judge James K. Bredar. Court Reporter Christine T. Asif, Telephone number 410-962-4492. Total number of pages filed: 169. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained from the Court Reporter or through PACER. Redaction Request due 3/1/2021. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 3/11/2021. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 5/10/2021.(ca, Court Reporter) (Entered: 02/08/2021)
381 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department of Filing of Training Certification (Attachments: # 1 Training Certification)(Blumer, Kristin) (Entered: 02/09/2021)

02/19/2021
02/22/2021 02/23/2021 03/01/2021 03/02/2021 03/04/2021 03/05/2021 03/05/2021 03/08/2021 03/12/2021 03/12/2021 03/23/2021

382 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's December's 2020 invoice and DIRECTS the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court.(c\e to Finance 2.19.2021). Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/19/2021. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/19/2021)
383 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Approval of Youth Interactions Policy (Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 02/22/2021)
384 SECOND AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 2/22/2021. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 02/23/2021)
385 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney by Community Churches for Community Development, Inc. (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Dixon, Monique) (Entered: 03/01/2021)
386 ORDER granting 385 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Attorney Monique L Dixon terminated. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/2/2021. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 03/02/2021)
387 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council of Filing of Assessment of Arrests Resulting in RWOC Q3 2020 (Attachments: # 1 Attachment 1)(Blumer, Kristin) (Entered: 03/04/2021)
388 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Blumer, Kristin) (Entered: 03/05/2021)
389 ORDER granting 388 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Attorney Kristin Elizabeth Blumer terminated. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/5/2021. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 03/05/2021)
390 NOTICE by Baltimore Police Department, Mayor of Baltimore City and City Council Regarding Hiring and Attrition for February 2021 (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Amato, Natalie) (Entered: 03/08/2021)
391 NOTICE by For BAPD The Independent Monitor of Submission of Fourth-Year Monitoring Plan for Approval (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Exhibit)(Rosenthal, Seth) (Entered: 03/12/2021)
392 ORDER Approving 391 NOTICE of Submission of Fourth-Year Monitoring Plan for Approval Notice filed by For BAPD The Independent Monitor. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/12/2021. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 03/15/2021)
393 ORDER Approving the Monitoring Team's January's 2021 invoice and DIRECTS the Clerk to immediately disburse the invoice from the funds presently on deposit in the registry of the Court.(c\e to Finance

03/31/2021

3.23.2021).. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/23/2021. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 03/23/2021)
394 THIRD AMENDED SCHEDULING ORDER. Signed by Chief Judge James K. Bredar on 3/31/2021. (kw2s, Deputy Clerk) (Entered: 04/01/2021)

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EXHIBIT 1

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BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT MONITORING TEAM
FIRST SEMIANNUAL REPORT
July 18, 2018

Venable LLP and 21CP Solutions LLC

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
OVERVIEW ..................................................................................................................ii INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................... 6 SUMMARY OF MONITORING TEAM ACTIVITIES .......................................... 19 FINDINGS .................................................................................................................. 29
Misconduct Investigations and Discipline............................................................... 31 Technology ................................................................................................................ 40 Staffing, Performance Evaluations and Promotions............................................... 47 Stops, Searches, Arrests and Voluntary Police-Community Interactions ............. 50 Impartial Policing..................................................................................................... 69 Use of Force .............................................................................................................. 72 Transportation of Persons in Custody ..................................................................... 75 First Amendment-Protected Activities.................................................................... 79 Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in
Crisis................................................................................................................... 81 Interactions with Youth ........................................................................................... 85 Sexual Assault Investigations.................................................................................. 88 Recruitment, Hiring and Retention......................................................................... 90 Officer Assistance and Support................................................................................ 92 Community Policing ................................................................................................. 94 Outcome Assessments .............................................................................................. 97

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OVERVIEW
FIRST SEMIANNUAL REPORT – 7/18/18

THE MONITORING TEAM’S ACTIVITIES • Prepared a detailed First-Year Monitoring Plan • Reviewed and provided technical assistance on draft policy revisions • Audited equipment in BPD transport vehicles • Performed preliminary diagnostic reviews of internal investigations files, stop/ search/arrest data, and BPD’s response to the shooting of Detective Suiter • Developed a plan for measuring BPD compliance with Consent Decree requirements • Met with community stakeholders • Hired and engaged a team of neighborhood liaisons • Established a website, email address, phone number and office hours • Had focus groups with officers, went on ride-alongs, and visited District stations
THE MONITORING TEAM’S FINDINGS • BPD/City leadership has shown a genuine commitment to broad institutional reform • BPD’s capacity for broad institutional reform remains unproven • BPD has made substantial progress on revising key policies • BPD has prepared thorough technology and staffing studies • BPD and the City are establishing a good foundation for improving BPD’s interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis • An initial audit showed BPD transport vehicles appear properly equipped • BPD’s Office of Professional Responsibility requires major structural reform • BPD’s IT systems are outdated and ineffectual and cannot facilitate either the datadriven supervision of officer performance or the data-driven analysis of Departmental trends that the Consent Decree requires • BPD’s response to the shooting of Detective Suiter in the Harlem Park neighborhood raises concerns about how BPD conducts and documents stops, searches and arrests • BPD suffers from staffing shortages, especially in the Patrol Division; BPD’s remedy of forced overtime depletes the budget and saps officer morale
THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
• BPD will largely complete revisions to its policies • BPD will draft revised training programs on various revised policies and will begin
implementing revised training on use of force policies • BPD and the City will complete diagnostic studies on staffing, the City’s behavioral
health systems, youth diversion programs, and BPD hiring practices • BPD will finalize detailed action plans for implementing numerous reforms • The Monitoring Team will conduct its initial community and arrestee surveys • The Monitoring Team will continue its community outreach and officer focus groups • The Monitoring Team, based on available data, will begin conducting “baseline”
assessments of BPD’s performance in various areas of the Consent Decree

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The Consent Decree

INTRODUCTION

In May 2015, the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) initiated an investigation of the Baltimore Police Department (“BPD”). The investigation, completed in 2016, found that BPD was engaged in a pattern-or-practice of constitutional violations, including using excessive force, infringing on the First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly, and stopping, searching, and arresting people without probable cause and based on their race. After making these findings, DOJ entered into negotiations with BPD and the City in an effort to settle the parties’ differences. BPD and the City did not admit DOJ’s allegations, but they recognized that the allegations raised long-standing issues of considerable importance to City residents. As a result, BPD and the City agreed to resolve DOJ’s allegations through a Consent Decree. The Consent Decree is a courtapproved settlement agreement between DOJ, the City and BPD. United States District Court Judge James K. Bredar is the judge who approved the Consent Decree. Judge Bredar now oversees the Consent Decree’s implementation. Because the Consent Decree is a court order, Judge Bredar has the power to enforce its provisions and ensure that BPD and the City do what it requires.

The Consent Decree obligates BPD and the City to adopt a comprehensive set of reforms designed to promote fair and constitutional policing, rebuild BPD’s relationships with Baltimore’s communities, and ensure public safety. The Consent Decree prescribes corrective action in a number of areas, including: community engagement; community policing; stops, searches, arrests, and voluntary policecommunity interactions; impartial policing; interacting with people with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis; use of force; interactions with youth; transportation of persons in custody; First Amendment protected activities; handling of reports of sexual assault; technology; supervision; misconduct investigations and discipline; coordination with Baltimore City School Police; recruitment, hiring, and retention; staffing, performance evaluations, and promotions; and officer assistance and support.

The Consent Decree, in short, requires transformational institutional change. BPD will achieve compliance with the Consent Decree and free itself from Court oversight when it demonstrates not only that it has successfully implemented all of the required foundational improvements required in policies, training, technology and operations, but that those improvements have translated, measurably and sustainably, into constitutional, community-oriented policing.

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Achieving transformational change in a large police department does not happen overnight. As the Consent Decree envisions, it takes time, and it requires adherence to a rigorous, methodical reform process. In each area of the Consent Decree that addresses how officers discharge their duties (e.g., stops/searches/arrests, use of force, and transportation of persons in custody, to name a few), BPD first must draft and adopt revised policies. Then BPD must develop and conduct training on those revised policies. At the same time, to ensure that the new policies and the new training take root, BPD must revamp vital components of its infrastructure. For instance, BPD must overhaul its technology to become a modern, data-driven, efficient police force, must fortify its system of internal investigations and discipline to enhance officer accountability, must improve the supervision of rank-and-file officers to ensure lawful, effective job performance, and must increase the number of qualified patrol officers to promote community-oriented policing. It is only after officers have been trained on the new policies, and after infrastructure upgrades are well underway, that community members can expect to see sustained, tangible changes in the conduct of BPD officers. The Consent Decree contemplates that this process will take several years or more.
The Monitoring Team
On October 3, 2017, Judge Bredar appointed a Monitoring Team to assist him in overseeing implementation of the Consent Decree. The Monitoring Team consists of a lead monitor, Kenneth Thompson, and a team of experts in policing and police reform, civil rights enforcement, psychology, social science, organizational change, data and technology, and community engagement. Serving as an agent of the Court, the Monitoring Team plays three principal roles: arbiter, technical advisor, and facilitator. As arbiter, the Monitoring Team oversees the day-to-day efforts of BPD and the City to comply with the reforms the Consent Decree requires. The Monitoring Team reviews, provides feedback on, and ultimately recommends Court approval or disapproval of the changes BPD makes in its policies, its training and, ultimately, its policing practices. As technical advisor, the Monitoring Team draws upon decades of collective experience to provide BPD with technical assistance, including advice about national best practices, to help guide BPD toward satisfying the requirements of the Consent Decree. As facilitator, the Monitoring Team seeks to ensure that all stakeholders from within BPD and across Baltimore’s diverse communities have the opportunity to participate in the reform process. (CD 442).1

1 All citations to a specific paragraph of the Consent Decree follow the text that relies on that paragraph and appears in parentheses containing “CD” and the number of the cited paragraph. Thus, the citation above, which is to Paragraph 442 of the Consent Decree, follows the relied-on provision of Paragraph 442 and appears as “(CD 442).”

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While the work of the Monitoring Team is key to the successful implementation of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team’s authority is limited. The Consent Decree expressly provides that “the Monitor will only have the duties, responsibilities, and authority conferred by [the Consent Decree]. The Monitor will not, and is not intended to, replace or assume the role and the duties of the City or BPD, or any duties of any City or BPD employee…” (CD 445). The Monitoring Team is, therefore, restricted to what the Consent Decree authorizes. It does not have the power or the ability to weigh in on all police-related matters. For instance, although the Monitoring Team assesses compliance with mandated reforms in the investigation and discipline of BPD officer misconduct, the Monitoring Team cannot bring, determine whether to bring, or recommend criminal charges against police officers accused of wrongdoing in specific cases. It is not a substitute for local or federal prosecutors. Likewise, the Monitoring Team cannot intervene in employment or disciplinary matters within BPD. It does not conduct independent investigations of allegations of misconduct by BPD officers or make employment or disciplinary recommendations or decisions affecting BPD officers. What the Monitoring Team does is assess whether BPD administers its disciplinary process—from intake to investigation to outcomes—consistent with the requirements of the Consent Decree. Similarly, the Monitoring Team cannot interject itself into active crime scene investigations or assume the role of BPD command staff by intervening in the performance of BPD officers’ duties. Under the terms of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team’s job is to assess BPD’s conduct, not direct it.

It should also be noted that the Court and the Monitoring Team are not alone in overseeing BPD’s implementation of the requirements of the Consent Decree. DOJ continues to play an active role. As the plaintiff in the lawsuit that produced the Consent Decree, DOJ retains the right to enforce the Consent Decree when BPD fails to comply with its terms. Accordingly, like the Monitoring Team, DOJ is assessing BPD’s progress toward compliance and will let the Monitoring Team and the Court know when it believes BPD is making progress and when BPD is not. In addition, like the Monitoring Team, DOJ provides technical assistance to BPD as BPD works toward compliance. The reform process under the Consent Decree thus involves three fully-engaged entities: BPD, the Monitoring Team/the Court, and DOJ.
This Report
One of the essential duties of the Monitoring Team is to issue semi-annual public reports that inform the Court and the community about the progress BPD is making toward compliance with the Consent Decree’s requirements. The reports explain, in each area of the Consent Decree: (1) which compliance measures BPD has taken in the preceding six months; (2) whether those measures demonstrate

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compliance, reasonable progress toward compliance, or non-compliance with Consent Decree requirements; (3) what challenges BPD will continue to face as it strives to achieve compliance; and (4) what to expect from BPD in the next reporting period.
This document is the Monitoring Team’s first semi-annual report. When reading it, keep two things in mind. First, as explained above, achieving transformational change in a large police department takes time and requires adherence to a rigorous process for reform. Second, the First-Year Monitoring Plan, which provides a detailed, structured blueprint for the initial year of that rigorous process, was approved on February 16, 2018—only five months ago. See ECF No. 911, as modified by ECF Nos. 112, 124 & 125. Thus, the reform process is lengthy, and BPD is still at the very beginning; BPD has not yet had time to make significant progress toward lasting change. The First-Year Monitoring Plan implicitly acknowledges that not every Consent Decree requirement can be or will be addressed, much less met, in the first year. BPD, its officers and community members need sufficient time and opportunity to focus on each area of the Consent Decree, and on each requirement within each area, to ensure that reform is real and enduring. Change that is rushed, haphazard and superficial is not sustainable and does not qualify as true reform.

For these reasons, this report will not address BPD’s progress on each and every one of the Consent Decree’s requirements. It is simply too soon to engage in that kind of exercise. For the vast majority of the Consent Decree’s requirements, BPD has neither satisfied them, made reasonable progress toward satisfying them, nor failed to satisfy them. Rather, it is just getting started.
Indeed, although BPD has met the deadlines in the First-Year Monitoring Plan so far, and is working diligently to revise key policies and complete critical studies on technology and staffing, it has not yet completed the vast majority of even these initial, foundational steps. Invoking the analogy that the Consent Decree requires BPD to rebuild a house from the ground up (which the Court used at its first public hearing in April 2018), BPD is mixing the cement to lay the foundation for the new house; it has not yet laid the foundation, much less started construction. For instance, BPD has not yet implemented or trained officers on the policies presently undergoing revision, and it has not revamped its technology systems so that they are capable of storing and aggregating the data necessary for comprehensive evaluation of the integrity of BPD’s practices (including, e.g., how its officers stop, search, and arrest individuals, when and how its officers use force, and how it investigates and disciplines officers who violate policy). Therefore, the Monitoring Team remains a long way from being able to comprehensively assess whether BPD officers are consistently and sustainably engaged in constitutional, community-oriented policing.

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That is not to say that, in the first year, the Monitoring Team will not examine the conduct of BPD officers on the street, or determine how to measure whether BPD is making tangible improvements in its performance. As the First-Year Monitoring Plan prescribes, the Monitoring Team is working with BPD and DOJ to identify which indicators of constitutional policing (which the Consent Decree calls “outcome assessments”) can be measured in the first year given the current state of BPD’s data, and for the indicators that can be measured, the Monitoring Team will develop and employ methodologies to assess them. In addition, the Monitoring Team will conduct preliminary general evaluations of BPD’s compliance with Consent Decree requirements (called “compliance reviews”) in certain areas: use of force, investigatory stops, misconduct investigations and discipline, and sexual assault investigations. The preliminary outcome assessments and compliance reviews that the Monitoring Team will conduct in the first year will be designed to establish “baselines” for assessing BPD’s future progress toward compliance, as BPD begins to implement reforms in training, policies and operations. The Monitoring Team hopes to address these preliminary evaluations in the next semiannual report.
Rather than inventorying BPD’s efforts to satisfy each and every one of the Consent Decree’s separate provisions, this report assesses BPD’s progress toward satisfying the limited number of provisions that the First-Year Monitoring Plan requires BPD to address. In addition, this report gauges BPD’s current position along the long arc of compliance in each area of the Consent Decree and identifies the challenges BPD will have to overcome to make meaningful progress toward compliance in each area. In this way, the report implicitly demonstrates that, although crucial, BPD’s nascent work to satisfy the Consent Decree’s foundational requirements—revising policies, conducting studies, preparing plans, drafting training curricula, performing audits, implementing officer assistance programs—is only part of the compliance equation. Full compliance will not be achieved until, in practice, those reforms result in policing that is community-oriented, accountable and constitutional.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

For the first several months after its appointment, the Monitoring Team worked intensively with BPD and DOJ to produce a First-Year Monitoring Plan. The Court approved the Plan on February 16, 2018. See ECF No. 91-1, as modified by ECF Nos. 112, 124 & 125. The Plan is a detailed roadmap for the progress BPD is expected to make during the first year of monitoring, which runs from the date of the Plan’s approval, February 16, 2018, through February 15, 2019. The Plan is dense, identifying and establishing dozens of deadlines for Consent Decree “deliverables.” Because the Plan covers only the first year, it naturally focuses on the front-end of the reform process: policy revision and, where achievable within the first twelve months, training curriculum revision, as well as studies and action plans for improving technology, data collection, staffing, interactions with youth, interactions with people with behavioral health disabilities, and community policing.

BPD has thus far complied with all of the many deadlines in the First-Year Monitoring Plan. Importantly, BPD’s work has been respectable and has demonstrated a genuine commitment to reform. BPD is not just “checking boxes.” Accordingly, as to the specific, early-stage Consent Decree requirements addressed in the First-Year Monitoring Plan up through the date of this report, BPD is making reasonable progress toward satisfying them.

However, it is simply too early in the reform process to gauge BPD’s progress toward satisfying the vast majority of the Consent Decree’s requirements. That is because BPD is still in the preliminary, preparatory stage of reform. As prescribed by the First-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD has only begun implementing certain requirements and has not started implementing a number of others. BPD has not yet finished revising policies, much less implemented and trained officers on them. Nor has BPD begun revamping its supervisory and internal affairs systems, or initiated training academy improvements, or started overhauling its technology for reporting and collecting data so as to facilitate effective officer supervision, consequential officer discipline for misconduct, and meaningful unit-, district- and Department-wide analysis of trends in stops, searches, arrests, and uses of force.

And that raises the principal, threshold concern of the Monitoring Team and the Court: although BPD and City leadership are, to their credit, fully committed to reform, it is not yet apparent whether BPD has the capacity to implement the linchpin requirements of the Consent Decree. Will it be able to purchase, design and effectively utilize modern policing technology? Can it develop a robust system of supervision and officer accountability? Will it be able to hire and retain enough qualified patrol officers to fulfill the Consent Decree’s community-oriented policing

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goals and maintain the morale of a Patrol Division that is currently overworked and stretched thin? These are open questions right now and, with only several months of active monitoring completed, the Monitoring Team cannot say what the answers are likely to be. What the first several months of monitoring have revealed is that, despite BPD’s hard work, the challenges ahead are daunting.
The following summary describes BPD’s noteworthy achievements so far, as well as noteworthy challenges ahead. It does not cover all achievements to date or all challenges ahead. Rather, it is a short recap of what the Monitoring Team views as the key achievements and key challenges at this preliminary stage in the reform process. The body of this report provides more detailed treatment of these and many other achievements and challenges.
Notable Achievements to Date
Policy Revisions
Since the beginning of the first year of monitoring, BPD has made considerable progress on revising its policies in several areas of the Consent Decree, including:
• Use of force • Stop, searches, arrests and voluntary police-community interactions • Impartial policing • First Amendment-protected activities • Body worn camera use • Transportation of persons in custody • Sexual assault investigations • Officer support involving traumatic and high-stress incidents
After receiving considerable input from the Monitoring Team, DOJ and the community, BPD has finalized five different policies on use of force, including the core use of force policy (Policy 1112) and policies regarding the use of various weapons. The Monitoring Team recently filed a notice approving these policies. See ECF No. 118. Revised policies on impartial policing, transportation of persons in custody, body worn cameras, and First Amendment protected activities are nearing completion, with formal public comment periods either recently completed or underway. Additional policies on use of force, as well as policies on stops/searches/arrests, sexual assault investigations, and officer support are at different stages in the revision process, but well underway and due to be completed in the next reporting period.

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The revised policies are marked improvements over the old ones. They are logically structured, clear, and designed to make it easy for officers and the community to understand them. Drawing on national best practices, each contains a straightforward, concise policy statement, strong directives identifying required and prohibited actions for officers, and supervisory and Departmental obligations designed to ensure adherence.

BPD also has revised and adopted a new statement of mission and core values that expresses its commitment to constitutional, community-oriented policing. The Monitoring Team approved the new statement earlier this month. See ECF No. 119.

The progress BPD has made in revising its policies is vital because it is foundational. Strong, clear policies are the building blocks for reform. They reflect core Departmental values, furnish the basis for officer training, and establish concrete rules for holding officers accountable for proper conduct.

The Monitoring Team notes that, in revising its policies, BPD has had substantial technical assistance from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, as expected. BPD has recognized the utility of outside input and is readily integrating the recommendations it is receiving. It is too soon to tell whether BPD will be able to use this technical assistance to build the capacity to make improvements in its policies on its own, with community input but without third party help. That is the Consent Decree’s ultimate objective. The Monitoring Team believes that BPD is thoroughly dedicated to developing such capacity, but whether BPD will actually develop it is not yet certain.

Technology and Staffing Studies

The First-Year Monitoring Plan requires BPD to produce comprehensive resource studies on both its current capacities and shortcomings in technology and its staffing needs. These studies provide a springboard for improvements and reforms in technology and staffing. They are critical because BPD will not be able to achieve the Consent Decree’s objective of constitutional, community-oriented policing without revamping its technology and bolstering the number of qualified officers.
With the assistance of an outside consultant, BPD completed the Technology Resource Study in June. The Monitoring Team approved the study and filed it with the Court. See ECF No. 116. The study is detailed and thorough. It identifies the systems BPD currently uses to maintain data and track Departmental performance, accurately describes the current state of those systems, explains how and why those systems are inadequate to serve BPD’s needs, and makes preliminary recommendations for improvements. The study, in short, accomplishes its purpose:

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it establishes the proper foundation for the forthcoming Technology Resource Plan, which will serve as the essential blueprint “for adopting the Technology necessary to satisfy the Material Requirements of [the Consent Decree].” (CD 269).
The Staffing Study is still in draft form, but is on target to be finalized by its September due date. Together with an outside consultant, BPD has worked hard to produce an analysis that candidly addresses its staffing needs and lays the groundwork for a Staffing Plan that will provide for sufficient personnel to meet the requirements of the Consent Decree (CD 429). The first draft of the Staffing Plan is due in late November.
Equipment in Transport Vehicles
The Consent Decree requires BPD to equip all transport vans with seatbelts, holding straps located along the rear area of each seat that individuals being transported may grip for security during transport, and transport vehicle cameras (TVCs). It also requires BPD to outfit all transport cruisers with seatbelts. The Monitoring Team conducted a preliminary, informal audit of BPD’s transport vans in late January. In late April, after working with BPD and DOJ to develop a comprehensive Transport Equipment Audit Methodology, which will be used for quarterly inspections of transport vehicles going forward, the Monitoring Team conducted a more thorough audit of both transport vans and transport cruisers. The Monitoring Team determined that each of the 17 vans and 18 cruisers inspected had the required equipment—though two of the vans had inadequate interior lighting, which made it difficult for the TVCs to capture activity in the vans, and one cruiser had a defective seat belt. The Monitoring Team also confirmed that BPD now conducts and creates logs to memorialize weekly inspections of both transport vans and transport cruisers. BPD furnishes the logs to the Monitoring Team each week for review.
The early steps BPD has taken to properly equip its transport vehicles are encouraging. Ensuring the safety of individuals in custody is among BPD’s most solemn obligations. It is also vital to rebuilding the community’s trust, particularly after the death of Freddie Gray following transport in a BPD van.
Going forward, the challenge for BPD will be not only to continue to properly equip its transport vehicles, but to ensure that BPD officers properly utilize the equipment and then document and audit its use, as Paragraphs 226-237 of the Consent Decree require.

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Termination of Details from the Office of Professional Responsibility

The Office of Professional Responsibility (“OPR”) is the BPD unit presently responsible for receiving, investigating, and making findings and disciplinary recommendations regarding complaints of officer misconduct. Earlier this year, BPD terminated its practice of detailing OPR investigators to patrol and special events duties, where they sometimes worked alongside the same officers they were charged with investigating. Rife with potential conflicts of interest, this practice called into question the integrity and impartiality of OPR investigations. OPR investigators should not have active working relationships with officers in other units whom they are investigating or might be called upon to investigate.
BPD’s termination of OPR investigator details is a small but necessary first step toward reforming OPR. It demonstrates progress toward satisfying Paragraph 331 of the Consent Decree, which forbids OPR employees to be “assigned to duties that may create [a] conflict of interest, or appearance of conflict of interest, with their investigatory responsibility.” Going forward, the Monitoring Team will actively evaluate whether BPD adheres to the new “no OPR details” policy.

Establishing a Foundation for Improving Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in Crisis
The Consent Decree requires BPD to develop appropriate techniques for responding to individuals with behavioral disabilities or in crisis. The long-term goal is to connect people with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis to the behavioral health system, and decrease the involvement of people with behavioral health disabilities in the criminal justice system. The First-Year Monitoring Plan thus far has required BPD to meet several short-term Consent Decree requirements to lay the groundwork for accomplishing that long-term goal.
BPD has conscientiously satisfied these short-term requirements.
First, it tapped a qualified lieutenant, Lt. Azalee Johnson, to lead the Crisis Intervention Team (“CIT”), a specialized unit trained to respond to incidents involving individuals believed to have behavioral health disabilities or to be in crisis.
Second, together with the City, BPD properly expanded the composition of the Collaborative Planning Implementation Committee (“CPIC”), which will comprehensively assess the City’s behavioral health support systems and advise BPD on crisis intervention policies for both patrol officers and dispatch personnel. CPIC now includes key stakeholders throughout the City: relevant City and State officials,

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Disability Rights Maryland, community mental health providers, substance use services providers, local hospitals, advocates, and committed philanthropists. Further, CPIC’s leadership, which includes representatives from key components of the City’s crisis intervention apparatus (i.e. BPD, Behavioral Health Systems Baltimore, and the Mayor’s Office of Human Services), have demonstrated a meaningful commitment to CPIC’s mission.
Third, CPIC designated Behavioral Health Systems Baltimore to lead the process for conducting an assessment of the gaps in the City’s behavioral health system and recommendations for solutions (“Gap Analysis”). In June, in coordination with CPIC and BPD, BHSB issued a Request for Proposal for an organization to provide technical expertise to assist with completion of the Gap Analysis. The Gap Analysis is due in the next reporting period.
Fourth, CPIC, the City and BPD have completed a draft Work Plan for developing a CIT Program staffing plan, an officer selection process for CIT, crisis intervention policies for the Patrol Division and Dispatch Unit, and a detailed set of data to be collected for evaluation purposes. The final Work Plan is due in August.

Finally, the City, BHSB and BPD are now working with CPIC to improve service delivery to individuals experiencing homelessness, substance abuse and mental illness by coordinating several disparate government programs designed to assist each constituency separately. It is encouraging that the City and BPD are expanding CPIC’s role beyond what the Consent Decree requires to draw on the expertise of CPIC’s new members.
Notable Challenges Ahead

Misconduct Investigations and Discipline
BPD’s system for holding officers accountable for misconduct is broken. As the Court recently observed, “[the] system must be rebuilt from the foundation up to ensure it functions as a fair, transparent and robust arbiter of integrity.” ECF No. 125 at 3. Without a properly functioning Office of Professional Responsibility holding officers accountable for violating Departmental policies, the reforms the Consent Decree mandates in other areas will be ineffectual, the prospects for regaining the community’s trust will be lost, and the reform effort will collapse.
Under the First-Year Monitoring Plan approved in February, BPD’s obligations in the area of Misconduct Investigations and Discipline mirrored BPD’s obligations in other areas: revise policies (specifically, OPR policies and

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corresponding OPR operational manual provisions) and start in on training development. However, after the Monitoring Team conducted a preliminary diagnostic review of OPR files and began to furnish BPD technical assistance in the policy revision process, it recognized that OPR was desperately in need of fundamental structural reform and that such reform had to precede even preliminary measures like policy revisions and training development. Among the foundational organizational deficiencies the Monitoring Team has observed in the past several months are the following:
• OPR has a substantial and confusing number of units and sub-units, which creates both operational inefficiencies and a risk of untimely, inadequately supervised investigations.
• OPR does not include under its jurisdiction all units within BPD that address officer misconduct—there is, for instance, an Office of Inspector General—so OPR’s precise responsibilities are not definitively settled.
• Because investigators are assigned to geographic districts, the same investigators frequently deal with the same officers and supervisors, which could raise concerns about investigator impartiality and also could result in uneven investigator caseload distribution. .
• Although OPR and the Civilian Review Board (which provides civilian oversight for certain types of alleged officer misconduct) are required to coordinate with each other, no protocol for coordination has ever existed.
• There is no clear protocol for determining what OPR investigates in the first instance and what unit supervisors should promptly address (with subsequent OPR follow up).
• The process for classifying complaints appears inconsistent and non-uniform because it is complicated and ill-defined.
• A review of randomly selected OPR investigative files suggests that:
 OPR investigators do not provide complainants with case updates at regular intervals.
 There is a lack of completeness and uniformity. Files of investigations of similar classes of alleged misconduct sometimes contain entirely different forms, reports and investigative material; only a small number

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of files contain transcripts, recordings or other evidence showing that involved officers were interviewed; and key investigative steps are not thoroughly and uniformly logged.
 OPR’s technology platform cannot readily generate certain basic statistics about misconduct investigations, such as the number of cases resulting in certain dispositions and the current status of every investigation.
The recent convictions of a number of officers from BPD’s Gun Trace Task Force underscore the deficiencies in BPD’s accountability system. Trial testimony earlier this year revealed that GTTF officers routinely stole and extorted money and drugs from civilians, usually after making blatantly unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests. The trial evidence vividly corroborated DOJ’s finding of a pattern-orpractice of unconstitutional stops, searches and arrests. The fact that conduct so egregious could endure with such frequency for so long demonstrates just how much BPD must do to develop a properly functioning system of internal accountability.
The recent turnover in the leadership of OPR, as well as in BPD’s top command staff, have only magnified the difficulty of achieving OPR reform. Indeed, each of the three recent Commissioners or Acting Commissioners has had a different idea about the staffing, the structure and even the jurisdiction of OPR, leading to serial changes in BPD’s organizational chart. Such indeterminacy confuses the definitive guidance that OPR supervisors and investigators must have to do their jobs effectively.
Despite the current state of OPR, BPD has shown a willingness to reform. It had started working actively with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to revise OPR policies before the need for structural changes became apparent, has acknowledged the need for structural improvements, and although audits still must be done, seems to have made the process for lodging civilian complaints easier and more accessible. Again, however, the question is not BPD’s willingness to fix OPR. It is BPD’s capacity to fix OPR. Establishing that capacity is the challenge.
Technology and Data Collection
The recently issued Technology Resource Study, see ECF No. 116, candidly catalogs the numerous defects in BPD’s IT systems and IT governance structure. BPD maintains an inefficient, resource-intensive reporting and data collection system in which officers first complete paper reports and then have data from the reports uploaded into the pertinent IT platform, e.g., a Records Management System (“RMS”) for data on stops, searches, arrests, citations and criminal complaints, and

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IAPro for data on uses of force and investigations of officer misconduct. Although these central IT systems exist, a significant amount of data is siloed in dozens of alternative systems that have been created over the years. These siloed systems are not integrated with one another or with the central systems. There is also a massive data entry backlog in the central RMS. To take the most glaring example, the RMS presently has no data on stops conducted after February 2015, more than three years ago; the citizen contact forms documenting stops since February 2015 sit loosely organized in boxes and files at BPD headquarters. Further, BPD officers do not always write required reports, particularly citizen contact forms documenting stops, so even the data that is entered into the system is incomplete. And then there is the issue of the thoroughness of the data on completed forms. As BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have determined, the central IT systems do not have fields for all of the data needed to measure whether officers, both individually and collectively, are engaging in conduct that is both constitutional and compliant with BPD policy.

These deficiencies spring from a historically poor IT governance structure. As the Technology Resource Study determined, BPD has lacked a central authority to advocate for sound decision-making; permitted siloed systems to proliferate unchecked, some with confusingly duplicative or inconsistent data; required additional funding for hardware improvements; trained personnel ineffectively; and operated without a sound data retention policy.
Without improving its IT governance structure and bolstering the capacity of its IT systems, and without ensuring that officers actually enter data into the upgraded systems and utilize the new systems properly, BPD will not achieve compliance with the Consent Decree. That is because BPD will continue to lack the accessible data needed to enable the Monitoring Team to assess BPD’s performance. The work that the Monitoring Team has done to prepare an Outcome Assessments Methodology Plan—which identifies the assessments the Monitoring Team will and will not do in the remainder of the first year—demonstrates how the current state of BPD’s data makes it practically impossible to perform a number of the assessments required to gauge compliance. See ECF No. 121.
Without improving its IT systems, BPD itself will continue to be hamstrung. Without adequate, accessible data, BPD supervisors cannot properly assess and address officer performance. Moreover, BPD, as an institution, cannot properly review the efficacy of its policies or training or analyze unit-, district- and Department-wide performance to determine whether, for instance, there are patterns of excessive force, racial profiling, stops made without reasonable suspicion, or arrests and searches made without probable cause. The Consent Decree requires BPD to be able to perform all of these internal analyses on its own. Most large law

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enforcement agencies perform them independently. Because of the deficiencies in its IT systems, BPD does not.
To its credit, BPD recognizes the distressed state of its IT systems and thus far has committed to fixing them. The Technology Resource Study is a good first step. The designation of the City’s Deputy Chief Information Officer to oversee BPD’s technology reforms is also a positive development, as is the creation of a new position for Consent Decree Information Technology Lead. In addition, even as it prepares the Resource Plan, BPD is trying to make short-term fixes to its existing systems. For instance, it is planning to upgrade to the most recent, standard version of IAPro to capture and track use of force incidents, and is seeking to implement an upgraded data storage solution and update other outdated network equipment so that it is prepared for future application upgrades.
Improving BPD’s IT governance and fully upgrading IT systems to usher in the era of 21st century policing in Baltimore is likely to take another 18 months or more. To facilitate self-evaluation and self-correction, BPD hopes to move to a system of real-time, electronic field-based reporting. Such a system would eliminate the cumbersomeness of the current paper-based system, making officers more efficient, and would facilitate data-driven supervision and review of officer and Departmental performance and trends.
Staffing
The Consent Decree obligates BPD, based on existing and projected resources, to employ enough officers to engage in community-oriented policing, patrol each police district without resorting to drafting officers for required overtime, properly supervise junior officers, and conduct timely officer misconduct investigations. It will be a tall order to craft and then execute a Staffing Plan (CD 429) that satisfies these requirements. BPD suffers from well-known officer shortages, attrition often outpaces hiring, and resources are finite.
The need for additional Patrol Division officers is acute. To make up for the current shortage, BPD routinely requires or “drafts” patrol officers to work double shifts and extended hours. These forced overtime assignments deplete BPD’s budget, exhaust officer morale, and potentially have an adverse impact of officer performance. In focus group sessions and informal conversations with rank-and-file officers, the biggest concern has been the understaffing of the Patrol Division. Without fortifying the Patrol Division, BPD will have a hard time implementing an effective community policing strategy.

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Stops, Search and Arrests
Stops, searches and arrests are significant intrusions on personal freedom. When police officers routinely perform them without legal justification, they do considerable damage to police-community relations. The Consent Decree contains extensive provisions to ensure constitutional stops, searches, and arrests. Among other things, it requires recording, collection and review of data and close, effective supervision of officer performance.
BPD has a steep hill to climb to achieve compliance with the Stops, Searches and Arrests (“S/S/A”) provisions of the Consent Decree. In the past several months, the Monitoring Team has conducted several preliminary diagnostic reviews. The Monitoring Team worked with BPD and DOJ to determine which Consent Decreemandated, S/S/A “outcome assessments” (CD 459) could presently be performed given the inadequacy of BPD’s S/S/A data. Monitoring Team members also spent several days on the ground at BPD to survey BPD’s S/S/A reporting, data collection and data maintenance practices. And the Monitoring Team reviewed BPD’s conduct in establishing and enforcing a perimeter around the Harlem Park neighborhood in the wake of the November 15, 2017 shooting of BPD Detective Sean Suiter. These preliminary reviews confirm the need for a culture change within BPD around stops, searches and arrests.
As explained, BPD’s S/S/A data is in disarray. BPD’s inefficient, timeconsuming paper reporting system has fed an RMS with information that is incomplete, unreliable, and incapable of being aggregated for analytical purposes. To conduct comprehensive analyses of standard measurements of constitutional S/S/A activity—such as the percentage of searches that actually result in the seizure of contraband (i.e., “hit rates”) or comparative percentages of stops based on race— would entail manual review of thousands and thousands of poorly organized paper records, which is impracticable. Indeed, as noted, BPD presently conducts none of these standard measurements. Until BPD upgrades its RMS (and moves to electronic field-based reporting) so that it can efficiently capture and facilitate analysis of all S/S/A data, the Monitoring Team will not be able to fully assess BPD’s progress toward compliance with the S/S/A requirements of the Consent Decree. Moreover, BPD supervisors will continue to be unable to conduct data-driven performance evaluations of officer S/S/A activity, and BPD command staff similarly will be unable to perform broader analyses of Departmental trends in S/S/A activity. BPD’s current system for recording, approving reports and storing data on S/S/A events thus severely limits its capacity to satisfy the Consent Decree’s S/S/A supervisory and data collection requirements.

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While the Monitoring Team’s preliminary review of BPD’s S/S/A records calls into question BPD’s capacity to collect and analyze S/S/A data, the Monitoring Team’s diagnostic review of BPD’s response to the shooting of Detective Suiter calls into question the underlying capacity to ensure that its officers make stops, searches and arrests consistent with the Consent Decree. In analyzing documentary records, viewing BWC footage, and interviewing involved officers, the Monitoring Team found that BPD likely took actions inconsistent with the Consent Decree by: (1) stopping civilians and restricting access to a large, six square-block area around the crime scene for several days after the threat of an armed and dangerous suspect had dissipated; (2) conducting warrant checks (i.e., investigations) of the stopped individuals without reasonable suspicion or probable cause to believe that the individuals had committed a crime; (3) searching certain individuals at or inside the perimeter of the six square-block area without probable cause and patting down at least one other person without reasonable suspicion to believe he had a gun; (4) failing to properly document whether there was probable cause for certain arrests and whether individuals interviewed about the shooting voluntarily consented to be interviewed; and (5) de-activating body worn cameras on the night of November 15. Importantly, the responsibility for these actions and omissions lies principally, if not exclusively, with BPD as an institution. Command staff and supervisors either expressly ordered, tacitly approved or failed to prevent the actions of patrol officers at the perimeter.
The Monitoring Team’s evaluation of BPD’s actions in Harlem Park in response to the shooting of Detective Suiter can provide BPD important guidance for instructing both officers and supervisors on proper S/S/A conduct. In other words, it furnishes BPD a “lessons learned” opportunity. Even though reforms to BPD’s S/S/A training, data collection and supervisory practices have not been required yet, the Monitoring Team urges BPD to address the apparent shortcomings in its response to the shooting of Detective Suiter now—through, for instance, roll call tutorials. The Monitoring Team is committed to providing BPD technical assistance in any such effort.
The Next Reporting Period
Over the next six months, BPD will continue its preliminary work on foundational reforms. It will complete policy revisions in most areas of the Consent Decree and will develop training curricula for use of force, impartial policing, and use of body worn cameras. It also will produce additional diagnostic studies, including the Staffing Study, the Gap Analysis identifying needs within the City’ behavioral health systems, an assessment of existing programs designed to divert youth from involvement in the criminal justice system, and a study of BPD hiring practices.

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Further, BPD will complete action plans for making needed improvements in technology, staffing, training, supervision effectiveness, OPR operations, use of force reporting, crisis intervention, data collection on stops, and community policing.
The Monitoring Team will continue to assess and offer its technical assistance with all of these early stage reforms. In addition, the Monitoring Team will conduct its first annual surveys to gauge community and custodial arrestee attitudes toward BPD, and will continue to convene focus groups of BPD officers to ascertain their views. Based on available data—which, as explained, remains imperfect—the Monitoring Team also will begin to conduct broader, more methodical assessments of BPD’s current performance in several areas of the Consent Decree. It will perform initial “baseline” reviews of BPD’s compliance with various Consent Decree provisions in the areas of use of force, misconduct investigations, sexual assault investigations, and stops. And to establish baseline measurements of various indicators of constitutional policing, it will conduct certain outcome assessments required by Paragraph 459 of the Consent Decree.

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SUMMARY OF MONITORING TEAM ACTIVITIES
Since its appointment on October 3, 2017, the Monitoring Team has done work in each of its three roles—arbiter, technical advisor and facilitator. That is what both the Consent Decree and the First-Year Monitoring Plan have called for. As arbiter, the Monitoring Team, among other things, has assessed BPD’s progress in revising policies and preparing foundational studies on staffing and technology, audited BPD transport vehicles to determine whether they are properly equipped, and determined compliance with basic provisions requiring appointment of a Crisis Intervention Team coordinator and expansion of the Collaborative Implementation Planning Committee (“CPIC”). As technical advisor, the Monitoring Team has drawn on the expertise of its members to provide BPD guidance on policy revisions, technology improvements, training, internal investigations and discipline, staffing, and interactions with individuals in crisis. As facilitator, the Monitoring Team has sought to engage both community stakeholders and BPD officers in the reform process.
The Monitoring Team’s work in this reporting period is summarized below. The details of the Monitoring Team’s work, recorded on time sheets for each Monitoring Team member in 1/10 hour increments, are reflected in the Monitoring Team’s approved invoices, which are available on the Monitoring Team’s website at https://www.bpdmonitor.com/monthly-statements. The Consent Decree provides that the Monitoring Team will be paid $1,475,000 per year in fees and expenses. For the first seven months of its work (October 2017 to April 2018), the City paid the Monitoring Team $797,185.50 in fees and $40,199.16 in expenses, or 56% of the total budget for the City’s 2018 Fiscal Year (ending June 30, 2018). In addition, from October 2017 through April 2018, the Monitoring Team has contributed pro bono services for its work on the Consent Decree in an amount equal to $480,651.55, meaning that 37.6% of the Monitoring Team’s work during the first seven months was at no cost to the City.
Engagement with Stakeholders
Community Engagement
Community participation in the Consent Decree process is vital. To gauge whether the reforms mandated by the Consent Decree are taking hold, the Monitoring Team requires input and feedback about BPD’s policies, training, and performance from members of the diverse communities BPD serves. BPD can amend its policies, improve its training programs, and make a number of the other improvements the Consent Decree requires, but if, on the street and in practice, these

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reforms are not taking hold, BPD will not achieve full and effective compliance with the Consent Decree. The Monitoring Team is not going to know whether the reforms are taking hold without obtaining community feedback.
To obtain an understanding of the community’s experiences, perceptions, concerns and needs, the Monitoring Team has sought to engage Baltimoreans in the Consent Decree reform process from the outset. It established an office in downtown Baltimore, and holds regular office hours both there and at Baltimore Community Mediation Center, which serves as the team’s community liaison. The Monitoring Team also has a website, www.bpdmonitor.com, which features, among other things, a Consent Decree calendar, reports, court submissions, press releases, invoices, and responses to frequently asked questions; an email address, info@bpdmonitor.com; and a telephone number, (410) 538-4670. And the Monitoring Team has established a presence on social media, with a Facebook account and a Twitter account, which it uses regularly to let community members know about its work.
Importantly, the Monitoring Team also has engaged in active, affirmative community outreach. Within two weeks of its appointment, the Monitoring Team held a meeting with key community stakeholders, including leaders from member organizations of the Campaign for Justice, Safety and Jobs, to elicit their concerns, hear their views about what community engagement in the reform process should entail, and obtain their input on reform priorities. The Monitoring Team has regularly met with those and other stakeholders since then. Recognizing the importance of meeting community members where they are, Monitoring Team members also have regularly attended community meetings in various parts of the City, and have met with affinity groups (e.g., youth groups) to inform them about the Consent Decree process and to listen to their views about BPD. To build on this early engagement, the Monitoring Team’s community liaison has established a structured community engagement plan that has Monitoring Team members meeting on a set monthly schedule with different neighborhood associations, affinity groups, and other interested community members.
Consistent with the input received from community stakeholders, the Monitoring Team recently expanded its community engagement effort by issuing a Request for Applications for, reviewing applications from, interviewing, selecting, training, and deploying “neighborhood liaisons” in each of BPD’s nine police districts. Currently, the Monitoring Team has eleven neighborhood liaisons—one for each district and two in two of the districts. The Monitoring Team may hire additional neighborhood liaisons in the future. The planned distribution of the neighborhood liaisons is based on the population of each police district. Overseen by the team’s community liaison, Shantay Guy, and community engagement coordinator, Darnyle

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Wheaton—both of whom work for Baltimore Community Mediation Center (“BCMC”)—the neighborhood liaisons provide Baltimoreans access to the Monitoring Team that is both localized and familiar. Through the existing ties they have with residents in their communities, the neighborhood liaisons educate their neighbors about the Consent Decree and the work of the Monitoring Team and serve as the Team’s initial points of contact for information and opinions about the performance and conduct of BPD officers, which the Team will need to fully assess BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree. The neighborhood liaison model is one-of-akind. No other police department monitoring team in the country includes such localized emissaries.
In addition to conducting affirmative, localized outreach to inform and hear from community members, the Monitoring Team has pursued targeted engagement with community members around specific Consent Decree requirements. This is consistent with the parties’ recognition that, if policing in Baltimore is to be “responsive to community priorities,” the community must have a direct, ongoing role in BPD’s reforms. ECF No. 2-2 ¶ 1; see also ECF No. 68 at 1 (Court order emphasizing the importance of “ensur[ing] that the community’s voice is heard throughout the implementation of the Consent Decree”). The Monitoring Team’s targeted engagement in the reform process began with the development of the First-Year Monitoring Plan. As explained in greater detail in the Monitoring Team’s First-Year Monitoring Plan submission, see ECF No. 86, the Monitoring Team held four community forums in different parts of the City to inform the drafting of the plan and, then, once the initial draft was published, solicited public comments on the draft for a month. The feedback included written responses to the Monitoring Team’s online survey from Baltimore residents, BPD officers and community organizations; oral comments from community stakeholders who requested meetings with the Monitoring Team; and detailed letters from community organizations. The final First-Year Monitoring Plan, approved on February 16, see ECF Nos. 91 & 92, reflected a number of changes suggested by community members. See ECF No. 86 at 5-10. The Monitoring Team also issued a First-Year Budget for public comment before finalizing it. The Consent Decree does not call for community feedback on either the Monitoring Plan or the Budget, but with the agreement of the parties, the Monitoring Team understood the importance of obtaining such feedback prior to finalizing both documents.

A substantial amount of the work required under the First-Year Monitoring Plan requires BPD to revise its policies and training curricula in a number of areas covered by the Consent Decree. Under the First-Year Monitoring Plan, the Monitoring Team has built a community feedback component into the process for revising each policy and training program. (BPD and DOJ also have their own

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feedback mechanisms). As the Monitoring Team’s First-Year Monitoring Plan submission explains:
[T]he final proposed Plan provides a specific two-step process for involving community members in the implementation of policy and training reforms under the Consent Decree. First, for each policy or training program to be developed, the Plan gives community members a chance to provide their views up front, before a draft has been finalized, in order to influence the content of the final draft. The Plan identifies each of these up front feedback opportunities as an “Initial Comment Period.” During the Initial Comment Period, the Parties and the Monitoring Team will hear the views, concerns and experiences of community members, including police officers, relating to the pertinent policy or training program, and then will synthesize what they receive into a written document for review by the public, the Parties and the Monitoring Team during a “Collaboration Period.” In the Collaboration Period, BPD will work actively with DOJ and the Monitoring Team to craft a final draft of the policy or training program.
Once the draft is finalized, community members will be given a second opportunity for review. BPD will post the proposed policy or training program to its website and provide affirmative, intensive opportunities for the public, including BPD officers, to comment. This “Comment Period” allows community members to gauge for themselves whether the final draft accounts for the concerns they expressed during the Initial Comment Period. Following the Comment Period, BPD will consider whether any further revisions are appropriate in response to the community’s feedback, and either re-commence collaboration with the Parties to make further refinements or provide the final draft to DOJ and Monitor for review and approval.
ECF No. 86 at 15-16.
Thus far, like BPD itself, the Monitoring Team has sought “initial public comment” on policies in the following areas: use of force, body-worn cameras, transportation of persons in custody, stops/searches/arrests, impartial policing, First Amendment-protected activities, sexual assault investigations, misconduct investigations and discipline and mission statement/core values statement. See ECF No. 91-1. To solicit community feedback on these policies, the Monitoring Team has posted a survey mechanism on its website and welcomed more informal oral feedback from community members. Consistent with the First-Year Monitoring Plan, many of these policies are still undergoing revision. Id. A few, however, have been finalized and published for more final public comment. Those include policies on use of force,

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transportation of persons in custody, impartial policing, body-worn cameras, and First Amendment-protected activities. Id. As during the initial comment period, the Monitoring Team has posted a survey mechanism on its website to obtain public feedback. Together with the parties, it is also hosting meetings with community stakeholders to receive comments in person.

In coordination with BPD and DOJ, the Monitoring Team is continually seeking additional ways to engage community members in the policy revision process. In recent weeks, the Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ have met with a number of community-based leaders to exchange ideas. As a result of those meetings, the Monitoring Team, BPD, DOJ and a core group of community-based leaders will begin holding working sessions designed to make specific policies understandable to the community-at-large and to engage in robust dialog about those policies.
Communications with the Parties
The Monitoring Team communicates with BPD, the City and DOJ multiple times on a daily basis during the work week and often on weekends and holidays as well. It is important to remember that while the Monitoring Team is charged with overseeing implementation of the Consent Decree as an agent of the Court, DOJ— the plaintiff in the lawsuit that produced the Consent Decree—maintains a vested interest in realization of the Consent Decree’s goals. Accordingly, DOJ attorneys are actively enforcing the Consent Decree.

Early on, the Monitoring Team collaborated extensively with the parties in person, over the phone and by email to develop the First-Year Monitoring Plan.
Since the Court’s approval of the First-Year Monitoring Plan, Monitoring Team members have worked exhaustively with the parties to make sure BPD produces all of the “deliverables” the Plan requires. For instance, fulfilling its dual role as assessor and technical advisor, the Monitoring Team, together with DOJ, has regularly conveyed oral and written comments and written line edits on: (1) numerous draft policy revisions due under the Plan, including revisions to BPD’s mission statement and policies on use of force, transportation of persons in custody, body-worn cameras, stops/searches/arrests, misconduct investigations and discipline, impartial policing, and First Amendment-protected activities; and (2) draft technology and staffing studies.
Moreover, the Monitoring Team has frequent, regularly scheduled in-person and telephonic meetings with the parties on various Consent Decree topics, including training, staffing, misconduct investigations and discipline, policies,

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recruitment/hiring/retention/officer assistance and support, interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, youth interactions, technology and data collection, and outcome assessments. Each meeting is geared toward making progress on specific deliverables under the First-Year Monitoring Plan.

Police Engagement
Getting buy-in for the reform process from rank-and-file officers, sergeants and lieutenants is every bit as vital as engaging the community. Therefore, in addition to meeting daily with members of BPD’s Consent Decree Implementation Unit, City Law Department attorneys representing BPD, and BPD command staff to work on implementing the requirements of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team has engaged BPD members in a variety of ways. Monitoring Team members have established relationships with union leaders, visited BPD Districts, spent time at BPD’s training academy (where recruit, in-service, and field training officer training is conducted) and Office of Professional Responsibility (which investigates allegations of officer misconduct), and gone on ride-alongs with patrol officers. Moreover, the Monitoring Team has established and met periodically with a focus group of rankand-file officers to obtain their candid feedback on the Consent Decree, the positive attributes of BPD, and the challenges facing BPD.
Shortly after its appointment, the Monitoring Team established a protocol for notification and potential response to critical incidents involving BPD officers, such as officer-involved shootings. The notification is immediate and allows for local Monitoring Team members or out-of-town members in Baltimore to respond to the scene and observe BPD officers in action.

Meetings with the Court
Judge Bredar is actively engaged in ensuring BPD implements the reforms required by the Consent Decree. He determined that each month he would hold a three-hour working session with the Monitoring Team and the parties to discuss developments and challenges in a specific area of the Consent Decree. Thus far, Judge Bredar has convened working sessions to discuss transportation of persons in custody (February 2018), misconduct investigations and discipline (March 2018), use of force (April 2018), technology (May 2018), and stops, searches and arrests (July 2018).
The Monitoring Team’s leadership, including Ken Thompson, Seth Rosenthal, Chuck Ramsey, Hassan Aden and Theron Bowman, communicate regularly with

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Judge Bredar—in person, by telephone, and by email—to update him on developments and to take direction from him.
Assessments and Technical Assistance
For the first several months following its appointment, the Monitoring Team focused its efforts on crafting a First-Year Monitoring Plan. As the Monitoring Team explained in its submission of the Plan to the Court:
The [Plan] identifies the obligations of BPD, the City, DOJ, and the Monitoring Team for the first year of monitoring, which will run from the date of approval of the Plan in mid-February 2018 through midFebruary 2019. The [Plan] is necessarily detailed. It provides specific deadlines, week-by-week and month-by-month, that obligate BPD and the City to comply with the Consent Decree requirements that the Monitoring Team believes ought to prioritized, and can be achieved, by February 2019. These requirements include establishing policies, developing training curricula, and making systemic assessments, all of which are aimed at ensuring effective, safe, constitutional policing. The [Plan] thus lays the groundwork for making tangible improvements in BPD operations and performance, including positive changes in the ways BPD officers interact with civilians.
ECF No. 86 at 2-3. Because the First-Year Monitoring Plan is so central to the Consent Decree project, the Monitoring Team’s work to devise the Plan was painstaking and methodical. It required developing an initial, detailed blueprint and then working collaboratively with the parties and the communities to refine it. The Court approved the Plan on February 16.
Under the Plan, the Monitoring Team’s work to date has been concentrated in three areas: assessing and assisting BPD with revisions to its policies; gauging BPD’s capacity to implement the reforms required by the Consent Decree; and conducting limited diagnostic reviews of BPD’s performance in certain areas.
Policy Revisions
Following the Court’s adoption of the First-Year Monitoring Plan, the principal work of the Monitoring Team thus far has been to assess BPD’s efforts to revise policies in a number of areas and, at the same time, to assist BPD in those efforts based on the Monitoring Team’s members’ expertise and knowledge of national best practices. Thus far, as explained in more detail below, the Monitoring Team has assessed and advised on revisions to approximately three dozen policies addressing:

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• Use of force • Stops/searches/arrests • Transportation of persons in custody • Misconduct investigations and discipline • Impartial policing • First Amendment-protected activities • Sexual assault investigations • Body worn cameras
In addition, the Monitoring Team has assessed and assisted BPD with revisions to BPD’s mission and core values statements.
Capacity Reviews
Some of the foundational work required by the Consent Decree entails assessing BPD’s present capacity to implement reforms and, where BPD falls short, developing a plan for ensuring that those reforms are achievable. To date, as explained in more detail below, the Monitoring Team has reviewed and worked with BPD and DOJ to develop the following:
• A comprehensive Staffing Study, which identifies BPD’s staffing shortcomings and needs.
• A comprehensive Technology Study, which identifies BPD’s technology shortcomings and the improvements BPD needs to make in order to: facilitate more efficient recording, collection and synthesis of data on all facets of police work (e.g., stops, pat-downs, searches, arrests, uses of force, internal investigations and discipline), effectively review officer performance and ensure officers are following the law; and, in the short term, permit the Monitoring Team and the Court to comprehensively assess BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree.
• A Data Requirements Matrix, which identifies all of the data BPD must systematically collect in order for the Monitoring Team to be able to determine whether BPD is making the kinds of measurable improvements the Consent Decree requires in, e.g., when and how its officers use force, when and how its officers make stops, searches and arrests, and how its Office of Professional Responsibility investigates allegations of officer misconduct. The matrix will also inform the technology improvements BPD must make.

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• An outcome assessments methodology plan, which identifies the location and integrity of BPD’s data in a number of areas covered by the Consent Decree, establishes which quantitative and qualitative compliance assessments the Monitoring Team will be able to perform in the first year given the current state of BPD’s data, and for those assessments that are feasible in the first year, the methodologies the Monitoring Team will utilize to perform them.
Equipment and Records Reviews
As noted above, it is too early for the Monitoring Team to engage in comprehensive assessments of BPD’s compliance with any Consent Decree requirement, particularly in those areas where comprehensive assessments are dependent upon data that BPD either does not reliably maintain yet or does not maintain in a way that can be meaningfully synthesized. Nonetheless, the Monitoring Team has conducted preliminary reviews in a few areas, largely to get a better sense of BPD’s current practices so that it can begin to determine what BPD must do over the long term to achieve compliance.
At the end of January and again at the end of April, the Monitoring Team inspected BPD’s transport vehicles (vans and cruisers) to determine whether the vehicles were equipped with properly functioning restraints and video cameras, as the Consent Decree requires. These audits are discussed in more detail in the Transportation of Persons in Custody part of the Findings section below.
The Monitoring Team reviewed 60 recent internal investigations files from the Office of Professional Responsibility. The purpose of the review was to understand what the files contain and to get a very preliminary sense of whether BPD OPR personnel keep complainants adequately informed about the status of complaint investigations, whether OPR personnel perform quality investigations, and whether OPR personnel draw the right conclusions from the evidence they gather and assess.
The Monitoring Team also spent several days reviewing BPD documentation of stops, searches and arrests. The Monitoring Team sought to test the availability of data on stops, searches and arrests and to review a small sample of BPD records on stops, searches and arrests to ascertain, in a very preliminary way, whether BPD officers are properly recording their actions. The Monitoring Team also obtained information about how documentation on stops, searches and arrests are prepared, reviewed by supervisors, reviewed by Records Management System officers in each district, and then transmitted to headquarters to be input into the Record Management System.

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As part of the work it must do to assess BPD’s compliance with the stops/searches/arrests provisions of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team conducted a diagnostic analysis of BPD’s response to the shooting death of BPD Detective Sean Suiter in the Harlem Park neighborhood. Monitoring Team members reviewed thousands of documents, watched hours of body worn camera footage, and interviewed several involved BPD officers. The purpose of the review was not to assess the quality of BPD’s investigation or to determine the manner of Detective Suiter’s death (e.g., suicide or homicide), but rather to ascertain the propriety of BPD’s interactions with civilians in Harlem Park, including residents, in the hours and days following Detective Suiter’s death. The Monitoring Team evaluated, among other things, whether it was proper to: establish and enforce for several days a large perimeter of six square blocks around the vacant lot where Detective Suiter was found; stop, question, and conduct warrant checks of individuals who sought to enter or exit the perimeter; pat-down or search certain individuals who sought to enter, exit or travel within the perimeter; and arrest certain individuals around and inside the perimeter. The Monitoring Team’s preliminary observations of BPD’s performance are discussed in the Stops, Searches and Arrests part of the Findings section below.

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FINDINGS
BPD and City leadership have thus far demonstrated a firm commitment to implementing the reforms required by the Consent Decree. BPD’s Consent Decree compliance team has worked diligently with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to develop revised policies, produce staffing and technology resource studies, formulate compliance metrics, and begin crafting plans for improvements in technology, staffing, interactions with youth, and interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities. Because of the compliance team’s diligence, BPD has met every single deadline under the First-Year Monitoring Plan to date, approximately 75 in total, and has generated respectable work product in the process. That preliminary record is proof of the dedication of BPD and City leadership to systemic institutional change.
BPD is, however, still at the very beginning of the reform process. For most Consent Decree requirements, it is simply too soon to begin gauging compliance because compliance efforts have not yet begun, nor under the First-Year Monitoring Plan are they required to have begun. Nonetheless, for each requirement on which it has started work, BPD is making reasonable progress.
While the Monitoring Team commends BPD and City leadership for their willingness to reform, it continues to have concerns about BPD’s capacity for reform. There are monumental challenges ahead. For example, while BPD understands the critical need to thoroughly modernize its technology, it remains to be seen whether and when BPD will upgrade its technology and, equally important, whether BPD and its officers will universally employ that revamped technology—to record stops, searches, arrests, and uses of force; to supervise and evaluate junior officers and intervene when there are missteps and policy violations; to analyze aggregated data to assess and improve both individual officer performance and performance across the Department, districts and specialized units. Similarly, while BPD command staff appear to understand how desperately the Office of Professional Responsibility must be improved, it is too early to tell whether OPR will, in practice, consistently receive complaints more openly and with fewer impediments, communicate better with complainants, conduct more robust investigations, and make fact findings and disciplinary recommendations based on fair, unbiased evaluations of evidence. Likewise, the capability of BPD’s Training Academy to draft and properly train officers on curriculum designed to implement Consent Decree-compliant policies is an open question. The constant turnover in BPD’s leadership in recent months have amplified all of these challenges.

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Whether BPD is making measurable improvements in these and other areas will be the subject of semiannual reports in the future, once there has been time for the foundational reforms now underway to take root. In this report, the Monitoring Team will focus on BPD’s progress toward implementing the foundational reforms.
This section sets forth the Monitoring Team’s findings regarding BPD’s progress to date in nearly every area of the Consent Decree. For each area, the Monitoring Team explains (1) what BPD will be required to do over the long term and what BPD has been required to do under the First Year Monitoring Plan, (2) what progress has been made and whether it is reasonable or not, (3) the challenges facing BPD, and (4) immediate next steps. It bears repeating that the Monitoring Team is not evaluating BPD’s progress toward satisfying each and every paragraph and each and every requirement within each area of the Consent Decree. Again, that kind of report card would not reveal much, if anything, about BPD’s performance so early in the reform process. The Monitoring Team instead assesses BPD’s progress on the limited number of Consent Decree requirements that are included in the First-Year Monitoring Plan in each area, and then describes the road ahead.
This section begins in the areas of the Consent Decree that present perhaps the most pressing threshold challenges facing BPD: Misconduct Investigations and Discipline, Technology, and Staffing. BPD must ensure that its officers act with unimpeachable integrity in order to fulfill its mission and win the public’s trust, must design and implement IT systems necessary for policing in the 21st century, and must hire and retain a sufficient number of qualified, ethical officers to police effectively. This section next addresses areas where DOJ found or expressed concerns about a pattern or practice of constitutional violations: Stops, Searches and Arrests; Impartial Policing; Use of Force; Transportation of Persons in Custody; and First Amendment Protected Activities. This section concludes by assessing BPD’s progress in the remaining areas of the Consent Decree.

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Misconduct Investigations and Discipline
The Office of Professional Responsibility is the BPD unit that receives and investigates complaints about officer misconduct, both external complaints from civilians and internal complaints made by BPD personnel. The new policies that BPD is formulating in other areas of the Consent Decree will mean little if BPD, partly through OPR, does not ensure that all officers are following them. As Paragraph 329 of the Consent Decree explains, “[a] robust and well-functioning accountability system in which officers are held to the highest standards of integrity is critical to BPD’s legitimacy and a priority of the Department.” The need to repair OPR and establish a rigorous, effective accountability system is thus at the heart of the Consent Decree reform effort. This is especially so in the wake of recently disclosed body worn camera footage of officers planting evidence to justify arrests and the recent federal criminal convictions of officers from BPD’s Gun Trace Task Force, who stole and extorted money and drugs from others, often while fabricating evidence and making—and then covering up and lying about—patently unconstitutional stops, searches, property seizures and arrests. Without a properly functioning OPR, officers will believe that they face no consequences for even willful violations of core Departmental policies, such as those requiring officers to abide by the Constitution when they stop, pat-down, search, seize property from, arrest and use force against civilians. Equally important, a properly functioning OPR is essential to reestablishing the community’s trust. If the Monitoring Team were to take away just one thing from its conversations with community members so far, it is that BPD must learn to police itself—and if it does not, it has little hope of regaining the community’s confidence.
Reflecting the need to overhaul BPD’s system of accountability, the Misconduct Investigations and Discipline section of the Consent Decree is the longest and most comprehensive, spanning 87 paragraphs and 38 pages. It covers the location, independence, resources and authority of OPR (CD 330-34); the process for receiving complaints, classifying them, and communicating with complainants about them (CD 335-42); requirements for conducting fair, thorough, reliable misconduct investigations and making misconduct determinations (CD 343-58); requirements for handling and referring allegations of criminal misconduct (CD 359-71); the lodging of disciplinary charges, the administration of disciplinary hearings, and the imposition of discipline (CD 372-88); the process for community-centered mediation as an alternative to investigation for certain minor allegations of officer misconduct affecting civilians (CD 389-91); record-keeping for misconduct investigations (CD 392-95); measures for ensuring transparency, including issuance of quarterly public reports of aggregate data (CD 396-405); a testing program designed to evaluate the

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efficacy of the civilian complaint intake process (CD 406-08); and training of OPR investigators and supervisors (CD 409-15).
Thus, the ultimate goals of the Consent Decree’s provisions implicating OPR are the full, fair, objective, and timely investigation of all potential officer misconduct, the rigorous review of all misconduct investigations, and an impartial, transparent, uniform process for the imposition of discipline and corrective action where appropriate.
In recognition of the importance of improvements to OPR, the Monitoring Team began working with BPD and OPR on the Misconduct Investigations and Discipline provisions of the Consent Decree soon after being appointed by the Court. Monitoring Team members have participated in numerous meetings with BPD and DOJ, including weekly calls to discuss the work underway. Monitoring Team members also have visited OPR to engage with OPR personnel.
As this section discusses, the early collaborative work the Monitoring Team has done with BPD and DOJ revealed that OPR is in need of far more fundamental structural reform than initially contemplated at the time the First-Year Monitoring Plan was prepared. Consequently, despite good-faith progress by BPD on early drafts of policies, more time will be needed to resolve basic deficiencies in OPR operations. Without modifying OPR’s structure to make the unit run more efficiently, the revised policies and investigator training that the Consent Decree requires will not be as effective as intended.
Paragraph 464 of the Consent Decree recognizes that such modifications in the First-Year Monitoring Plan are sometimes needed “[t]o promote flexibility in the implementation of the Agreement” and to ensure the integrity of the reform process (CD 464). Additionally, the First-Year Monitoring Plan itself explicitly provides for an “update” to be filed with the Court, “understanding that implementation may involve unforeseen changes in schedules or good-faith delays in implementation that deviate from the original schedule.” ECF No. 91-1, Rows 298-300.
Although the process for revising OPR policies and OPR’s procedural manual has been slowed to accommodate the need for organizational reform within OPR, BPD has begun to make progress in other areas. For instance, as explained below, it has sought to remove prior impediments to the filing of misconduct complaints and reportedly has stopped detailing OPR investigators to non-OPR duties.

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Areas of Progress

Revisions to Intake Policies and Practices

Previously, individuals who wanted to lodge misconduct complaints against police officers had to make their complaints in person, sign them, and have them notarized. BPD has removed these impediments. It has also taken measures to improve access to the complaint process by changing its website to facilitate the acceptance of complaints online and via email and by establishing a dedicated telephone number for individuals to call to make a complaint.

The Monitoring Team also has seen preliminary indications that OPR, in practice, has accepted and is actively investigating complaints that received via email and online.

Forthcoming updates to OPR’s policies and corresponding manual provisions on complaint intake will need to formally establish BPD’s commitment to receiving all complaints of officer misconduct without impediment. BPD provided timely initial drafts of these policies and manual provisions in April, but as explained above, the need for structural reform within OPR put the policy revision process on hold temporarily. It will be resumed in the next reporting period.

Progress in Other Areas

Pending implementation of the structural changes OPR must undergo, BPD has made progress on the following additional requirements in the Misconduct Investigations and Discipline section of the Consent Decree:

• Location and accessibility of OPR (CD 330). In an effort to enhance its independence, OPR is now housed in a facility separate from other BPD offices. There is a public area for community members.

• Eliminating conflicts of interest (CD 331). BPD has indicated that is has ended the dubious practice of detailing OPR investigators to patrol and special events duties, where they were sometimes required to work alongside the very same officers they were charged with investigating. To be effective and to maintain their credibility, both inside and outside BPD, OPR investigators must be independent. They must not be compromised by having active working relationships with officers in other units. Terminating the practice of detailing OPR investigators to other units demonstrates that BPD is making reasonable progress toward satisfying Paragraph 331, which forbids OPR employees to be

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“assigned to duties that may create [a] conflict of interest, or appearance of conflict of interest, with their investigatory responsibility.” The Monitoring Team will conduct follow-up inquiries to confirm that the practice of detailing OPR investigators has ended.
• Qualifications and background of OPR investigators (CD 355). BPD has indicated that OPR supervisors who themselves have been implicated in ongoing misconduct investigations have been reassigned. This suggests that upper level command staff recognize the need for OPR to vigilantly maintain a reputation for integrity.
Challenges Ahead
With the reform process just beginning, every Consent Decree requirement in the Misconduct Investigations and Discipline area will require substantial work. That is especially so given that BPD needs to revamp OPR’s basic operational model to improve the fairness, objectivity, thoroughness and timeliness of its investigations. The challenges are numerous. There are few easy fixes. Most of the challenges are long-term and will required sustained attention over the life of the Consent Decree. Some, however, offer short-term opportunities for progress, even as BPD focuses on comprehensive structural reform of OPR.
Revamping OPR’s Structure
As the Monitoring Team began working with OPR, it became apparent that OPR suffers from certain foundational deficiencies that impede its work. Some deficiencies are structural. For one thing, OPR has operated with a dizzying assortment of units and sub-units, which has created significant operational inefficiencies that introduce the risk that investigations are not as timely, wellsupervised or effectively managed as they must be. OPR also does not include under its jurisdiction all of the units and functions that address officer misconduct within BPD, with some responsibilities falling to other components of BPD, such as BPD’s internal Inspector General. In fact, the nature of officer misconduct that falls within OPR’s jurisdiction changed substantially under what recently turned out to be shortlived BPD leadership, even as the parties and the Monitoring Team worked through initial drafts of policies on complaint intake and classification. In short, the precise responsibilities of OPR remain unsettled, rendering it difficult to move forward with the development of policy.
In addition, some critical portion of misconduct complaints, i.e., those investigated by the Internal Affairs Division of OPR, are assigned to investigators and supervisors based on the implicated officer’s geographic assignment. The result

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is that the same OPR investigators deal with the same officers and supervisors repeatedly, which could create real or perceived problems with investigator impartiality and could result in uneven investigator caseload distribution. To enhance the quality and efficiency of OPR’s investigations and ensure compliance with the Consent Decree, an overhaul of case assignment protocol will be necessary.
Other challenges include OPR’s relationship with both external and additional internal accountability structures. The Civilian Review Board (“CRB”) is a separate, independent entity established by state law. It is composed of one community member from each of the nine police districts in the City. The CRB receives and is authorized to investigate complaints against police officers that allege the use of excessive force, abusive language, harassment, false arrest, and false imprisonment. The CRB may also review OPR investigations and make recommendations to the BPD Commissioner about discipline. Additionally, the CRB may review BPD procedures and make recommendations to the BPD Commissioner. Though OPR and CRB must interact and coordinate to fulfill their respective statutory roles, the actual process for guiding such interactions has been ill-defined; no protocol for communication or coordination between the entities has ever existed. Establishing clear written protocols for how OPR and CRB interact will require extensive collaboration, as well as consideration of state law, including the Maryland Public Information Act, Md. Ann. Code, Gen’l Provisions §§ 4-311, et seq., and case law interpreting the Act; the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights, Md. Ann. Code, Public Safety §§ 3-101, et seq.; and Public Local Law §§ 16-41, which is the enabling statute for the CRB. CRB and OPR must have sufficient time to participate fully and collaboratively in the development of these protocols.
At the same time, there must be far greater clarity within BPD itself for determining how supervisors are involved in addressing problematic performance when it arises. Supervisors need to be empowered to address problematic performance, but also must be prevented from sweeping problematic behavior under the rug. To accomplish this, BPD must refine the procedures that delineate what gets investigated by OPR and what gets promptly addressed by supervisors with subsequent OPR oversight.
The process that OPR uses to classify complaints poses additional challenges. The current classification system is simultaneously complicated and ill-defined, leading to a potential lack of uniformity and consistency. Some classifications are overly broad, while others are too narrow. Several classifications automatically appear to encompass other classifications—but there are no rules for rigorously determining how classifications should be made. The proper classification of complaints (and potential re-classification as necessary) is critical to the investigative process. It is also critical to generating the resulting data that must be reviewed to assess OPR’s performance. The current classification system will need to be substantially revised.

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BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team did not fully recognize the need for bedrock structural reform at the time the First-Year Monitoring Plan was drafted. Consequently, the First-Year Monitoring Plan did not initially include the task of reviewing OPR’s structure, nor did it build in time to resolve the shortcomings explained above. The First-Year Monitoring Plan was recently modified to accommodate the need to overhaul the structure of OPR before policy development work resumes in earnest.
It should be noted that the need to address OPR’s structural deficiencies first, before revising OPR policies and OPR’s procedural manual, emerged as BPD was undertaking the policy and manual revisions in good faith. In fact, BPD met the April 1 deadline for submitting the initial draft of the intake and classification policies and manual provisions. Neither a lack of effort by BPD nor unproductive collaboration among the parties and the Monitoring Team has led to the proposed changes to the timetable. Rather, the proposed changes are the natural result of a process of systemic institutional reform—one that seeks not simply to implement changes quickly, but also to implement them the right way. To do reform the right way, OPR must preliminarily undergo organizational changes that neither the Monitoring Team nor the parties fully appreciated until the reform process got started.

It is currently contemplated that OPR’s structural deficiencies will be resolved by October 2018. Successful implementation will undoubtedly pose routine transitional challenges as OPR personnel learn to adapt, but the Monitoring Team is optimistic that the changes can be implemented relatively expeditiously.

Communication with Complainants

Paragraph 392 of the Consent Decree requires that complainants receive regular, interim updates about their cases as the investigations of their complaints proceed. Monitoring Team members have interviewed OPR personnel and reviewed a sample of OPR investigations conducted in 2017. While Monitoring Team members found some evidence of initial communication with complainants, follow-up interviews and final disposition letters, they did not find evidence that OPR investigators are providing complainants with updates at regular intervals. That is problematic, as even cases of moderate complexity can take eight months or more to complete, meaning that complainants go long periods without knowing what is happening in their cases.

The Monitoring Team believes that, despite systemic problems, BPD can implement enforceable protocols to regularly communicate with complainants, as Paragraph 392 requires, even as BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team focus for the

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next several months on structural reform. Making regular communication with complainants is necessary to demonstrate to community members that BPD is serious about policing its own officers and thus essential to starting the process of reestablishing the community’s trust.
Data and Technology
As with many BPD components, OPR stands to benefit significantly from an overhaul of its IT system. The Monitoring Team has found that OPR cannot easily produce a number of basic statistics about its misconduct investigations, such as the number of cases resulting in certain dispositions, the current status of every investigation, and the like. It is impossible to evaluate whether OPR is improving its performance as a unit without being able to readily review and analyze such rudimentary data. In the coming months, OPR will need to improve how it utilizes its existing technology to carry out its work and, at the same time, prepare for the adoption of new technology.
Even before OPR revamps its technology, however, it must improve its basic record-keeping so that it is easier to track what is happening with misconduct investigations in each case. Currently, it is hard to discern the extent and quality of the work OPR investigators have done in individual cases. As mentioned, in advance of conducting a comprehensive qualitative review of OPR investigations for outcome assessment purposes, Monitoring Team members reviewed a random sample of 60 misconduct investigations OPR completed in 2017. The purpose of this review was diagnostic. The Monitoring Team wanted to see how the files were organized, how investigative summaries were prepared, and the general rigor and objectivity of the investigations. The review confirmed that OPR investigations have a long way to go to become as thorough, timely and objective as the Consent Decree requires. Each file looks and is organized differently, with files of investigations of similar classes of alleged misconduct sometimes containing entirely different forms, reports and investigative material. Only a small number of files contained transcripts, recordings or other evidence showing that involved officers were interviewed. Moreover, key investigative steps were not thoroughly and uniformly logged.
If BPD is to demonstrate compliance with the Consent Decree’s requirements in the Misconduct Investigations and Discipline area, OPR investigators must conduct more rigorous investigations and must document their actions more thoroughly. Correspondingly, supervisors must make sure that such improvements are made. As a basic first step, supervisors must ensure that, in practice, investigators adhere to a uniform file-keeping system so that all investigative files contain the same forms and the same kinds of information. With a uniform system,

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supervisors will more easily be able to determine which investigators are performing their jobs the right way and which ones are not. BPD can make these changes even as it upgrades its technology and continues to revise OPR policies and OPR’s manual.
Staffing and Personnel

OPR is currently operating with a significant staffing shortfall. This leaves existing personnel with substantial workloads. OPR estimates that each investigator currently has about 40 active investigations.
BPD leadership compounded OPR’s personnel challenges by detailing OPR investigators to patrol units when the Department needed more personnel on the street, either because of Patrol Division shortfalls or for special events. As noted, the Commissioner terminated this practice several months ago in response to the concerns expressed by DOJ and the Monitoring Team.
To achieve compliance, BPD will need to permanently staff OPR at a level that ensures high-quality, timely investigations. It is likely that OPR also could increase its effectiveness through the restructuring discussed above. The Monitoring Team will assist OPR in assessing those possibilities.
Personnel changes at every level of BPD have amplified the already significant challenges OPR faces due to staffing shortages. Constant turnover in the command staff that oversees OPR, as well as in the leadership of OPR itself, muddles and delays the clear, definitive guidance that OPR investigators must receive about the importance of their performance to the success of the Consent Decree. The recent rapid turnover in Commissioners has presented an especially demanding test. Each Commissioner has had unique views on the structure, staffing and unit composition of OPR, and all have acted on those views, making it difficult to monitor, provide technical assistance on, and work with the parties to revise OPR policies and practices. BPD’s compliance team continues to work diligently with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to implement the reforms required in the First-Year Monitoring Plan, but the Monitoring Team has concerns that the changes in administration are adversely affecting the pace of BPD’s efforts to reform OPR.
The Next Six Months

Based on the updates to the First-Year Monitoring Plan submitted to the Court on July 5, 2018, see ECF No. 125, BPD will finalize draft policies on complaint intake and classification by October 5, 2018. By October 5, BPD will also produce final draft protocols on OPR’s relationship with CRB and final protocols on classifying

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complaints. A public comment on all of these policies will run through November 2, 2018. Once BPD finalizes the policies after considering the comments, the Monitoring Team will have until December 10 to approve or disapprove them.
Subsequently, BPD will produce draft procedural manual provisions on complaint intake, classification and communication. The final draft is due February 1, 2019, followed by a public comment period that will conclude on March 1, 2019. The Monitoring Team will approve or disapprove the manual provisions by April 5, 2019.
Even as work on the intake, classification and communications provisions of the OPR manual proceeds, BPD will begin work on separate portions of the OPR manual that address the investigative process itself. BPD will begin working on both the policies and manual provisions on the conduct of OPR investigations in early 2019, with a final draft due to be issued for public comment on May 3, 2019. The Second-Year Monitoring Plan will address the remaining deadlines for adoption of the policies and manual provisions on OPR investigations. It will also address policies in other areas affecting OPR, including review and adjudication of completed investigations.
As BPD refines OPR’s structure and seeks to make progress on OPR policies and OPR’s procedural manual, the Monitoring Team anticipates working with BPD to make other improvements in OPR operations, including: increasing the consistency of complainant communications; re-imagining the configuration and usage of the existing IAPro database that tracks complaints, investigations, and outcomes; creating protocols to ensure minimum staffing levels; and preparing for routine training of OPR supervisors and investigators.

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Technology

Paragraph 267 of the Consent Decree requires BPD to “provide its officers with the Technology necessary to implement the Material Requirements of this Agreement . . . [including] the data collection and review required by this Agreement . . .” Paragraphs 268-278 then outline the Consent Decree’s technology requirements. Those provisions first require BPD and the City to complete a Resource Study (CD 268, 270). The Resource Study identifies the systems BPD currently uses to maintain data and track Departmental performance, describes the current state of those systems and explains why they are inadequate to serve BPD’s needs, and makes preliminary recommendations for improvements. Following completion of the Resource Study, BPD and the City must produce and submit a Resource Plan (CD 269-70, 272). The Resource Plan, which must be updated annually (CD 275), is intended to address a number of subjects, including how BPD will provide the necessary computer equipment and access required for personnel to discharge their duties, the implementation of a centralized records management system, and the development of an Early Intervention System (“EIS”). BPD is required to use its best efforts to implement the Resource Plan (CD 274).

The Technology provisions of the Consent Decree also require BPD to revise its policy on body worn cameras (CD 271) and to disclose to the public the acquisition of certain new equipment or activity to be used in enforcement activities (CD 276-78). Other provisions of the Consent Decree, in the Supervision section, require BPD to upgrade its Early Intervention System consistent with the Resource Plan (CD 31217). The EIS must “include a computerized relational database that will be used to collect, maintain, integrate, and retrieve Department-wide, District-wide and Unitwide data, as well as data for each officer.” The purpose of this upgraded EIS relational database is to “capture all information necessary to ensure supervisory awareness and early identification of potentially problematic individual and Department-wide conduct or signs of stress or other behavior that would benefit from being addressed.”
The plain language and relative brevity of the Consent Decree’s Technology provisions downplay the central importance of technological improvements to the entire Consent Decree enterprise. Without such improvements, BPD simply will not be able to come into compliance with the Consent Decree. It will continue to lack the data needed to enable the Monitoring Team to assess performance. It will also lack the data needed to facilitate proper review of the efficacy of its policies and training, meaningful supervision and analysis of officer and unit-, district- and departmentwide performance, and appropriate discipline for misconduct. To put it bluntly, BPD is stuck in the dark ages of data collection, record-keeping and performance

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evaluation. It will not enter the era of modern policing, much less satisfy the Consent Decree’s numerous requirements, unless and until it upgrades its IT systems. The Court has made this observation publicly on several occasions already.
Data collection and analysis provisions are woven throughout the Consent Decree. These provisions require BPD to record, collect, maintain, review and analyze data in a number of subject areas, including investigatory stops and detentions (CD 41), vehicle stops (CD 46), stops, searches and arrests (CD 82-86), use of force (CD 211-217), transportation of persons in custody (CD 232), and misconduct investigations (CD 392), among others. Indeed, one of the Monitoring Team’s main duties is to undertake the “outcome assessments” identified in Paragraph 459. All of those outcome assessments rely upon the accurate reporting, collection and review of data, much of which is not practicably reviewable, if reviewable at all, at present. Thus, as the Consent Decree states, compliance is truly “dependent upon BPD acquiring or developing the appropriate technology.” (CD 267).
BPD understands the need to revamp its technology and has demonstrated a firm commitment to satisfying all of the Technology provisions of the Consent Decree over time, recognizing that there is no easy or inexpensive fix. Thus far, to its credit, BPD has met every First-Year Monitoring Plan deadline pertaining to technology and has taken meaningful actions to lay the groundwork for systemic improvements. Nonetheless, BPD will have to make considerable progress toward completing the measures recommended in the forthcoming Resource Plan before it approaches compliance with Technology provisions of the Consent Decree.
Areas of Progress
Resource Study
The Monitoring Team began working with the parties in the Technology and Data areas soon after being appointed by the Court. Monitoring Team members have participated in numerous meetings with City and BPD personnel to discuss BPD’s overall approach to technology, and to discuss the progress being made on the development of the Resource Study, prepared by the National Police Foundation. Monitoring Team members had the opportunity to review drafts of the Resource Study and to collaborate with the City and BPD on revising it. The Monitoring Team believes that the final product, filed with the court in June under the First-Year Monitoring Plan, properly describes the current state of BPD’s IT systems and identifies the issues with those systems from both an IT and business process perspective.

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Data Requirements Matrix
The Monitoring Plan calls for BPD to develop a Data Requirements Matrix. The purpose of the Matrix is to detail the various data collection, review and analysis requirements of the Consent Decree and indicate how, when and where each required data element is currently recorded. It is also intended to help the parties quickly identify the gaps in current data collection processes and systems, determine which areas should be prioritized for a baseline data assessment, and identify the data available to begin the outcome assessments required by Paragraph 459 of the Consent Decree.
BPD spent numerous hours developing the Data Requirements Matrix and gathering the details to complete it. BPD repeatedly conferred with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to ensure that the Matrix includes all of the information required to ensure that BPD’s future technology upgrades capture the data necessary not only to enable the compliance reviews and outcome assessments required by the Consent Decree, but perhaps more importantly, to facilitate BPD’s own performance evaluation functions after the Consent Decree ends. While the Matrix will be a “living document,” changing over the life of the Consent Decree as BPD’s data collection systems and processes evolve, the Monitoring Team, DOJ and BPD agreed on the current version in early June, consistent with the requirements of the First-Year Monitoring Plan. The current version, which is voluminous, does what it is supposed to do: catalog all of the data requirements of the Consent Decree and identify how, when and where each data element is recorded.
Prioritizing Near-Term Needs
Members of the Monitoring Team and DOJ have participated in meetings with the City and BPD to review current IT priorities and identify areas in which the City and BPD can make progress while the Resource Plan is being developed. These meetings have focused, in particular, on critical technology infrastructure needs that must be addressed in the near term.
BPD has made an effort to implement an updated data storage solution (Storage Area Network or “SAN”) and to update other outdated network equipment so that the proper foundation is in place to support future application upgrades. BPD also has begun planning for an upgrade to the most recent, standard version of IAPro to capture and track use of force and misconduct investigations. This will include a move to an SQL database server and will leverage the updated storage infrastructure.

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Additionally, BPD has begun planning for the upgrade of its records management system (“RMS”). While the Resource Plan ultimately will confirm the proper approach for RMS improvements or replacement, BPD has not sat idly by awaiting its development. BPD has made a significant effort to receive feedback from its end users to understand their needs and requirements, and has conducted research on available RMS on the market to gain an understanding of market options that might meet its needs.
Body-Worn Camera Policy
As the First-Year Monitoring Plan requires, BPD submitted its proposed body worn camera policy to the Monitoring Team and DOJ in March. Over the next six weeks the Monitoring Team and DOJ reviewed the policy and discussed recommended modifications with BPD. BPD made modifications and issued a final proposed policy for public comment in mid-June. Although BPD awaits public comments on the final proposed policy and the policy might be modified prior to its approval and implementation, the Monitoring Team believes that the final proposed policy satisfies the requirements of Paragraph 271.

Challenges Ahead
While BPD has made progress in a number of areas, it still has a long way to go to achieve Consent Decree compliance and fully realize a modern, efficient and sustainable IT environment. As noted above, BPD cannot achieve Consent Decree compliance without resolving the numerous foundational issues that plague its IT environment today.
BPD’s IT systems must be fixed from the ground up. Core infrastructure needs must be planned for and maintained; data silos must be integrated; duplicative data entry must be eliminated; data quality must be improved. Such expansive change will require a cultural shift within BPD, as well as sufficient funding and resources from the City.
Resource Plan
In June 2018, BPD retained Gartner, an IT consulting group, to develop a Police IT Assessment and Strategic Plan—i.e., the Resource Plan. The development of the Resource Plan must include a review of BPD’s operational objectives, including Consent Decree requirements, and a comprehensive IT strategy for achieving them. When complete, the Resource Plan should provide both a strategic vision and detailed roadmap to overhaul, modernize and sustain BPD’s IT. Additionally, the Resource

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Plan should include a high level staffing plan identifying the resources necessary to implement and sustain the IT strategy and roadmap.

The Resource Plan is projected to take twelve weeks to complete. It is currently being drafted. Once the Resource Plan is completed, BPD will produce an IT implementation plan. Once the IT implementation plan is finalized, the City must be prepared to provide the staffing, funding and resources necessary to implement it.

IT Governance

Proper governance is key to ensuring the success of any IT effort. With proper IT governance, IT priorities are set by key stakeholders and aligned with an agency’s operational and business objectives. Without a proper governance structure, IT is often misaligned with the business, is implemented in an IT “vacuum,” and is rarely successful. When significant technology initiatives fail, it is often due not to failures in the technology itself, but rather to gaps in the planning, management and governance of the technology’s implementation.

The Resource Study makes six separate findings, all of which underscore the need for a proper governance structure.

Finding 1. BPD does not have a central authority that can advocate for sound IT decision-making throughout the department.

Finding 2. Silo systems have created disparate information and difficulty integrating data sets, both within the department and with City and State systems.

Finding 3. IT initiatives have suffered from a lack of funding that may affect hardware.

Finding 4. Training is lost over time creating distrust in systems.

Finding 5. BPD lacks a data retention policy.

Finding 6. Over time records management functions and crime analysis were centralized, but since district commanders still seek updated and easily accessible information, some functions may be replicated.

While all of these findings may be categorized as “IT” issues, all arise from the lack of a formal, properly functioning IT governance structure; none concern the

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capacity of the IT itself. Proper governance should enable sound IT decision-making, ensure silos are not created, advocate for adequate funding, plan for ongoing training and education, develop proper IT policies, and work to understand the needs and requirements of system users.
Fortunately, the City has designated its Deputy Chief Information Officer to oversee BPD’s technology reforms. The City is also seeking candidates for the newly created position of Consent Decree Information Technology Lead. Under the leadership of the Deputy Chief CIO, BPD has begun to prioritize IT needs and projects, develop project charters, and better understand its resource requirements. The soon-to-be-hired IT Lead should enhance that work. Moreover, the forthcoming Resource Plan is expected to include concrete plans for developing a governance structure that BPD can implement to successfully deploy and sustain a modern IT environment. This will be an essential component of the Resource Plan: BPD must commit to establishing and sustaining proper IT governance if it hopes to make the kind of technology reforms that the Consent Decree requires—and that its own capacity to perform as an effective, 21st century law enforcement agency depends on.
The Next Six Months
The Monitoring Team will continue its regular meetings with BPD, the City and BPD as the Resource Plan is developed. The initial draft of the Resource Plan is due in late September; comments and objections are due from the Monitoring Team and DOJ in late October; and the Resource Plan will be finalized and submitted to the Court on December 1.
As the Resource Plan is being written, the Monitoring Team will continue to work with BPD IT leadership on identifying IT priorities that can be implemented in the near term, focusing on improving data quality and establishing the governance structure needed to implement and sustain a modern IT environment.
The Monitoring Team also looks forward to seeing BPD complete its upgrade of IAPro over the next few months. The upgrade is essential for improving how data on use of force incidents and misconduct investigations is collected, retained and analyzed and, correspondingly, for facilitating the use of force and misconduct investigations compliance reviews and outcome assessments that the Monitoring Team is obligated to undertake under the Consent Decree.
Finally, in the next reporting period, BPD is expected to complete revisions to its policy on body-worn cameras and to begin the process of revising its training curriculum. The new policy is scheduled to be finalized and adopted by December.

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The initial draft of the revised training curriculum is due in October. The parties will collaborate on revisions to the draft through the end of November. The curriculum should be finalized by January 2, 2019, and training using that curriculum should ensue.

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Staffing, Performance Evaluations and Promotions
BPD agreed to complete a comprehensive Staffing Study to determine the appropriate number of sworn and civilian personnel needed to effectively provide police services, enable supervision, and satisfy the requirements of the Consent Decree (CD 428). Based on this Staffing Study, BPD will develop a Staffing Plan that will ensure a sufficient number of deployed personnel to, among other things: implement and sustain effective community and problem-oriented policing; conduct timely misconduct investigations; supply sufficient patrol officers to each District without resorting to drafting, except under unforeseeable circumstances; promote Unity of Command when feasible; provide a sufficient number of supervisors; and account for BPD’s and the City’s existing and projected resources (CD 429). BPD must implement the Staffing Plan, but may do so in a phased manner that reflects the City’s and BPD’s fiscal resources (CD 430).
As for performance evaluations and promotions, the Consent Decree obligates BPD to have supervisors meet with officers to discuss their annual performance reviews, which will include written discussions of the officer’s performance during the rating period, any areas for growth and achievement, and any areas requiring further training and supervision (CD 431). Each officer’s direct supervisor must use a formalized system to document annual performance evaluations for each officer and quarterly evaluations of probationary employees by their direct supervisor (CD 432). In addition to these formal evaluations, supervisors must meet with their subordinates on an ongoing basis to discuss performance, and must document their communications regarding performance challenges and areas for growth (CD 433). The Consent Decree further requires BPD to conduct performance evaluations of each supervisor (from first line supervisor through commander), which will include assessments of ability and effectiveness in conducting performance reviews, including monitoring, deterring and addressing misconduct by officers they supervise (CD 434). Finally, BPD will ensure its promotional system has clear criteria prioritizing effective, constitutional, and community-oriented policing as factors for promotion (CD 435).
Thus far, BPD has met the deadlines for the Staffing Study in the First-Year Monitoring Plan and has demonstrated substantial progress toward satisfying the Staffing Study requirement. BPD has not yet commenced efforts to comply with the other provisions of the Staffing, Performance Evaluations and Promotions section of the Consent Decree, as the First-Year Monitoring Plan has not yet required BPD to do so.

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Staffing Study
BPD contracted with the National Police Foundation to perform the Staffing Study. NPF began work on the study in February 2018, shortly before the Court approved the First-Year Monitoring Plan. Since then, the Monitoring Team, BPD, NPF and DOJ have had bi-weekly phone calls to discuss the progress of the study, as well as the challenges it presents. During these discussions, the Monitoring Team raised questions and gave advice to help ensure compliance with the requirements of the Consent Decree. Additionally, the Monitoring Team and NPF met with a focus group of rank-and-file officers and first-line supervisors in April 2018 to solicit their ideas and concerns regarding Departmental staffing.
BPD submitted an initial draft of the Staffing Study to the Monitoring Team and DOJ on May 18, as the First-Year Monitoring Plan required. At that point, the study remained a work in progress; NPF still had additional material to include to complete the study. Since submission of the initial draft in May, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have worked closely with NPF and BPD to refine the study. The Monitoring Team anticipates that the study will be completed on time and that its findings will be sufficient to inform the Staffing Plan.
Challenges Ahead
In the short-term, BPD must develop a Staffing Plan using the results of the Staffing Study. Given officer shortages (particularly in Patrol) and BPD’s attrition rate in recent years, devising a realistic strategy, especially one that satisfies the community-oriented policing objectives of the Consent Decree, will be difficult. Moreover, BPD has expressed concern that it does not have the in-house expertise to develop, write and implement a Staffing Plan and likely will need to retain a consultant to do the work.
Over the long-term, the biggest challenge will be implementing the Staffing Plan in a timely manner given the sizeable shortage of sworn officers. Part of that long-term challenge will be to remedy the critical shortage of officers in the Patrol Division. To make up for the shortage, BPD requires patrol officers to work extended hours on a routine basis. These regular overtime assignments have had, and continue to have, a significant adverse effect not only on BPD’s budget, but on officer morale. In fact, in both focus group sessions and informal conversations, the principal complaint of rank-and-file officers and first-line supervisors is the staffing shortage in the Patrol Division.

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BPD must substantially increase the number of qualified officers assigned to the Patrol Division, with the goal of discontinuing the morale-sapping, budgetdepleting practice of regularly assigning Patrol officers to work double shifts and extended hours. BPD needs to seriously examine the possibility of redeploying to the Patrol Division sworn officers who currently work outside of Patrol. Without bolstering the number of patrol officers, BPD will not be able to establish a viable, sustainable Community Policing Plan, as required by the First-Year Monitoring Plan.
The Next Six Months
The Monitoring Team and DOJ will continue to collaborate with BPD and NPF through the end of July to complete the Staffing Study. The final study will be completed and submitted to the Monitoring Team and DOJ on August 14. The Monitoring Team will indicate its approval or disapproval to the Court by September 11.
Beginning in August, the Monitoring Team and the parties will begin regularly scheduled meetings to discuss development of the Staffing Plan. BPD will submit an initial draft of the Staffing Plan by November 23. The Monitoring Team and the parties will collaborate on revisions through the end of January 2019. The Staffing Plan will be finalized near the beginning of Monitoring Year Two, likely late February or early March 2019.

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Stops, Searches, Arrests and Voluntary Police-Community Interactions

The Consent Decree broadly requires BPD to engage in community-oriented policing techniques by making friendly, professional voluntary contacts with community members and by conducting investigatory stops, searches, and arrests in a constitutional and otherwise lawful manner (CD 27-28). Complying with these requirements is essential to BPD’s effort to rebuild community trust. That is because compliance would mean constraining the abuse of the most fearsome and potentially degrading power that police officers routinely exercise: the power to restrict an individual’s freedom. In its investigation, DOJ found that, by carrying on the legacy of “zero tolerance” policing, BPD regularly abused that power. The predictable result, according to DOJ, was the deterioration of BPD’s relationship with certain affected communities. While BPD has disputed DOJ’s finding of a pattern of constitutional violations, the clear aim of the Consent Decree’s requirements on stops, searches and arrests is to resuscitate that relationship.
In recognition of the importance of the Consent Decree’s requirements on stops, searches and arrests, the Consent Decree’s provisions addressing those requirements are extensive. They compel BPD to revise its policies and training curricula; provide thorough prescriptions for communicating with individuals, performing field interviews, and conducting stops, pat downs, searches and arrests; and establish detailed training, documentation, supervisory, and data collection and review obligations (CD 29-86).

As explained below, BPD thus far has met all of the First-Year Monitoring Plan deadlines relating to the Stops/Search/Arrests/Voluntary Police-Community Interactions (“S/S/A”) section of the Consent Decree and has made reasonable progress toward implementing the policy revision requirements. It is too soon to assess BPD’s progress toward satisfying any of the numerous other requirements.
The Monitoring Team did, however, conduct a preliminary diagnostic review of BPD’s S/S/A data collection practices. In addition, the Monitoring Team reviewed BPD’s actions in the Harlem Park neighborhood in the wake of the shooting death of Detective Sean Suiter in November 2017. The purpose of that review was also purely diagnostic—to get a glimpse into whether BPD is ensuring that its officers abide by the Constitution in their street interactions with community members. Was the perimeter that BPD established around the neighborhood to restrict the free movement of civilians of the proper size and duration, or was it too big and did it last too long? Did BPD officers lawfully stop people around and inside the perimeter once the threat of an armed and dangerous suspect was eliminated? Did they justifiably conduct warrant checks on those stopped? If BPD officers searched or patted down

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individuals they stopped, were those searches or pat-downs lawful? Did BPD adequately document its S/S/A activities? Was BPD institutionally at fault for any missteps, or were any missteps the result of noncompliant conduct by individual officers? The Monitoring Team explored these questions not to assess compliance, but so that BPD may draw on its response to the shooting of Detective Suiter as a teaching, or “lessons learned,” opportunity on stops, searches and arrests. The Monitoring Team recognizes that what occurred after the Suiter shooting was uniquely fraught in that officers were responding to the possible homicide of a fellow officer in the line of duty. But such circumstances often provide the best measure of performance, as it is in those circumstances that the commitment to constitutional policing faces its stiffest test.
Policy Revisions
In early April, by the deadline established in the First-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD furnished the Monitoring Team and DOJ with initial drafts of ten different policies implicated by the S/S/A section of the Consent Decree. The policies included the core policy, Policy 1112, titled “Field Interviews, Investigative Stops/Detentions, Weapons Pat-Downs and Searches,” as well as the following:

808 Criminal and Civil Citations 809 Marihuana - Uniform Civil Citation 812 Misdemeanor Shoplifting Arrests 1007 Search and Seizure Warrants 1013 Strip Searches and Body Cavity Searches 1018 Quality of Life Offenses 1106 Warrantless Arrest and Probable Cause 1109 Warrantless Searches 1505 Foot Pursuits (initially considered with the Use of Force policies but
now considered, with the parties’ agreement, with the S/S/A policies)
The Monitoring Team and DOJ provided BPD feedback on the drafts of these policies in late April. The Monitoring Team and DOJ then had regular meetings with BPD to discuss and implement revisions.
During the collaboration period, BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team came to realize that it would be premature to finalize the four misdemeanor policies—808, 809, 812 and 1018—now. There were two principal reasons. First, because the four policies involve misdemeanor “quality of life offenses” like loitering, trespassing, shoplifting and marijuana possession, they are closely aligned with the community policing requirements of the Consent Decree, and the first of those requirements—

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the development of a Community Policing Plan—will not be implemented until March 2019, which is the beginning of the second monitoring year. It is important to ensure consistency between the policies involving misdemeanor quality of life offenses and the Community Policing Plan. Second, BPD presently lacks the capacity to meaningfully supervise adherence to policies involving stops, searches and arrests for misdemeanor quality of life offenses. That is because, as the Technology Resource Study confirmed, BPD’s record-keeping practices are deficient, particularly as to timely, accessible and comprehensive data on stops, searches and arrests. Without the capacity to ensure adherence to policies involving misdemeanor quality of life offenses, it does not make sense to rush to have revisions to those policies completed. For these reasons, the Court has extended the deadlines for finalizing the revisions to Policies 808, 809, 812 and 1018—until the second monitoring year. The deadlines will be included in the Second-Year Monitoring Plan, which will be drafted later this year and adopted in early 2019. See ECF No. 124.

The other six policies—1007, 1013, 1106, 1109, 1112 and 1505—are on target to be adopted according to the original First-Year Monitoring Plan. The collaboration period ended a few days ago, on July 15. BPD will issue final proposed versions of these policies for public comment on July 30. The community will have until September 15 to submit comments. BPD then will provide final policies to the Monitoring Team and DOJ on September 30. The Monitoring Team will approve or disapprove the final policies by October 31.

BPD deserves credit for its diligence in revising this first set of policies and in working with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to ensure they comply with the Consent Decree. There may be no issue more central to restoring the community’s trust in BPD than ensuring that BPD officers rigorously adhere to the Constitution in their street interactions with community members. This set of policies lays the essential foundation for proper officer conduct.
There are additional policies implicating the S/S/A section of the Consent Decree. These include: Policies 906 (“Traffic Citations”), 1002 (“Securing and Interviewing Witnesses”), 1104 (“Arrest Warrants”), 1105 (“Custodial Interrogations”), 1108 (“DUI/DWI Arrest Procedure”), and 1114 (“Persons in Police Custody”). With the Court’s approval, the deadline for BPD to submit initial drafts of these additional policies to the Monitoring Team and DOJ was moved to August 3. The Court agreed to put these policies on a separate track from the first set of policies because the First-Year Monitoring Plan had “set ambitious deadlines for reforming a large number of policies,” the Court had “seen firsthand the significant progress the Parties, with the Monitoring Team’s technical assistance, have made in reforming several foundational policies involving use of force and stop, searches, arrests and

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voluntary police-community interactions,” and the Court wanted to ensure that BPD, the Monitoring Team, DOJ had sufficient time to give the additional policies the careful attention they deserve. ECF No. 112 at 1-2. Moreover, the Court, the Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ wanted to give the community the time it needs to consider drafts of these policies before they are finalized. Because there are a number of policies being presented to the community in the first year, minor modifications of certain S/S/A policy timelines should facilitate public input. Importantly, as the Court observed in its order approving the new deadlines, none of the modifications will slow the scheduled pace of reform in the S/S/A area. ECF No. 112 at 1-2.
Data Collection
The Monitoring Team and the parties have been in active discussions regarding compliance with the data collection requirements of the S/S/A provisions of the Consent Decree. These discussions actually began well before the scheduled start date of May 20. Beginning soon after the approval of the First-Year Monitoring Plan, Monitoring Team members have been conferring with BPD and DOJ about preparation of the Data Requirements Matrix, which was completed in early June (see Technology findings above). In addition, BPD separately has produced for the Monitoring Team a detailed spreadsheet identifying the locations of various data on S/S/A.
As discussed in the Technology findings above, BPD’s S/S/A data is in poor shape. Police agencies typically retain S/S/A in centralized Computer-Aided Dispatch systems (CAD) and Record Management Systems (RMS) systems that are reliable, accessible, and capable of aggregating data for analytical purposes. Correspondingly, many agencies have electronic field-based reporting systems, which require officers to record field intelligence, search and arrest information in these databases in real time using paperless electronic entry and also allow officers to query data in realtime and obtain alerts when certain trends or conditions are present. BPD has not developed these capabilities to date; developing them is what BPD will do under the Consent Decree. As explained above, BPD officers still use paper forms to record S/S/A activity, and although BPD endeavors to enter the data from the paper forms into its RMS, there is a significant backlog. As DOJ found, BPD also does not ensure that its officers routinely document S/S/A activity; voluntary contacts, field interviews and stops often appear to go unreported. Moreover, this incomplete S/S/A is stored in multiple, disparate, decentralized information silos. Until BPD revamps or replaces its RMS so that the system efficiently captures and facilitates analysis of all S/S/A data, it will be exceedingly difficult to evaluate BPD’s S/S/A activity and fully assess BPD’s progress toward compliance with the S/S/A requirements of the Consent Decree. Moreover, it will be exceedingly difficult for BPD to perform self-

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evaluations of its S/S/A activity. Indeed, because of the deficiencies in its RMS, BPD does not presently perform these self-evaluations. Supervisors do not utilize RMS to track officer S/S/A performance, and command staff does not use it to track Department trends in S/S/A activity (e.g., “hit rates” reflecting the percentages of stops and searches revealing contraband to determine whether officers are making proper probable cause and reasonable suspicion determinations, and comparative stop, search, arrest rates based on race to determine whether racial profiling is occurring).
The Monitoring Team’s visit to BPD at the end of June 2018 to conduct a preliminary diagnostic review of BPD’s current S/S/A practices was sobering. It furnished hard evidence of how inadequate BPD’s S/S/A records are and, correspondingly, how long it is likely to be before the Monitoring Team is able to comprehensively assess BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree’s S/S/A provisions.
Eleven days before arriving, Monitoring Team members requested a spreadsheet identifying each civilian encounter in March 2018 that involved a stop, search or arrest. The plan was to randomly select 60 incidents and then review all associated documents for each one to determine the lawfulness of the reported conduct and the thoroughness of the report. Monitoring Team members selected March 2018 because they thought it would be recent enough to reflect current practices but far enough in the past to allow all associated documents to have been processed. When Monitoring Team members arrived, BPD did not furnish the requested spreadsheet. Rather, BPD provided a link to a report that contained 611 scanned pages summarizing 4316 reported incidents. The document was a printout of a query into the RMS. While the report identified incidents, it did not identify the BPD forms or documents that were associated with each one, which is what the Monitoring Team required for its review. BPD advised it did not have the capability to produce a spreadsheet with the requested information. BPD indicated that, while the documents reflecting the incidents exist, they are maintained either in hard copy form or in siloed databases that are inaccessible from BPD’s Department-wide computer network. Consequently, locating citizen/police contact receipts, criminal, civil, marijuana or traffic citations and incident reports associated with a particular incident—and even ascertaining whether associated documents exist—would require digging through reams of documents.

Monitoring Team members subsequently confirmed the difficulty of locating records associated with specific incidents. The Monitoring Team modified its request for March 2018 S/S/A activity and agreed to allow BPD to extract documents reflecting November 2017 S/SA activity. BPD then produced approximately 30 paper

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documents from March 2018 incidents and roughly another 30 from November 2017 incidents. None of the data was readily accessible electronically. The documents included incident reports, contact receipts, and criminal, civil and marijuana citations. BPD also slowly provided electronic access to pertinent body worn camera footage, though it was only able to provide access to five to ten videos per day. BPD could not provide traffic citations, which are maintained by the Traffic Unit and not easily accessible. The contact receipts BPD provided for pedestrian stops were stored in file cabinet drawers and bundled by month, but not organized by date, alphabetically or in any other fashion. They had not been entered into BPD’s RMS, because BPD has a three-plus year data entry backlog for stop receipts, dating back to February 2015.
In addition to experiencing extraordinary difficulty locating the data needed to assess BPD’s S/S/A practices, the Monitoring Team also found serious inefficiencies in the reporting process, as well as troublesome deficiencies in supervisory review of documents concerning S/S/A activity. Officers who conduct stops, searches and arrests are provided with paper documents to record their actions, including incident reports forms (to record arrests, criminal complaints, and property seizures), citizen/police contact forms, civil, criminal and marijuana citation forms, traffic citation forms, vehicle tow cards, and evidence submittal forms. Officers complete forms during the course of their shift and submit them to their supervisors for review and approval. Officers typically leave the report forms on the desk of the assigned supervisor. The supervisor is expected to review and approve the forms. Approval is established by a date and signature. The supervisor places the approved forms in an envelope and deposits them into a drop box. The district RMS officer arrives at 4:00 am each day, removes the forms from the drop box and performs an additional review. Forms determined to be incomplete for, e.g., insufficient probable cause, insufficient reasonable suspicion or improper formatting are returned to the officers for correction and resubmission. Once the district RMS officer approves the forms, the forms are hand-delivered to central RMS at BPD headquarters, where they are scanned so that an electronic copy can be saved, reviewed, and either queued for entry into RMS or designated for storage. Part I (or serious) crime records have the highest entry priority. Pedestrian stops appear to have the lowest—as noted, the data entry backlog is almost three and a half years. Most submitted documents are handwritten with widely varying degrees of legibility. RMS reviewers and data entry personnel exercise considerable discretion in interpreting less legible handwriting.

The inefficiencies of this data collection and record-keeping system for S/S/A activity—particularly in the age of real-time, electronic field-based reporting—are self-evident, and they underscore the near-impossibility of performing meaningful data-driven supervision, review and analysis of the performance of individual officers

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and of trends and patterns within units, within districts, and Department-wide. Yet these inefficiencies are not the only thing the Monitoring Team’s recent attempt to review S/S/A data revealed. The significant number of documents the district RMS officer identified as requiring correction calls into question the thoroughness of the initial reviews conducted by supervisors. In examining even a limited number of S/S/A documents, Monitoring Team members observed multiple glaring errors that the reviewing supervisor had not corrected. The implication is that district RMS officers, rather than supervisors, have become responsible for supervisory document review. That is not the way it should be. Additionally, based on the documents reviewed, Monitoring Team members found that some supervisors appeared hesitant, or even refused, to review and approve documents submitted by officers they do not directly supervise. Such reluctance could further delay document submission and potentially could result in lost paperwork.
Paragraphs 69-81 of the Consent Decree establish requirements for the supervisory review of S/S/A activity, and Paragraphs 82-86 establish data collection requirements for such activity. Based on its preliminary effort to review a limited set of BPD’s S/S/A data, the Monitoring Team believes that the current system for recording, approving and storing S/S/A data severely limits BPD’s capacity to satisfy these requirements and makes it prohibitively difficult for the Monitoring Team to comprehensively assess BPD’s compliance with those requirements.
Response to the Shooting of Detective Suiter in Harlem Park
To evaluate BPD’s S/S/A activity following the November 15, 2017 shooting of Detective Sean Suiter, the Monitoring Team has reviewed thousands of pages of documents, watched hours of BWC footage, and interviewed several BPD supervisors and commanders who responded to the scene and/or investigated the matter. To be clear, in assessing BPD’s S/S/A activity, the Monitoring Team has not evaluated the quality or conclusions of BPD’s homicide investigation, nor has it sought to determine how Detective Suiter was shot. In other words, the Monitoring Team has not attempted to determine whether Detective Suiter’s death was a homicide or a suicide, and it has not evaluated BPD’s performance in making that determination. Those issues are outside the Monitoring Team’s authority under the Consent Decree. They are being independently evaluated by an Independent Review Board (“IRB”) retained by BPD.2 What the Monitoring Team has examined is whether, in their response to

2 BPD’s investigation of the shooting of Detective Suiter is open and ongoing. Further, in recognition of the importance of an independent review of the events of November 15, 2017, BPD appointed the IRB. The IRB will (1) review BPD’s investigation of the shooting and BPD’s findings, (2) conduct a comprehensive review

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the shooting of Detective Suiter, BPD officers acted appropriately when they made stops, searches and arrests.
The Monitoring Team emphasizes that it has not done a comprehensive, topto-bottom review of all of BPD’s many S/S/A actions in Harlem Park. In fact, the Monitoring Team encountered some difficulty obtaining from BPD all of the documents it requested for its evaluation (which underscored again the challenges BPD faces in examining its own S/S/A activities). Nonetheless, the Monitoring Team’s review has been extensive. Based on what it has read, seen and heard, the Monitoring Team has preliminary concerns about whether BPD command staff and supervisory officers are adequately ensuring adherence to Fourth Amendment requirements and corresponding Consent Decree provisions.
It bears repeating that the Monitoring Team does not offer this observation as an assessment of BPD’s compliance efforts. It is too early for that. As emphasized throughout this report, the reform process is long, and BPD is just getting started. Indeed, in the S/S/A area, BPD has not finished revising its policies and has not begun training officers on them, nor is it expected to have done so under the First-Year Monitoring Plan. Nevertheless, BPD can still learn vital lessons from its response to the shooting of Detective Suiter. Those lessons can provide guidance for aligning BPD’s S/S/A practices with Consent Decree requirements now, even before new policies, training and technology are implemented. Thus, the Monitoring Team encourages BPD to address its response to the shooting of Detective Suiter in the coming months through, for instance, roll call tutorials. The Monitoring Team is committed to providing BPD technical assistance for any such effort.
BPD’s Actions
Just after 4:30 pm on November 15, 2017, Detective Suiter—an 18-year veteran and Homicide detective—was found shot on the ground in a small vacant lot on the 900 block of Bennett Place in the Harlem Park neighborhood. In the ensuing hours and days, dozens of officers—including the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners, detectives and supervisors from the Homicide Unit, officers and supervisors from the Patrol Division, members of the SWAT Unit, and federal agents

of the crime scene investigation, incident command operations, and the security perimeter maintained in Harlem Park following the shooting, (3) review existing departmental policies and procedures and identify any policy violations that occurred, (4) identify best practices to improve BPD's policies on incident response and incident management, and (5) review BPD’s training practices related to use of force, crowd control and firearms and make recommendations for improvement.

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from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (“ATF”)—came to the area to secure the crime scene and investigate the shooting. Almost immediately, BPD established an expansive perimeter of numerous City blocks around the vacant lot, concerned that an armed and dangerous was in the vicinity. Several hours after the shooting, BPD shrunk the perimeter to roughly six square City blocks. BPD held that perimeter for approximately four days, through November 19, at which time it cordoned off only the vacant lot. The following morning, November 20, BPD excavated the soil in the vacant lot and located a fired bullet next to where Detective Suiter’s body had been. BPD then expanded the perimeter once again to the same six square-block area around the lot. That night, after the crime lab determined that the bullet appeared to have been fired from Detective Suiter’s service weapon, BPD released the crime scene altogether, including the lot. In total, BPD held the six square-block perimeter around the lot for nearly five days.
The night of the shooting, November 15, the SWAT unit searched and cleared six homes on the 900 block of Bennett Place and three homes that backed up the vacant lot on the 900 block of Franklin Street (which runs parallel to Bennett Place) in order to dispel any threat of an armed and dangerous shooter in the area. Three of the homes on Bennett Place were occupied; the rest of the homes on Bennett Place and Franklin Street were vacant.
The following morning, November 16, the SWAT unit entered 961 Bennett Place, an unoccupied home adjacent to the vacant lot, believing that certain evidence around the scene indicated the shooter might have taken refuge there. Based on items seen in plain view in the home, BPD obtained and executed a search warrant. The sweep and search of 961 Bennett Place generated no useful leads.
The next morning, November 17, the SWAT unit and ATF officers collectively cleared another 34 homes on the 900 blocks of Franklin Street and Bennett Place. The vast majority of the homes, 32 of 34, were vacant or impossible to enter because they were either dilapidated or cinder-blocked. Only two were occupied, and the residents were referred to the Homicide Unit for interview. It is unclear from BPD documentation whether those residents were interviewed and, if interviewed in the Homicide Unit, whether they went there voluntarily.
In the three days immediately following the shooting, Homicide detectives also canvassed numerous homes in the Harlem Park neighborhood and interviewed a number of residents. These interviews, too, failed to generate useful leads.
BPD did not clear any other homes within the several square-block perimeter after the morning of November 17. It nonetheless continued to hold the perimeter for

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an additional two days (through November 19), and then re-established it on November 20 after discovering the fired bullet next to where Detective Suiter was found. From its interviews with BPD supervisors, the Monitoring Team learned that the orders to maintain the perimeter through November 19, and re-establish it on November 20, came from the highest levels of the Department, including the Commissioner.3 Two commanding officers further indicated that they had never held much smaller homicide crime scenes for more than a day, much less one spanning several residential blocks for nearly five days.
During the five-day period when BPD maintained the several square-block perimeter, BPD patrol officers routinely stopped pedestrians who were inside the perimeter, pedestrians and motorists who sought to enter or exit the perimeter, and pedestrians and motorists who were walking or driving immediately outside the perimeter. BPD officers stopped some people right outside their homes. Many of these interactions were captured on body worn camera (“BWC”). The BWC footage generally shows that when patrol officers stopped an individual, they requested identification, took down the information, completed a Departmental citizen contact form documenting the interaction, ran a computerized search for outstanding warrants, provided the individual a receipt of the contact form, instructed the individual to keep the receipt handy so that he or she could avoid having to undergo the same process if stopped again, and then let the individual go. Individuals who lived on the block of Bennett Place with the vacant lot—the 900 block—were escorted home.
If an individual could not provide identification at the perimeter, patrol officers usually did not let them in and turned them away. BPD officers refused entry not only to individuals who were passing through the neighborhood, but to several who said they lived in the neighborhood, including one who said he had not been home for over 24 hours and needed to let his dog out.

3 BPD commanders informed the Monitoring Team that BPD typically utilizes an Incident Command System (ICS), in which a commanding officer takes and keeps command of a crime scene investigation for its duration in 12-hour operational periods. In the Suiter investigation, the ICS appeared to break down almost immediately. Deputy Commissioners and ultimately the Commissioner arrived on the scene and issued orders both at the scene and for several days after, which left the commander who initially took charge believing that he was no longer in charge. The apparent failure of the ICS in the Suiter investigation may have sown confusion about the responsibilities of the patrol officers policing the perimeter, though that is unclear. Assessing the success or failure of the ICS in the Suiter investigation is beyond the scope of the Monitoring Team’s duties. It will be an issue that the IRB will address.

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Most recorded stops lasted from three to eight minutes, though several lasted longer. Patrol officers did not ask stopped individuals for information about the Suiter shooting. In those instances where the shooting was discussed, the stopped individual brought it up, not the officer.
The BWC footage shows that at least ten (10) stopped individuals were either searched or patted down between November 16 and November 20. BPD officers did not find contraband on any of these individuals and let all of them go with citizen contact receipts. Another individual was required to exit his car after handing over his identification. He, too, was given a citizen contact receipt and released. One stopped individual was arrested and transported to Central Booking when the warrant check conducted during the stop indicated an outstanding warrant for failure-to-appear in Baltimore City. The second individual stopped during this incident was made to wait on the curb for an hour before BPD let him go, even though the warrant check on him came back negative.
Monitoring Team interviews of BPD personnel and BWC footage confirm that BPD supervisors ordered patrol officers to run warrant checks on stopped individuals or condoned the warrant checks. In one video, an officer tells another officer he is running checks with “PocketCop” on all individuals for whom he completes citizen contact forms. In another video, a different officer similarly states that he is running checks on everyone stopped. In a third video, the recording officer tells another officer that he is not running all checks on the spot, but is instead sending some to the warrant task force to be run later.
In addition to conducting dozens of stops in the Harlem Park neighborhood, BPD made several arrests of individuals suspected to have knowledge of the shooting of Detective Suiter. BPD did not establish probable cause that these individuals were involved in the shooting; rather, according to documentation reviewed by the Monitoring Team, BPD established probable cause that these individuals committed other crimes—e.g., an attempted murder earlier in 2017 and distribution or possession of controlled substances (heroin and cocaine). Each of these individuals was taken to the Homicide Unit for questioning before being processed. BPD officers also had a number of individuals who were not arrested come to the Homicide Unit to answer questions about the shooting. Additionally, BPD obtained and executed search warrants for homes in which certain suspects were alleged to have lived. BPD officers made several arrests during these searches. Neither the Homicide Unit interviews nor the searches produced useful evidence in the shooting investigation.

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Diagnostic Evaluation

Following the shooting of Detective Suiter, BPD officers appear to have taken certain actions that complied with the Fourth Amendment and the S/S/A provisions of the Consent Decree. For example, although there were certain exceptions, patrol officers were generally cordial and respectful with the individuals they stopped. This is a Consent Decree requirement, as well as a basic requirement of BPD’s Fair and Impartial Policing policy. Complying with the requirement is essential—though, on its own, insufficient—for BPD to regain the community’s trust.
BPD Homicide detectives also appear to have acted lawfully by conducting certain “pretextual” arrests of individuals suspected to have knowledge of the Suiter shooting. These were probable cause-supported arrests on charges unrelated to the shooting for the purpose of questioning the arrested individuals about the shooting. Making such arrests and attempting to conduct such interviews are legal and consistent with Consent Decree requirements.
Further, the Monitoring Team believes that BPD acted lawfully by clearing dozens of vacant homes on Bennett Place and Franklin Street or by obtaining permission to clear several homes that were occupied. Following the shooting, especially on the night of November 15, the threat that an armed and dangerous suspect remained at large in the immediate vicinity was real. Moreover, all of the homes BPD searched without warrants were abandoned and vacant, so clearing them did not implicate any individual’s constitutional rights. Nonetheless, it would have been prudent for BPD to document the legal justification for all of these searches, which it did not do—or at least the Homicide file contains no such documentation.
Despite the fact that some of BPD’s S/S/A actions in response to the shooting of Detective Suiter appear to have been consistent with the Consent Decree, other conduct raises concerns for the Monitoring Team. These concerns are catalogued below.
Supervision. The sections below describe conduct that is likely incompatible with Consent Decree requirements: stopping individuals at the perimeter and restricting entry into and exit from the neighborhood even after the threat of an armed and dangerous suspect was eliminated; conducting warrant checks on the stopped individuals; searching individuals without probable cause and patting down individuals without reasonable suspicion that they had a gun; failing to adequately document stops, searches, arrests and voluntary interviews; and de-activating BWCs on the night of November 15. By and large, responsibility for these actions and omissions lies not with individual officers, but rather with BPD as an institution. It

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was commanders (up through the Commissioner) and supervisory officers who ordered a large perimeter held for five days; directed patrol officers to restrict entry and exit and make stops; ordered or condoned warrant checks; failed to make clear that the circumstances of the shooting did not obviate the traditional constitutional requirements for searches and pat-downs; failed to ensure that officers properly documented their S/S/A activities; and appear to have authorized the de-activation of BWCs on November 15. Improving supervision is a linchpin of reform under the Consent Decree. The apparent shortcomings in BPD’s response to the shooting of Detective Suiter show why.
Restrictions on neighborhood entry and exit, and stops made around and inside the perimeter, after the threat of an armed and dangerous suspect had dissipated. BPD appears to have held the large, several square-block perimeter and restricted access to the neighborhood longer than justified. The threat of an armed and dangerous suspect in the vicinity of the vacant lot was dispelled by the morning of November 17, after BPD’s SWAT Unit and ATF finished clearing houses on Bennett Place and Franklin Street. Arguably, the threat was dispelled even sooner, as ten homes in the immediate vicinity were cleared by the early morning of November 16 (nine on the evening of November 15), and BPD did not think it necessary to confirm the absence of suspects in the other 34 homes until more than 24 hours later. Further, none of the tips BPD received after November 17 included reports of a possible suspect hiding in a building within the perimeter. Notwithstanding these facts, BPD held the perimeter for another two days, until November 19, and then reestablished it for another day on November 20 after discovering the discharged bullet next to where Detective Suiter was found.
In Monitoring Team interviews with BPD personnel, certain officers suggested that BPD needed to maintain the perimeter, even after dispelling the threat of an armed and dangerous suspect, in order to preserve the integrity of forensic evidence that had not yet been located—namely, the fired bullets from the three cartridges found next to Detective Suiter. However, the immediate crime scene, a small vacant lot, is flanked on either side by three-story buildings, with a narrow passage leading to an alley (backed up by other three-story buildings) in the rear, so the chances that fired bullets might be located beyond the immediate area around the vacant lot, somewhere in the surrounding streets, were at best remote. What’s more, based on the Homicide file the Monitoring Team reviewed, it does not appear that Homicide or crime scene unit personnel spent much time, if any, combing the several streets within the perimeter for forensic evidence.
Based on the facts the Monitoring Team learned, it does not appear that the cordoned-off area had to be as big and held for as long as it was. To minimize

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restricting the free movement of neighborhood residents and visitors, the broader cordoned-off area—beyond the vacant lot and its nearby surroundings—likely should have been maintained for only as long as needed to dispel the threat of an armed and dangerous suspect.
Correspondingly, by stopping individuals around and inside the perimeter after the threat of an armed and dangerous suspect was eliminated, BPD likely engaged in conduct that was inconsistent with Consent Decree requirements. This is so even though the stops typically lasted only a few minutes. If officers had possessed reasonable articulable suspicion that the stopped individuals had committed a crime, or had stopped individuals to ask for information about the Suiter shooting, then U.S. Supreme Court precedent might have justified their actions. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) and Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419 (2004). But that is not what happened. These were not short “Terry stops,” which are made to investigate an individual because the officer has reasonable articulable suspicion that the individual committed a crime. BPD officers did not claim to possess reasonable articulable suspicion for stopping people around the perimeter. These stops also were not akin to brief vehicular checkpoint stops to gather information about a possible crime. BPD officers did not question the stopped individuals about the shooting of Detective Suiter. Rather, for several days after eliminating the threat of an armed and dangerous suspect, BPD had its officers make these stops based solely on the unsupportable theory that enforcing a large six square-block perimeter was required to preserve a crime scene consisting of a small vacant lot. The stops thus raise concerns under the Fourth Amendment and the Consent Decree—concerns that were effectively confirmed by the two commanding officers who reported that they had never held much smaller homicide crime scenes for more than a day.
Warrant checks. BPD’s practice of routinely conducting warrant checks on individuals stopped near, at or inside the perimeter also raises constitutional concerns. As noted, BPD officers did not stop these individuals because they had a reasonable articulable suspicion that the individuals had committed, or were committing, a crime. Nonetheless, by routinely conducting warrant checks, BPD officers used the stops to investigate the stopped individuals as potential suspects and, as a result, to detain them longer. Although the detentions generally lasted only a few minutes, the warrant checks likely made them unlawful. Police officers may conduct warrant checks on individuals stopped for allegedly violating the law—e.g., drivers pulled over for traffic violations. But police officers may not detain and check for warrants on—i.e., investigate—individuals who they have no reason to believe committed a crime. Yet, either ordered or approved by superiors, that is what BPD officers did in the wake of the Suiter shooting.

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The incident involving the individual arrested on a failure-to-appear warrant after being stopped inside the perimeter underscores the problem. He and his friend voluntarily approached a BPD officer to provide him a discarded ID card they found on the street. They appeared to be trying to assist the investigation. Consistent with the general directive he had received, the officer immediately detained the two individuals and ran warrant checks on them, even though he had no reason to believe they had committed a crime. The warrant check on one of the individuals came back positive on a failure-to-appear charge in Baltimore City (after coming back positive, but unable to be confirmed, on a separate warrant from Pennsylvania). That individual was arrested, transported to Central Booking, and processed. The warrant check on the other individual came back negative. That individual was nonetheless detained with his friend for an hour before being let go. The law would have authorized the stop, investigation and lengthy detention of these individuals only if there were reasonable suspicion to believe that they had committed a crime. But BPD officers do not appear to have had reasonable suspicion. Therefore, the warrant checks, the subsequent detentions, and the arrest were likely in violation of the Consent Decree. And, by subjecting to probable unconstitutional treatment individuals who appeared to be trying to assist the investigation, BPD created disincentives for these individuals to seek to assist in the future. BPD’s actions thus undermined the community trust-building objectives of the Consent Decree.
Searches and pat-downs. An officer may conduct a warrantless, nonconsensual search of an individual only in connection with a lawful arrest—that is, only if the officer has probable cause to believe that the individual has committed a crime. An officer also may conduct a warrantless, nonconsensual pat-down or “frisk” of an individual’s outer clothing only if, after a lawful stop, the officer has reasonable articulable suspicion that the individual has a firearm.

Of the nine separate individuals who, according to the released BWC footage, BPD officers searched at or inside the perimeter following the Suiter shooting, BPD officers did not appear to have probable cause to arrest any of them. Indeed, the officers did not arrest any of them; rather, after searching them, the officers filled out citizen contact forms, gave receipts to them, and let them go. The actions of these officers suggest a supervisory or training failure to make clear that the Suiter shooting and the subsequent establishment of the perimeter did not provide license to perform a full-blown search of anyone generally deemed suspicious.

Similarly, for the one individual who the released BWC footage shows was patted down, the video reveals no evidence to support a determination of reasonable suspicion that the individual had a gun. Finding nothing, the detaining officer also released this individual with a citizen contact receipt. Again, the actions of the officer

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suggest a supervisory or training failure to make clear that the circumstances of Detective Suiter’s death did not automatically justify a pat-down of anyone at or inside the perimeter.
These searches and pat-downs raise clear constitutional concerns. Those concerns are exacerbated by the detaining officers’ apparently uniform failure to document their actions—again, a failure likely attributable to a failure of supervision. For each of the individuals searched or frisked, the BWC footage shows the detaining officer properly completing a citizen contact form. But based on the Monitoring Team’s review of the Homicide file, none of the detaining officers completed the Departmental form established to memorialize searches and pat-downs that fail to reveal any contraband. This apparent failure is noteworthy. Searches of a person’s body are not minimal invasions of privacy. They implicate core Fourth Amendment protections and, when unwarranted, do as much damage to police-community relations as any other violation of the Constitution. That is undoubtedly why BPD has a separate form for searches that generate no evidence of criminality.
Documentation. Emblematic of BPD’s shortcomings in data collection and maintenance, BPD officers appear not to have adequately documented or kept records of all of their Fourth Amendment activity following the Suiter shooting. The supervisory failure to ensure that officers completed the Departmental form for searches that did not reveal contraband is one example. There are others.

The released BWC footage shows a far greater number of stops than there are citizen contact forms in the Homicide file. In fact, the footage collectively shows officers, on camera, completing more forms than the Homicide file contains. It is possible that some or all of the citizen contact forms not found in the Homicide file are elsewhere in the Department and could not be readily produced. But even if so, the fact that the forms are held in hard-to-find, disparate locations, and will not be entered into BPD’s RMS for years (if at all) given the massive data entry backlog, highlights BPD’s chronic data collection problems.

In addition, while the arrests of several potential suspects and witnesses may have been lawful, the absence of documentation about other arrests makes it impossible to determine whether those arrests were justified. To take one example, when BPD officers arrested one reported suspect on unrelated attempted murder charges after obtaining an arrest warrant, they also arrested two other individuals who were with that potential suspect. Both of those individuals were minors—one 14, the other 16. BPD Homicide personnel informed the Monitoring Team that these youths were arrested because they fled when officers approached and were found with illegal drugs. The Homicide file, however, does not contain any documentation

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reflecting the justification for stopping these individuals, much less arresting them. It simply contains a report that the two youths were interrogated at headquarters and possessed no relevant information. If, in fact, the youths were legitimately stopped and arrested for possession of illegal drugs, documenting the reason for the stop and arrest in the Homicide file (i.e., including an incident report) would go a long way toward refuting any claim that the youths may have been detained unlawfully and coerced into answering questions after being transported to BPD headquarters. Conversely, if the stop or arrest was unlawful, the absence of documentation potentially highlights its unlawfulness.
To take another example, a patrol officer responded on November 17 to an anonymous report of illegal drug activity at a particular location on a street in East Baltimore. The officer arrived at the location, observed and talked to three individuals, but saw no illegal activity. Soon after, there was a second anonymous call reporting that one of the individuals was involved in the recent killing of a BPD officer. After the officer approached again, the three individuals started walking away quickly. In the documentation reviewed by the Monitoring Team, the responsible officer indicated that he performed the stop based on the anonymous calls, the individuals’ actions, and the alleged pervasiveness of crime in the area. When he ran the individuals’ drivers’ licenses, the results showed a be-on-the-lookout for one of them, with a note to call the BPD Watch Center. The Watch Center advised the officer that the individual was on the “Trigger Puller List.” The officer then contacted Homicide Unit detectives, who indicated they wanted to interview all three individuals. All three individuals were then transported to Homicide for questioning.
Documentation of the incident indicates that the individuals were subject to an “involuntary detention,” meaning they were arrested and did not come to the Homicide Unit voluntarily. There is, however, no information in the documentation that establishes the required probable cause for an arrest. For the one individual who was supposedly on the “Trigger Puller List,” the documentation contains no explanation of what that list was or how a person’s name came to be included; the mere mention of the list—which could have been created based on nothing more than unverified anonymous tips—does not demonstrate probable cause. For the other two individuals, the documentation contains no information at all to suggest probable cause. According to the documentation, Homicide detectives wanted to talk to the three individuals, so patrol officers simply arrested all three and brought them in. A detective’s desire to talk to someone is not enough to justify an arrest. The absence of probable cause documentation in this case leaves open the possibility that all three individuals were arrested unlawfully.

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In addition to making arrests, BPD had numerous individuals come to the Homicide Unit to answer questions about the Suiter shooting. The documentation does not clearly show that these potential witnesses came to headquarters voluntarily. The absence of adequate documentation subjects BPD to allegations of undue coercion. For instance, BPD obtained a warrant to search a home in West Baltimore, outside the six square-block perimeter. BPD believed that an individual with knowledge of the Suiter shooting might reside in the home, and established probable cause that there were illegal drugs on the premises. When BPD officers executed the search, they found nothing illegal. Nonetheless, they transported the two occupants to Homicide for questioning. Documents do not show that the two individuals were arrested; there appeared to be no justification for an arrest. And while the two individuals might have agreed to voluntary interviews, the Homicide file does not show what happened. As a result, it leaves open the possibility that the individuals did not submit voluntarily to questioning and were brought in without informed consent.
BWC recording. In one BWC recording on the evening of November 15, several hours after the Suiter shooting, one patrol officer makes a call and asks if her BWC is supposed to be on or off. The officer mentions that all officers close to the crime scene (the vacant lot) have their cameras turned off. When the officer hangs up, she informs the other officers around her that they can de-activate their cameras. It is unclear from the video who the officer called or what exactly she was told. The video shows only what the officer said on the call and to her fellow officers.
According to current BPD policy on BWCs (as well as the revisions now underway), patrol officers must activate their BWCs in all but a few limited circumstances. None of those circumstances appear to have existed for patrol officers enforcing the perimeter the night of November 15.
It is unclear whether patrol officers heeded the instruction to de-activate BWCs on the evening of November 15. However, in contrast to multiple available recordings from November 16-21 (especially from November 17), there is only one available recording from the night of November 15, and that is the recording of the officer who instructed other officers to turn off their BWCs. The instruction is preceded by roughly two hours of video, including video of a man who reportedly had no identification and is searched because he “came out of nowhere” shortly after the shooting and was near the crime scene. It is believed that this is the same man who was ultimately arrested for possession of illegal drugs, taken to BPD headquarters, and tested (negatively) for gunshot residue on his hands, but the arrest does not appear to be captured on any BWC.

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Challenges Ahead
BPD’s response to the Suiter shooting demonstrates the considerable longterm challenge it faces to ensure that its officers abide by the Constitution and the Consent Decree in their interactions with community members. There is also the equally significant challenge of revamping BPD’s IT systems—particularly the RMS—to ensure that they fully and accurately capture and facilitate robust analysis of all Fourth Amendment-related activity.
The Next Six Months
BPD is supposed to finalize its initial set of six S/S/A policies. As noted, the Monitoring Team will approve or disapprove these policies by the end of October.
BPD also will submit initial drafts of the additional set of six S/S/A policies (identified above) in early August. The Monitoring Team and DOJ will collaborate with BPD on revisions to those additional policies through the beginning of October. BPD then will issue for public comment final proposed versions of those policies. The public comment period will run through November 4. Once BPD finalizes the policies after considering the comments, the Monitoring Team will have until November 25 to approve or disapprove them.
At the end of July, BPD will provide the Monitoring Team and DOJ with the initial draft of its S/S/A Training Plan. The Training Plan will outline in detail the objectives and content of the training curriculum that will be developed in the next Monitoring Year, as well as the techniques that will be used to teach the curriculum. The Monitoring Team and DOJ will work with BPD to revise the Training Plan through the end of September. The Training Plan will be finalized and submitted to the Court for approval by November 14.
Finally, as explained, the Monitoring Team recently began conducting preliminary assessments of BPD’s S/S/A activities. The preliminary assessments include reviewing documents and body worn camera footage, and gauging the S/S/A data that can be usefully gleaned from BPD’s RMS. These preliminary assessments will continue.

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Impartial Policing

Paragraph 87 of the Consent Decree asserts that “policing fairly and without bias is central to promoting broad community engagement and building partnerships between law enforcement and community members that are an important part of effective policing.” To that end, the Consent Decree requires BPD to: document the demographic category of all individuals who are stopped, frisked, searched, arrested or make a complaint (CD 88); adopt policies that require fair, impartial, nondiscriminatory policing (CD 89); establish an impartial policing training curriculum and properly train officers, with community input, to perform their duties in a nondiscriminatory manner (CD 90-94); and consider whether officers engage in nondiscriminatory policing in evaluating performance and making hiring and promotion decisions (CD 95).
Thus far, BPD has made early-stage progress toward satisfying Paragraph 88, as its report forms require the recording of demographic categories. It is, however, too soon to tell whether officers are routinely and accurately reporting the demographic categories of the individuals they stop, frisk, search, arrest, and receive complaints from.

BPD also has made substantial progress toward satisfying Paragraph 89. As explained below, the proposed final revisions to the key policies that address impartial policing meet the requirements of Paragraph 89.

It is too early to gauge BPD’s progress toward the other requirements of the Impartial Policing section of the Consent Decree. Under the First-Year Monitoring Plan, establishing and implementing a training curriculum that incorporates the revised policies is scheduled to occur in the next reporting period. It remains to be seen whether BPD accounts for discriminatory and non-discriminatory policing practices in officer performance evaluations, hiring and promotions.
Policy Revisions
With technical assistance from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD has nearly completed the process of revising two policies that address the Consent Decree’s impartial policing requirements and correspondingly provide a foundation for related policies, especially policies addressing stops, pat-downs, searches and arrests. These are Policy 317 (“Fair and Impartial Policing”) and Policy 720 (“Interactions with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer/Questioning Individuals”). The revisions to these policies are intended to comply with the requirements of Paragraph 89 of the Consent Decree.

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BPD issued its initial draft of these policies within the deadline established in the First-Year Monitoring Plan. Since then, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have collaborated extensively with BPD to revise the drafts and, ultimately, BPD has produced final proposed revisions. BPD issued the final proposed revisions for public comment in early June.

The core policy, Policy 317, is fundamentally changed in structure and, to some degree, in substance. Rather than simply conveying general non-discrimination principles, it now provides concise statements of purpose and policy, followed by express, logically organized directives to officers to ensure fair, respectful, nondiscriminatory policing. The revised policy emphasizes its foundation in federal, state and municipal law; includes requirements for supervisors to ensure compliance by officers under their command; specifies the subjects that must be covered during training; and directs the collection and analysis of data to measure compliance.

Policy 720 on Interactions with LGBTQ individuals is also changed. The policy is stated succinctly and the directives to officers are clearer and more tightly structured around the types of interactions officers have with LGBTQ individuals. Additionally, the revised policy furnishes key guidance on adherence to the requirements of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, so as to ensure that officers stop, pat-down, search and arrest individuals, including LGBTQ individuals, only with proper justification and that officers refrain from taking law enforcement action against individuals based on perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

Challenges Ahead
One of the central findings of DOJ’s investigation was that BPD was engaged in a pattern-or-practice of stopping, patting down, searching and arresting African Americans based on their race. Revamping policies and implementing revised training curricula on both impartial policing and stops, searches and arrests are important first steps in ensuring that BPD officers treat people fairly and equitably, without regard to personal traits like race, national origin, gender expression, and disability. But these are only first steps. As with so many aspects of policing covered by the Consent Decree, the question is whether, in practice, BPD officers interact with community members respectfully and refrain from discrimination in the performance of their duties. The answer to that question will not come quickly. It will depend on the adoption of revamped data collection systems that permit easier, more comprehensive analysis of officer conduct; routine quantitative review and analysis, over time, of the data gathered through those systems, once they are established; routine qualitative review of field reports and body worn camera footage; and a proven change in culture that values and rewards the quality of police work,

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rather than the number of arrests. This will be the central task of the Monitoring Team—and more importantly, of BPD itself, especially supervisory officers—in subsequent years.
The Next Six Months
The public comment period on the final proposed revisions to Policies 317 and 720 ends August 3. After considering the public comments, BPD will produce final proposed policies. By August 20, the Monitoring Team will either approve or disapprove the final policies.
In August, BPD will begin having routine meetings with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to discuss changes to BPD’s impartial policing training curriculum. BPD will provide the Monitoring Team and DOJ the first draft of the revised curriculum in late September. The Monitoring Team and DOJ will then collaborate on the draft through mid-December. On December 20, BPD will issue a final proposed curriculum for public comment. The public comment period runs through January 21, 2019. BPD will then consider the public comments and provide the Monitoring Team and DOJ with a final version of the curriculum by late January. By February 25, 2019, the Monitoring Team will either approve or disapprove the final version of the curriculum and notify the Court.

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Use of Force

The Consent Decree obligates BPD to ensure that its officers resolve incidents without using force when possible, employ de-escalation techniques to minimize the need to use force, avoid unnecessary injury or risk of injury to officers and civilians when force is necessary, stop other officers from using excessive force, report all reportable uses of force, and be held accountable for using unreasonable force (CD 124). To accomplish these objectives, the Consent Decree’s section on Use of Force contains requirements regarding policies on use of force (including weapons-specific policies) (CD 125-65), training on use of force (CD 166-68), reporting, reviewing and investigating use of force incidents (CD 169-210), and collecting, analyzing and reporting data on use of force incidents (CD 211-17).
To date, BPD has met every deadline involving the Use of Force provisions of the Consent Decree and, as explained in this section, has made reasonable progress toward satisfying the policy revision provisions. Given that BPD is still in the early stages of the reform process and that most of the reforms in the Consent Decree have not yet been implemented, it is premature to assess BPD’s progress toward satisfying the other provisions.

Policy Revisions
As the Consent Decree notes, BPD revised its core Use of Force policy, Policy 1115, in 2016 in response to DOJ’s then-pending investigation. In recent months, BPD has worked with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to revise it further. BPD also has revised other policies involving use of force. In February, as the First-Year Monitoring Plan required, BPD submitted to the Monitoring Team and DOJ revisions to Policy 1115 (Use of Force), as well as revisions to four other policies: 719 (Conducted Electrical Weapon (CEW)), 1111 (Batons / Impact Weapons), 409 (Firearms Regulations), and 1118 (Oleoresin Capsicum Spray). The Monitoring Team and DOJ collaborated with BPD on further refinements to these five policies, and BPD issued final proposed versions of those policies in April 18. The public comment period ended May 18. BPD incorporated several comments from community stakeholders and submitted its final proposed policies for approval in early June. The Monitoring Team recently filed a memorandum with the Court approving these policies. See ECF No. 118.

As with the S/S/A policies, there are a number of policies implicating use of force, all of which are important. Additional policies involving use of force include Policies 414 (Less-Lethal Munitions), 710 (Special Investigation Review Team (SIRT)), 724 (Performance Review Board (PRB)), 725 (Use of Force Reporting, Review

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and Assessment), 1005 (Non-Uniform Policing Standards), 1107 (De-Escalation), 1503 (Emergency Vehicle Operations), and 1602 (Canine Procedures). To make sure that BPD, DOJ, the Monitoring Team and the community have adequate time to properly review and consider each of these eight additional use of force policies before they are finalized, the Monitoring Team and the parties requested approval to extend the deadlines for revisions, which the Court granted. See ECF No. 112. Under the modified schedule, BPD submitted initial drafts of these policies on June 15. BPD is currently working with the Monitoring and DOJ to refine the drafts. The new deadlines will not affect the pace of reform in the Use of Force area.

The Monitoring Team finds that BPD has worked diligently to issue, rework and finalize its large suite of use of force policies, and has been receptive to technical assistance from the Monitoring Team and DOJ along the way. The First-Year Monitoring Plan has required BPD to revise a number of complex policies in a number of different areas in a short period, and the Monitoring Team has been impressed with BPD’s commitment to generating timely work product in this area.

Challenges Ahead

Each aspect of the Use of Force section of the Consent Decree presents a challenge.

• Use of force policies affect other policies that the Consent Decree requires BPD to revise, including policies involving Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in Crisis, Transportation of Persons in Custody, and S/S/A. With technical assistance from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD must ensure that the use of force policies incorporate, where necessary, guidance from these other policies—e.g., directives on de-escalation when encountering individuals in crisis. This is a challenge not only for use of force policies, but for policies in every area that intersects with other areas.

• BPD’s Training Academy is understaffed. Nonetheless, the First-Year Monitoring Plan requires BPD to develop a revised use of force training curriculum by the end of 2018 in order to roll out the curriculum and begin using it in the Academy by the start of 2019. The timeline is tight.

• The version of IAPro that BPD currently uses does not capture all of the data required for easy, robust analysis of use of force incidents. BPD must retool its version of IAPro to allow for such analysis—not simply for the Monitoring Team, but for BPD’s own supervisors and commanders, who

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must review both individual use of force incidents and Department-wide performance in circumstances involving the use of force. Fortunately, the Monitoring Team believes that, for this purpose, BPD can upgrade/modify its version of IAPro, rather than discard it and implement a new one.
• In recent years, according to DOJ’s findings, use of force incidents have not been adequately reported, reviewed by supervisors, or investigated by OPR detectives. The Consent Decree’s reporting, review and investigation requirements are extensive and stringent.
The Next Six Months
As noted, BPD will complete the revisions to all of its use of force policies in the next reporting period. The first five polices were just completed. The Monitoring Team and DOJ are presently collaborating with DOJ on revisions to the additional eight policies. Those revisions will be finalized and DOJ will issue proposed final versions for public comment from July 27 – August 24. By August 31, once BPD considers and incorporates any feedback, it will submit the final policies to the Monitoring Team and DOJ. The Monitoring Team will approve or disapprove by September 17.
The Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ have initiated discussions about training on the new policies, both for recruits and in-service, particularly training to advance the concepts of de-escalation and sanctity of life. BPD just submitted its draft use of force training plan three days ago. A draft curriculum will follow. The Monitoring Team and DOJ will collaborate with DOJ to refine the curriculum through October 30. Once refined, BPD will issue a final proposed curriculum for public comment. The public comment period runs from November 15 – December 15. The curriculum will be finalized in late December, and the Monitoring Team will approve or disapprove it by December 29. BPD intends to use the curriculum for all recruit and in-service training beginning in 2019.
The Monitoring Team will begin preliminary use of force assessments in the next reporting period. Monitoring Team members will review use of force reports, body worn camera footage of force incidents, investigative files (including OPR files) regarding use of force incidents, and data maintained in IAPro.

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Transportation of Persons in Custody

Ensuring the safety of individuals in police custody is among the most important obligations of any law enforcement agency. It was the death of Freddie Gray following transport in a BPD van that triggered unrest and demonstrated the deep divide between BPD and parts of the Baltimore community. For that reason, early compliance efforts have focused partly on the Consent Decree’s transportation of persons in custody provisions. Acknowledging the importance of these provisions, transport was the subject of the very first monthly meeting/working session with the parties and the Court held on February 2.
The Consent Decree requires BPD to: (1) equip all transport vans with seatbelts, holding straps located along the rear area of each seat that individuals being transported may grip for security during transport, and transport vehicle cameras (TVCs) and all transport cruisers with seatbelts (CD 223-24); (2) inspect transport vehicles monthly and create logs to memorialize the inspections (CD 225); (3) establish and adhere to appropriate procedures for transporting prisoners (including using seatbelts, straps, and TVCs) (CD 226-33), (4) establish and adhere to protocols for documenting and comprehensively auditing prisoner transport events (CD 234-37), and (5) revise policies and training curricula to ensure safe, effective prisoner transport (CD 238).
The Monitoring Team is assessing the Consent Decree’s transport requirements in two phases. The transport equipment phase, which is underway, focuses on whether BPD has installed the required equipment in its transport vehicles and maintained the equipment in working order. The transportation procedures phase, which has not yet begun, focuses on whether BPD has implemented the transport policies required by the Consent Decree and whether officers area adhering to those policies and using the transport equipment correctly and consistently.
Thus far, BPD has made reasonable progress toward satisfying the equipment requirements in Paragraphs 223-225 and the policy revision requirements in Paragraph 238. It is too soon to assess whether BPD is making progress toward satisfying the transportation procedures requirements in Paragraphs 226-233. Under the First-Year Monitoring Plan, the Monitoring Team and the parties have not yet been required to establish a methodology for assessing compliance with these requirements, as BPD still must develop the technological capacity to gather the data necessary to assess compliance.
Equipping Transport Vehicles
BPD sought to properly equip its transport vans and cruisers prior to the effective date of the Consent Decree, April 7, 2017. On January 22, 2018, prior to the

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adoption of the First-Year Monitoring Plan, Monitoring Team members conducted a preliminary audit to verify that, consistent with paragraphs 223-25 of the Consent Decree, BPD had outfitted its transport vans with seatbelts, straps and TVCs and was maintaining a monthly log documenting the presence and functionality of that equipment. During the audit, the Monitoring Team inspected 16 of BPD’s 22 vans. Three wagons were under repair, two are kept as spares and were out of service, and one was in use transporting arrestees at the time. The Monitoring Team did not inspect any cruisers during this preliminary audit. The preliminary audit revealed the following:
• Each of the 16 inspected vans was properly outfitted with functional seatbelts and holding straps, as Paragraph 223 requires.
• Each of the 16 vans was equipped with an operational TVC that, as required, could “display a live video to officers located in the driver’s section of the vehicle, and also record the video to be preserved for future viewing.” BPD IT personnel also verified the functionality of the TVCs and confirmed that BPD’s IT system had sufficient capacity to retain captured video for at least one year, as Paragraph 224 requires.
• BPD IT personnel inspects all transport vans every Monday morning. The inspection formerly took place at headquarters and now takes places at the Northern District station. Each entity creates and maintains a separate log sheet memorializing the inspections. The Monitoring Team verified the existence of and reviewed the logs. While it appeared that BPD was complying with the inspection and logging provisions of Paragraph 225 as to the transport vans, the Monitoring Team did not see evidence of compliance with Paragraph 225 as to transport cruisers.
Following the Monitoring Team’s preliminary inspection of BPD transport vans on January 22, the Monitoring Team worked with BPD and DOJ to develop and finalize a comprehensive Transport Equipment Audit Methodology that will guide the Monitoring Team’s scheduled quarterly inspections of BPD transport vehicles. The first quarterly audit took place on April 30, 2018. Using the methodology, the Monitoring Team inspected 17 transport vans, at least one from each District, and 18 transport cruisers from five Districts. The inspections revealed that, as required by Paragraphs 223 and 224, all vans were equipped with seatbelts, holding straps and TVCs, and all cruisers were equipped with seatbelts. However, two of the vans had inadequate interior lighting, which made it difficult for the TVCs to capture activity in the vans, and one cruiser had a defective seat belt. BPD took each of these vehicles out of service until the deficiencies were remedied.

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The Monitoring Team also has confirmed that, consistent with the monthly inspection/logging requirement in Paragraph 225, BPD now conducts and creates logs to memorialize weekly inspections of both transport vans (previously confirmed in January) and transport cruisers. The logs are uploaded to a file sharing site each week for the Monitoring Team’s review.
Policy Revisions
In addition to equipping its transport vehicles as the Consent Decree requires, BPD has complied with all of the deadlines in the First-Year Monitoring Plan for revising its transport policies, which include the core transport policy, Policy 1114 (Persons in Police Custody), as well as Policy 825 (Transport Vehicle Camera) and Policy 1511 (Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance). Exchanging multiple drafts with comments and detailed line edits, BPD worked diligently with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to produce and issue for public comment final proposed versions of these policies by June 1, 2018. The Monitoring Team is satisfied with these final proposed versions and, pending comments from the community, anticipates that BPD will finalize and adopt them shortly after publication of this report.
Challenges Ahead
BPD’s primary, immediate challenge in the transport area is a familiar one: BPD must develop the technological capacity to record and maintain essential data and, correspondingly, ensure that officers properly and consistently complete reports on an IT system with that capacity. As the Consent Decree suggests, recording this data is essential for facilitating meaningful, comprehensive review of BPD transport events. It is thus essential for promoting proper performance and, in turn, ensuring both officer and arrestee safety.
Paragraph 232 of the Consent Decree requires BPD to record and audit a number of data points for each transport event, including start and end location, odometer mileage, start time, time of arrival, number of individuals in custody, destination, and whether at any time the officer perceives the prisoner is in need of medical attention. Because not all BPD vehicles are equipped with computers, officers currently must obtain this information through dispatch. BPD does not otherwise have the capacity to record and retrieve this information, so conducting the quarterly performance audits required by Paragraph 236 would be exceedingly cumbersome and time-consuming. BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team have determined that the best way to address this deficiency in the short run is to alter BPD’s Incident Report form to require recording of many of these facts. In the long

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run, as BPD moves toward field-based reporting, the electronic forms that officers will be required to complete will include all of these facts.
The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, BPD will finalize, adopt and implement the revised transport policies. In addition, the Monitoring Team will supplement its planned quarterly audits with unannounced, random inspections to ensure that BPD is properly equipping its transport vehicles at all times.
The Monitoring Team also will assess BPD’s own transport vehicle audits to ensure their validity. These assessments will cover both the weekly inspections BPD conducts to ensure fully functional seatbelts, holding straps and TVCs (CD 225) and the quarterly audits BPD must conduct under Paragraph 236 to ensure that its officers are properly transporting prisoners in compliance with Paragraphs 226-33 and BPD’s forthcoming, revised transport policies (which are incorporating the requirements in Paragraphs 226-33). The Monitoring Team’s evaluations of BPD’s internal quarterly audits will include, among other things, reviews of TVC recordings that BPD reviews, so as to verify that TVCs are properly recording transport events, that BPD is accurately documenting TVC functionality, and that officers are adhering to BPD’s transport policies.

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First Amendment-Protected Activities

As the Consent Decree and BPD’s draft policy on First Amendment Protected Activity explain, the exercise of First Amendment rights is fundamental to democratic governance because it promotes the free exchange of ideas. Moreover, the preservation and protection of First Amendment rights is vital to maintaining public trust in the rule of law because it fosters transparency and accountability in government functions, including policing (CD 239).
For these reasons, the Consent Decree requires BPD to protect several different First Amendment rights: the right to free speech and expression, which includes the right to criticize law enforcement and engage in speech in the presence of law enforcement without being subject to retaliation (CD 240-44); the right to freely organize and participate in lawful public assemblies (CD 245); and the right to observe and record the actions of BPD officers in the public discharge of their duties (CD 247). The Consent Decree also protects Fourth Amendment rights by prohibiting the warrantless search and seizure of recorded videos, images, except in limited circumstances (CD 249-50). The Consent Decree prescribes protection for all of these constitutional rights by obligating BPD to: revise its policies and training programs (CD 239, 244, 246, 251); require supervisory approval for dispersing assemblies, seizing recording devices and recordings, and arresting individuals engaged in expressive activity (CD 252-54); and conduct annual assessments of its practices relating to First Amendment protected activity (CD 255).

To date, BPD has met the deadlines in the First-Year Monitoring Plan regarding First Amendment-protected activities and has made substantial progress toward satisfying the provisions requiring policy revisions. BPD has not yet begun working on revisions to training, as the First-Year Monitoring Plan has not yet required BPD to do so. It is thus too soon to gauge whether BPD has made progress toward implementing the policies and other requirements in this area.
Policy Revisions
Consistent with the First-Year Monitoring Plan, in April, BPD provided the Monitoring Team and DOJ initial drafts of revisions to BPD’s three First Amendment-related policies—Policy 804, the core policy, titled First Amendment Protected Activity; Policy 1016, Public Observation and Recording of Officers; and 413, Mobile Field Force. Since then, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have exchanged numerous edits and comments with BPD. The result has been more comprehensive, more tightly organized policies that contain clear directives to BPD officers on preserving the right to speech and expression, the right to assemble, or the right

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observe and record officers in the public discharge of their duties, as well as clear delineation of the roles and responsibilities of supervisors. BPD issued for public comment final proposed versions of Policies 804 and 106 in late June. The public comment period closes July 25, a week after issuance of this report.
While BPD has substantially revised Policies 804 and 1016, it has elected to rescind the Mobile Field Force policy (Policy 413), with the approval of the Monitoring Team and DOJ. The Mobile Field Force is a specialized unit that monitors, maintains peace, and protects the right to assemble and speak at both planned and spontaneous public demonstrations, and intervenes to maintain public safety, while respecting First Amendment rights, when public demonstrations turn violent. With the input of the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD has incorporated the general provisions of the Mobile Field Force policy into Policy 804, and it will create a Standard Operating Procedure (“SOP”) to provide detailed tactical guidance to Mobile Field Force officers about how to carry out their responsibilities while preserving First Amendment rights. The Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ ultimately have determined that rescission of the standalone Mobile Field Force policy makes sense because the policy is not so much a policy as it is an outline for a tactical procedural manual. The Monitoring Team is comfortable with how the mission and general responsibilities of the Mobile Field Force are reflected in revised Policy 804 and, together with DOJ, it will review and work with BPD to develop an appropriate SOP shortly. The existing Mobile Field Force policy will not be rescinded until the SOP is developed and implemented.
Challenges Ahead
After policy revisions are completed, the next major challenge will be to develop and implement a comprehensible, scenario-based training curriculum to ensure that officers respect First Amendment protections.
The Next Six Months
After the public comment period on Policies 804 and 1016 closes in late July, BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ will consider any public comments received and then BPD will submit the final policies to the Monitoring Team and DOJ for approval in late August. No later than September 15, the Monitoring Team will file with the Court a memorandum either approving or disapproving the new policies.

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Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in Crisis
Paragraph 96 of the Consent Decree reinforces BPD’s “commit[ment] to responding to individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis in a manner that respects individuals’ civil rights and contributes to their overall health and welfare.” Paragraph 96 envisions that BPD will accomplish this goal by using appropriate crisis response techniques. Such techniques will help prevent situations that could lead to the unreasonable use of force, promote connection of people with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis to the behavioral health system, and decrease the inappropriate involvement of people with behavioral health disabilities in the criminal justice system.
The Consent Decree identifies a series of short-term objectives designed to accomplish the long-term goal of protecting the civil rights of those with behavioral health disabilities while simultaneously contributing to their overall health and welfare. These short-term objectives include expansion of the Collaborative Planning and Implementation Committee (CPIC), which will advise BPD on crisis intervention policies for both patrol officers and dispatch personnel (CD 104-05); an assessment by CPIC of the gaps in the City’s behavioral health system coupled with recommendations for solutions (CD 97); maintenance of a Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), whose officers have primary responsibility for responding to incidents involving individuals in crisis (CD 101-03, 110, 119); development of a Crisis Intervention Plan to ensure the efficacy of the CIT (CD 120); appointment and training of a Crisis Intervention Team leader (CD 115-18); training for all officers on responding to individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, and specialized training for CIT officers and dispatch personnel (CD 106-13); revision of policies, including dispatch policies, for responding to incidents involving individuals in crisis (CD 98, 114); and identification of quantitative and qualitative performance measures for the CIT program and collection of data needed to make those assessments (CD 121-22). Over the long-term, BPD will analyze the data, using the established performance metrics, and will issue quarterly public reports gauging BPD’s performance in responding to individuals in crisis.
The First Year Monitoring Plan tackles a number of the Consent Decree’s foundational short-term objectives, including appointment of a CIT Coordinator, expansion of CPIC, development of a strategic work plan for CPIC, completion of the Gap Analysis, development of patrol and dispatch policies, completion of a staffing plan and a plan for selecting officers for the CIT, and creation of a form to track data on responses to individuals in crisis.

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BPD and the City have met every deadline in the First-Year Monitoring Plan so far and have made reasonable progress toward compliance with the preliminary requirements of the section of the Consent Decree covering Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in Crisis.
Areas of Progress
BPD has some tangible achievements under the First-Year Monitoring Plan. Thus far:
• With the approval of the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD has complied with the provision in Paragraph 115 requiring installation of a qualified CIT Coordinator by appointing Lt. Azalee Johnson.
• The City and BPD have satisfied their initial obligation under Paragraph 104 by expanding the composition of CPIC to include relevant City and State officials, Disability Rights Maryland, community mental health providers, substance use services providers, local hospitals, advocates, and committed philanthropists. The cooperative working relationships that CPIC’s new membership is beginning to facilitate will be critical to addressing the needs of City residents with behavioral health disabilities. CPIC’s leadership—which includes Major J. Rhoden (BPD), C. Taylor (BHSB CEO) and T. Hickey (Director, Mayor’s Office of Human Services)— represent key components of the crisis intervention system and appear fully committed to the Committee’s mission.
• In late May, consistent with Paragraph 97, CPIC designated Behavioral Health Systems Baltimore (BHSB) to lead the Gap Analysis process. In June, in coordination with CPIC and BPD, BHSB issued a Request for Proposal for an organization to provide technical expertise to assist with completion of the Gap Analysis.
• Also consistent with Paragraph 97, the City, BPD and CPIC have completed the first draft of a Work Plan that provides a roadmap for developing a CIT Program staffing plan, the CIT officer selection process, Crisis Intervention policies for the Patrol Division and Dispatch Unit, and a detailed set of data to be collected for evaluation purposes. The final Work Plan will be presented to the Court in August. Together with the Gap Analysis, which is due to be finalized in April 2019, the final Work Plan should reflect the benefits of a fully collaborative approach to improving the quality of BPD’s

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responses to incidents involving individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis.
In addition to these early achievements, the City, BHSB and BPD are working to connect a number of programs in Baltimore that provide support for individuals in need, and they are appropriately beginning to draw on the collective experience of CPIC’s members to do so. As background, the City and BPD have several specialized programs aimed at diverting individuals in crisis from the criminal justice system to the health care system. Each program focuses on an important issue, including homelessness, substance abuse and mental illness. The City, BHSB and BPD realize services can be provided more effectively through an integrated approach to service delivery. They are aware that individuals can struggle with multiple issues and can benefit from a comprehensive response that benefits their overall health and welfare. The City, BPD and BHSB have recognized that the Consent Decree presents a good opportunity to improve BPD’s supportive services, and they have now assigned CPIC to an important advisory role for all of BPD’s Crisis Intervention Programs. The City and BPD should be credited for their willingness to broaden CPIC’s role beyond what the Consent Decree explicitly prescribes.
The Monitoring Team finally notes that its team lead in this area, Randy Dupont, has accompanied BPD officers on several lengthy ride-alongs over the past several months. Dr. Dupont’s anecdotal observations have been encouraging. The officers he has accompanied have shown a willingness to support the goals of the Consent Decree. During the ride-alongs, these officers received a number of calls for service, including calls involving individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis. In difficult circumstances, the officers went the extra mile to help those individuals reach resolutions that did not involve criminal justice system outcomes. While there is much work left to do, BPD—at least anecdotally—appears headed in the right direction.
Challenges Ahead
CPIC, BPD, BHSB and the City must accomplish major tasks within a tight timeframe. These include finalizing the Work Plan, hiring an organization to perform the Gap Analysis, completing the Gap Analysis, developing a Crisis Intervention Plan and process for selecting CIT officers, and revising policies. It will be important to make sure that the tight timeframe does not overwhelm the need to fully include CPIC members in accomplishing of these tasks. The purpose of expanding CPIC, after all, was to bring a diverse set of experiences to the reform process.

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The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, the City, BPD and CPIC will finalize the Work Plan and prepare the Gap Analysis, with the first draft due in December. Additionally, BPD will prepare a Crisis Intervention Plan and establish a process for selecting CIT officers and ensuring that the CIT’s capacity is sufficient, at all times of the day and in all districts, for CIT officers to respond to incidents involving individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis. The Crisis Intervention Plan will adopt a CIT first-responder model of police-based crisis intervention with supportive community, health care, and advocacy partnerships. The Crisis Intervention Plan and CIT officer selection process will be finalized by November.
With CPIC’s input, BPD also will revise important policies. One policy will emphasize diversion of people with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis to the behavioral health system, rather than jail or a hospital emergency room (except when an emergency petition is filed, in which case an officer must take the individual to a hospital emergency room under current law). Another policy will contain revised protocols for dispatch employees so that they dispatch CIT officers to crisis calls requiring a police response and are otherwise prepared to refer to crisis services calls that relate to crises that do not necessitate police services.
Finally, BPD and CPIC will develop a Crisis Data Form designed to capture the information required to assess the quality of BPD’s interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis. The Crisis Data Form will be finalized by November.

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Interactions with Youth

The Consent Decree requires BPD to alter its approach to interacting with youth. The Consent Decree obligates BPD officers to account for the personal characteristics (age, size developmental/mental status, disability status and maturity) of youth they encounter and, where practicable, use alternatives to arrest (e.g., warn and release, counseling, referral to community services and resources; warnings; civil citations) in order to divert youth from the criminal justice system (CD 218). To accomplish this goal, the Consent Decree requires the City to conduct a comprehensive assessment of its efforts to reduce youth involvement in the juvenile and criminal justice systems (“Youth Assessment”) (CD 219), and requires BPD to revise its policies and training as needed, and conduct training, to properly guide officers in their interactions with youth (CD 220-21). The Consent Decree envisions that, in preparing the Youth Assessment, the City will obtain input from a collaborative consisting of City officials, BPD representatives and community stakeholders, including community organizations with experts in the field, academics and youth advocates (CD 219).
Under the First-Year Monitoring Plan, the Youth Assessment will begin in the summer and extend through the beginning of the 2018-19 school year, as the parties and the Monitoring Team want maximum participation and recognized that young people will be out of school and harder to reach during the summer. The report containing the results of the Assessment is due December 31. This timeline allows the City and its community partners sufficient time to complete a robust plan/timeline for the assessment process. The plan/timeline is scheduled to be finalized and filed with the Court by July 30. The assessment will begin thereafter.
Thus far, the City and BPD have made reasonable progress toward meeting the deadlines regarding the Youth Assessment in the First-Year Monitoring Plan. Without a complete assessment, much less revised policies and training curricula, it is premature to assess whether the City and BPD are making progress toward satisfying the long-term requirements of the Interactions with Youth section of the Consent Decree.
Youth Assessment
The City and BPD have begun to lay the groundwork for the Youth Assessment. In late March, the City and BPD hosted a meeting at the University of Baltimore Law School that was attended by over 40 individuals representing a myriad of youth-focused organizations and agencies. The purpose of the meeting was to begin convening community members with pertinent expertise for the purpose of

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initiating the Youth Assessment planning process. Led by the City and supported by BPD’s Consent Decree Implementation Unit, the meeting was well organized and garnered significant input from attendees.

Following the March meeting and subsequent dialog, the City, BPD and community stakeholders established two short-term goals: (1) determine an appropriate scope for the Youth Assessment and define what “diversion” means; and (2) complete a comprehensive draft of the Assessment plan/timeline due July 30. Consistent with these goals, the following actions are being taken:

• BPD and the City are identifying the appropriate data to be collected and evaluated for the Youth Assessment.

• The parties and community stakeholders have determined that the Youth Assessment will focus on diversion programs that tangibly demonstrate the diversion of youth in Baltimore. The identification of these programs will be informed by the formal definition of “diversion” developed by DOJ’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

• A scope of work has been created for the evaluation of one of the City’s diversion programs, the Juvenile Pre-Detention Diversion Program, which will be performed by Loyola University.

• BPD was selected to participate in the Center for Children’s Law and Policy’s Law Enforcement Leadership for Equity Initiative and, through its participation, will receive technical assistance with the Youth Assessment. The technical assistance will specifically address police interactions with youth through policy and training.

• The City and BPD have formed a partnership with the University of Maryland School of Social Work, which will conduct a literature review of best practices in youth diversion that will inform the Youth Assessment. The anticipated scope of work will be completed by the end of the summer.

• In addition to continuing to convene a large group of community stakeholders at periodic meetings, the City has formed an advisory body of committed stakeholders to advise on the Youth Assessment. To form the advisory body, the Mayor’s Office and BPD distributed an announcement seeking members representing system partners, community members, youth, families and community organizations. After receiving applications, the City and BPD made selections. The advisory body held its first meeting on June 19.

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Together with the projected support from Loyola University (assessment of the City’s Juvenile Pre-Trial Detention Diversion Program), University of Maryland (literature review) and Children’s Center for Law and Policy (technical assistance/training), the creation of the advisory group has positioned the City and BPD to properly perform the Youth Assessment and issue a report by the end of the year. That does not mean completion of the Assessment will be without challenges. The City and BPD must coordinate each of the above-described efforts to ensure that the Assessment accurately analyzes the qualitative and quantitative data and information that are being collected and develops meaningful recommendations based on that analysis.
Challenges Ahead
The Youth Assessment is only the first step in the reform process. The Assessment will inform how, going forward, the City and BPD should engage with youth to divert them from involvement in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. The challenge will be to take the findings and recommendations from the Assessment and adopt them in practice so that, where appropriate and consistent with public safety, officers exercise their discretion to utilize alternatives to arrest. In future years, the Monitoring Team—and BPD itself—will be measuring the success of the initiatives that arise from the Youth Assessment by conducting qualitative and quantitative outcome assessments (CD 459.i.) and compliance reviews.
Although it is far too early to draw any conclusions about the City’s and BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree’s Interactions with Youth provisions, the City and BPD, with their work to date, have demonstrated a meaningful commitment to assessing and improving the City’s youth diversion opportunities.

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Sexual Assault Investigations

The Consent Decree requires BPD to enhance the trust of victims of sexual assault in its performance, to strengthen its response to and investigations of reports of sexual assault, and to combat gender bias (CD 257). To achieve these goals, the Consent Decree requires BPD to: revise the policies and procedures for responding to and investigating reports of sexual assault (CD 258); provide initial and on-going annual training to support the revised policies and procedures (CD 259); ensure through proper supervision and internal oversight that reports of sexual assaults are thoroughly investigated (CD 260, 262, 263); ensure that officers transport victims to a medical facility for a forensic exam in all instances in which a forensic exam is warranted and the victim consents (CD 261); enhance its collection, analysis and reporting of data regarding the nature and extent of sexual assault crimes (CD 264); share information about its sexual assault investigations with other law enforcement agencies, the public, and the Sexual Assault Response Team (“SART”) (CD 265). The City and BPD will ensure that their policies and protocols with the SART will enable them to engage in periodic reviews of services provided by BPD and to review samples of open cases and those classified as unfounded (CD 266).

The First-Year Monitoring Plan focuses on the required revisions to BPD sexual assault investigation policies. Thus far, BPD has complied with each deadline and is making reasonable progress toward satisfying the requirements of Paragraph 258. It is too soon to assess whether BPD is making progress toward satisfying any other requirement.
Policy Revisions
BPD delivered an initial draft of revisions to Policy 708 on Rape and Sexual Assaults, as well as an outline of revisions to BPD’s standard operating procedures (SOPs) for sexual assault investigations in May. Significantly, BPD collaborated with the Monitoring Team even before producing the initial draft of Policy 708. The Monitoring Team lead on sexual assault investigations had numerous phone calls and exchanged numerous emails with BPD personnel regarding BPD’s existing policy and national best practices. In addition, the Monitoring Team and DOJ had a fruitful in-person meeting with BPD in late April to discuss necessary revisions. BPD’s decision to seek technical assistance on Policy 708 even before producing an initial draft demonstrates BPD’s good faith commitment to reforming its policies in this area.
Presently, the Monitoring Team and DOJ are collaborating with BPD to refine the initial draft of Policy 708, as well as the SOPs. The refinements are due to be

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completed by the end of July. BPD will publish a proposed final version of Policy 708 soon after. The public comment period runs from mid-August – mid-September. The final revisions will be submitted to the Court for approval at the beginning of November, after the Monitoring Team and the parties have an opportunity to consider any public comments.
As they refine Policy 708 and the SOPs, BPD’s policy staff are working closely with the Commander of the Sexual Assault Unit, as well as members of SART, to ensure that the unit’s operational structures accommodate the policy revisions.
Challenges Ahead
As in every area of the Consent Decree, revising sexual assault investigation policies and procedures is only the first step on the path to reform. The next step will be to develop and deliver revised training on those policies and procedures. That is slated to take place in Year Two. Then BPD will have to demonstrate that it is making tangible improvements in its investigative practices and, correspondingly, that patrol officers are complying with the new policies and SART supervisors are holding detectives accountable to them.
The Consent Decree contains a set of quantitative outcome assessments designed to measure whether the prescribed changes in sexual assault investigations are occurring (CD 459.k.). These assessments include the number of sexual assault reports made to BPD, the rate of victim participation in sexual assault investigations, the clearance rate in sexual assault cases, and the rate of declination of sexual assault cases referred to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Within the next six months, the Monitoring Team intends to begin making these quantitative assessments. It will also begin qualitative reviews of BPD’s sexual assault investigations. The Monitoring Team intends for the quantitative assessments and qualitative reviews to establish a baseline against which to assess BPD’s future performance. The quantitative assessments and qualitative reviews will, over time, show whether BPD is, in fact, improving the way it handles sexual assault investigations, as the Consent Decree envisions.

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Recruitment, Hiring and Retention

“Maintain[ing] high-level, quality service, ensur[ing] officer safety and accountability, and promot[ing] constitutional, effective policing” depends on the recruitment, hiring and retention of “a diverse group of qualified individuals.” (CD 419). While the Staffing provisions of the Consent Decree (discussed above) require BPD to fortify its ranks in order to fulfill its mission, the Recruitment, Hiring and Retention provisions of the Consent Decree complimentarily require BPD to do so the right way. The Recruitment, Hiring and Retention provisions thus obligate BPD to develop a detailed Recruitment Plan with “clear goals, objections and actions steps for attracting a retaining a quality work force that reflect the diversity of the Baltimore Community” (CD 420-422); conduct an in-depth review of BPD’s current hiring processes (CD 423); include specific criteria in its background investigation of officer candidates (CD 424-425); create a Retention Plan to “identify challenges and recommend solutions to improve BPD’s retention of employees” (CD 426); and conduct internal annual assessments of its recruitment and retention practices (CD 427).
Improving BPD’s performance in the recruitment, hiring and retention of highquality personnel is an inherently long-term undertaking. The First-Year Monitoring Plan focuses on the initial steps: reviewing current hiring and background investigation processes (CD 423) and issuing a hiring report resulting from that review.

It is too soon to assess whether BPD is making progress toward meeting this first-year objective, much less the longer-range goals in the Recruitment, Hiring and Retention provisions of the Consent Decree. However, BPD has begun the process of reviewing its hiring practices in earnest. Since April, consistent with the First-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team have participated in regularly scheduled, bi-weekly meetings regarding the completion of the review of BPD’s hiring processes. These meetings have included discussions of State hiring criteria, Civil Service Commission procedures, and “whether any process, criterion, or requirement [has] had a disparate impact” on candidates based on their race, ethnicity, color, national origin, age, gender, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, disability status, religion, or language ability (CD 423). Additionally, the discussions have covered the processes and policies for background investigations of officer candidates, as well as the retention of a potential vendor to assist with the administration of background checks and written exams.
In the next reporting period, the Monitoring Team, DOJ and BPD will continue to meet to ensure that BPD's review of current hiring processes, including but not limited to background investigation procedures, is robust and satisfies Consent

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Decree requirements. In addition, by mid-August, following completion of the review, BPD will prepare and submit to the Monitoring Team and DOJ a draft report summarizing the review. The report will outline the current hiring process, criteria and requirements; analyze whether the current process, criteria and requirements that may have a disparate impact on candidates on prohibited bases (such as race, national origin, disability status or gender); assess whether alternative selection criteria would have less of a disparate impact; and include a timeline for establishing the background investigation requirements of Paragraphs 424-425. BPD will collaborate with the Monitoring Team and DOJ on the draft report through midOctober and submit a final report for approval by November 12. The Monitoring Team will approve or disapprove the final report by December 10.

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Officer Assistance and Support
Under the Consent Decree, BPD must take several important measures to support the health and wellness of its officers. The Consent Decree requires BPD to: provide, review and revise, as needed, an Employee Assistance Plan (“EAP”) that furnishes no- or low-cost counseling and mental health wellness services (CD 436437); develop peer support services (CD 438); offer all officers a voluntary mental health evaluation before returning to duty after a traumatic incident (CD 439); develop well-being protocols to be utilized during officer deployments in periods of civil unrest (CD 440); and develop protocols for annually assessing the efficacy of all of BPD’s officer assistance programs (CD 441).
The First-Year Monitoring Plan requires BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team to begin holding regular meetings or informal focus groups with sworn personnel from across the Department (by rank and geographic assignment) to address available officers wellness resources. Further, the First-Year Monitoring Plan requires BPD to review and, if needed, refine both its EAP (CD 436-427) and its traumatic and highstress incident protocols (CD 439-440).
Thus far, BPD has complied with the deadlines in the First-Year Monitoring Plan and has made reasonable progress toward satisfying the EAP and traumatic and high-stress incident protocol requirements of the Consent Decree. It is too early to gauge whether BPD is making progress toward satisfying the other Officer Assistance and Support provisions.
Focus Groups
In consultation with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD has convened a number of informal focus groups with sworn personnel from across the Department. The focus groups have been separately comprised of rank and file officers and supervisors. The focus groups have discussed currently-available officer wellness resources generally, as well as potentially useful protocols and resources for officers following traumatic incidents and during public demonstrations or periods of civil unrest. The Monitoring Team has observed these focus groups and found them to be informative and productive.
BPD intends to continue to use the focus groups to confirm the adequacy of existing programs, obtain additional feedback, and ensure that new or revamped wellness initiatives are both utilized and effective.

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Employee Assistance Plan
As the First-Year Monitoring Plan requires, BPD produced draft protocols for complying with the EAP requirements of the Consent Decree (CD 436-437) in midMay. Since then, BPD has collaborated with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to refine the protocols. BPD will issue for public comment a final proposed version of the protocols on July 19. The comment period runs through August 15. BPD will submit the final protocols to the Monitoring Team and DOJ for approval by August 31. The Monitoring Team will approve or disapprove the protocols by October 16.
Traumatic and High-Stress Incident Protocols
BPD delivered to the Monitoring Team and DOJ initial drafts of both traumatic incident and high-stress incident protocols on May 15. Since then, BPD has collaborated with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to revise those protocols. BPD will issue for public comment a final proposed version of the protocols on July 19. The comment period runs through August 15. BPD will submit the final protocols to the Monitoring Team and DOJ for approval by August 31. The Monitoring Team will approve or disapprove the protocols by October 9.

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Community Policing

One of the overarching goals of the Consent Decree is the adoption of a community-oriented model of policing. To accomplish this goal, the Consent Decree imposes on BPD a number of specific requirements intended to affect the way BPD officers interact with community members when taking law enforcement action—e.g., when making stops, searches and arrests, when using force, when monitoring First Amendment assemblies, when dealing with youth and individuals in crisis, etc.
The Consent Decree begins, however, with certain broad requirements intended to promote community-oriented policing. It requires issuance of a new mission statement and integration of community-oriented principles into BPD “management, policies and procedures, recruitment, training, personnel evaluations, resource deployment, tactics, and accountability systems” (CD 15). The Consent Decree further outlines the kind of community policing training BPD officers must receive (CD 16-17), as well as the data BPD should collect (CD 18). Moreover, the Consent Decree requires the City and BPD to develop community engagement plans (CD 19), to obtain input from community groups on policies, practices, training, engagement programs and enforcement strategies (CD 20), to develop a community outreach program to educate and communicate with City residents about the Consent Decree (CD 21), to publish annual reports on BPD’s community policing efforts (CD 22), and to use the results of community surveys to inform policies, training, and practices (CD 25).

BPD has satisfied the mission statement requirement in Paragraph 15. The Monitoring Team cannot yet assess BPD’s progress toward compliance with any of the other requirements—though it should be noted that, in its effort to comply with Paragraph 21, BPD and the City have appropriately initiated community meetings intended to communicate with community members in each police district about the First-Year Monitoring Plan and the Consent Decree. BPD began attending or holding meetings about the Consent Decree before the Monitoring Team’s appointment.
Mission/Core Values Statement
BPD complied with the First-Year Monitoring Plan deadline for submitting a revised mission statement to the Monitoring Team and DOJ in February. The Monitoring Team and DOJ worked with BPD to refine the draft statement over the next month. It was determined that the mission statement was appropriately concise, but that it required elaboration in a more detailed statement of “core values” that should reflect BPD’s firm commitment to community-oriented policing. BPD subsequently supplemented the draft mission statement with the recommended

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statement of core values, and the Monitoring Team and DOJ again collaborated with BPD on refinements. Consistent with the Monitoring Plan, BPD issued for public comment a final proposed statement of mission and core values in May. The public comment period ran from May 16 – June 15. On July 6, following the comment period and BPD’s provision of the final statement to the Monitoring Team and DOJ, the Monitoring Team approved the statement in a memorandum filed with the Court. See ECF No. 119.
The Monitoring Team commends BPD for drafting, refining and adopting a statement that properly reinforces its devotion to constitutional, community-oriented policing. The imperative now is to ensure that officers embrace the ideals contained in the statement.
Challenges Ahead

BPD’s next obligation under the First-Year Monitoring Plan is to develop a Community Policing Plan. The Plan will be the foundation for BPD’s community policing strategy. It should include milestones, deadlines for achieving them, and sub-deadlines for each measure required to achieve them, and it should set forth indicators for assessing performance. Developing the Community Policing Plan will require forward-thinking and consultation with community policing experts, including those who are members of the Monitoring Team and consultants for DOJ. The Monitoring Team thus far has recommended that, among other things, BPD create Action Plans that identify problems to be addressed, determine strategies for resolving them, and establish metrics for progress made.
Creating a viable, sustainable Community Policing Plan will not be easy. The success of a community-oriented policing strategy depends on having a sufficient number of qualified, committed patrol officers. At present, as explained in the Staffing section above, there are an insufficient number of sworn officers assigned to the Patrol Division, and morale among those currently assigned is generally low, due in part to the fact they are regularly required, or “drafted,” to work double shifts and extended hours.
The Next Six Months
The first draft of the Community Policing Plan is due September 10. From that date until the end of November, the Monitoring Team and the parties will receive initial public feedback and work with one another to refine the Plan. BPD will issue for public comment a final proposed Plan on December 17. Following the public comment period, which ends January 18, 2019, BPD will prepare and submit to the

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Monitoring Team and DOJ a final Plan. The Monitoring Team will approve or disapprove the Plan by March 1, 2019. If approved, BPD will begin implementing it.
Under the First-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD also will issue its first Community Policing Report (CD 22). By December 24, after conferring with the Monitoring Team and DOJ regarding draft of the Report, BPD will publicly issue the final Report and file it with the Court.

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Outcome Assessments

As explained at the outset, a primary duty of the Monitoring Team is to ensure that BPD and the City implement all of the reforms that the foregoing sections of this report describe. The Consent Decree’s requirements cannot exist merely on paper— in policies, training curriculum and public statements. Instead, change must be baked into BPD’s practices—to be seen, felt, and experienced over time by Baltimore’s diverse communities.
The Consent Decree requires the Monitoring Team to evaluate BPD’s progress in real-time. The Monitoring Team is continually assessing and appraising BPD’s reform initiatives. Before new policies, training curricula, procedures or programs can be implemented, they first go through the Monitoring Team, as well as DOJ. Therefore, while this section addresses the critical long-range assessments the Monitoring Team must undertake, the task of assessing where BPD is on the path to compliance and in its efforts to deliver more effective and equitable policing services has been underway since the Monitoring Team was appointed.
The Consent Decree requires the Monitor to conduct two types of interrelated performance assessments. The first are “compliance reviews.” They are conducted “to determine compliance with the Material Requirements of this Agreement” (CD 454)—that is, to identify whether BPD has satisfied each requirement over time, Department-wide, and in the vast majority of cases or incidents. These assessments are aimed at understanding whether the particular reforms required by the Consent Decree have been successfully implemented not just in theory but in practice. The assessments can be narrowly focused on concrete short-term requirements—e.g., whether BPD implemented a revised policy, training curriculum or procedure. Or they can focus on broader long-term requirements—e.g., whether BPD officers are generally stopping individuals based on reasonable suspicion, de-escalating civilian encounters and using force only when reasonably necessary, or properly investigating complaints of sexual assault.

The second type of assessment is an “outcome assessment.” An outcome assessment is conducted to determine “whether BPD’s revised practices and procedures are achieving the purposes of this Agreement and are having an overall beneficial effect on policing in Baltimore” (CD 459). While compliance reviews are geared toward understanding whether BPD and City are really doing the things they promised they would do, outcome assessments attempt to gauge whether various indicators of constitutional policing are moving in the right direction. Paragraph 459 of the Decree inventories a number of specific outcome assessments that the Monitoring Team must perform.

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There is inevitable overlap between compliance reviews and outcome assessments. In fact, the outcome assessments required by Paragraph 459 are part of the broader compliance reviews required for each area of the Consent Decree. For example, one required “outcome assessment” is an analysis of civilian complaints about use of force (CD 459.d(ii)). Yet the required analysis of such complaints will necessarily inform a compliance review about whether, as the Use of Force provisions of the Consent Decree require, BPD is ensuring that its officers use de-escalation techniques, avoid using force, and use force only when reasonably necessary.
Between broader compliance reviews and narrower outcome assessments, the Monitoring Team will be engaged in the upcoming months in an effort to establish BPD’s current performance in central areas of the Consent Decree so that it can begin to measure BPD’s progress over time.
Progress to Date
Over the past several months, the Monitoring Team has engaged in collaborative, productive discussions with BPD and DOJ on whether, given the state of BPD’s data, the Monitoring Team will be able to conduct general, comprehensive assessments—“baseline” assessments—of BPD’s current performance so that the Monitoring Team can begin to measure progress over time. Mindful that establishing a baseline is necessary in a host of areas, these discussions have focused on the assessments the Monitoring Team can realistically conduct in the remainder of the first year of monitoring. The Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ have thus addressed whether, in various areas, there exists data or documentation of sufficient reliability and quality to permit the necessary analysis or review. BPD and DOJ have worked with the Monitoring Team collaboratively and intensively, and the Monitoring Team is pleased that progress has been made.
The Monitoring Team provided the Court and the community with a finalized plan for conducting a host of assessments during the remainder of the monitoring year on July 9. Under the plan, the Monitoring Team will conduct compliance reviews in four areas: use of force; stops, searches and arrests; misconduct investigations; and sexual assault investigations. In each area, the Monitoring Team will conduct the reviews in order to establish a baseline, not because it expects BPD to be in compliance with Consent Decree requirements. The inquiries will serve to establish a benchmark against which to measure future performance, especially once the new policies and training programs required by the Consent Decree are firmly in place. The assessments, therefore, will tell the Court and the community where BPD is starting, but will not provide any definitive evidence of compliance or non-compliance.

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In addition to these compliance reviews, the Monitoring Team also will perform a number of specific outcome assessments required in Paragraph 459. Some require quantitative analysis of data that BPD collects. Others require a more qualitative analysis of BPD performance.
Challenges Ahead
As explained elsewhere in this report, a primary challenge with outcome assessments is ensuring the availability of reliable, comprehensive, high-quality data about the performance of BPD and its officers. For certain assessments, such as those addressing stops, searches and arrests, BPD does not have a reliable system for capturing or aggregating all of the Consent-Decree-required data. Although the Monitoring Team will likely be using a sampling process to try to construct a database for purposes of establishing a baseline, successfully measuring outcomes over time will require a high-functioning database with comprehensive information about stops, searches and arrests.
In other areas where data exists and is accessible, the data require substantial cleaning, sorting and synthesis to make it usable for analytical purposes. In the initial years, as the Consent Decree requires, the Monitoring Team will take the lead on making captured data usable and on conducting the required analyses. The challenge going forward will be to revamp BPD’s databases so that, down the road, BPD will be able to access data readily and conduct the analyses itself.

The lack of reliable data will make completion of certain outcome assessments less feasible during the first year. This may mean that, in some areas, establishing baselines in this first year of monitoring will not be possible. The challenge in these areas will be ensuring that BPD makes sufficient progress in collecting the necessary data and enhancing its IT capacities so that the Monitoring Team will be able to perform assessments and establish baselines sooner rather than later.
The Next Six Months
In its July 9 filing with the Court, the Monitoring Team has identified the various assessments it will conduct. Over the remainder of the first year of monitoring, the Monitoring Team will work collaboratively with the parties to establish a specific methodology for each assessment, conduct the assessments independently, provide the results to the parties for discussion and comment, and ultimately report the results to the Court and the community. Therefore, at regular junctures through the early part of 2019, the Monitoring Team will report BPD’s starting point—or baseline—for many of the requirements of the Consent Decree.

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 Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 178 Filed 01/18/19 Page 1 of 2

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND

UNITED STATES

*

OF AMERICA,

*

Plaintiff,

*

v.

*

BALTIMORE POLICE

DEPARTMENT, et al.,

*

CIVIL NO. JKB-17-0099

Defendants.

*

SUBMISSION OF MONITORING TEAM’S SECOND SEMIANNUAL REPORT
Under the Updated First-Year Monitoring Plan (“Monitoring Plan”), the Baltimore Police
Department Monitoring Team (“Monitoring Team”) hereby submits its Second Semiannual Report
(“Report”). See ECF No. 138-1, Row 133 (approved in ECF No. 139 and modified in ECF Nos.
147 & 165). The Report is attached as Exhibit 1.
As the Monitoring Plan provides, the Monitoring Team will hold its next quarterly
community meeting to discuss the contents of the Report on January 22, at 6:00 pm. at Edgewood
Lyndhurst Recreation Center, 835 Allendale Street, Baltimore, MD 21229. See id., Row 134.
Additionally, on January 24, the Court will hold its next quarterly hearing, which will be devoted
in part to discussing the contents of the Report. See id., Row 135.
Respectfully submitted,
___________/s/_______________ Kenneth Thompson, Monitor Seth Rosenthal, Deputy Monitor VENABLE LLP 750 E. Pratt Street Baltimore, MD 21202 Ken.thompson@bpdmonitor.com Seth.Rosenthal@bpdmonitor.com (410) 244-7400

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I hereby certify that on January 18, 2019, copies of the foregoing Submission of Monitoring Team’s Second Semiannual Report were served via the Court’s ECF system upon all counsel of record.
__________/s/___________ Seth Rosenthal

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EXHIBIT 1

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BALTIMORE CONSENT DECREE MONITORING TEAM
SECOND SEMIANNUAL REPORT
January 18, 2019
Venable LLP and 21CP Solutions LLC
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page
OVERVIEW ..................................................................................................................ii INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................... 6 SUMMARY OF MONITORING TEAM ACTIVITIES .......................................... 16 FINDINGS .................................................................................................................. 30
Misconduct Investigations and Discipline............................................................... 32 Technology ................................................................................................................ 39 Staffing, Performance Evaluations and Promotions............................................... 43 Stops, Searches, Arrests and Voluntary Police-Community Interactions ............. 54 Impartial Policing..................................................................................................... 59 Use of Force .............................................................................................................. 62 Transportation of Persons in Custody ..................................................................... 67 First Amendment-Protected Activities.................................................................... 70 Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in
Crisis................................................................................................................... 74 Interactions with Youth ........................................................................................... 79 Sexual Assault Investigations.................................................................................. 82 Recruitment, Hiring and Retention......................................................................... 85 Officer Assistance and Support................................................................................ 88 Community Policing ................................................................................................. 91
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OVERVIEW
SECOND SEMIANNUAL REPORT – JAN. 18, 2019
THE MONITORING TEAM’S ACTIVITIES • Assessed and provided technical assistance on numerous policy revisions • Assessed and provided technical assistance on training plans and training curricula • Assessed and provided technical assistance on plans and tools for collecting data on use of force, interactions with individuals in crisis, and stops, searches and arrests • Assessed studies and/or plans on staffing, technology, crisis intervention, and youth interactions • Began work on community and custodial arrestee surveys • Performed diagnostic reviews of BPD inspections of transport vehicles and transport events, BPD documentation of investigative pedestrian and vehicle stops, certain OPR internal investigations, and BPD Brady/Giglio disclosure practices • Developed instruments for assessing use of force incidents, internal investigations, sexual assault investigations, and First Amendment-involved incidents • Met with community stakeholders and received community input on draft policies • Deployed a team of neighborhood liaisons • Held officer focus groups, went on ride-alongs, and attended training • Updated the First-Year Monitoring Plan and drafted a Second-Year Monitoring Plan
THE MONITORING TEAM’S FINDINGS • BPD and City leadership show commitment to broad institutional reform • BPD’s capacity for broad institutional reform remains unproven and uncertain • BPD successfully revised numerous key policies • BPD prepared a valuable technology resource plan, staffing study and hiring study • BPD and the City are establishing a good foundation for improving police interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis • BPD needs a permanent Commissioner to initiate genuine culture change • Though making incremental progress, OPR continues to require overhaul • Training initiatives slated for Year Two present implementation challenges, including meeting the Academy’s pressing need for additional qualified instructors • The long-term technology and staffing challenges detailed in the first report remain unchanged: BPD’s IT systems are outdated and ineffectual, and BPD suffers from staffing shortages, especially in Patrol, OPR and the Academy
THE NEXT SIX MONTHS • BPD will prepare and deliver newly-designed training on policies addressing use of force, fair and impartial policing, and body-worn cameras • BPD will also prepare newly-designed training on stops, searches and arrests and additional aspects of fair and impartial policing, to be delivered later in the year • BPD will revise most additional policies requiring revision • BPD and the City will complete diagnostic studies on the City’s behavioral health system and youth diversion programs • BPD will prepare Community Policing and Staffing Plans • BPD will establish a timetable for revamping its IT systems

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The Consent Decree

INTRODUCTION

In May 2015, the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) initiated an investigation of the Baltimore Police Department (“BPD”). The investigation, completed in 2016, found that BPD was engaged in a pattern-or-practice of constitutional violations, including using excessive force, infringing on the First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly, and stopping, searching, and arresting people without probable cause and based on their race. After making these findings, DOJ entered into negotiations with BPD and the City in an effort to settle the parties’ differences. BPD and the City did not admit DOJ’s allegations, but they recognized that the allegations raised long-standing issues of considerable importance to City residents. As a result, BPD and the City agreed to resolve DOJ’s allegations through a Consent Decree. The Consent Decree is a courtapproved settlement agreement between DOJ, the City and BPD. United States District Court Judge James K. Bredar is the judge who approved the Consent Decree. Judge Bredar now oversees the Consent Decree’s implementation. Because the Consent Decree is a court order, Judge Bredar has the power to enforce its provisions and ensure that BPD and the City do what it requires.

The Consent Decree obligates BPD and the City to adopt a comprehensive set of reforms designed to promote fair and constitutional policing, rebuild BPD’s relationships with Baltimore’s communities, and ensure public safety. The Consent Decree prescribes corrective action in a number of areas, including: community engagement; community policing; stops, searches, arrests, and voluntary policecommunity interactions; impartial policing; interacting with people with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis; use of force; interactions with youth; transportation of persons in custody; First Amendment protected activities; handling of reports of sexual assault; technology; supervision; misconduct investigations and discipline; coordination with Baltimore City School Police; recruitment, hiring, and retention; staffing, performance evaluations, and promotions; and officer assistance and support.

The Consent Decree, in short, requires transformational institutional change. BPD will achieve compliance with the Consent Decree and free itself from Court oversight when it demonstrates not only that it has successfully implemented all of the required foundational improvements required in policies, training, technology and operations, but that those improvements have translated, measurably and sustainably, into constitutional, community-oriented policing.

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Achieving transformational change in a large police department does not happen overnight. As the Consent Decree envisions, it takes time, and it requires adherence to a rigorous, methodical reform process. In each area of the Consent Decree that addresses how officers discharge their duties (e.g., stops/searches/arrests, use of force, and transportation of persons in custody, to name a few), BPD first must draft and adopt revised policies. Then BPD must develop and conduct training on those revised policies. At the same time, to ensure that the new policies and the new training take root, BPD must revamp vital components of its infrastructure. For instance, BPD must overhaul its technology to become a modern, data-driven, efficient police force, must fortify its system of internal investigations and discipline to enhance officer accountability, must improve the training and supervision of rankand-file officers to ensure lawful, effective job performance, and must increase the number of qualified patrol officers to promote community-oriented policing. It is only after officers have been trained on the new policies, and after infrastructure upgrades are well underway, that community members can expect to see sustained, tangible changes in the conduct of BPD officers. The Consent Decree contemplates that this process will take several years or more.
The Monitoring Team
On October 3, 2017, Judge Bredar appointed a Monitoring Team to assist him in overseeing implementation of the Consent Decree. The Monitoring Team consists of a lead monitor, Kenneth Thompson, and a team of experts in policing and police reform, civil rights enforcement, psychology, social science, organizational change, data and technology, and community engagement. Serving as an agent of the Court, the Monitoring Team plays three principal roles: arbiter, technical advisor, and facilitator. As arbiter, the Monitoring Team oversees the day-to-day efforts of BPD and the City to comply with the reforms the Consent Decree requires. The Monitoring Team reviews, provides feedback on, and ultimately recommends Court approval or disapproval of the changes BPD makes in its policies, its training and, ultimately, its policing practices. As technical advisor, the Monitoring Team draws upon decades of collective experience to provide BPD with technical assistance, including advice about national best practices, to help guide BPD toward satisfying the requirements of the Consent Decree. As facilitator, the Monitoring Team seeks to ensure that all stakeholders from within BPD and across Baltimore’s diverse communities have the opportunity to participate in the reform process. (CD 442).1

1 All citations to a specific paragraph of the Consent Decree follow the text that relies on that paragraph and appears in parentheses containing “CD” and the number of the cited paragraph. Thus, the citation above, which is to Paragraph 442 of the Consent Decree, follows the relied-on provision of Paragraph 442 and appears as “(CD 442).”

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While the work of the Monitoring Team is key to the successful implementation of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team’s authority is limited. The Consent Decree expressly provides that “the Monitor will only have the duties, responsibilities, and authority conferred by [the Consent Decree]. The Monitor will not, and is not intended to, replace or assume the role and the duties of the City or BPD, or any duties of any City or BPD employee…” (CD 445). The Monitoring Team is, therefore, restricted to what the Consent Decree authorizes. It does not have the power or the ability to weigh in on all police-related matters. For instance, although the Monitoring Team assesses compliance with mandated reforms in the investigation and discipline of BPD officer misconduct, the Monitoring Team cannot bring, determine whether to bring, or recommend criminal charges against police officers accused of wrongdoing in specific cases. It is not a substitute for local or federal prosecutors. Likewise, the Monitoring Team cannot intervene in employment or disciplinary matters within BPD. It does not conduct independent investigations of allegations of misconduct by BPD officers or make employment or disciplinary recommendations or decisions affecting BPD officers. What the Monitoring Team does is assess whether BPD administers its disciplinary process—from intake to investigation to outcomes—consistent with the requirements of the Consent Decree. Under the terms of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team’s job is to assess BPD’s conduct, not direct it.
It should also be noted that the Court and the Monitoring Team are not alone in overseeing BPD’s implementation of the requirements of the Consent Decree. DOJ continues to play an active role. As the plaintiff in the lawsuit that produced the Consent Decree, DOJ retains the right to enforce the Consent Decree when BPD fails to comply with its terms. Accordingly, like the Monitoring Team, DOJ is assessing BPD’s progress toward compliance and will let the Monitoring Team and the Court know when it believes BPD is making progress and when BPD is not. In addition, like the Monitoring Team, DOJ provides technical assistance to BPD as BPD works toward compliance. The reform process under the Consent Decree thus involves three fully-engaged entities: BPD, the Monitoring Team/the Court, and DOJ.
This Report
One of the essential duties of the Monitoring Team is to issue semi-annual public reports that inform the Court and the community about the progress BPD is making toward compliance with the Consent Decree’s requirements. The reports explain: (1) which compliance measures BPD has taken in the preceding six months; (2) whether those measures demonstrate compliance, substantial progress toward compliance, reasonable progress toward compliance, or non-compliance with Consent

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Decree requirements; (3) what challenges BPD will continue to face as it strives to achieve compliance; and (4) what to expect from BPD in the next reporting period.
This document is the Monitoring Team’s second semi-annual report. The first report was filed in July 2018. See ECF No. 126-1. When reading this report, keep in mind what is explained above: achieving transformational change in a large police department takes years, not months, and requires adherence to a rigorous process for reform. Also keep in mind that the reform process began in earnest only eleven months ago, with the Court’s approval of the First-Year Monitoring Plan, a detailed, structured blueprint for the initial year of reform. See ECF No. 91-1 (initial FirstYear Monitoring Plan), as modified by ECF Nos. 112, 124 & 125, and ECF No. 138-1 (Updated First-Year Monitoring Plan), as modified by ECF Nos. 147 & 165. Thus, BPD has not yet had substantial time to make significant progress toward lasting change. The First-Year Monitoring Plan implicitly acknowledges that not every Consent Decree requirement can be or will be addressed, much less met, in the first year. BPD, its officers and community members need sufficient time and opportunity to focus on each area of the Consent Decree, and on each requirement within each area, to ensure that reform is real and enduring. Change that is rushed, haphazard and superficial is not sustainable and does not qualify as true reform.
For these reasons, this report will not address BPD’s progress on each and every one of the Consent Decree’s requirements. For the many of those requirements, BPD has neither satisfied them, made reasonable progress toward satisfying them, nor failed to satisfy them. Rather, it is still getting started.
Indeed, while BPD has worked diligently to revise key policies and practices, initiate development of new training curriculum, and complete critical studies on technology and staffing, it is still completing even these initial, foundational steps. To use an analogy: if the Consent Decree requires BPD to rebuild a house from the ground up, BPD is just beginning to lay the foundation for the new house; it has not yet finished the foundation, much less started construction. For instance, BPD has not yet trained officers on the policies that have successfully undergone revision, and it has not revamped its IT systems so that they are capable of storing and aggregating the data necessary for comprehensive evaluation of the integrity of BPD’s law enforcement actions. Therefore, the Monitoring Team remains a long way from being able to comprehensively assess whether BPD officers are consistently and sustainably engaged in constitutional, community-oriented policing.
That is not to say that the Monitoring Team has not been examining the conduct of BPD officers on the street, or determining how to measure whether BPD is making tangible improvements in its performance. As the First-Year Monitoring

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Plan prescribes, the Monitoring Team has been working with BPD and DOJ to identify which indicators of constitutional policing can be evaluated now, given the current state of BPD’s data, and for the indicators that can be evaluated, the Monitoring Team is developing methodologies to assess them. These preliminary assessments are designed to establish “baselines” for evaluating BPD’s future progress toward compliance, as BPD begins to implement reforms in training, policies and operations.
Rather than inventorying BPD’s efforts to satisfy each and every one of the Consent Decree’s separate provisions, this report assesses BPD’s progress toward satisfying the provisions that the First-Year Monitoring Plan requires BPD to address. In addition, this report gauges BPD’s current position along the long arc of compliance in each area of the Consent Decree and identifies the challenges BPD will have to overcome to make meaningful progress toward compliance in each area. In this way, the report implicitly demonstrates that, although crucial, BPD’s nascent work to satisfy the Consent Decree’s foundational requirements—revising policies, conducting studies, preparing plans, drafting training curricula, performing audits, implementing officer assistance programs—is only part of the compliance equation. Full compliance will not be achieved until, in practice, those reforms result in policing that is community-oriented, accountable and constitutional.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For the past six months, BPD and the City have been working to fulfill the requirements of the First-Year Monitoring Plan. Approved by the Court in February 2018, see ECF No. 91-1 (as modified by ECF Nos. 112, 124 & 125), and updated in September 2018, see ECF No. 138-1 (as modified by ECF Nos. 147 & 165), the FirstYear Monitoring Plan is a detailed roadmap for the progress BPD is expected to make during the first year of monitoring, which runs from February 16, 2018 through February 15, 2019. The Plan identifies and establishes dozens of deadlines for Consent Decree “deliverables.” Because the Plan covers only the first year, it naturally focuses on the front-end of the reform process: policy revision, training curriculum development, and studies and action plans for improving technology, data collection, staffing, and interactions with people with behavioral health disabilities.
Over the past six months, BPD and the City have complied with most of the deadlines in the First-Year Monitoring Plan. Due to capacity issues at BPD, the delay in confirming a permanent Commissioner, the need for additional time for collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, or some combination of these reasons, a small number of deadlines had to be extended. BPD and the City nevertheless met, or are currently on track to meet, the revised deadlines.
As evidenced by their good faith efforts to meet Monitoring Plan deadlines, BPD and the City—particularly personnel from BPD’s Consent Decree Implementation Unit and the City’s Law Department—are working conscientiously toward reform. They are not simply going through the motions. Nor are they running to stand still. They are, in fact, moving forward. The Monitoring Team thus concludes that BPD and the City continue to make reasonable progress toward satisfying the early-stage requirements of the Consent Decree, including in some of the areas most in need of transformative change, such as misconduct investigations/discipline and technology.
Nevertheless, it is still far too early to assess BPD’s progress toward satisfying the vast majority of the Consent Decree’s requirements or to predict whether or when BPD will achieve effective and substantial compliance with any section of the Consent Decree. That stands to reason: the First-Year Monitoring Plan requires BPD and the City to begin work toward certain foundational Consent Decree requirements, but it leaves the rest of the requirements for future years. BPD and the City have finalized revisions to a number of policies and have completed, or are in the process of completing, studies and implementation plans covering technology and staffing. But BPD and the City have not even begun, much less completed, work on numerous other requirements. BPD has not yet trained its officers on the revised policies or

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made needed improvements in its Training Academy. Nor has BPD implemented new IT systems or a new IT governance structure (which likely will take at least another two years), increased the number of qualified officers, particularly in Patrol, the Training Academy, and the Office of Professional Responsibility (“OPR”), improved the overall quality of OPR operations and investigations, implemented reforms for supervisors, or overhauled its systems for reporting, collecting and maintaining data so as to facilitate effective supervision, meaningful discipline, and useful analysis of Department trends in key areas of the Consent Decree, including stops, searches, arrests, and uses of force.
Because of the vital work BPD still must do—work that will require considerable time and effort—it remains unclear, at this point, whether BPD will have the capacity to achieve compliance with all of the Consent Decree’s provisions. The questions the Monitoring Team asked in its first report are as relevant today as they were six months ago, perhaps even more so given the City’s continuing inability to put in place a permanent Police Commissioner:
Will [BPD] be able to purchase, design and effectively utilize modern policing technology? Can it develop a robust system of supervision and officer accountability? Will it be able to hire and retain enough qualified patrol officers to fulfill the Consent Decree’s community-oriented policing goals and maintain the morale of a Patrol Division that is currently overworked and stretched thin? These are open questions right now and, with [only eleven months] of active monitoring completed, the Monitoring Team cannot say what the answers are likely to be. What the first [eleven] months of monitoring have revealed is that, despite BPD’s hard work, the challenges ahead are daunting.
The following summary describes BPD’s noteworthy achievements so far, as well as noteworthy challenges ahead. It does not cover all achievements to date or all challenges ahead. Rather, it is a short recap of what the Monitoring Team views as the key achievements and key challenges at this preliminary stage in the reform process. The body of this report provides more detailed treatment of these and many other achievements and challenges.
Notable Achievements to Date
Policy Revisions
Since the beginning of the first year of monitoring, BPD has made considerable progress on revising its policies in a number of areas of the Consent Decree, including:

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• Use of force • Stop, searches, arrests and voluntary police-community interactions • Impartial policing • First Amendment-protected activities • Body-worn camera • Misconduct investigations • Transportation of persons in custody • Sexual assault investigations • Officer assistance and support
These policies are clearer, better organized and more comprehensive than the policies they are replacing. They are the product of intensive collaboration among BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team. Importantly, the revised policies also reflect substantial input from both community stakeholders and BPD officers, who, under the First-Year Monitoring Plan, have been given an opportunity to provide their feedback on each policy before it was finalized. BPD’s Best Practices Unit deserves considerable credit for the difficult, time-consuming work they have done, under often tight deadlines, to produce revisions that comply with Consent Decree requirements and are responsive to community and officer input.
As the Court and the Monitoring Team have observed, rewriting policies could be characterized as the “easy” part of Consent Decree compliance. After all, revising policies only requires making changes on paper. It will take time to convert those changes on paper into changes in practice. Nevertheless, clear, comprehensive policies are essential to the reform process. Policies reflect core Departmental values. They inform officers what must be done to police safely, effectively and constitutionally. They provide the basis for officer training, which is the next step in the reform process. And they establish the rules for holding officers accountable for proper conduct and for imposing discipline when officers engage in misconduct. Although strong new policies will not, by themselves, spawn the change in culture that the Consent Decree envisions, they are indispensable building blocks for reform.
Foundational Studies and Plans
In the past six months, the First-Year Monitoring Plan has required BPD to: (1) complete a comprehensive Technology Resource Plan, which builds on the Technology Resource Study performed during the prior reporting period and establishes a detailed framework for revamping BPD’s IT systems and IT governance; (2) complete a comprehensive Staffing Study to identify BPD’s staffing needs; (3) commence a detailed evaluation of gaps in the City’s behavioral health system that

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need to be filled to achieve the Consent Decree’s goal of “promot[ing] connection of people with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis to the behavioral health system, and decreas[ing] inappropriate criminal justice involvement for people with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis” (CD 96) (“Gap Analysis”); and (4) commence a detailed study of City programs designed to divert youth from the criminal justice system (“Youth Assessment”). These efforts are intended lay the groundwork for necessary, Consent Decree-mandated reforms in technology, staffing, BPD interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, and BPD interactions with youth. These efforts are vital because they are foundational: without obtaining a comprehensive understanding of BPD’s and the City’s deficiencies in each of these areas, and without formulating thoughtful, methodical plans for improvement, BPD will not be able to achieve Consent Decree objectives.
Following from the Technology Resource Study finalized in June 2018, see ECF No. 116, BPD prepared and finalized the Technology Resource Plan this past fall in partnership with Gartner Consulting. The Monitoring Team approved the Plan and filed it with the Court at the beginning of December 2018. See ECF No. 164. The Plan is thorough. It identifies BPD’s IT system needs (e.g., Records Management System, staffing systems), as well as foundational IT business and management needs, and includes a comprehensive roadmap for improvements. The Plan thus accomplishes its purpose, which is to establish the blueprint “for adopting the Technology necessary to satisfy the Material Requirements of [the Consent Decree].” (CD 269).
With assistance from the National Police Foundation, BPD finalized the Staffing Study in late summer 2018. The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval in September 2018. See ECF No. 137. The Study addresses BPD’s staffing needs and furnishes the foundation for a Staffing Plan that will provide for sufficient personnel to meet the requirements of the Consent Decree (CD 429). Notably, the Staffing Study identifies acute personnel shortages in Patrol, the Office of Professional Responsibility and the Training Academy, documents the need for more first-line supervisors, and recommends civilianization of certain functions currently performed by sworn personnel. Following from the Staffing Study, BPD is scheduled to produce the preliminary draft of the Staffing Plan in the next reporting period, once a fulltime Commissioner is in place and has a chance to formulate his own vision for the Department.
Both the Gap Analysis and the Youth Assessment are well underway and will be completed in the next reporting period. The Community Planning and Collaboration Committee (“CPIC”) (described below) selected a nationally recognized research firm, Health Services Research Institute, to conduct the Gap Analysis. In combination with its Youth Assessment Advisory Board, which consists of community stakeholders and City representatives, BPD selected the Children’s Center for Law and Policy to conduct the Youth Assessment. CCLP has held several sessions to finalize its “system mapping,” which it will use to complete the Assessment, and has been diligently conducting stakeholder interviews, including youth focus groups and

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interviews of diversion program personnel, BPD officers, and representatives from the Office of the Public Defender.
Preliminary Work of the Collaborative Planning and Implementation Committee (“CPIC”)
CPIC is devoted to improving the behavioral health systems in Baltimore. One of its central goals is to improve, and ultimately reduce, interactions between BPD officers and individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis. The membership of CPIC, which was created under the Consent Decree, includes relevant City and State officials, advocacy groups such as Disability Rights Maryland and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, individuals with lived experience, community mental health providers, substance use services providers, local hospitals, advocates, and committed philanthropists (CD 104). CPIC’s leadership represents key components of the crisis intervention system and includes the CEO of Behavioral Health System Baltimore and the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Human Services.
CPIC has made good progress in its Consent Decree-focused work in recent months. Initially, it completed a First-Year Work Plan, which provides a roadmap for developing a staffing plan for BPD’s specialized Crisis Intervention Team (“CIT”), a CIT officer selection process, crisis intervention policies for the Patrol Division and Dispatch Unit, a crisis intervention form for BPD to capture data on interactions with individuals in crisis, and the Gap Analysis mentioned above. See ECF No. 129. Under the First-Year Work Plan thus far, CPIC, as noted, has selected an organization to perform the Gap Analysis, which is now underway. Moreover, CPIC has completed a Crisis Intervention Plan for addressing BPD Crisis Intervention Team (“CIT”) staffing needs, as well as a CIT Officer Selection Process See ECF No. 154. Additionally, CPIC’s Data Subcommittee has revised and expanded the form BPD uses to record interactions with individuals in crisis. See ECF No. 170. CPIC’s Policy Subcommittee also has worked hard to prepare draft revisions to BPD’s crisis intervention policies for officers and dispatchers. The work has covered eight different BPD policies and has included soliciting, receiving and incorporating community feedback. The subcommittee will make recommendations on the policy revisions near the beginning of the next reporting period.
Beyond implementing the specific requirements of the First-Year Monitoring Plan, CPIC has begun to function effectively as a broadly representative entity committed to assessing the behavioral health needs of City residents and, ultimately, to making genuine improvements in the City’s behavioral health systems. This is an encouraging development, as it is what the Consent Decree envisions over the longterm, after BPD and the City achieve substantial compliance and are released from

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court oversight. To take one example, the City and BHSB are drawing on the collective experience of CPIC’s members to attempt to coordinate and align the work of certain specialized City programs, each of which is targeted at diverting a discrete cohort of individuals (i.e., individuals experiencing homelessness, individuals with substance abuse issues, and individuals with behavioral health issues) from the criminal justice system to the health care system. To take another example, CPIC is providing a productive forum for advocates and those with lived experience to talk to BPD representatives about concerns they have with BPD crisis intervention programs that are dedicated to diversion (i.e., BPD’s Crisis Response Team, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Team, and Homeless Outreach Team), but that, in the eyes of these stakeholders, risk being implemented in a way that compromises the constitutional rights and personal autonomy of the intended beneficiaries.
Notable Challenges Ahead
Leadership
As BPD has gone without a confirmed Commissioner for the better part of a year, it has become increasingly clear that, notwithstanding the determined efforts of BPD’s Consent Decree Implementation Unit, the absence of permanent leadership is impeding BPD’s ability to make reasonable progress toward realizing key Consent Decree objectives.
As a general matter, the absence of permanent leadership has delayed planting the seeds for the expansive change in culture that the Consent Decree contemplates. With continuous turnover and uncertainty at the top, there is little chance that officers—from the rank-and-file to seasoned commanders—are fully receiving and absorbing a clear, consistent message about the primacy of the reform effort. As the Court has observed repeatedly in recent months, BPD needs a leader with full and unquestioned authority to adopt a Consent Decree-compliant vision for change and to effectively convey the “what, how, when and why” of that vision to Department personnel.
The absence of permanent leadership is also delaying implementation of certain, specific Consent Decree requirements. For example, the Monitoring Team believes the City’s failure to confirm a new Commissioner explains, at least in part, BPD’s delay in providing adequate resources and personnel to the Training Academy, which has the most immediate staffing needs for the second monitoring year. In addition, the City’s failure to confirm a new Commissioner has required the extension of the deadlines for both the Staffing and Community Policing Plans under the FirstYear Monitoring Plan. The development of each Plan is crucial to BPD’s progress under the Consent Decree. The Staffing Plan will establish how, in the coming years,

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BPD plans to resolve efficiency-depleting, morale-sapping personnel shortages in Patrol, OPR and the Training Academy, including through reassignment, recruitment and hiring, and civilianization of certain functions currently performed by sworn officers. The Community Policing Plan will establish how, consistent with the Consent Decree, BPD intends to transform its operational model into one fully committed to community-oriented, constitutional policing. The deadlines for issuing drafts of both Plans had to be extended to accommodate the appointment of a new Commissioner because, at root, each Plan must reflect the vision of a politically accountable leader, and as the parties and the Monitoring Team recognized, BPD’s new Commissioner will require two or three months to thoroughly evaluate and weigh in on the Department’s staffing resources and needs, as well as the Department’s community policing needs, capacity and goals, before either Plan is finalized.
Misconduct Investigations and Discipline
The first semiannual report explains why reforming OPR presents such daunting challenges. See ECF No. 126-1 at 11-13, 34-38. There is the need to overhaul OPR’s structure and streamline its operations, the need for more investigators and supervisors to handle crushing caseloads, the need for proper, uniform classification of civilian complaints, the need to ensure thorough investigations and appropriate resolutions, the need to improve the unit’s data collection and analysis practices, the need to facilitate more effective civilian oversight by the Civilian Review Board (“CRB”), and the need to address the fallout from the Gun Trace Task Force scandal. Id. None of these challenges has waned in the last six months.
To its credit, BPD is making incremental progress on certain fronts. It is simplifying and streamlining OPR’s organizational structure. BPD also finalized OPR’s complaint intake policy and complaint classification system; altered OPR’s case assignment system to end both real and perceived problems with investigator impartiality; worked diligently to draft a first-ever protocol for information-sharing between OPR and CRB; terminated the problematic practice of detailing OPR investigators to the Patrol Division, where they might have been assigned to work with the same officers they were investigating; and planned to provide interim (i.e., non-Consent Decree) training on internal affairs investigations to OPR investigators, many of whom have never received specialized training on such investigations.
Notwithstanding these achievements, the challenge of restoring BPD’s reputation for integrity by repairing its broken accountability mechanisms remains severe. Over the past six months, the Monitoring Team observed that OPR continues to be understaffed, caseloads remain staggering, investigations take too long to complete, and minor cases occupy too much investigator time. Reinforcing its conclusions from a review of 60 sample OPR files during the first reporting period,

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see ECF No. 126-1 at 37, the Monitoring Team also observed anecdotally that certain OPR investigations were incomplete, the accompanying files were in disarray, the outcomes relied on faulty or insufficiently explained reasoning, and files from different cases were organized in different, non-uniform ways. Additionally, the Monitoring Team learned that, for a number of years until recently, BPD was improperly expunging OPR files that were administratively closed following sustained findings of misconduct—a practice that impedes compliance with BPD’s constitutional obligation to provide prosecutors (who must provide defense counsel) information that potentially casts doubt on the credibility of officers who have obtained such expungements and are witnesses or investigators in criminal cases prosecutors decide to charge.
In the next six months, the Monitoring Team will pay close attention to whether BPD can capitalize on the momentum created by its reform efforts thus far, and move toward transforming OPR into a unit that classifies, assigns, investigates and resolves cases appropriately, communicates effectively with complainants, and cooperates fully with CRB.
Training
Training officers on policies revised over the past twelve months will be the focus of the second monitoring year. Under the draft Second-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD will devise training curricula on revised policies and train officers on use of force, fair and impartial policing, stops/searches/arrests, and body-worn camera policies. Toward the latter part of the second year, BPD also will develop training curricula for sexual assault investigations, crisis intervention (for recruits, officers, speciallytrained crisis intervention officers, and dispatchers), interactions with youth, and community policing. Training on these topics will take place during Year Three.
Successfully designing, writing lesson plans for, and delivering these new training initiatives would be difficult for any police department, even a wellfunctioning one. For several reasons, it will be extremely challenging for BPD:
First, as noted, the Training Academy is severely understaffed. The current plan assumes—and the Monitoring Team fully expects—that BPD will promptly assign to the Academy the number of full-time, qualified officers required to satisfy the Monitoring Plan’s training requirements.
Second, to meet the Monitoring Plan’s requirements, BPD is restructuring its customary training schedule. Until now, officers have received all in-service training on all topics within a single two-week period each year. Beginning in 2019, each

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officer will receive training in shorter blocks, each devoted to different subjects, at several junctures throughout the year. Splitting up the training this way will enable BPD to hold officers accountable to new Consent Decree-mandated policies as quickly as possible after receiving training, rather waiting until the end of the year, after all officers have cycled through a single, all-topic in-service program.
Third, BPD will be altering the means of training. Consistent with best practices for adult learning, BPD is developing a less lecture-focused, more facilitative, increasingly scenario-based model for in-person training at the Academy. BPD also will be developing and delivering training on certain subjects through its electronic platform, PowerDMS, which will enable BPD to train officers more efficiently on topics that are suitable for web-based learning.
Fourth, the Monitoring Team has questions about whether, under the time constraints established in the draft Second-Year Monitoring Plan, current Academy personnel are capable of writing well-organized, comprehensive e-learning curricula and lessons plans for in-person instruction that properly incorporate interactive, adult learning principles. The initial lesson plans BPD produced for training on use of force and certain aspects of fair and impartial policing, for both e-learning and inperson instruction, require changes and do not yet fully reflect the lengthy prior discussions the Monitoring Team and DOJ had with BPD training personnel about the organization, form and content of those materials.
Devising new training programs using new training techniques, assigning and training new Academy staff, and operationalizing the logistics of a new training schedule will require a great deal of work in a concentrated period of time. Provided that BPD assigns an adequate complement of qualified personnel to the Academy, the Monitoring Team believes BPD is up to the task, particularly with technical assistance from Monitoring Team and DOJ subject matter experts. But make no mistake, even with an adequate number of training personnel, the second monitoring year will be an extremely busy one, filled with drafting, refining and delivering detailed lesson plans that incorporate interactive, scenario-based learning concepts that are still somewhat new to BPD.
The Next Reporting Period
In the next six months, BPD will continue work on foundational reforms. As explained, a substantial amount of the work will concentrate on developing training programs in the areas of use of force, fair and impartial policing, stops/searches/arrests, and body-worn cameras. In addition, BPD will tackle most of the remaining policy revisions required by the Consent Decree, including revisions to

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policies involving supervision effectiveness, internal investigations of complaints against officers by OPR, the sharing of investigation information between OPR and CRB, disclosure of officer disciplinary information in criminal cases, interactions with youth, interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis, and technology acquisition.
In the next six months, BPD also will also finalize diagnostic reports on the City’s youth diversion programs and gaps in the City’s behavioral health systems, prepare comprehensive plans for community policing and staffing, and assemble a detailed timetable for implementing the elements of the Technology Resource Plan. Finally, BPD will begin engaging in self-evaluation. It will prepare and publish its first Consent Decree-mandated analyses of stops/searches/arrests/voluntary policecommunity interactions (covering encounters during the final quarter of 2018) and sexual assault investigations (covering 2018); conduct and prepare logs of monthly inspections of transport vehicles to ensure they are properly equipped; and begin quarterly audits of transport events to ensure officers are adhering to BPD transport policies and Consent Decree requirements.
The Monitoring Team will continue to assess BPD’s early stage reform efforts and offer technical assistance as required. In addition, the Monitoring Team will conduct its initial surveys to gauge community, custodial arrestee, and officer attitudes toward BPD and reform. The results from these surveys should be published near the end of the next reporting period.
Based on available data, which remains imperfect due the antiquated nature of BPD’s data collection systems, the Monitoring Team will begin to conduct qualitative reviews of both OPR investigations and use of force reports/incidents. The Monitoring Team also will continue to work with BPD and DOJ to develop proper methodologies for both qualitative and quantitative assessments in other areas of the Consent Decree, including stops/searches/arrests and First Amendment-protected activities.

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SUMMARY OF MONITORING TEAM ACTIVITIES
Over the past six months, the Monitoring Team has done work in each of its three roles—arbiter, technical advisor and facilitator. As arbiter, the Monitoring Team, among other things, has assessed BPD’s progress in revising policies and preparing foundational studies and plans on staffing and technology, reviewed and evaluated BPD’s handling of various misconduct investigations and training issues, and determined compliance with basic Consent Decree provisions requiring the development of plans for training officers, for collecting data on incidents involving the use of force and interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, and for improving the way BPD interacts with such individuals. As technical advisor, the Monitoring Team has drawn on the expertise of its members to provide BPD guidance on policy revisions, technology improvements that will facilitate robust data collection and analysis, training plans and curriculum, internal investigations and discipline, staffing issues, officer wellness issues, and interactions with individuals in crisis. As facilitator, the Monitoring Team has sought to engage both community stakeholders and BPD officers in the reform process.
The Monitoring Team’s work in this reporting period is summarized below. The details of the Monitoring Team’s work, recorded on time sheets for each Monitoring Team member in 1/10 hour increments, are reflected in the Monitoring Team’s approved invoices, which are available on the Monitoring Team’s website at https://www.bpdmonitor.com/monthly-statements. The Consent Decree provides that the Monitoring Team will be paid $1,475,000 per year in fees and expenses. For the first year of its work (October 2017 through September 2018), the City paid the Monitoring Team $1,485,858.25 in fees and $67,654.18 in expenses.2 In addition, from October 2017 through September 2018, the Monitoring Team contributed pro bono services for its work on the Consent Decree in an amount equal to $797,093.55, meaning that 34.9% of the Monitoring Team’s work during the first year was at no cost to the City.
2 The billed total for the first year of the Monitoring Team’s work exceeds a flat $1,475, 000 because the first year of the Monitoring Team’s work (October 2017 – September 2018) and the City’s fiscal year (July 2017 – June 2018) did not align, and the City chose to budget for the Monitoring Team’s work based on its fiscal year. As a result, the first year of the Monitoring Team’s work crossed two City fiscal years— FY2018 and FY2019. Between the date of the Monitoring Team’s appointment at the beginning of October 2017 and the end of the City’s FY2018 on June 30, 2018, the Monitoring Team’s fees and expenses totaled $1,119,826.53, or $355,173.47 less than the City budgeted for FY2018. That amount, $355,173.47, was carried over to City’s FY2019 so that the total available for the Monitoring Team’s work in FY2019 is $1,830,173.47. The Monitoring Team’s billed fees and expenses during the City’s FY2019—again July 1, 2018 – June 30, 2019—will not exceed that amount.

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Engagement with Stakeholders
Community Engagement
The Monitoring Team continues to engage in active, affirmative community outreach. In addition to holding Consent Decree-mandated community forums in July and October 2018, the Monitoring Team is meeting with community members where they live. The Monitoring Team’s community liaison has established a structured community engagement plan that has Monitoring Team members engaged in outreach on a monthly schedule. In the past six months, Monitoring Team members have attended or convened community meetings in different parts of the City, including meetings of neighborhood associations, faith-based organizations, civic leaders, and affinity groups (e.g., advocates for individuals with behavioral health disabilities, LGBTQ advocates, a seniors center, and an anti-violence organization). The meetings are intended to inform community members about the Consent Decree process and to listen to their views about BPD.
One Saturday each month, Monitoring Team members also have either done a “corner crawl” or conducted a “town hall meeting.” On the corner crawls, Monitoring Team members canvass a chosen neighborhood on foot, seeking to engage residents in discussions about the Consent Decree and BPD. At town hall meetings (which have replaced corner crawls during colder months), the Monitoring Team invites residents of a particular neighborhood to a local meeting place, like a community center, to engage them in similar discussions. The town hall meetings are also recorded and broadcast on Facebook Live.
Recently, the Monitoring Team’s community engagement team, including Monitoring Team leadership, began bimonthly Facebook Live sessions from the offices of the Monitoring Team’s community liaison, Baltimore Community Mediation Center (“BCMC”). During these sessions, community members are given the opportunity to post questions online and obtain real-time answers from the Monitoring Team.
As discussed in the first semiannual report, the Monitoring Team expanded its community engagement effort by hiring neighborhood liaisons to serve in BPD’s nine police districts. The Monitoring Team will be hiring additional neighborhood liaisons in the future. Overseen by the team’s head community liaison (formerly Shantay Guy and now Ray Kelly) and community engagement coordinator (Darnyle Wharton)—all of whom are or were with BCMC—the neighborhood liaisons educate their neighbors about the Consent Decree and the work of the Monitoring Team and serve as the

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Team’s initial points of contact for information and opinions about the performance and conduct of BPD officers, which the Team will need to fully assess BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree. In their first several months on the job, the Monitoring Team’s neighborhood liaisons have held “office hours” at local libraries and community centers, attended community meetings in their districts, and canvassed neighborhood civic organizations, businesses, and faith-based institutions to educate community members about the Consent Decree.
In addition to conducting affirmative, localized outreach to inform and hear from community members about the reform process and BPD, the Monitoring Team has pursued targeted engagement with community members around specific Consent Decree requirements. This is consistent with the parties’ recognition that, if policing in Baltimore is to be “responsive to community priorities,” the community must have a direct, ongoing role in BPD’s reforms. See ECF No. 2-2 ¶ 1; see also ECF No. 68 at 1 (Court order emphasizing the importance of “ensur[ing] that the community’s voice is heard throughout the implementation of the Consent Decree”). Led by BPD, and in coordination with DOJ and community advocates from the Campaign for Justice, Safety and Jobs, the Monitoring Team has participated in community forums specifically convened to obtain community input on certain key policies. Together with BPD, DOJ and CJSJ, the Monitoring Team has developed the framework and scenario-based content for these forums. The first forums took place in September and early October and addressed proposed revisions to BPD policies on stops, searches, arrests, and voluntary police-community interactions.
In this reporting period, the Monitoring Team also continued to elicit written community input on proposed BPD policies. Under the First-Year Monitoring Plan, the Monitoring Team built a community feedback component into the process for revising each policy and training program. (BPD and DOJ also have their own feedback mechanisms). As the Monitoring Team’s First-Year Monitoring Plan submission explains:
[T]he final proposed Plan provides a specific two-step process for involving community members in the implementation of policy and training reforms under the Consent Decree. First, for each policy or training program to be developed, the Plan gives community members a chance to provide their views up front, before a draft has been finalized, in order to influence the content of the final draft. The Plan identifies each of these up front feedback opportunities as an “Initial Comment Period.” During the Initial Comment Period, the Parties and the Monitoring Team will hear the views, concerns and experiences of community members, including police officers, relating to the pertinent policy or training program, and then will synthesize what they receive

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into a written document for review by the public, the Parties and the Monitoring Team during a “Collaboration Period.” In the Collaboration Period, BPD will work actively with DOJ and the Monitoring Team to craft a final draft of the policy or training program.
Once the draft is finalized, community members will be given a second opportunity for review. BPD will post the proposed policy or training program to its website and provide affirmative, intensive opportunities for the public, including BPD officers, to comment. This “Comment Period” allows community members to gauge for themselves whether the final draft accounts for the concerns they expressed during the Initial Comment Period. Following the Comment Period, BPD will consider whether any further revisions are appropriate in response to the community’s feedback, and either re-commence collaboration with the Parties to make further refinements or provide the final draft to DOJ and Monitor for review and approval.
ECF No. 86 at 15-16.
Over the past six months, the Monitoring Team, like BPD and DOJ, sought and received meaningful public comment on draft policies in all of the following areas: use of force, body-worn cameras, transportation of persons in custody, stops/searches/arrests, impartial policing, First Amendment-protected activities, sexual assault investigations, misconduct investigations and discipline, and officer assistance and support. To solicit community feedback on these draft policies, the Monitoring Team posted and received comments in response to surveys on its website, received detailed letters and e-mails from community members and organizations, and welcomed more informal oral feedback from community members. The Monitoring Team shared whatever feedback it received with BPD. In turn, BPD revised each draft policy in response to all feedback provided (that is, feedback provided to BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ), collaborated with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to ensure that the revised drafts properly reflected that feedback, and then published a final policy following approval by DOJ and the Monitoring Team. Subsequent sections of this report address all of the revised policies that BPD finalized over the past six months.
Communications with the Parties
The Monitoring Team communicates with BPD, the City and DOJ multiple times on a daily basis—in in-person meetings, in conference calls, and by email. Monitoring Team members have worked exhaustively with the parties to make sure BPD produces all of the “deliverables” the First-Year Monitoring Plan requires. In the past six months, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have collaborated with BPD and

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provided extensive oral and written comments and written line edits on the following deliverables, among others:
(1) Drafts of numerous revised policies due under the First-Year Monitoring Plan, including policies on use of force, transportation of persons in custody, body-worn cameras, stops/searches/arrests, misconduct investigations and discipline, impartial policing, sexual assault investigations, First Amendment-protected activities, interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, and officer wellness, see ECF Nos. 132, 134, 135, 140, 142, 144, 149, 151, 153, 171 & 175;
(2) A draft training plan, which establishes a comprehensive program for developing and delivering training on various Consent Decreemandated subjects in 2019 and 2020, see ECF No. 148, as well as draft curriculum for training on body-worn cameras (see ECF No. 176), use of force and impartial policing;
(4); A draft staffing study, which identifies BPD’s staffing deficiencies and needs, see ECF No. 137;
(5) A draft technology resource plan, which establishes a comprehensive roadmap for improving BPD’s IT systems, see ECF No. 164;
(6) Draft plans for ensuring the robust collection of data on use of force incidents, interactions with individuals in crisis, and stops, searches and arrests, see ECF Nos. 128, 149 & 170;
(7) A draft plan for assessing youth interactions with BPD and the criminal justice system in Baltimore, see ECF No. 131; and
(8) A draft crisis intervention plan, which establishes how BPD will train and deploy a sufficient number of officers to respond to calls involving individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, as well as a draft crisis intervention form for capturing data on BPD interactions with such individuals, and a comprehensive draft needs assessment that details the gaps in the City’s system for providing services to such individuals. See ECF Nos. 154 & 170.

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Police Engagement
As both the Court and the Monitoring Team have said repeatedly, engaging rank-and-file officers, sergeants and lieutenants in the reform process is as important—and arguably more important—than engaging City officials and BPD command staff. Therefore, in addition to conferring daily with members of BPD’s Consent Decree Implementation Unit, City Law Department attorneys representing BPD, and BPD command staff to work on implementing the requirements of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team continues to engage BPD members. Monitoring Team members have established relationships with union leaders, visited BPD Districts, spent time at BPD’s Training Academy (where recruit, in-service, and field training officer training is conducted) and Office of Professional Responsibility (which investigates allegations of officer misconduct), and gone on ride-alongs with patrol officers.
The Monitoring Team also has established and meets periodically with an informal group of rank-and-file officers to obtain their candid feedback on the Consent Decree, the positive attributes of BPD, and the challenges facing BPD. Moreover, as required by the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team will be conducting more formal focus groups of BPD officers, supervisors and command staff to listen to their thoughts and gather their ideas about effective reform.
As indicated in the first semiannual report, the Monitoring Team, soon after its appointment, established a protocol for notification and potential response to critical incidents involving BPD officers, such as officer-involved shootings. The notification is immediate and allows for local Monitoring Team members or out-oftown members in Baltimore to respond to the scene and observe BPD officers in action. The notification protocol has been used several times in the reporting period.
Meetings with the Court
On a daily basis, Judge Bredar remains engaged in ensuring BPD implements the reforms required by the Consent Decree. The Monitoring Team’s leadership, including Ken Thompson, Seth Rosenthal, Chuck Ramsey, Hassan Aden and Theron Bowman, communicate regularly with Judge Bredar—in person, by telephone, and by email—to update him on developments and to take direction from him.
In the very first stage of the reform process, Judge Bredar determined that each month he would hold a three-hour working session with the Monitoring Team and the parties to discuss developments and challenges in a specific area of the Consent Decree. In this reporting period, Judge Bredar has convened working

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sessions to discuss stops, searches and arrests (July 2018), staffing (August 2018), First Amendment protected activities (September 2018), interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis (October 2018), training (November 2018), officer assistance and support (December 2018), and misconduct investigations and discipline (January 2019).
Judge Bredar has made clear that he believes it is important for him to observe first-hand how BPD operates. Accordingly, for the working session on training, he met with the parties at BPD’s Training Academy. Similarly, for the working session on misconduct investigations and discipline, Judge Bredar met with the parties at the Office of Professional Responsibility, which is in a separate location than other BPD facilities. In December, Judge Bredar also attended command staff training, which covered both Incident Command System protocols and BPD policies and constitutional requirements regarding stops, searches and arrests.
Assessments and Technical Assistance
For the past six months, the Monitoring Team’s work under the First-Year Monitoring Plan has focused on assessing BPD’s performance, and assisting BPD, in the following areas: revising its policies; developing a comprehensive program to train officers, supervisors, recruits and trainers on the revised policies; establishing comprehensive plans to address BPD’s personnel, technology and data collection needs; and conducting limited diagnostic reviews of BPD’s performance in certain areas.
Policy Revisions
As in the first reporting period, the principal work of the Monitoring Team over the past six months has been to assess BPD’s efforts to revise policies in a number of areas and, at the same time, assist BPD in those efforts based on the Monitoring Team’s members’ expertise and knowledge of national best practices. As explained in more detail in the Findings section below, the Monitoring Team has assessed and advised BPD on revisions to approximately forty policies addressing:
• Use of force • Stops, searches and arrests • Transportation of persons in custody • Misconduct investigations and discipline • Impartial policing • First Amendment-protected activities • Sexual assault investigations • Body-worn cameras

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• Interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis • Officer wellness, assistance and support
Foundational Assessments and Reform Plans
Some of the foundational work required by the Consent Decree entails assessing BPD’s present capacity to implement reforms and, where BPD falls short, developing a plan for ensuring that those reforms are achievable. To date, the Monitoring Team has reviewed and worked with BPD and DOJ to develop the following:
• A comprehensive Staffing Study, which identifies BPD’s personnel shortcomings and needs.
• A comprehensive Technology Resource Plan, which builds on the previously completed Technology Study (described in the first semiannual report) to establish a detailed blueprint for fixing BPD’s extensive technology shortcomings and making the improvements needed to (1) facilitate more efficient recording, collection and synthesis of data on all facets of police work (e.g., stops, pat-downs, searches, arrests, uses of force, internal investigations and discipline), (2) effectively review officer performance and ensure officers are following the law, and (3) in the short term, permit the Monitoring Team and the Court to comprehensively assess BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree.
• A crisis intervention plan and crisis intervention team selection process, which, as described in more detail in the Findings section, establishes how BPD will select, train and deploy a sufficient number of officers to respond to calls for service involving individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis. The crisis intervention plan and CIT selection process are part of a larger crisis intervention work plan, which was also devised during the reporting period. The work plan includes timelines for finalizing a crisis intervention data form, which will capture Consent Decree-required data on BPD interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, and revisions to BPD’s crisis intervention policies, including policies for BPD dispatchers.
• A plan for completing a detailed assessment of City programs dedicated to diverting youth from the criminal justice system.

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• Draft plans for improving the collection of data on use of force incidents and stops, searches and arrests.
• An outcome assessments methodology plan, which identifies the location and integrity of BPD’s data in a number of areas covered by the Consent Decree, establishes which quantitative and qualitative compliance assessments the Monitoring Team will be able to perform in the short term given the current state of BPD’s data, and for those assessments that are feasible in the short term, the methodologies the Monitoring Team will utilize to perform them.
Surveys
Over the life of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team must conduct three different types of survey at regular intervals to measure community attitudes about BPD and whether those attitudes change over time. These surveys include a representative survey of community residents, a survey of detained arrestees, and a survey of BPD officers. In this reporting period, the Monitoring Team has done considerable work on developing the first of each type of survey.
• The Monitoring Team is partnering with the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan Street University to devise, conduct, analyze the results of, and prepare a report on the community survey. IUR developed a survey methodology and drafted the survey instrument with input from Monitoring Team members, and then refined and finalized the survey instrument after receiving input from the parties. The community survey is now underway.
• The Monitoring Team is partnering with researchers from the University of Toronto and Rose Street Community Center, a local organization that assists returning citizens, to conduct the custodial arrestee survey. The University of Toronto researchers have extensive experience with arrestee surveys, including, most recently, an arrestee survey they completed last year in connection with the Cleveland Division of Police’s consent decree. The University of Toronto researchers, Rose Street Community Center associates and Monitoring Team members have developed an interview protocol and have finalized logistics for the survey, which will be conducted at Central Booking in Baltimore. The interviews are planned for February.
• With assistance from the Crime and Justice Institute, the Monitoring Team will conduct a series of six – eight focus groups of BPD personnel in February 2019. The groups will be divided by rank to ensure candor. There will be

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separate focus groups for patrol officers and detectives, sergeants, lieutenants, and command staff.
Each of the surveys should be completed by the end of February 2019. The results will subsequently be analyzed, and the Monitoring Team and its partners plan to publish reports explaining the results by early June 2019.
Diagnostic Reviews
As explained above, it is too early for the Monitoring Team to engage in comprehensive assessments of BPD’s compliance with any Consent Decree requirement, particularly in those areas where comprehensive assessments are dependent upon data that BPD either does not reliably maintain yet or does not maintain in a way that can be meaningfully synthesized. However, in the first reporting period, the Monitoring Team conducted preliminary diagnostic reviews in several areas, mainly to get a better sense of BPD’s current practices so that it can begin to determine what BPD must do over the long term to achieve compliance. Specifically, the Monitoring Team (1) inspected BPD’s transport vehicles (vans and cruisers) to determine whether they are equipped with properly functioning restraints and video cameras, as the Consent Decree requires, (2) reviewed 60 recent internal investigations files from the Office of Professional Responsibility, and (3) spent several days reviewing BPD documentation of stops, searches and arrests.
The Monitoring Team continued to perform similar preliminary spade work over the past six months. As explained in more detail in the Findings section below:
• The Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ conducted a mock audit to determine the effectiveness of the tool BPD has developed to audit compliance with Consent Decree requirements regarding transportation of persons in custody, and then the Monitoring Team followed up with a review of BPD’s subsequent first quarterly audit of transportation events.
• The Monitoring Team received an orientation on, and conducted a preliminary assessment of, BPD’s current methods for documenting voluntary field interviews and investigative and vehicle stops.
• The Monitoring Team and DOJ conducted an initial appraisal of the accessibility and robustness and BPD data on calls for service to determine the feasibility of certain outcome assessments required by Paragraph 459 of the Consent Decree.

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• The Monitoring Team created separate evaluation instruments for performing qualitative assessments of (1) use of force incidents, (2) internal investigations by BPD’s Office of Professional Responsibility, (3) sexual assault investigations, and (4) incidents involving First Amendment protected activities. The Monitoring Team and the parties have discussed the instrument for evaluating BPD’s sexual assault investigations, and have agreed to conduct the review in the upcoming monitoring year. The other evaluation instruments remain under review by the parties. It is anticipated that each of them will be finalized and utilized in the second monitoring year.
Finally, as part of the work it must do to assess BPD’s compliance with the various provisions of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team has been conducting diagnostic analyses of BPD’s performance in discrete matters. The purpose of these analyses is not to formally gauge BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree, but rather to get a sense of how certain core functions are currently being performed and, if they are not being performed effectively or in compliance with the Consent Decree, to provide BPD guidance on how to improve performance. The ultimate objective is for BPD to meaningfully engage in its own after-action assessments so that when it finds problems, it will self-correct and take remedial action on its own, without prompting from the Monitoring Team or DOJ.
During the initial reporting period, the Monitoring Team conducted one of these diagnostic analyses by evaluating the propriety of BPD’s interactions with civilians in the Harlem Park neighborhood following the shooting death of BPD Detective Sean Suiter. In the past two months, as a result of the Monitoring Team’s findings (as well as the findings of an Internal Review Board that conducted a separate assessment of BPD’s investigation of Detective Suiter’s death), BPD prepared and delivered a full-day training for all command staff on both constitutional requirements for conducting stops, searches and arrests and proper use of an Incident Command System for responding to significant events. In addition, BPD prepared and delivered to all officers a mandatory e-learning training program on BPD policies and constitutional requirements on stops, searches and arrests through its PowerDMS system. The Monitoring Team and DOJ provided input on the lesson plan for the command staff training, attended that training (as did Judge Bredar), and provided BPD with feedback following the training. The Monitoring Team and DOJ also provided input on the e-learning lesson plan for the officer training on stops, searches and arrests.
The Monitoring Team has continued to perform diagnostic analyses of various discrete matters during the past six months. For instance, together with DOJ, the Monitoring Team evaluated the quality of OPR’s internal investigation and findings regarding recent allegations that an officer gave false testimony during a criminal

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trial. The Monitoring Team and DOJ reviewed the officer’s testimony, the OPR file and OPR’s findings, and delivered an assessment of what OPR could have done better. The assessment has led to fruitful discussions, and OPR plans to take corrective action by using the case as a training tool for OPR investigators on proper investigative procedures and case analysis. In the next reporting period, the Monitoring Team will assess whether BPD, in fact, takes such corrective action and will evaluate its efficacy.
The Monitoring Team and DOJ are actively monitoring approximately a dozen other OPR investigations, receiving regular updates from OPR. Once the investigations are concluded, the Monitoring Team will assess whether they were conducted and resolved properly.
In another matter, which involves allegations that certain members of a recent class of recruits failed to demonstrate adequate comprehension of constitutional requirements for stops, searches and arrests during their Academy training, the Monitoring Team and DOJ worked with BPD to develop a remedial plan: preliminarily re-test each of the subject officers on Fourth Amendment principles, retrain them on those principles if necessary, and then administer a second test posttraining. As explained in more detail in the Findings section below, BPD is currently in the process of implementing this remedial plan.
Prompted by concerns expressed by the Office of the Public Defender, the Monitoring Team also conducted a thorough assessment of BPD practices regarding what are known as “Brady/Giglio” disclosures. Brady and Giglio are Supreme Court cases that require the prosecution to provide the defense with information that tends either to exculpate the defendant or impeach the prosecution’s witnesses. Certain misconduct by investigating and testifying police officers that is documented in internal affairs files—typically, conduct that implicates officers’ truthfulness— qualifies as Brady/Giglio material. Accordingly, BPD has a policy that, in every criminal case, it furnishes to the State’s Attorney’s Office the OPR files pertaining to the involved officers; the State’s Attorney’s Office, in turn, makes an independent decision about which information to disclose to the defense.3

3 The State’s Attorney’s Office is a state agency that is independent of both BPD and the City. It is not a party to the Consent Decree. Therefore, the Court and the Monitoring Team do not have the authority to review the Brady/Giglio practices of the State’s Attorney’s Office. Their authority is limited to reviewing the Brady/Giglio practices of BPD. BPD’s practices, which are at the “front end” of the Brady/Giglio disclosure process, are important because, without front-end disclosure to the State’s Attorney’s Office, the State’s Attorney’s Office, which is at the “back end” of the

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In its review of BPD’s Brady/Giglio disclosure practices, the Monitoring Team identified two principal issues. First, as established in recent proceedings in a case tried in Baltimore City Circuit Court, BPD, in the past, granted officer requests to expunge OPR-sustained findings of misconduct that were “administratively closed” and thus did not result in adjudication by a trial board. These are cases in which (1) OPR determined that a violation of BPD rules occurred and recommended discipline, (2) the accused officer did not accept the finding and elected to have the matter adjudicated by a trial board, (3) prior to the trial board hearing, BPD-Legal and the Commissioner or his designee decided to close the case for “administrative” reasons (because the file was expunged, the reasons for the administrative closure are unknown), (4) BPD treated the administrative closure as a “not sustained” finding, and (5) after the requisite three-year period had elapsed under the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (“LEOBR”), the officer requested expungement of the file and BPD granted the request. The result of this past practice—and it is unclear whether the practice was limited or widespread—is that, in criminal cases involving officers who had OPR-sustained findings of misconduct that were administratively closed and subsequently expunged, the defense has not been receiving the officers’ expunged files because those files no longer exist. The expungement of these files is a problem under LEOBR because LEOBR does not authorize the conversion of sustained-butadministratively-closed findings to “not sustained” findings, nor does LEOBR authorize the expungement of administratively closed cases. (Note that the Consent Decree precludes OPR from continuing to “administratively close” cases (CD 344.k.v.). Correspondingly, the expungement of the OPR files is a problem under Brady/Giglio because the facts giving rise to OPR’s sustained findings might cast doubt on the subject officer’s credibility in the criminal case and, if they do, the defendant is entitled to know and use them in support of his defense.
The second issue the Monitoring Team identified in its review is guidance from the City Law Department that permits defense counsel to receive information about officer misconduct from OPR files, but arguably prohibits defense counsel from obtaining actual copies of the files. As several Baltimore City Circuit Court judges have ruled in recent months, that guidance is flawed because it violates the rules of criminal procedure in Maryland. The rules require the prosecution to provide actual copies of the files to the defense.
Within the past two months, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have raised both of these issues with BPD and the City and have discussed how to resolve them.

process, cannot fulfill its constitutional obligation to provide Brady/Giglio material to the defense.

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On the issue of prohibiting defense counsel in criminal cases from obtaining copies of officers’ OPR files, the City Law Department clarified for the State’s Attorney’s Office at the end of December 2018 that its guidance should not be taken to suggest that the City and BPD believe that copies should not be provided to defense counsel. In the next reporting period, the Monitoring Team and DOJ will work with the City and BPD to revise the City Law Department’s guidance so that it clearly explains City/BPD policy on the provision of copies to defense counsel.
Resolving the Brady/Giglio issues arising from the expungement of sustainedbut-administratively-closed findings will be more difficult. The City and BPD have tentatively agreed with the Monitoring Team and DOJ that the City Law Department will need to revise its guidance to BPD, and that BPD will need to revise its corresponding guidance to officers, to make clear that an officer’s affirmative obligation to provide information about the officer’s OPR matters to state and federal prosecutors in criminal cases in which the officer is involved extends to all OPR matters, regardless of outcome—i.e., pending, closed and expunged matters—so that prosecutors can make fully informed decisions about disclosure.
Beyond that, BPD must find a way to address the repercussions from the nowterminated practice of expunging administratively-closed-but-sustained findings of misconduct. That is, BPD must devise an effective system for proactively locating and disclosing to the State’s Attorney’s Office and federal prosecutors expunged OPR files that involve administratively-closed-but-sustained findings. BPD must develop this system to satisfy its Brady/Giglio obligations in pending and future state and federal prosecutions, as well as in response to requests made by the defense in post-conviction proceedings in prior prosecutions.
In addition to modifying the City Law Department’s Brady/Giglio guidance to BPD and addressing the problems spawned by the expungement of administrativelyclosed-but-sustained findings of misconduct, BPD—with input from the Monitoring Team, DOJ, and community members—will develop and issue a formal Brady/Giglio disclosure policy in the second monitoring year, as contemplated by Paragraph 393 of the Consent Decree. Coupled with the revisions to the City Law Department’s Brady/Giglio guidance, the development of this policy holds out the promise of turning BPD into one of the more proactive, forward-thinking law enforcement agencies in the country on Brady/Giglio requirements.

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FINDINGS
BPD and City leadership continue to demonstrate a firm commitment to implementing the reforms required by the Consent Decree. BPD’s Consent Decree compliance team has worked diligently with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to attempt to meet the requirements of the First-Year Monitoring Plan. The new, revised policies BPD is issuing are a marked improvement over the old policies. The ambitious training program BPD is seeking to develop, with technical assistance from the Monitoring Team, DOJ and other experts, similarly marks a welcome departure from past practice. BPD is also obtaining a firmer, more comprehensive understanding of how much it will need to do to transform its Office of Professional Responsibility, fulfill its staffing needs (especially in the Patrol Division, OPR and the Training Academy), and overhaul its IT systems to enter the modern era of datadriven policing.
However, at the one year mark, BPD is still near the beginning of the reform process. It remains focused, as it must, on the foundational work of policy and training reform. Even then, although policy reform is well underway, training reform is just getting started. For most Consent Decree requirements, it is thus too soon to begin gauging compliance because compliance efforts have not yet begun, nor under the First-Year Monitoring Plan were they required to have begun. BPD nonetheless deserves credit for making reasonable progress on each requirement on which it has commenced work.
In the first semiannual report, the Monitoring Team observed that, while BPD and City leadership should be commended for their willingness to reform, there were concerns about BPD’s capacity for reform. Six months later, those concerns have not abated. To a degree, they have been exacerbated. That is because BPD has been without a permanent, confirmed leader for many months. The extended absence of permanent leadership has made it that much more difficult to initiate the culture change that the Consent Decree envisions.
The monumental challenges that lay ahead six months ago still lay ahead today. One such challenge is revamping antiquated technology and ensuring that BPD personnel use the new technology properly—to record stops, searches, arrests, and uses of force; to supervise and evaluate junior officers and intervene when there are missteps and policy violations; and to analyze aggregated data to assess and improve both individual officer performance and performance across the Department, districts and specialized units. Another challenge is to develop and execute a comprehensive staffing plan that will increase the number of officers in the Patrol Division, the Training Academy and OPR, reallocate personnel from various

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specialized units, and civilianize certain functions that need not be performed by sworn officers. Yet another challenge is transforming OPR so that it consistently receives complaints more openly and with fewer impediments, communicates better with complainants, conducts more robust investigations, and makes fact findings and disciplinary recommendations based on fair, unbiased evaluations of evidence.
Whether BPD is making measurable improvements in these and other areas will be the subject of future reports, once there has been time for the foundational reforms now underway to take root. In this report, the Monitoring Team continues to focus on BPD’s progress toward implementing the foundational reforms.
This section sets forth the Monitoring Team’s findings regarding BPD’s progress to date in nearly every area of the Consent Decree. For each area, the Monitoring Team explains (1) what BPD will be required to do over the long term and what BPD has been required to do under the First-Year Monitoring Plan, (2) what progress has been made and whether it is reasonable or not, (3) the challenges facing BPD, and (4) immediate next steps. It bears repeating that the Monitoring Team is not evaluating BPD’s progress toward satisfying each and every paragraph and each and every requirement within each area of the Consent Decree. Again, that kind of report card would not reveal much, if anything, about BPD’s performance at this point in the reform process. The Monitoring Team instead assesses BPD’s progress on the limited number of Consent Decree requirements that are included in the First-Year Monitoring Plan in each area, and then describes the road ahead.
This section begins in the areas of the Consent Decree that present perhaps the most pressing threshold challenges facing BPD: Misconduct Investigations and Discipline, Technology, and Staffing. BPD must ensure that its officers act with unimpeachable integrity in order to fulfill its mission and win the public’s trust, must design and implement IT systems necessary for policing in the 21st century, and must hire and retain a sufficient number of qualified, ethical officers to police effectively. This section next addresses Training—a critical area—followed by areas where DOJ found or expressed concerns about a pattern or practice of constitutional violations: Stops, Searches and Arrests; Impartial Policing; Use of Force; Transportation of Persons in Custody; and First Amendment Protected Activities. This section concludes by assessing BPD’s progress in other areas of the Consent Decree.

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Misconduct Investigations and Discipline
The new policies that BPD is formulating in other areas of the Consent Decree will mean little if BPD does not hold all officers accountable for following them. As Paragraph 329 of the Consent Decree explains, “[a] robust and well-functioning accountability system in which officers are held to the highest standards of integrity is critical to BPD’s legitimacy and a priority of the Department.” The need for BPD to repair its Office of Professional Responsibility and establish a rigorous, effective accountability system is at the heart of the Consent Decree reform effort. Conversations with community members continue to focus on BPD’s ability to effectively police itself, underscoring that a properly functioning OPR is essential to re-establishing the community’s trust.
As the Monitoring Team observed in its previous report, the Misconduct Investigations and Discipline section of the Consent Decree is the longest and most comprehensive, spanning 87 paragraphs and 38 pages. It covers the location, independence, resources and authority of OPR (CD 330-34); the process for receiving complaints, classifying them, and communicating with complainants about them (CD 335-42); requirements for conducting fair, thorough, reliable misconduct investigations and making misconduct determinations (CD 343-58); requirements for handling and referring allegations of criminal misconduct (CD 359-71); the lodging of disciplinary charges, the administration of disciplinary hearings, and the imposition of discipline (CD 372-88); the process for community-centered mediation as an alternative to investigation for certain minor allegations of officer misconduct affecting civilians (CD 389-91); record-keeping for misconduct investigations (CD 392-95); measures for ensuring transparency, including issuance of quarterly public reports of aggregate data (CD 396-405); a testing program designed to evaluate the efficacy of the civilian complaint intake process (CD 406-08); and training of OPR investigators and supervisors (CD 409-15). The ultimate goals of the Consent Decree’s provisions implicating OPR are the full, fair, objective, and timely investigation of all potential officer misconduct; the rigorous review of all misconduct investigations; and an impartial, transparent, uniform process for the imposition of discipline and corrective action where appropriate.
Since the last report, the Monitoring Team’s meetings and interactions with BPD and DOJ have intensified. Monitoring Team members continue to visit OPR to engage with OPR personnel and observe operations. The Monitoring Team’s recent work has reinforced its firmly held view that OPR is in need of far more fundamental structural reform than contemplated at the time the First-Year Monitoring Plan was prepared. Consequently, despite good faith progress by BPD on early drafts of required OPR policies, more time will be needed to resolve basic deficiencies in OPR

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operations. Without modifying OPR’s structure to make the office run more efficiently, the revised policies and investigator training that the Consent Decree requires will not be as effective as intended.
Although the process for revising OPR’s policies and procedural manual has been slowed to accommodate the need for organizational reform within OPR, BPD has nonetheless made strides. It has now finalized a revised policy on complaint intake, complaint classification, and communication with complainants, as well as a complaint classification protocol. Additionally, as explained in the first report, BPD has sought to remove prior impediments to the filing of misconduct complaints and reportedly has stopped detailing OPR investigators to non-OPR duties. These are changes that promise to make OPR more accessible to Baltimore residents and staffed more effectively to conduct its important work.
Areas of Progress
In the past six months, BPD has made substantial progress toward revising policies and procedures for the intake and classification of complaints. Baltimore residents and DOJ identified deficiencies in the intake and classification process as areas of concern during the investigation that led to the Consent Decree. BPD worked diligently with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to finalize revisions to both Policy 306, which addresses complaint intake, complaint classification and communication with complainants, and OPR’s Classification Protocols.
BPD completed drafts of Policy 306 and the Classification Protocols on October 31, 2018 and then made them available to for public comment through November 30, 2018. BPD then incorporated the public’s feedback and produced final versions of both documents, which the Monitoring Team approved by filing a notice with the Court on December 28, 2018.
As noted in the last report, BPD also has taken steps to improve the complaint intake process. Previously, individuals who wanted to lodge misconduct complaints against police officers had to make their complaints in person, sign them, and have them notarized. BPD’s revised policies have removed these impediments. Additionally, BPD has changed its website to facilitate the acceptance of complaints online and via email and has established a dedicated telephone number for individuals to call to make complaints.

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Challenges Ahead
In addition to revamping the structure of OPR to improve the fairness, objectivity, thoroughness and timeliness of its investigations, see ECF No. 26-1 (first semiannual report), at 34-36, OPR continues to face short- and long-term challenges that will test BPD leadership.
OPR Relationship with the Civilian Review Board
Baltimore’s Civilian Review Board (“CRB”) is a separate, independent entity established by state law. Composed of one community member from each of the nine police districts in the City, the CRB receives and is authorized to investigate complaints that allege the use of excessive force, abusive language, harassment, false arrest, and false imprisonment by police officers. The CRB may also make disciplinary recommendations to the BPD Commissioner, review OPR investigations, and review and make recommendations about BPD policies and procedures.
Although OPR and CRB must interact and coordinate with each other to fulfill their respective statutory roles, the actual process for guiding such interactions has never been defined. Indeed, no protocol for communication or coordination between the entities has ever existed. The process of establishing such protocols requires careful consideration of applicable law, including the Maryland Public Information Act, Md. Ann. Code, Gen’l Provisions §§ 4-311, et seq., and case law interpreting the Act; the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights, Md. Ann. Code, Public Safety §§ 3101, et seq.; and Public Local Law §§ 16-41, which is the enabling statute for the CRB.
Establishing an effective information-sharing system is vital to the work of the CRB. Without ready access to routine police records like incident reports and bodyworn camera footage, and without OPR casebooks that include additional records like witness interview recordings, CRB cannot fulfill its statutorily-mandated civilian oversight function. Establishing an effective information-sharing system is also important for BPD. Without accepting and facilitating meaningful civilian oversight, BPD will be hard-pressed to achieve the Consent Decree’s goal of rebuilding community trust.
Over the past six months CRB and OPR have engaged in good faith discussions with each other, and with DOJ and the Monitoring Team, about how to coordinate the exchange of information to ensure that each can fully, capably and responsibly carry out its respective duties. OPR and CRB have made tangible progress in the development of information-sharing protocols, but the progress has been slow. The information-sharing protocols were initially scheduled to be completed at the same

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time as Policy 306 and the OPR classification protocols, but because of the difficulties encountered, the Monitoring Team and the parties received Court approval to put the information-sharing protocols on a separate track. Work is ongoing, and the protocols are now scheduled to be completed by the end of March 2019, just after the beginning of the second monitoring year.
Throughout the process of developing the information-sharing protocols, it has become clear to the Monitoring Team that, over many years, a lack of trust has developed between OPR and CRB. While the entities are working to overcome that history of mistrust, it has contributed to the slower pace of progress.
The Monitoring Team also observes that recent developments have bogged down progress, including the lengthy, recently resolved debate over whether CRB members had to sign a new confidentiality agreement prepared by the City Law Department in order to receive OPR files. Although OPR, CRB, DOJ and the Monitoring Team continued to work on developing the information-sharing protocols while that dispute persisted, the fact that OPR stopped sharing investigative files with CRB until the dispute was resolved produced some uncertainty about the utility of the working sessions.
An unfortunate by-product of the difficulties that have plagued the development of the OPR-CRB information-sharing protocols is that BPD has not yet been able to home in on improving the quality and integrity of OPR investigations, which the Consent Decree prioritizes. In the next reporting period, the Monitoring Team will insist that the parties intensify their focus on overhauling how BPD conducts and adjudicates misconduct investigations, even as discussions about ameliorating the OPR-CRB relationship continue.
Data and Technology
By concentrating on Policy 306, complaint classification protocols, and OPR’s relationship with CRB, BPD has not devoted much time to changing the way it utilizes IAPro, the platform used to record and store information about misconduct complaints and investigations. The past six months have highlighted the need for OPR to re-evaluate the way it uses IAPro so that it can better track information and dynamically manage cases under investigation. BPD will have to discontinue operating the old, tenuously supported version of the IAPro that it now uses and upgrade its server infrastructure. BPD will also need to re-assess OPR practices to make better use of IAPro’s capabilities. Indeed, as the Monitoring Team recently advised BPD, CRB and DOJ, upgrading BPD’s version of IAPro could, among other

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things, readily resolve many, if not all, of the impediments to timely OPR-CRB information-sharing that have bogged down discussions about OPR-CRB protocols.
The Monitoring Team looks forward to providing sustained technical assistance on this front. It notes that most of the challenges OPR faces with respect to IAPro are not “technology problems.” Instead, they are IT governance problems. They stem from how BPD’s configuration of IAPro reflects or accommodates OPR’s deficient day-to-day business practices.
Staffing and Personnel
As the Monitoring Team previously observed, constant turnover in the command staff that oversees OPR, as well as in the leadership of OPR itself, muddles and delays the clear, definitive guidance that OPR investigators must receive about the importance of their performance to the success of the Consent Decree. The rapid turnover in Commissioners—and the absence of a permanent Commissioner for many months—has presented an especially demanding test. Each Commissioner has had unique views on the structure, staffing and unit composition of OPR, and all have acted on those views, making it difficult to monitor, provide technical assistance on, and work with the parties to revise OPR policies and practices. BPD’s compliance team has continued to work diligently with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to implement the reforms required in the First-Year Monitoring Plan, but the Monitoring Team has concerns that the changes in administration, and the monthslong failure to hire a permanent Commissioner, are adversely affecting the pace of BPD’s efforts to reform OPR.
Once new leadership is in place, BPD also must fill the need for more investigators, supervisors and data analysts in OPR. As the Staffing Study found, OPR is operating at a deficit in personnel.
Fallout from the Gun Trace Task Force Scandal
BPD must continue to deal with the fallout from the convictions of eight officers from its now-disbanded Gun Trace Task Force. The officers were found to have routinely stolen and extorted money and drugs from civilians, often after making blatantly unconstitutional stops, searches and arrests.
BPD will not be able to move past the GTTF scandal, or to prevent a similar scandal, without attempting to understand how it happened. That will not be easy. It will require OPR to conduct thorough investigations of other, non-charged officers who were implicated in wrongdoing during the GTTF trial. Ideally, it should also

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require a full-blown investigation of the root causes of the scandal by an independent entity, with BPD’s full support and cooperation. Independent entities have performed similar “autopsies” of scandals in other police departments, and have issued worthwhile prescriptions for remediation. The Monitoring Team will continue to evaluate how BPD chooses to respond to the GTTF scandal.
More broadly, the GTTF scandal underscores the need to develop a robust, electronically-maintained Early Intervention System (“EIS”). A well-functioning EIS should allow supervisors to address and correct problematic officer behavior before it becomes entrenched and habitual. The development of a comprehensive EIS is a Consent Decree requirement, but a new EIS will not be implemented until BPD implements reforms in its IT systems and IT governance.
Relatedly, the GTTF scandal highlights the need for BPD to promote only qualified, conscientious officers to supervisory positions and to effectively train supervisors—from sergeants to command staff—how to lead. Only well-trained, principled leaders can prevent or ferret out and correct improper behavior and shift Department culture in the way the Consent Decree envisions.
The Next Six Months
As a new Commissioner takes command of BPD, the Monitoring Team will be communicating with him about the operational priorities identified in the first year of monitoring. Among those will be the critical need to revamp OPR’s structure, improve its operations, and ensure that it holds officer accountable for misconduct.
BPD has begun drafting provisions in OPR’s procedural manual on complaint intake, complaint classification and communication with complainants. The final draft is due February 22, 2019, followed by a period of collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ that will extend through May 3, 2019, and subsequently by a public comment period that will conclude on June 7, 2019. The Monitoring Team will approve or disapprove the manual provisions by August 2, 2019.
In the next six months, BPD also will revise both policies and provisions in the OPR manual that address the investigative process itself. Work will begin in early 2019, with a final draft due to be issued for public comment on May 3, 2019. The Second-Year Monitoring Plan will establish the remaining deadlines for adoption of the policies and manual provisions on OPR investigations.
In the next six months, BPD also will develop a Brady-Giglio disclosure policy—that is, a formal policy governing the provision of OPR files in criminal cases

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involving investigation or testimony by BPD officers who have been investigated for misconduct by OPR. Relatedly, as explained in the Summary of Monitoring Team Activities section above: (1) the City Law Department must revise its guidance on Brady/Giglio disclosures to both the policy on providing defense counsel copies of OPR files and to the policy that affirmatively obligates officers to provide prosecutors information on all of their OPR cases, whether closed, pending or expunged; and (2) BPD must develop a reliable system for locating improperly expunged OPR records with administratively-closed-but-sustained findings of misconduct so that prosecutors can fully discharge their Brady/Giglio obligations in criminal cases involving officers who have obtained such expungements.

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Technology
Paragraph 267 of the Consent Decree requires BPD to “provide its officers with the Technology necessary to implement the Material Requirements of this Agreement . . . [including] the data collection and review required by this Agreement . . .” Paragraphs 268-278 then outline the Consent Decree’s technology requirements. Those provisions first require BPD and the City to complete a Resource Study (CD 268, 270). The Resource Study identifies the systems BPD currently uses to maintain data and track Departmental performance, describes the current state of those systems and explains why they are inadequate to serve BPD’s needs, and makes preliminary recommendations for improvements. Following completion of the Resource Study, BPD and the City must produce and submit a Resource Plan (CD 269-70, 272). The Resource Plan, which must be updated annually (CD 275), is intended to address a number of subjects, including how BPD will provide the necessary computer equipment and access required for personnel to discharge their duties, the implementation of a centralized records management system, and the development of an Early Intervention System (“EIS”). BPD is required to use its best efforts to implement the Resource Plan (CD 274).
The Technology provisions of the Consent Decree also require BDP to revise its policy on body worn cameras (CD 271) and to disclose to the public the acquisition of certain new equipment or activity to be used in enforcement activities (CD 276-78). Other provisions of the Consent Decree, in the Supervision section, require BPD to upgrade its Early Intervention System consistent with the Resource Plan (CD 31217). The EIS must “include a computerized relational database that will be used to collect, maintain, integrate, and retrieve Department-wide, District-wide and Unitwide data, as well as data for each officer.” The purpose of this upgraded EIS relational database is to “capture all information necessary to ensure supervisory awareness and early identification of potentially problematic individual and Department-wide conduct or signs of stress or other behavior that would benefit from being addressed.”
While certain technology requirements are identified in a section of the Consent Decree dedicated to technology, other requirements are woven throughout the Consent Decree. In particular, data collection and data analysis are required in nearly every area, not only to enable the Monitoring Team to assess compliance, but to enable BPD leadership to better manage the Department. Without technology improvements, BPD simply will not be in a position to come into compliance with the Consent Decree. As the Consent Decree states, compliance is truly “dependent upon BPD acquiring or developing the appropriate technology.” (CD 267).

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Areas of Progress
Resource Study
BPD completed the Resource Study near the end of the first reporting period (CD 268, 270). The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval on June 22, 2018. The Resource Study was prepared by the National Police Foundation. In preparing it, the NPF team conducted interviews and observed business processes, reviewed departmental policies and other process documentation, and inventoried all BPD IT systems.
The Resource Study thoroughly describes the current state of BPD’s IT systems and identifies the issues with those systems from both an IT and business process perspective. Issues identified included:
• Data silos, with varying data reporting practices across the Department • Lack of necessary IT resources • Lack of a centralized IT strategy driven by the mission of BPD and the goals
and priorities set by BPD leadership • Very little IT training • Lack of IT policies and procedures • Lack of staff capacity to implement the technology and data requirements of
the Consent Decree
Resource Plan
In response to the findings in the Resource Study, BPD was required to prepare a Technology Resource Plan. (CD 274, 275). BPD complied with this requirement, and the Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval on December 1, 2018. See ECF No. 164. The Resource Plan, developed by Gartner Consulting, is thorough and thoughtful in its approach. Not only does it identify specific IT system needs (e.g., Records Management System, staffing systems), but also address foundational business and management needs, including the need for proper IT governance, organizational change management, and IT staffing and resources. The Resource Plan also thoroughly addresses data management, governance and integration, which will be critical to Consent Decree compliance.

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Body-Worn Camera Policy
In the past six months, BPD incorporated public comments into, and completed revisions of, its body-worn camera policy. Because the revisions satisfy the requirements of Paragraph 271 of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval in September 2018.
BPD also prepared a training plan for both officers and recruits on the BWC policy, procedure and operation. The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval in January 2019. The refresher BWC training for officers will begin in 2019 and will be delivered through BPD’s electronic platform, PowerDMS. The recruit training, which will be conducted in person at the Academy, will also begin this year.
Upgrading IAPro
As explained above, IAPro is the system BPD uses to track both use of force incidents/investigations and misconduct investigations/discipline. While BPD has not yet upgraded its IAPro functionality, it has made certain strides. BPD has installed new Storage Area Network (SAN) hardware and is ready for its IAPro vendor to convert its existing, outdated IAPro database from Oracle to Microsoft SQL. The vendor will begin the work as soon as the responsible BPD employees have passed their background checks.
Once the database conversion is completed, the IAPro vendor will upgrade IAPro to the most recent non-customized version, which will allow BPD to utilize IAPro’s full functionality, including all available reporting capabilities.
The Monitoring Team has recommended that BPD document and walk through its user requirements with IA Pro instructors so that those instructors can advise BPD about how to best utilize the system to meet those requirements.
Challenges Ahead
While BPD has made great progress by producing its Resource Study and developing its Resource Plan, the difficult work is just beginning. BPD and the City must commit significant resources to implement the Resource Plan. The Plan estimates that approximately $59 million to $65 million be required over the next four years to implement its recommendations and remedy the consequences of the poor IT governance practices that have plagued BPD for decades. Those cost estimates include the costs to plan, procure and implement all recommended hardware, software and staff/resources.

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While acquiring and implementing the proper hardware and software are important to the success of the project, identifying the necessary staff and resources will be equally critical. BPD and the City do not currently have sufficient staff to see the Plan through to fruition. The Plan specifically identifies inadequate staff as an issue, and recommends that BPD and the City create a Consent Decree IT Task Force with a specific staffing and organizational structure. Creating the recommended Task Force as quickly as possible, while finding the right balance between hiring/contracting with IT professionals and utilizing sworn/operational subject matter experts, will be vital to successful Plan implementation. So, too, will be addressing all of the shortcomings in IT governance identified in the Resource Study and described in the Monitoring Team’s first semiannual report. See ECF No. 126-1 at 44-45.
The Next Six Months
The Monitoring Team will closely follow the steps the City and BPD take to acquire the resources needed to establish the Consent Decree IT Task Force and implement the Resource Plan. Over the next six months, implementation will include development of a process for procuring the equipment and technology required to meet the requirements of Paragraph 276 of the Consent Decree. Moreover, implementation must include establishing the IT governance and organizational change management structure called for in the Resource Plan.
In the next six months, BPD also will refine curriculum for training on the use of body-worn cameras.
The Monitoring Team looks forward to seeing BPD put in place an IT foundation that will enable the Department to transition into the era of modern, datadriven policing. As the Court and the Monitoring Team have said repeatedly, BPD must make that transition in order to achieve compliance with the Consent Decree. It must provide officers the tools they need to deliver quality service to the community and must enable data-driven decision-making and management by command staff.

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Staffing, Performance Evaluations and Promotions
BPD agreed to complete a comprehensive Staffing Study to determine the appropriate number of sworn and civilian personnel needed to effectively provide police services, enable supervision, and satisfy the requirements of the Consent Decree (CD 428). Based on this Staffing Study, BPD must develop a Staffing Plan that will ensure a sufficient number of deployed personnel to, among other things: implement and sustain effective community and problem-oriented policing; conduct timely misconduct investigations; supply sufficient patrol officers to each District without resorting to drafting, except under unforeseeable circumstances; promote Unity of Command when feasible; provide a sufficient number of supervisors; and account for BPD’s and the City’s existing and projected resources (CD 429). BPD must implement the Staffing Plan but may do so in a phased manner that reflects the City’s and BPD’s fiscal resources (CD 430).
As for performance evaluations and promotions, the Consent Decree obligates BPD to have supervisors meet with officers to discuss their annual performance reviews, which will include written discussions of the officer’s performance during the rating period, any areas for growth and achievement, and any areas requiring further training and supervision (CD 431). Each officer’s direct supervisor must use a formalized system to document annual performance evaluations for each officer and quarterly evaluations of probationary employees by their direct supervisor (CD 432). In addition to these formal evaluations, supervisors must meet with their subordinates on an ongoing basis to discuss performance and must document their communications regarding performance challenges and areas for growth (CD 433). The Consent Decree further requires BPD to conduct performance evaluations of each supervisor (from first line supervisor through commander), which will include assessments of ability and effectiveness in conducting performance reviews, including monitoring, deterring and addressing misconduct by officers they supervise (CD 434). Finally, BPD will ensure its promotional system has clear criteria prioritizing effective, constitutional, and community-oriented policing as factors for promotion (CD 435).
BPD met the deadlines for the Staffing Study in the First-Year Monitoring Plan. With the support of DOJ and the Monitoring Plan, BPD requested and received from Judge Bredar an extension of the deadlines for the Staffing Plan because the new Commissioner must be given time to develop a vision and weigh in on how the Department is staffed. BPD will complete the Staffing Plan in Year Two, likely in the late summer of 2019. BPD has not yet commenced efforts to comply with the other provisions of the Staffing, Performance Evaluations and Promotions section of the Consent Decree, as the First-Year Monitoring Plan did not require BPD to do so.

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Staffing Study
As explained in the Monitoring Team’s first report, BPD contracted with the National Police Foundation to perform the Staffing Study. NPF began work on the study in February 2018, shortly before the Court approved the First-Year Monitoring Plan. Thereafter, the Monitoring Team, BPD, NPF and DOJ had bi-weekly phone calls to discuss the progress of the study, as well as the challenges it presented. During these discussions, the Monitoring Team raised questions and gave advice to help ensure compliance with the requirements of the Consent Decree. Additionally, the Monitoring Team and NPF met with a focus group of rank-and-file officers and first-line supervisors in April 2018 to solicit their ideas and concerns regarding Departmental staffing. NPF and BPD completed the Staffing Study in the summer of 2018 and submitted it to DOJ and the Monitoring Team for review.
In August 2018, the Monitoring Team reported to the Court its assessment of BPD and NPF’s efforts, and on September 11, 2018, it filed with the Court a notice of approval of the Staffing Study. In the notice of approval, the Monitoring Team identified several concerns, including making sure that (1) Patrol Division staffing is tailored to BPD’s unique needs, including its community policing needs, (2) BPD adequately accounts for the need for more first-line supervisors and Unity of Command, and (3) BPD adequately accounts for the need for additional personnel in both OPR and the training academy. The Monitoring Team understood then, and understands now, that the Staffing Plan will address these concerns.
The Monitoring Team’s concerns about the conclusions of the Staffing Study arise from questions about the accuracy and completeness of BPD’s data. To take one example, the Patrol Division workload analysis that the Study relied on was driven by 911 calls-for-service and associated computer aided dispatch (“CAD”) data. However, a key component of this type of workload analysis is the amount of time it takes an average officer to handle a call, which is based on the time the call is dispatched and the time the officer clears the call with dispatch. This particular data point, which is dependent on officers consistently and accurately recording when a call is completed, was missing from a number of BPD records. Moreover, the data NPF examined was pulled from manually created reports and logs, which added a level of complication to the analysis. Relevant time-to-complete data for units outside of Patrol was even more limited: the aggregate number of cases was available but estimates on how long it took to investigate various types of cases was not. As a result, NPF, where possible, was forced to use estimates from other studies and standards suggested by academic literature.

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Accurate staffing projections are dependent on accurate data. For the Staffing Study, it is open to question whether BPD’s data was accurate and complete. Nevertheless, the Staffing Study does contain indicia of internal validity and appears to adequately identify BPD’s current staffing shortfalls and future staffing needs. Moreover, as noted, the Staffing Plan should account for any gaps in the data examined in the Staffing Study.
Challenges Ahead
In the short-term, as the Monitoring Team explained in its first report, officer shortages (particularly in Patrol) and BPD’s attrition rate in recent years will make it difficult to devise a realistic Staffing Plan that satisfies the community-oriented policing objectives of the Consent Decree. The need for more officers in Patrol, OPR and Training is acute. As to the Training Academy, the need is also immediate. As the reform process begins to transition from policy revision to training, BPD must commit the resources needed to satisfy the training requirements of the Consent Decree.
Over the long-term, the biggest challenge will be implementing the Staffing Plan in a timely manner given the sizeable shortage of sworn officers. Part of that long-term challenge will be to remedy the critical shortage of officers in the Patrol Division. To make up for the shortage in recent years, BPD has required patrol officers to work extended hours on a routine basis. These regular overtime assignments have had a significant adverse effect not only on BPD’s budget, but on officer morale. In both focus group sessions and informal conversations, the principal complaint of rank-and-file officers and first-line supervisors is the staffing shortage in the Patrol Division. Fortunately, the recent contract between the City and the FOP may help alleviate the problem, even though deploying more patrol officers is the only real way to fix it. The contract replaces the 10-hour shift/four days per week schedule with an 8-hour shift/five days per week schedule, and tightens up procedures around medical leave. The result should be increased, non-overtime coverage across the Department. The Staffing Plan must take into account the new shift schedule and the corresponding revision to the Patrol Division’s mandatory posts.
The Staffing Plan must also carefully consider the Staffing Study’s recommendations concerning civilianization of certain functions currently performed by sworn personnel, as well as the Staffing Study’s recommendations for improvements in technology and process. It is not just a matter of having the right number of people working, but also having them do the right work. There is no doubt that, with civilianization and technology and process improvements, BPD can

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redeploy certain sworn personnel to meet both Departmental needs and the demands of the Consent Decree.
The Next Six Months
Beginning in August 2018, the Monitoring Team and the parties began regularly scheduled meetings to discuss development of the Staffing Plan. Those discussions continue. BPD also has begun working on civilianization plans. Those efforts also continue.
The initial draft of the Staffing Plan is now due March 29, 2019. The SecondYear Monitoring Plan will include subsequent deadlines. It is anticipated that the Plan will be finalized and approved in August 2019. The Plan should address the above issues and determine the proper allocation of sworn and civilian positions across the Department. For BPD to become the organization that the Consent Decree and community members envision, it will take the right number of personnel, in the right assignments, doing the right work.

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Training
This report summarizes BPD’s recent progress on developing new and revised policies in a host of areas covered by the Consent Decree. These revamped policies will be meaningless if they are not fully understood, embraced and followed by BPD officers. Effectively training officers on the revamped policies is, therefore, essential to the Consent Decree enterprise. Training is the means by which BPD will translate new, Consent Decree-compliant policies into practice. For any new policy to take hold, BPD will need to create and implement instructional programs that properly facilitate the acquisition and application of new skills and information, effectively communicate the Department’s expectations, and cogently furnish clear rules for holding officers accountable for professional, constitutional policing.
The Consent Decree expressly recognizes that “proper, effective, and comprehensive training is a necessary prerequisite to constitutional policing.” (CD 291). It contains a number of specific training requirements on stops, searches, and arrests (CD 67–68); crisis intervention (CD 106–08, 112–113); use of force (CD 166– 68); transportation of persons in custody; (CD 238); First Amendment-protected activities (CD 251); sexual assault investigations (CD 259); supervision and management (CD 303, 308–10); and misconduct investigations (CD 409–15). BPD must also enhance its Field Training Officer Program for new Academy graduates. (CD 301–02).
Even where the Consent Decree does not set forth specific training requirements, training is necessary to communicate new policies and performance expectations to BPD officers. For instance, because BPD recently completed revisions to its body-worn camera policy, it must provide instruction to its officers on that policy in 2019 so that it can hold officers accountable to the revisions.
The Consent Decree also reflects general requirements that address BPD’s overall approach to training. Specifically, BPD must ensure that its training programs and Training Academy are “reasonably funded,” which includes ensuring sufficient training facilities and “an adequate number of qualified instructors . . . assigned to the training academy.” (CD 292, 293). Instructors will be qualified when they “are proficient in their subject matter,” proficient in adult learning techniques or instructor experience, and have an adequate performance history. (CD 296).
As the remainder of this section explains, BPD has made some important, early strides in re-fashioning its training system in order to achieve compliance with the Consent Decree. Nevertheless, to develop the type of modern, high-quality training

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system BPD needs to achieve compliance, significant work remains as to both specific training programs and the Training Academy overall.
Areas of Progress
Changes to Training Structure
Historically, BPD has scheduled each officer for in-service training for a twoweek period every calendar year. This means that all officers have undergone all of their required in-service training during a single two-week period at some point during a calendar year. When officers complete that two-week block of training, they do not attend any further training until the next calendar year.
This once-a-year, two-week training model would pose significant challenges to BPD as it seeks to deliver targeted training on new policies required by the Consent Decree. For one thing, it would substantially delay the effective date of the new policies. Policies approved now could only be made effective, at the earliest, in early 2020, after all officers have received training on them. Similarly, policies approved in 2020 could only be made effective, at the earliest, in 2021. For a host of logistical and legal reasons, it would be impracticable to make new policies effective for each officer immediately after the officer receives training—that is, to make new policies effective in, say, April, for officers who receive training in March, but to delay making the policies effective for all other officers until after they receive their training. Simply put, BPD cannot effectuate new policies officer by officer; it must effectuate them for all officers at the same time. Doing so under the historical practice of offering a oncea-year, two-week block of training would substantially delay implementation of the policy revisions required by the Consent Decree.
Additionally, because the historical practice of using most of a calendar year to provide training to all BPD officers would prevent BPD from holding certain officers accountable to the new policies for as much as 11 or 12 months after receiving training, officers who receive their training earlier in the year might well forget some of that training by the time the new policies became effective. Training involves the development of perishable skills. An officer who receives training in February 2019 on revised policies that will not go in effect until January 2020, after all officers have cycled through the program, might not effectively retain adequate knowledge of the new requirements.
After discussions with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD recognized the need to change its training structure in light of the Consent Decree. Accordingly, BPD has begun working with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to prepare to conduct Consent

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Decree training in rolling, multi-day blocks on different topics throughout the year. As envisioned in the draft Second-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD would offer a two-day training on use of force and aspects of fair and impartial policing mid-year in 2019, another block of training on stops, searches and arrests and additional aspects of fair and impartial policing later in the year, and a final block on the remaining aspects of fair and impartial policing in early 2020. This staggered approach will allow for more rapid completion of training in each area and, as a result, for the policies in each area to become effective more quickly.
The rollout of this staggered approach will be substantially assisted by the use an electronic learning platform. BPD will be developing and delivering foundational training on each subject through its e-platform, PowerDMS, which will enable BPD to train officers more efficiently on topics suitable for web-based learning and will provide essential groundwork for the more dynamic, interactive, in-person programs that will follow at the Academy.
Changes to Training Approach
Over the past year, BPD has taken time to evaluate the training programs of other law enforcement agencies, and has committed to adopting paradigms that have proven successful elsewhere. BPD contacted the Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”) and arranged for two cadres of BPD staff to attend training at the LAPD Training Academy in September 2018. LAPD developed its training program in the early 2000s, when it was under a consent decree similar to the Consent Decree in this matter. LAPD’s program, which prioritizes active student participation, is considered a model for reform. Members of the Monitoring Team accompanied BPD to the LAPD training. LAPD members are visiting BPD in early 2019 to conduct additional training of officers who are potential candidates for instructor positions at BPD’s Academy.
BPD recently created a Curriculum Coordination Committee (“CCC”) to address the training needs of the Department. The CCC is responsible for prioritizing training needs, eliminating duplication, ensuring instructor competence, certification and skill, and balancing Department priorities. The CCC is comprised of members of the training unit and receives input on training needs from other Department units.
Through consultation with LAPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ and the work of the CCC, BPD is actively seeking to incorporate interactive, adult-learning principles in its training methods. Using training methods that draw on these principles promises to improve the delivery and the impact of the training BPD officers receive.

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As the Monitoring Team and DOJ continue to work with BPD to meet specific short-term requirements, it will also be important for the Monitoring Team and DOJ to provide technical assistance, on a parallel and complimentary track, for the development of a new model for learning and professional development that will serve the needs of the organization in the future.
The new model must be supported by BPD leadership and must feature a professional culture of innovation, enhanced partnerships with academic institutions and other local resources, increased resources, and a state-of-the-art electronic learning platform.
Training to Address Departmental Missteps
Over the past six months, the Monitoring Team has seen evidence that BPD is learning what it takes—and how hard it is—to become a self-correcting agency by using remedial training to respond to missteps. BPD provided in-person training to members of the command staff and delivered e-training to all BPD officers in response to the separate findings of the Monitoring Team and an Independent Review Board that BPD’s response to the shooting of Detective Sean Suiter in the Harlem Park neighborhood in November 2017 was rife with both constitutional problems and operational deficiencies. See ECF No. 126-1 at 56-67. The Monitoring Team and DOJ provided comments on and approved the curriculum for both the in-person and webbased training. The Monitoring Team, DOJ and Judge Bredar also audited the inperson commander training. The in-person training had certain shortcomings— among other things, it was insufficiently interactive and at times unclear, failed to tie the principles being taught to specific BPD policies, and did not draw directly upon BPD’s failures in Harlem Park to teach Fourth Amendment and Incident Command System principles. Nonetheless, the Monitoring Team found encouraging signs of progress. Command staff participants were actively engaged, inquisitive and reflective, suggesting a genuine desire to improve Departmental performance. Community members were invited and took part, which strengthened the quality and impact of the program. And although instructors did not consistently incorporate adult learning techniques (e.g., group discussions around video recordings and written scenarios of real-world events) throughout the program, they did use those techniques effectively for parts of the program.
Separately, BPD is offering remedial testing—and re-training if necessary—to certain probationary officers who allegedly failed to demonstrate adequate comprehension of Fourth Amendment principles during their recruit training. The re-testing phase of this program also suffered from various shortcomings—more

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severe shortcomings than the remedial Harlem Park training. The shortcomings included the absence of accountability to adhere to the schedule, as the instructor and certain participants arrived late without consequence; the failure to adequately communicate the purpose of the exercise to participating officers, which led to considerable confusion at the outset and was unfair to the officers; the apparent failure to adequately plan for the session, as officers do not appear to have been told how to dress or what equipment to bring; and the absence of a proper tool for performing the necessary evaluation of officer proficiency, as the test scenarios officers were given were more like re-training than an evaluative test. The Monitoring Team credits BPD for attempting to remedy reported deficiencies in officer knowledge and skills through re-testing and re-training, but its execution of the re-testing/retraining program will require improvement.
Challenges Ahead
Leadership and Resources
As in other areas, the lack of consistent, permanent leadership within BPD has impeded progress in the training function. One consequence is the failure to commit the resources necessary to implement the training requirements of the Consent Decree. Although many individuals within BPD clearly and openly acknowledge the Academy’s tremendous resource needs, the Department continues to operate with an Academy staff that is shockingly small. At present, the Academy effectively has one sergeant and two officers, working with one lieutenant and the Consent Decree Implementation Unit, to write comprehensive lesson plans and oversee all Consent Decree training. (A separate, small complement of approximately five officers focuses on Academy training for new recruits.) To state the obvious, it is simply impossible for a small handful of people to prepare and oversee a constant stream of new training for more than 2,500 sworn officers in the near future. As one of DOJ’s subject matter experts asserted, and consistent with the Monitoring Team’s own experience and observations, there are departments of 150 or 200 officers that have full-time training staffs that are larger than BPD’s.
Simply put, BPD will not be able to achieve compliance with the Consent Decree with an Academy staffed as sparsely as it is. Failure to provide the Academy with the resources it needs will not only violates the express requirements of the Consent Decree, (CD 293 (“BPD will ensure that an adequate number of qualified instructors are assigned to the training academy”)), but will preclude BPD from meaningfully and effectively implementing the new policies that BPD has developed.

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New training staff must be assigned to the Academy full-time. Academy personnel cannot be “detailed” to patrol functions, as they now are. The practice of detailing depletes an already inadequate number of Academy officers. Although the Monitoring Team is mindful of the real-world public safety challenges that BPD faces, BPD must commit the personnel necessary to strengthen a core function like training.
The Academy also needs better facilities. The absence of an adequate physical space for training continues to be an impediment to the professionalization and effectiveness of BPD’s training function. While BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have begun discussions about creating an environment in which BPD officers are offered a professional, modern learning experience (see CD 292), BPD has not yet made concrete plans to upgrade its substandard training facilities.
Upcoming Consent Decree Training
The second year of monitoring—and part of the third year as well—will feature a high volume of training on new policies and performance expectations for BPD officers. The development of new lesson plans and the delivery of training on numerous policies and procedures would be a heavy lift for any police department. For BPD, which must simultaneously work to comply with other Consent Decree requirements, the task is daunting. In the second monitoring year, BPD is tentatively scheduled to devise training curricula and train officers on use of force, stops/searches/arrests, fair and impartial policing, and body-worn cameras. Moreover, BPD is scheduled to develop training curricula in the following additional areas, with the training to take place in the third monitoring year: sexual assault investigations, crisis intervention (for recruits, officers, specially-trained crisis intervention officers, and dispatchers), interactions with youth, and community policing.
This is an ambitious agenda for training reform. It is all the more ambitious because, as explained above, the Academy is simultaneously facing a shortage of personnel and altering the way it delivers training by offering different courses at several junctures throughout the year, deploying more interactive adult-learning techniques, and incorporating e-learning.
Next Six Months
In the next six months, BPD will need to design and begin to implement the first “Consent Decree training” program. As explained, that program will address BPD’s revised use of force policies and also cover certain material on fair and impartial policing. The current plan is for this training to begin in spring 2019 and

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run for 16 weeks, with four classes of 36 officers completing the course each week. As with other major Consent Decree requirements, a draft curriculum will be issued to the community for feedback prior to finalization. BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team are continuing to discuss mechanisms for directly involving community members in the training curriculum.
As BPD moves from curriculum design to implementation, the Monitoring Team and DOJ will evaluate how BPD orients instructors to the curriculum, provide technical assistance as needed, and then audit training sessions to ensure that the instruction aligns with the curriculum and with sound adult educational practices. The next report will provide an update on BPD’s progress.
In the next six months, BPD also will begin drafting curriculum for the second major Consent Decree training program of 2019, which will address revised policies on stops, searches, arrests and voluntary police-community interactions, as well as related policies on fair and impartial policing. It is currently contemplated that this training will begin in late summer/early fall 2019 and take approximately 16 weeks to complete. Thus, in the next reporting period, BPD is expected to make significant progress toward finalizing the curriculum for this second Consent Decree training program.
As BPD ramps up its training program, it must take both the short view and the long view. Over the short term, BPD must satisfy the immediate requirements of the current monitoring plan. Over the long term, BPD, working in collaboration with academic institutions and community representatives, must aspire to realize a new vision for officer learning and development, one that will promote a culture of professionalism and furnish clear, practical guidance on effective, constitutional policing.

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Stops, Searches, Arrests and Voluntary Police-Community Interactions
In recognition of the importance of the Consent Decree’s requirements on stops, searches, arrests and voluntary police-community interactions (“S/S/A”), the Consent Decree’s provisions addressing those interactions are extensive. They compel BPD to revise its policies and training curricula; provide thorough prescriptions for communicating with individuals, performing field interviews, and conducting stops, pat downs, searches and arrests; and establish detailed training, documentation, supervisory, and data collection and review obligations (CD 29-86).
During this reporting period, the Monitoring Team reviewed and provided technical assistance on S/S/A policies, training and reporting. On policies, BPD drafted, revised and/or finalized two different sets of S/S/A policies. On training, BPD prepared and finalized an S/S/A training plan, which will be implemented in the second monitoring year, and prepared lesson plans and provided training to both command staff and officers in response to the Monitoring Team’s findings regarding BPD’s interactions with civilians in Harlem Park following the shooting death of Detective Sean Suiter. On reporting, BPD met with the Monitoring Team to demonstrate its existing methods for recording stops, searches, arrests and voluntary interactions, and finalized a several-step plan for documenting investigatory stops going forward.
BPD thus far has met all of the First-Year Monitoring Plan deadlines relating to the S/S/A section of the Consent Decree. It has made reasonable progress toward satisfying the policy revision requirements. It is too soon to assess BPD’s progress toward satisfying any of the other requirements.
Policy Revisions
After receiving and incorporating public feedback, BPD finalized an initial set of six core S/S/A policies during the reporting period: Policies 1112 (Field Interviews, Investigative Stops/Detentions, Weapons Pat-Downs, and Searches), 1007 (Search and Seizure Warrants), 1013 (Strip Searches and Body Cavity Searches), 1106 (Warrantless Arrest Procedures and Probable Cause Standard), 1109 (Warrantless Searches) and 1505 (Foot Pursuits). The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval of these policies on October 31, 2018.
BPD also finalized a second set of S/S/A policies, which the Monitoring Team approved on December 21, 2018. The second set includes six additional policies: Policies 906 (Traffic Citations), 1002 (Securing & Interviewing Witnesses), 1104 (Arrest Warrants), 1105 (Custodial Interrogations), 1108 (DUI/DWI Arrest

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Procedure), and 1114 (Persons in Police Custody). Like the initial set of policies, the second set was not finalized until they went through a collaboration period with the Monitoring Team and DOJ and a public comment period that provided BPD with meaningful feedback.
The revisions to these twelve S/S/A policies are extensive and required considerable effort. As with revisions to other policies, the revisions greatly improve on BPD’s previous S/S/A policies. They are more logically organized, provide a succinct, clear statement of objectives and supporting law, and furnish firm guidance on what officers are required to do, and what they are prohibited from doing, when they stop, search, arrest and conduct field interviews of civilians. Providing firm guidance in this area is essential because achieving compliance with the Consent Decree and rebuilding the community’s trust will require BPD officers to perform their law enforcement duties vis-a-vis community members in a lawful, respectful manner.
Reporting on Stops, Searches and Arrests
On October 31, 2018 the Monitoring Team met with BPD’s Central Records Commander for an orientation on BPD’s current reporting methods for documenting citizen contacts, with a focus on record-keeping for field interviews, investigative stops and vehicle stops. BPD recognizes that it uses an antiquated system for collecting data on these civilian encounters. The system relies on officers to complete two handwritten forms. BPD acknowledges that, because of the system’s inadequacies, officers under-report both field interviews and investigative stops.
The Current System for Reporting Stops
The current citizen encounter reporting system is governed by Policy 1112 (Field Interviews, Investigative Stops, Weapons Pat Downs, and Searches). Although the policy was recently revised, officers have not yet been trained on the new version, so they are presently held accountable to the old version, which was implemented in August 2017.
In police/citizen encounters that do not result in arrests, the policy requires officers to complete an Incident Report (including a narrative) for investigative stops, weapons pat-downs, searches and the issuance of criminal citations. Separately, the policy requires officers to complete a Citizen Police Contact Receipt (aka stop ticket) for field interviews and the issuance of civil and traffic citations. Stop tickets are always hand-written; Incident Reports may be either handwritten or prepared in .pdf format on a computer (though the computer-generated forms ultimately must be

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printed out for hand delivery to Central Records, see below). In encounters where an arrest is made, officers must complete both an Incident Report and, either remotely via a State-maintained URL or in person at the detention facility, an electronic report in the State’s Offender Case Management System. For traffic violations, officers must complete a stop ticket if no citation is issued and, when a citation is issued, both a stop ticket and the citation. The vast majority of citations are handwritten, as BPD has very few “e-tix” systems available for officers in the field.
At the end of a shift, officers turn in their completed handwritten or computergenerated forms to supervisors, who review and approve the paperwork. The paperwork is next reviewed and cross-checked against the Computer Assisted Dispatch (“CAD”)-generated incident list by the District Auditor, who then provides it to the District Property Officer for transmission, by hand delivery, forwards to the Central Records Division. Central Records maintains a handwritten log sheet in a three-ring binder for Property Officers to record the types of forms they submit. The log contains individual blocks for types of records, such as Incident Reports, domestic abuse reports, and stop tickets. Full-time civilian staff manually enter Incident Reports in BPD’s Record Management System. Officers on light duty manually enter stop tickets.
Problems with BPD’s Collection of Data on Stops
BPD freely admits its system for reporting and maintaining records of field interviews, investigative pedestrian stops and traffic stops is antiquated and not useful for tracking stop data. The flaws include the following:
• BPD officers, on the whole, under-report stops, particularly investigative pedestrian stops. The Monitoring Team has been informed that officers believe the Incident Report form is long and cumbersome for encounters that are not arrests, including investigative stops. The Monitoring Team also has learned that BPD officers sometimes have difficulty obtaining an incident number from dispatch, which is needed to prepare an Incident Report, or think it is burdensome to contact dispatch for an incident number for every investigative stop, particularly those not resulting in arrests. The result of the purported burdensomeness of completing Incident Reports for investigative pedestrian stops is that some officers do not complete Incident Reports for them. Some prepare no report at all (particularly if they do not obtain an incident number). Some complete stop tickets instead, even though BPD policy does not contemplate completion of stop tickets for these encounters. The practices appear to vary from district to district and across the Department. The upshot is that, on the whole, under-reporting of

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investigative stops is too frequent to ensure the integrity of BPD’s data on investigative stops. Making matters worse, the data that does exist is found in disparate sources—Incident Reports and stop tickets—and, as explained below, data from hundreds of thousands of stop tickets and Incident Reports completed in recent years has not been entered into BPD’s Record Management System (“RMS”).
• Neither the Districts nor Central Records appear to document the number of pedestrian stop tickets provided to Central Records. Upon reviewing several weeks of entries on the log sheet at Central Records, the Monitoring Team observed that, although the log reflected the number of filed domestic violence reports, the spaces for documenting the number of filed pedestrian stop tickets were mostly blank. Accurately tracking pedestrian stop tickets must become a higher priority. The Consent Decree requires it.
• Because of BPD’s personnel shortages, there is a large backlog of pedestrian stop tickets awaiting entry in RMS. As of October 2018, a number of pedestrian stop tickets prepared in 2015 and 2017 had not yet been entered. Because of the backlog, BPD recently ceased entering data for the 2015 and 2017 pedestrian stop tickets altogether and started entering data from stop tickets only from 2018. The total number of pedestrian stop tickets not entered into RMS for 2015 and 2017 is over 125,000. And as of September 5, 2018, there were still 64,507 pedestrian stop tickets from 2018 that had not been entered into BPD’s data system. BPD reports that Central Records has made recent changes to prevent backlogs of pedestrian stop tickets, including assigning data entry duties to the Districts rather than centralizing all of the work at Central Records. The Monitoring Team will track the progress of these reported improvements in the next reporting period.
• Perhaps even more troubling than the RMS entry backlog for stop tickets is the RMS entry backlog for Incident Reports—the reports required for investigative pedestrian stops, weapons pat-downs, searches and arrests. BPD has informed the Monitoring Team that the backlog for RMS entry of Incident Reports for Part II offenses is 30,000, including 9.300 more serious “priority” Part II offenses. The FBI categorizes Part II offenses as lesser, largely non-violent offenses (e.g., simple assault, forgery, fraud, stolen property, vandalism, weapons possession, drug crimes, DUI, and all other non-traffic offenses that are not Part I offenses, see https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/offensedefinitions). Data involving these more common offenses is precisely the

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data that the Monitoring Team and BPD need to be able to perform Consent Decree-mandated analyses of the constitutionality of stops, searches and arrests by BPD officers. Data on stops, searches and arrests for Part II offenses can reveal whether or not, for example, an agency is engaged in disparate policing practices.
Usefulness of the Stop Data
The Monitoring Team explained in its first report that the inadequacy of the stops data entered and stored in BPD’s RMS makes it impossible for BPD to perform data-driven supervision of individual officer performance and to review and analyze Departmental trends and patterns. See ECF No. 126-1 at 59-60. The Monitoring Team’s October visit to Central Records confirmed this conclusion. It also confirmed that, until BPD’s data collection system is improved, the Monitoring Team will likely be unable to perform the systematic quantitative analyses of stops that the Consent Decree requires. However, diagnostic qualitative reviews remain possible. The Monitoring Team can and will examine samples of Incident Reports and, if possible, stop tickets to determine whether BPD officers are adequately documenting the reasons for their stops, adequately explaining the existence of reasonable suspicion or probable cause, and otherwise writing cogent narratives of their encounters.
The Next Six Months
The next reporting period will be active. In conjunction with the development of a Community Policing Plan, BPD will draft and complete revisions to the final set of S/S/A policies, which address “quality of life” offenses. These include Policies 808 (Criminal and Civil Citations), 809 (Marihuana – Uniform Civil Citation), 812 (Misdemeanor Shoplifting Arrests), and 1018 (Quality of Life Offenses). BPD also will draft, issue for public comment, and finalize training curriculum on S/S/A, with the new training to commence in the second half of 2019. Additionally, BPD will begin issuing quarterly reports on stops, searches and arrests, as Paragraph 86 of the Consent Decree requires, and the Monitoring Team will conduct qualitative compliance reviews of BPD’s S/S/A records.

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Impartial Policing
Paragraph 87 of the Consent Decree asserts that “policing fairly and without bias is central to promoting broad community engagement and building partnerships between law enforcement and community members that are an important part of effective policing.” To that end, the Consent Decree requires BPD to: document the demographic category of all individuals who are stopped, patted-down, searched, arrested or make a complaint (CD 88); adopt policies that require fair, impartial, nondiscriminatory policing (CD 89); establish an impartial policing training curriculum and properly train officers, with community input, to perform their duties in a nondiscriminatory manner (CD 90-94); and consider whether officers engage in nondiscriminatory policing in evaluating performance and making hiring and promotion decisions (CD 95).
Policy Revisions
In the first half of 2018, as noted in the first semiannual report, BPD made substantial progress in revising two policies that address the Consent Decree’s impartial policing requirements: Policy 317 (“Fair and Impartial Policing”) and Policy 720 (“Interactions with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer/ Questioning Individuals”). In July 2018, after a great deal of work with the Monitoring Team, DOJ, and interested stakeholders, BPD issued final drafts of these polices for public comment. BPD took care to respond to the comments it received, either by editing the relevant policies or, in limited instances, by explaining to commentators the reasons why their proposed edits were not adopted. The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval of revised Policies 317 and 720 in August 2018.
As noted in the first semiannual report, revised Policy 317 provides clear directives to officers to ensure fair, respectful, nondiscriminatory treatment of community members, and expressly notes its close connection with policies addressing specific law enforcement actions, such as stops, arrests, weapons patdowns and searches. Similarly, Policy 720 on Interactions with LGBTQ provides key guidance on adherence to the requirements of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, so as to ensure that officers stop, pat-down, search and arrest individuals, including LGBTQ individuals, only with proper justification and that officers refrain from taking law enforcement action against individuals based on perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. The specificity of the two polices is essential to the development of a curriculum that will facilitate proper training of BPD officers.

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Training
From August through November 2018, BPD endeavored to develop a training curriculum that would satisfy Paragraphs 90-94 of the Consent Decree. This task proved to be extremely difficult. While the BPD personnel who prepared the initial draft of the curriculum are to be commended for their efforts, particularly given the time and resource constraints under which they have been working, the draft was in need of substantial additional work. It did not adequately convey the particular requirements of revised Policies 317 and 720, did not adequately incorporate scenario-based training, and did not cogently connect certain concepts underlying impartial policing requirements (e.g., implicit bias and procedural justice) to the new policies. During the collaboration period, it became clear that BPD officers supervising the development of the training were requiring BPD trainers to squeeze the training into one eight hour block of in-service training time, which was all that was allotted. Once BPD agreed that one eight-hour session would be inadequate, Academy officers went back to the drawing board to develop a more comprehensive lesson plan, one that would more explicitly incorporate the requirements of the revised policies and integrate those requirements with the requirements of related policies, including S/S/A policies. Additionally, the Monitoring Team suggested that BPD think through opportunities for online learning to preserve time for in-person training in the Academy. BPD also consulted with experts on impartial policing training from across the country.
As BPD worked through these issues with the impartial policing training curriculum, the Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ agreed that, as explained elsewhere in this report, it no longer made sense to try to deliver all annual in-service training in one two-week block at the Academy. Rather, BPD agreed that training should occur in smaller blocks of time throughout the year, supplemented by online learning. It was only in recent weeks that BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ established a detailed plan for development and delivery of this new training program. As a result of both the challenges posed by drafting the curriculum for impartial policing and the re-design of the overall training plan, the initial deadlines for finalizing the impartial policing training curriculum have been extended.
As explained above, BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have agreed that the fair and impartial policing training curriculum should be divided into three parts, to be delivered at different times. The first part will be delivered with use of force training, the second part with S/S/A training, and the final part on its own. The first parts will be finalized in the next three months and delivered before the end of the next reporting period. The second part will be finalized in the next six months and

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delivered in the second half of 2019. The final part will be developed later in 2019 and delivered in early 2020.
Challenges Ahead
The principal challenge in the short-term will be to devise a training curriculum that effectively conveys to BPD officers the requirements of Policy 317 and 720 and the principles animating them and, at the same time, integrates impartial policing concepts into training curricula on related topics, particularly use of force and stops, searches and arrests. The integrated approach, which BPD is now committed to pursuing, should provide officers more effective guidance on how to perform their duties in a constitutional manner.
The principal long-term challenge remains ensuring that BPD officers consistently interact in a fair and respectful with community members and refrain from discrimination in the performance of their duties.
The Next Six Months
The development of the three tranches of impartial policing training, described above, will be the focus of the next reporting period.

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Use of Force
The Consent Decree obligates BPD to ensure that its officers resolve incidents without using force when possible, employ de-escalation techniques to minimize the need to use force, avoid unnecessary injury or risk of injury to officers and civilians when force is necessary, stop other officers from using excessive force, report all uses of force, and be held accountable for using unreasonable force (CD 124). To accomplish these objectives, the Consent Decree’s section on Use of Force contains requirements regarding policies on use of force (including weapons-specific policies) (CD 125-65), training on use of force (CD 166-68), reporting, reviewing and investigating use of force incidents (CD 169-210), and collecting, analyzing and reporting data on use of force incidents (CD 211-17).
BPD has met every deadline in the First-Year Monitoring Plan involving the Use of Force provisions of the Consent Decree and has made substantial progress toward satisfying the policy revision provisions. BPD also has begun to develop training curriculum on use of force policies. It remains too soon to assess BPD’s progress toward compliance with the Consent Decree’s other provisions on use of force.
Areas of Progress
Policy Revisions
In the first reporting period, BPD successfully revised the core policy on use of force, Policy 1115 (Use of Force), as well as the policies addressing the most commonly used by patrol officers—Policies 409 (Firearms Regulations), 719 (Conducted Electrical Weapons—CEW), 1111 (Batons/Impact Weapons) and 1118 (Oleoresin Capsicum Spray). The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval of these five policies in July 2018. See ECF No. 118.
In this reporting period, BPD has finalized the nine remaining use of force policies with input from the Monitoring Team, DOJ and community members. These policies cover, among other things, de-escalation and the reporting and investigation of use of force incidents. They include: 412 (Patrol Rifle Program), 414 (Less Lethal Munitions and Chemical Agents), 710 (Level 3 Use of Force Investigations – SIRT), 724 (Performance Review Board), 725 (Use of Force Reporting, Review and Assessment), 1005 (Non-Uniform Policing Standards), 1107 (De-escalation), 1503 (Emergency Vehicle Operation and Pursuit Policy), and 1602 (Canine Procedure).

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BPD produced initial drafts of this second set of use of force policies in June 2018. BPD then collaborated with the Monitoring Team and DOJ on revisions. BPD issued revised drafts for public comment from the end of July until the end of August 2018. On September 17, 2018, after BPD incorporated the public feedback and finalized the policies, the Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval with the Court.
Development of Training Curriculum
Once BPD completed revisions to its use of force policies, it turned its attention to preparing use of force training curriculum. BPD submitted its initial draft of the curriculum in July 2018. The Monitoring Team and DOJ worked with BPD to revise the curriculum through November. During the collaboration period, as reported above, representatives from BPD visited Los Angeles for an intensive week-long training session with the Los Angeles Police Department.
It was as the collaboration period concluded that BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team agreed that BPD needed to alter its customary training schedule to accommodate the reforms required by the Consent Decree, as explained above. Under the revised schedule, BPD has continued to refine the use of force training curriculum with input from the Monitoring Team and DOJ. That work is on-going. A draft curriculum should be issued for public comment by the end of February 2019. After receiving and incorporating public feedback, BPD will finalize the curriculum and then begin to train officers on it toward the middle of 2019.
Reporting of Use of Force Incidents
Paragraphs 169 – 217 of the Consent Decree set forth the information that BPD officers and supervisors must capture for every event involving the use of force by a BPD officer. In addition, these paragraphs establish the responsibilities of the Special Investigation Response Team (“SIRT”), which investigates all Level 3 use of force incidents, as well as the responsibilities of the Performance Review Board, which reviews all Level 3 incidents.4

4 Level 3 uses of force include: • Strikes to the head, neck, sternum, spine, groin, or kidney area with an impact weapon, • Firearm discharges (including unintentional firearm discharges), • Applications of more than three (3) Conducted Electrical Weapon (CEW) cycles in a single encounter, regardless of the mode or duration of the application, and regardless of whether the applications are by the same or different members,

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As noted above, BPD successfully revised Policy 725, which governs the information that BPD must capture and maintain for all use of force incidents. Revised Policy 725 includes all of the Departmental forms that BPD uses for those purposes. Revised Policy 725 will ensure that BPD records and maintains all of the information needed for the Monitoring Team to perform the outcome assessments and compliance reviews required by the Consent Decree. Equally important, it will ensure that BPD records and maintains all of the information required for supervisors and command staff to assess compliance with Departmental policies and, correspondingly, to identify any pattern-or-practice of behavior by an individual officer that requires correction through better supervision, improved training or discipline, as well as any pattern-or-practice of unit- or Department-wide behavior that similarly requires improved supervision or training.
The primary method BPD uses, and will continue to use, to capture the required information for use of force incidents is the completion of Force Report, Form 96, by the involved officer and Use of Force Report, Form 99, by the officer’s supervisor. These report forms are included as appendices to Policy 725. The information captured in these forms includes the involved officer’s description of the events leading up to the interaction, identifying information for the involved officer and for the individual on whom force was used, witnessing officers, civilian witnesses, injuries sustained, weapons used, the existence of body worn camera footage or other video, the tactics used (including de-escalation), and the opinion of the reviewing supervisor as to the appropriateness of the involved officer’s actions. Once Forms 96 and 99 are completed, the information from the Forms is uploaded to Blue Team, which is the front end module of IAPro, the software program used by the BPD’s Office of Professional Responsibility. BPD is in the process of upgrading its current, customized version of IAPro to the most recent, standardized version.
Because the information supervisors are required to gather and submit is exhaustive, Policy 725 includes a Use of Force Preliminary Review Checklist for Supervisors. The checklist includes 20 items for supervisors at the scene to check off as they fulfill their responsibilities.
In addition to Forms 96 and 99, which are used for every use of force incident, BPD utilizes other forms for different situations involving uses of force. These forms are also included as appendices to Policy 725. Form 93 must be completed any time a weapon is drawn and pointed at an individual. Form 97, the Public Safety Statement, must be completed any time an officer is involved in a shooting in order to give the Department the information needed to ensure a safe and appropriate response. Form 25 must be completed any time a supervisor requires additional time to gather all of
• CEW application for longer than 15 seconds whether the application is a single continuous application or from multiple applications,
• Uses of force resulting in death, serious physical injury, loss of consciousness, or requiring hospitalization, and
• Uses of deadly force/lethal force.

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the documentation required for Level 1 and 2 use of force incidents under the strict deadlines set forth in the Use of Force Review Submission Table included in Policy 725.5 Finally, for Level 2 use of force incidents, Policy 725 includes an assessment form that must be completed by a reviewer in the Use of Force Assessment Unit. The form requires the reviewer to evaluate the performance of both the involved officer and involved supervisors.
Challenges Ahead
In ensuring that BPD officers satisfy the use of force requirements of the Consent Decree, BPD faces the same challenges it faced six months ago. See ECF No. 126-1 at 73-74.
The most immediate challenge is to craft an effective use of force training curriculum and then use that curriculum to properly train all officers by mid-2019, as currently planned. The challenge is daunting not only because the deadlines are

5 Level 2 use of force incidents include: • Force that causes or could reasonably be expected to cause an injury greater than temporary pain or the use of weapons or techniques listed below — provided they do not otherwise rise to a Level 3 Use of Force: • Discharge of a CEW in drive-stun or probe mode, in the direction of a person, including where a CEW is fired at a person but misses, • Use of OC spray or other chemical agents, • Weaponless defense techniques including, but not limited to, elbow or closed fist strikes and kicks, • Discharge of a less-lethal launcher/munitions in the direction of a person, • Canine-inflicted injuries that do not rise to a Level 3 Use of Force, • Non-weapon strikes to the head, neck, sternum, spine, groin, or kidney area (except Level 1 open hand strikes), • Striking of a person or a vehicle with a vehicle that does not rise to Level 3 Use of Force.
Level 1 uses of force include: • Using techniques that cause Temporary Pain or disorientation as a means of gaining compliance, including open hand strikes, hand control or escort techniques (e.g., elbow grip, wrist grip, or shoulder grip) and pressure point compliance techniques. Force under this category is not reasonably expected to cause injury, • Pointing a firearm, Less-Lethal Launcher, or CEW at a person, • “Displaying the arc” with a CEW as a form of warning, and • Forcible takedowns that do not result in actual injury or complaint of injury.

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tight and the subject matter is dense, but also because the training academy remains understaffed.
A similarly pressing challenge continues to be completing the upgrade of Blue Team/IAPro so that it captures all of the data required for robust analysis of use of force incidents. The recording and maintenance of complete data on such incidents is essential to enable the Monitoring Team to perform the evaluations that the Consent Decree requires, and equally essential to enable BPD supervisors and commanders to review individual incidents and Departmental trends.
The Next Six Months
As noted, BPD is scheduled to complete a draft of the use of force training curriculum in the coming weeks. It will then be available for public comment. After BPD incorporates the public’s feedback and finalizes the curriculum, the Monitoring Team will either approve or disapprove it. BPD will commence training soon after, and complete training all officers by the end of summer 2019.
Over the next six months, BPD also plans to commence operations of the Performance Review Board. The PRB will review serious use of force incidents and resulting investigations and, if warranted, recommend remedial action to the Commissioner. In the next reporting period, BPD will identify new PRB members and create and provide them with orientation training on revised Policy 724, which sets forth the responsibilities and procedures of the PRB.

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Transportation of Persons in Custody
Ensuring the safety of individuals in police custody is among the most important obligations of any law enforcement agency. It was the death of Freddie Gray following transport in a BPD van that triggered unrest and demonstrated the deep divide between BPD and parts of the Baltimore community. For that reason, early compliance efforts focused partly on the Consent Decree’s transportation of persons in custody provisions.
The Consent Decree requires BPD to: (1) equip all transport vans with seatbelts, holding straps located along the rear area of each seat that individuals being transported may grip for security during transport, and transport vehicle cameras (TVCs) and all transport cruisers with seatbelts (CD 223-24); (2) inspect transport vehicles monthly and create logs to memorialize the inspections (CD 225); (3) establish and adhere to appropriate procedures for transporting prisoners (including using seatbelts, straps, and TVCs) (CD 226-33), (4) establish and adhere to protocols for documenting and comprehensively auditing prisoner transport events (CD 234-37), and (5) revise policies and training curricula to ensure safe, effective prisoner transport (CD 238).
The Monitoring Team is assessing the Consent Decree’s transport requirements in two phases. The transport equipment phase focuses on whether BPD has installed the required equipment in its transport vehicles and maintained the equipment in working order. The transport procedures phase focuses on whether BPD has implemented the transport policies required by the Consent Decree and whether officers are adhering to those policies and using the transport equipment correctly and consistently.
Thus far, BPD has made substantial progress toward satisfying the equipment requirements in Paragraphs 223-225 and the policy revision requirements in Paragraph 238. During the first reporting period, BPD outfitted all transport vehicles with the proper equipment and began routinely conducting monthly inspections to ensure the equipment is functional. In this reporting period, BPD has completed the required initial revisions to its transport policies.
In this reporting period, BPD also has begun making progress toward satisfying the transport procedures requirements in Paragraphs 226-233. It is not yet far along the path to compliance. It conducted its first inspection of compliance with transport procedures in October 2018.

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Areas of Progress
Policies
After incorporating public feedback, BPD finalized its transport policies in July 2019. The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval in August.
Equipment Audits
BPD has continued to conduct monthly inspections of its transport vans to ensure they are properly equipped with seatbelts, holding straps located along the rear area of each seat that individuals being transported may grip for security during transport, and TVCs. It has also continued to conduct monthly inspections of all transport cruisers to ensure they are equipped with functional seatbelts. BPD is creating monthly logs of its transport vehicle inspections and, if any vehicle fails inspection, BPD is taking the vehicle out of service until the deficiency is fixed. The Monitoring Team and DOJ are reviewing every log.
Transport Procedures Audits
In this reporting period, BPD developed a tool for auditing transport events to ensure that transport officers are following proper procedures. In September, members of BPD’s audit section, together with both the Monitoring Team and DOJ, performed mock audits of transport events in an attempt to verify the functionality of the audit assessment tool. During the mock audits, BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team identified and discussed several issues. The principal issue was ensuring that the tool captures all of the information required by Paragraph 232 of the Consent Decree, including the location the subject is picked up, the time the transport vehicle leaves that location, the number of persons transported, the destination, the starting and ending mileage of the vehicle, the time of arrival at the destination, and whether at any time the driver felt the subject being transported needed medical attention. By performing the mock audits, BPD was able to adjust the audit inspection tool so that its audits will satisfy the requirements of the Consent Decree.
BPD used the revised assessment tool to perform its first inspection of transport events in October 2018. On October 30, BPD’s Office of Inspector General submitted its inspection report to the Acting Commissioner. The inspection focused on the following items: whether the wagon TVCs were operating properly; whether seatbelts were used properly; whether subjects were only transported in vehicles with safety barriers; whether females and males were transported separately; whether juveniles and adults were transported separately; whether subjects requested medical attention and, if so, whether it was provided; and whether transport officers activated their BWCs during the transport. The inspection reviewed 31 different transport events and surveyed 211 individual items. In the end, the inspectors found

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only four deficiencies requiring corrective action. Each of the required corrective actions were taken and detailed in the Inspector General’s report.
The first inspection was not fully comprehensive because there remain logistical difficulties with capturing every single requirement of Paragraph 232 (e.g., assessing whether transport officers are routinely checking on the welfare of their passengers). Nevertheless, the first inspection was thorough and covered the vast majority of Paragraph 232 requirements.
Challenges Ahead
The most pressing challenge is for BPD’s Audit Section to resolve how to effectively capture all of the data that Paragraph 232 requires. While BPD already captures most of the required data effectively, the mock and first inspection helped identify the few data points that are difficult to capture. For instance, as noted, it is presently difficult to discern from any available data source (e.g., TVC, digital recording, voice recording) whether transport officers are routinely checking on the welfare of their passengers. BPD will need to develop a method for making those determinations. In addition, although BPD currently captures required data through both digital and voice recording, reviewing voice recordings (i.e., calls with dispatch) is extremely time-consuming. Accordingly, as explained in the first semiannual report, see ECF No. 126-1 at 77-78, BPD will need to develop a way for officers to digitally record certain required data that is presently voice-recorded.
The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, BPD will continue conducting its monthly inspections of transport vehicles and will begin quarterly audits of compliance with transport procedures. It is expected that, for the transport procedures audits, BPD will determine how to overcome the logistical data-capture challenges identified above.
In addition, the Monitoring Team will continue its review of BPD’s monthly inspection logs and quarterly transport procedures audits. The Monitoring Team’s review of the quarterly audits will include, among other things, reviews of TVC recordings that BPD reviews in order to ensure that TVCs are properly recording transport events, that BPD is accurately documenting TVC functionality, and that officers are adhering to BPD transport policies. The Monitoring Team will also conduct random, unannounced inspections of BPD transport vehicles to ensure they are properly equipped.

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First Amendment-Protected Activities
As the Consent Decree and BPD’s newly-revised policy on First Amendment Protected Activity explain, the exercise of First Amendment rights is fundamental to democratic governance because it promotes the free exchange of ideas. Moreover, the preservation and protection of First Amendment rights is vital to maintaining public trust in the rule of law because it fosters transparency and accountability in government functions, including policing (CD 239).
For these reasons, the Consent Decree requires BPD to protect several different First Amendment rights: the right to free speech and expression, which includes the right to criticize law enforcement and engage in speech in the presence of law enforcement without being subject to retaliation (CD 240-44); the right to freely organize and participate in lawful public assemblies (CD 245); and the right to observe and record the actions of BPD officers in the public discharge of their duties (CD 247). The Consent Decree also protects First Amendment rights by prohibiting the warrantless search and seizure of recorded video and images, except in limited circumstances (CD 249-50). The Consent Decree prescribes protection for all of these constitutional rights by obligating BPD to: -revise its policies and training programs (CD 239, 244, 246, 251); require supervisory approval for dispersing assemblies, seizing recording devices and recordings, and arresting individuals engaged in expressive activity (CD 252-54); and conduct annual assessments of its practices relating to First Amendment protected activity (CD 255).
To date, BPD has met the deadlines in the First-Year Monitoring Plan regarding First Amendment protected activities and has completed the initial revision of two policies addressing such activities. BPD has not yet begun working on revisions to training, as the First-Year Monitoring Plan has not required BPD to do so. It is thus too soon to gauge whether BPD has made progress toward implementing the policies or toward satisfying the other requirements in this area.
Policy Revisions
With input from DOJ and the Monitoring Team, BPD successfully completed, during this reporting period, its revisions to BPD’s core policies addressing First Amendment-protected activities: Policy 804, (“First Amendment Protected Activity”) and Policy 1016 (“Public Observation and Recording of Officers”). Consistent with the requirements of the First-Year Monitoring Plan, the Monitoring Team and DOJ exchanged numerous edits and comments with BPD, BPD produced final drafts for public comment, BPD received and incorporated meaningful feedback from public interest organizations (including an organization that had been in litigation with

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BPD over alleged First Amendment violations), and with approval from DOJ and the Monitoring Team, BPD finalized the two revised policies. See ECF No. 140.
Former Policy 804 was deficient. It was disjointed and hard to follow, focused on public assemblies to the exclusion of other First Amendment activity, and even with that focus was directed toward instructing officers when to restrict, interrupt and terminate such assemblies, rather than emphasizing that restriction, interruption and termination are a last resort. The revised policy is much more tightly organized and comprehensible: it tells officers expressly what they are required to do to protect First Amendment rights and then what they are prohibited from doing. It also clearly sets forth Departmental obligations for training and data collection and analysis on First Amendment events. Moreover, rather than focusing exclusively on policing public assemblies, revised Policy 804 also provides directives on respecting individuals’ right to criticize police officers and police activity outside the context of a protest or assembly. This is vital, as DOJ’s pattern-or-practice findings principally criticized how BPD officers detained, arrested and used unreasonable force against individuals who criticized or insulted officers—not how BPD officers handled public demonstrations. Finally, revised Policy 804 provides clearer and more comprehensive direction on preserving the right to public assembly, including express protocols for preparing for planned assemblies.
Policy 1016, which addresses the right to observe and record officers in the line of duty, is similarly improved. Although Policy 1016 did not require as many substantive changes as Policy 804, the revised policy provides more comprehensive guidance to officers and is better and more comprehensibly organized. The revised policy also includes detailed procedures for obtaining recorded material thought to be relevant to criminal investigations, clearly delineating what officers and supervisors may and may not do to secure such evidence.
While BPD has substantially revised Policies 804 and 1016, it has elected to rescind the Mobile Field Force policy (Policy 413), at the suggestion and with the approval of the Monitoring Team and DOJ. The Mobile Field Force is a specialized unit that monitors, maintains peace, and protects the right to assemble and speak at both planned and spontaneous public demonstrations, and intervenes to maintain public safety, while respecting First Amendment rights, when public demonstrations turn violent. With the input of the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD has incorporated the general provisions of the Mobile Field Force policy into Policy 804 and will create Standard Operating Procedures to provide detailed tactical guidance to Mobile Field Force officers about how to carry out their responsibilities while preserving First Amendment rights. The Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ have determined that rescission of the standalone Mobile Field Force policy makes sense because the policy

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is not so much a policy as it is an outline for a tactical procedural manual. The Monitoring Team is comfortable with how the mission and general responsibilities of the Mobile Field Force are reflected in revised Policy 804 and, together with DOJ, it will review and work with BPD to develop an appropriate Mobile Field Force SOP in the second monitoring year. The existing Mobile Field Force policy will not be rescinded until the SOP is developed and implemented.
Challenges Ahead
After policy revisions are completed, the next major challenge will be to develop and implement a comprehensible, scenario-based training curriculum to ensure that officers respect First Amendment protections. Developing and training officers on that new curriculum is scheduled to take place during the second and third monitoring years. Additional challenges include ensuring vigilant supervisory review and data collection and analysis regarding BPD actions addressing First Amendment activity, as well as ensuring accountability for any policy violations.
Though just one event, the alleged assault of Dashawn McGrier by now-former BPD Officer Arthur Williams on August 11, 2018 exemplifies these challenges. (Williams is currently facing criminal charges.) In its investigation, DOJ found that officers routinely responded to oral criticisms, insults and non-violent provocations— speech protected by the First Amendment—by using unreasonable force. Based on the Monitoring Team’s review of evidence in the McGrier incident (which has not included additional evidence that might have been gathered in the criminal investigation), this is precisely what Williams appeared to do in response to McGrier’s purported insolence. Williams’ reaction to McGrier presents yet another teaching opportunity for BPD—an opportunity to instruct officers not only on the use of unreasonable force generally, but on the use of unreasonable force in response to oral remarks that might be irritating, but present no risk of physical harm and no risk of interference with police activities and are thus constitutionally protected.
Gathering data on officers’ responses to First Amendment-protected activity could also prove challenging. Paragraph 459(j)(i) of the Consent Decree requires the Monitoring Team to conduct outcome assessments to analyze the citations and arrests that require supervisory approval under the First Amendment section of the Consent Decree. The data needed for these assessments, however, is not readily available. To conduct the assessments, the Monitoring Team is going to have to work backward from District reports involving First Amendment assemblies or civil disturbances and locate corresponding incident reports in RMS or manually. See ECF No. 121 at 25. The Monitoring Team will have similar logistical challenges conducting the outcome assessments required by Paragraph 459(j)(ii), which calls for analysis of

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the investigation and disposition of OPR complaints of individuals who claim not to have been permitted to observe, record or protest police activity, or to have been retaliated against for such conduct. While OPR complaint classifications currently include both “Recording device complaints” and “Impairing First Amendment activity,” BPD has informed the Monitoring Team that these categories are not used consistently. While “Recording device complaints” might be classified relatively consistently, complaints of infringement of other First Amendment rights are not. Sometimes they are classified under “impairing First Amendment activity,” but they also might be classified instead as “conduct unbecoming” or as something else—for instance, if the incident involved the use of unreasonable force in response to protected speech, it might have been classified only as an excessive force complaint and not also as a complaint implicating First Amendment rights. Thus, in performing the outcome assessments required under Paragraph 459(j)(ii), the Monitoring Team will have to canvass complaints under a number of complaint categories. See ECF No. 121 at 26.
Over the long term, BPD will have to collect and categorize data on events involving First Amendment-protected activity more rigorously so that the agency itself can properly measure officer and supervisory performance under Policies 804 and 1016.
The Next Six Months
BPD will develop and finalize Standard Operating Procedures for its Mobile Field Force in the first part of 2019. In addition, BPD will develop training curriculum that corresponds with revised Policies 804 and 1016. BPD must submit the initial draft of that curriculum to the Monitoring Team and DOJ for review by early July 2019. The curriculum will be finalized toward the end of 2019, with training on the curriculum to commence in 2020.
During the next six months, the Monitoring Team hopes to begin conducting compliance reviews and outcome assessments regarding BPD’s actions in response to First Amendment activity. As noted above, the Monitoring Team has developed an instrument for performing these evaluations and will work with the parties to finalize it.

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Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in Crisis
The Consent Decree reinforces BPD’s “commit[ment] to responding to individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis in a manner that respects individuals’ civil rights and contributes to their overall health and welfare.” Paragraph 96 envisions that BPD will accomplish this goal by using appropriate crisis response techniques. Such techniques will help prevent situations that could lead to the unreasonable use of force, promote connection of people with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis to the behavioral health system, and decrease the inappropriate involvement of people with behavioral health disabilities in the criminal justice system. Paragraph 96 thus challenges BPD not only to provide effective law enforcement responses to events involving individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, but to participate in the development of an effective community strategy for improving the City’s support system for such individuals.
In this area, the Consent Decree identifies a series of objectives that are addressed in the First-Year Monitoring Plan. These objectives include the expansion of the Collaborative Planning and Implementation Committee (“CPIC”), which advises BPD on crisis intervention policies (CD 104-05); a work plan to accomplish the requirements of the Consent Decree (CD 96, 105); an assessment by CPIC of the gaps in the City’s behavioral health system coupled with recommendations for solutions (“Gap Analysis”) (CD 97); maintenance of a Crisis Intervention Team (“CIT”), whose officers have primary responsibility for responding to incidents involving individuals in crisis (CD 101-03, 110, 119); development of a Crisis Intervention Plan and CIT Officer Selection Process to ensure the efficacy of the CIT (CD 120); appointment and training of a Crisis Intervention Team leader (CD 11518); training for all officers on responding to individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, and specialized training for CIT officers and dispatch personnel (CD 106-13); revision of policies, including dispatch policies, for responding to incidents involving individuals in crisis (CD 98, 114); and identification of quantitative and qualitative performance measures for the CIT program and collection of data needed to make those assessments (CD 121-22). Over the long-term, BPD will analyze the data and will issue quarterly public reports gauging its performance in responding to individuals in crisis.
As set forth below, BPD and the City have satisfied many of the short-term requirements in the First-Year Monitoring Plan in this area. BPD and the City have expanded CPIC membership; BPD has appointed a CIT Coordinator; and together with CPIC, BPD and the City have developed a detailed strategic plan for CPIC’s initial work, completed a crisis intervention plan and a plan for selecting CIT officers,

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and created of a form to track data on responses to individuals in crisis. In addition, together with CPIC, BPD and the City are making reasonable progress toward satisfying the longer-term requirements identified in the First-Year Monitoring Plan, including completing the Gap Analysis and developing revised crisis intervention policies for patrol and dispatch officers.
Areas of Progress
BPD, the City and CPIC have some tangible achievements under the FirstYear Monitoring Plan. As indicated in the first semiannual report, these achievements include:
• Installation of a qualified CIT Coordinator, Lt. Azalee Johnson (CD 115)
• Expansion of CPIC’s membership to include relevant City and State officials, advocacy groups such as Disability Rights Maryland and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, individuals with lived experience, community mental health providers, substance use services providers, local hospitals, advocates, and committed philanthropists (CD 104). CPIC’s leadership—which includes the CEO of Behavioral Health Systems Baltimore (“BHSB”) and the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Human Services—represent key components of the crisis intervention system and have been committed to CPIC’s mission.
• Designation of BHSB to lead the subcommittee that identified an organization to conduct the Gap Analysis (CD 97).
BPD, the City and CPIC have built on the progress made during the first reporting period. In this reporting period, specific accomplishments include:
• CPIC, led by BHSB, selected a nationally recognized research firm, Health Services Research Institute (HSRI), to conduct the Gap Analysis (CD 97). CPIC’s Gap Analysis Subcommittee has tasked HSRI with obtaining comprehensive input representative of Baltimore’s diversity.
• The City, BPD and CPIC completed a First Year Work Plan for CPIC. The Work Plan provided a roadmap for developing a CIT Program staffing plan, a CIT officer selection process, crisis intervention policies for the Patrol Division and Dispatch Unit, a crisis intervention form for BPD to capture data on interactions with individuals in crisis, and the Gap Analysis (CD 97). The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval of the Work Plan in August 2018.

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• BPD, in coordination with CPIC, completed a Crisis Intervention Plan to address CIT staffing needs, as well as a CIT Officer Selection Process (CD 11820). The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval in November 2018. The Crisis Intervention Plan uses police dispatch data to estimate the overall number of crisis calls for service in each district and then projects the number of Patrol Division CIT officers needed to respond to the calls. The CIT Officer Selection Process makes use of the CIT Officer requirements in the Consent Decree to create a set of qualifications for CIT applicants. The document also details a systematic officer selection process for the CIT program. Together, the Crisis Intervention Plan and the CIT Officer Selection Process will allow BPD to respond with increased effectiveness to when interacting with people with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis.
• CPIC’s Data Subcommittee revised and expanded the form BPD uses to record interactions with individuals in crisis (CD 122). The revised form is comprehensive. CPIC received input on it from experts at local universities, local advocacy organizations, and individuals with lived experience. BPD submitted the revised form to DOJ and the Monitoring Team, and the Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval in December 2018.
In addition to these accomplishments, CPIC’s Policy Subcommittee has worked diligently on recommended revisions to BPD’s crisis intervention policies for officers and dispatchers (CD 98, 102, 108, 110,111 and 114). The subcommittee’s work has included reviewing eight different BPD policies implicating crisis intervention and individuals with behavioral health disabilities. The subcommittee has elicited and received substantial community input, which has generated candid discussions between BPD and community members. The subcommittee will make recommendations on policy revisions, and BPD will submit initial drafts of the revised policies to the Monitoring Team and DOJ in early February 2019.
As discussed in the first semiannual report, the City, BHSB and BPD are working to connect several programs in Baltimore that provide support for individuals in need, and they are drawing on the collective experience of CPIC’s members to do so. The City and BPD have several specialized programs aimed at diverting individuals in crisis from the criminal justice system to the health care system. Each program focuses on an important issue, including homelessness, substance abuse and mental illness. The City, BHSB and BPD are aware that individuals can struggle with multiple issues and can benefit from integrated, comprehensive services that benefit their overall health and welfare. The City, BPD and BHSB have recognized that the Consent Decree presents a good opportunity to improve BPD’s supportive services, and they have now assigned CPIC to an important advisory role for all of BPD’s Crisis Intervention Programs. The City and

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BPD should be credited for their willingness to broaden CPIC’s role beyond what the Consent Decree explicitly prescribes.
A final observation: the enlargement of CPIC and the expansion of its role has meant that community stakeholders, including advocates and those with lived experience, are undertaking a closer review of BPD crisis intervention programs other than the CIT. These programs include BPD’s Crisis Response Team (CRT), Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) Team, and Homeless Outreach Team (HOT). In their review, community stakeholders have expressed concerns that the programs present the risk that program officers, despite good intentions, might violate the Fourth Amendment in their street encounters with the programs’ intended beneficiaries or might paternalistically override the decisions of intended beneficiaries to forgo treatment. BPD has shown a willingness to engage in constructive discussions around these concerns. As a result, common ground is beginning to emerge. The Monitoring Team has participated regularly in these discussions and is impressed with the sincerity and conviction of both community members and BPD to resolve their disagreements in pursuit of common goals. The discussions are not always easy, but they are laying the groundwork for successful implementation of the requirements of the Consent Decree.
Challenges Ahead
Extensive work lies ahead. BPD must ensure that the revisions to its crisis intervention and dispatch policies satisfy Consent Decree requirements. BPD then must develop an effective training curriculum that incorporates not only those revised policies, but other revised policies, including those on use of force and deescalation. Consistent with the Crisis Intervention Plan and CIT Officer Selection Process, BPD also will have to select a sufficient number of qualified CIT officers to meet Departmental needs. And finally, over the long-term, BPD and its officers must consistently comply with the Consent Decree’s specific requirements for handling crisis events in the field, including requirements regarding on-scene leadership and supervision. Neither the Monitoring Team nor BPD will be able to comprehensively assess BPD’s compliance with those requirements until BPD begins to routinely utilize and record information from the crisis intervention data form that it finalized in this reporting period.
More broadly, BPD and the City must be prepared to begin addressing the shortcomings in the City’s behavioral health support systems, which the forthcoming Gap Analysis will identify. Diverting individuals in crisis from the criminal justice system into a system of community-wide support is the primary objective of the

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provisions of the Consent Decree addressing BPD’s interactions with individuals in crisis.
BPD, the City and CPIC have begun to build a foundation for achieving the Consent Decree’s objectives regarding BPD’s interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis. Once that foundation is firmly established— that is, once policy revisions, training, an adequately staffed CIT, and a robust performance evaluation system are in place—BPD, the City and CPIC must develop a well-functioning “feedback loop” in which they are collectively able to identify and correct systemic shortcomings. The collaborative work CPIC has done to date, and the candid, thoughtful discussions in which BPD and CPIC’s other members have engaged over the past six months, demonstrate that this ambitious objective is not out of reach.
The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, as part of the ongoing process of seeking input from community members, BPD, the City and CPIC will review CPIC’s current membership and determine whether new members should be added (CD 104). CPIC will develop a Second Year Work Plan, which will complement the Second-Year Monitoring Plan and provide a roadmap for meeting the requirements of the Consent Decree in the area of Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in Crisis (CD 96, 105).
The Gap Analysis will be completed in the next six months (CD 97). So will revisions to BPD’s crisis intervention and dispatch policies (CD 98, 102, 108, 110,111 and 114). BPD also will begin preparing crisis intervention training curriculum for both recruits and officers, with the development of training curriculum for dispatchers and dispatch supervisors to follow in the subsequent reporting period.

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Interactions with Youth
The Consent Decree requires BPD to alter its approach to how it interacts with youth. The Consent Decree obligates BPD officers to account for the personal characteristics (age, size, developmental/mental status, disability status and maturity) of youth they encounter and, where practical, use alternatives to arrest (e.g. warn and release, counseling, referral to community services and resources, warnings, civil citations) in order to divert youth from criminal justice system (CD218). To accomplish this goal, the Consent Decree requires the City to conduct a comprehensive assessment of its effort to reduce youth involvement in the juvenile and criminal justice systems (“Youth Assessment”) (CD219). It requires BPD to revise its policies and training as needed, and conduct training in order to properly guide officers in their interactions with youth (CD220-21). The Consent Decree envisions that, in preparing the Youth Assessment, the City will obtain input from a collaborative consisting of City Officials, BPD representatives and community stakeholders, including community organizations with experts in the field, academic and youth advocates (CD 219).
In this reporting period, the City and BPD have continued to make reasonable progress toward completing the Youth Assessment. However, the Assessment is merely the first step toward compliance with the requirements of the Consent Decree, and the Assessment is not yet finished. Because the Assessment is not yet complete and BPD has not yet begun revising policies and training curricula regarding interactions with youth, it remains premature to assess whether the City and BPD are making progress toward satisfying the long-term requirements of the Interactions with Youth section of the Consent Decree.
Youth Assessment
On August 1, 2018, the City and BPD submitted a timeline for developing the Youth Assessment, as the First-Year Monitoring Plan required. The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval with the Court three weeks later. See ECF No. 131. BPD developed the timeline in collaboration with the Youth Assessment Advisory Board, community stakeholders, the Monitoring Team and DOJ. The timeline sets a March 31, 2019 deadline for completion of the Assessment. The Assessment is being performed by the Center of Children’s Law and Policy (“CCLP”). BPD, the Youth Assessment Advisory Board and community stakeholders chose CCLP because of its national expertise in youth diversion programs.
Following completion of the Youth Assessment timeline, the City, BPD and its partners in the Youth Assessment process took the following actions:

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• The City and BPD hosted three Youth Diversion Assessment Advisory Board meetings—one on October 17, 2018, another on November 20, 2018, and a third on January 10, 2019. CCLP led these sessions, which were aimed at establishing the scope of the Youth Assessment. During these sessions, CCLP conducted system mapping exercises with BPD, the City’s Department of Juvenile Services and the State’s Attorney’s Office. System mapping is a key component of the assessment process, as it determines how youth enter and move through the criminal and juvenile justice systems and also identifies deficiencies, available resources, and opportunities for improvement. In addition to conducting system mapping exercises, CCLP solicited feedback from community members on the efficacy of existing youth diversion programs.
• As noted in the first semiannual report, BPD received a grant to participate in CCLP’s Law Enforcement Leadership for Equity Initiative. BPD is now in the first phase of the grant. The first phase entails a review of youth diversion programs in the City. The review is running concurrently with the Youth Assessment.
• The University of Maryland has completed a review of literature on best practices in youth diversion. In addition, Loyola University has submitted a first draft of its evaluation of the City’s Juvenile Pre-Detention Diversion Programs. The reports from these reviews will inform the Youth Assessment.
• CCLP, the City and BPD are making progress toward completing the Youth Assessment by the March 31, 2019 deadline. CCLP is finalizing its system mapping and has begun conducting stakeholder interviews, including of youth focus groups. It has conducted three youth focus groups from Teen Court thus far, as well as interviews of the Public Defender’s Office, BPD patrol officers and BPD diversion programs. A number of other interviews and focus groups are taking place in January 2019.
Challenges Ahead
Through their collaborative work on the Youth Assessment to date, the City, BPD and engaged community members all have shown a commitment to minimizing youth interactions with the juvenile and criminal justice systems. The immediate challenge will be for all of these stakeholders to take the findings and recommendations from the forthcoming Youth Assessment and work collectively to develop effective, scalable youth diversion programs.

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The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, the City and BPD will complete the Youth Assessment. In addition, consistent with Paragraph 220 of the Consent Decree, BPD will prepare initial drafts of policies relating to youth. The policy revision process will begin with BPD identifying existing policies that implicate youth (e.g., the policy governing youth interrogations), assessing whether those policies should be modified in light of the Youth Assessment or Consent Decree, and identifying additional policies that should implicate youth but do not do so expressly. Prior to the end of the next reporting period, BPD will collaborate with the Monitoring Team and DOJ on the development of revised policies, submit final draft policies to the Monitoring Team and DOJ for review, and issue the policies for public comment. BPD will not finalize the revised policies until the subsequent reporting period.

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Sexual Assault Investigations
The Consent Decree requires BPD to enhance the trust of victims of sexual assault in its performance, to strengthen its response to and investigations of reports of sexual assault, and to combat gender bias (CD 257). To achieve these goals, the Consent Decree requires BPD to: revise the policies and procedures for responding to and investigating reports of sexual assault (CD 258); provide initial and on-going annual training to support the revised policies and procedures (CD 259); ensure through proper supervision and internal oversight that reports of sexual assaults are thoroughly investigated (CD 260, 262, 263); ensure that officers transport victims to a medical facility for a forensic exam in all instances in which a forensic exam is warranted and the victim consents (CD 261); enhance its collection, analysis and reporting of data regarding the nature and extent of sexual assault crimes (CD 264); and share information about its sexual assault investigations with other law enforcement agencies, the public, and the Sexual Assault Response Team (“SART”) (CD 265). The City and BPD will ensure that their policies and protocols with the SART will empower them to engage in periodic reviews of services provided by BPD and to review samples of open cases and those classified as unfounded (CD 266).
The First-Year Monitoring Plan focuses on the required revisions to BPD’s sexual assault investigation policies. BPD has made substantial progress toward satisfying the policy revisions requirements in Paragraph 258 of the Consent Decree. It is too soon to assess whether BPD is making progress toward satisfying any other requirement.
Policy Revisions
BPD submitted final revisions to both Policy 708 (Rape and Sexual Assault) and its standard operating procedures (SOP) for sexual assault investigations in early November 2018. The final revisions followed extensive collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, as well as a period for public comment. During the collaboration period, the Monitoring Team and DOJ shared examples of best practices in reporting and investigating sexual assault. The Monitoring Team notified the Court of its approval of Policy 708 and the SOP on sexual assault investigations on November 6, 2018. See ECF No. 152.
Challenges Ahead
As in every area of the Consent Decree, revising sexual assault investigation policies and procedures is only the first step on the path to reform. The next step will

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be to develop and deliver revised training on those policies and procedures. That is slated to take place in the second monitoring year. BPD then will have to demonstrate that it is making tangible improvements in its investigative practices and, correspondingly, that patrol officers are complying with the new policies and Sex Offense Unit supervisors are holding detectives accountable to them.
The Next Six Months
The Consent Decree requires the Monitoring Team to conduct qualitative compliance reviews of BPD’s sexual assault investigations. The Consent Decree also requires the Monitoring Team to perform a set of quantitative outcome assessments designed to measure whether the prescribed changes in sexual assault investigations are occurring (CD 459.k.). These assessments include the number of sexual assault reports made to BPD, the rate of victim participation in sexual assault investigations, the clearance rate in sexual assault cases, and the rate of declination of sexual assault cases referred to the State’s Attorney’s Office.
In the second monitoring year, and potentially within the next six months, the Monitoring Team hopes to conduct preliminary quantitative assessments and qualitative reviews in order to establish a baseline against which to assess BPD’s future performance. The quantitative assessments and qualitative reviews will, over time, show whether BPD is, in fact, improving the way it handles sexual assault investigations, as the Consent Decree envisions. A key part of these reviews will focus on assessing how BPD is using trauma-informed techniques with victims of sexual assault.
BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team agree that BPD should create a separate policy to address officer-involved sexual misconduct. That policy will address the roles and responsibilities of (1) BPD’s Sex Offense Unit in the investigation of an alleged crime by a BPD officer and (2) OPR in the investigation of administrative rule violations. BPD will begin crafting the policy in the next reporting period. The policy will be finalized in the subsequent reporting period.
Finally, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) establishing the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) needs to be updated. The MOU governs the operations of SART, a multidisciplinary team that helps ensure that BPD’s practices are current and in compliance with best practices. The MOU establishes the roles and responsibilities of all partner agencies, including the Baltimore Child Abuse Center, State’s Attorney’s Office for Baltimore City, Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice, Mercy Medical Center, TurnAround and the University of Maryland Pediatric Emergency Department. The MOU is currently

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expired. Although the partners are operating in accordance with the expired MOU, a new MOU should be executed as soon as possible.

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Recruitment, Hiring and Retention
“Maintain[ing] high-level, quality service, ensur[ing] officer safety and accountability, and promot[ing] constitutional, effective policing” depends on the recruitment, hiring and retention of “a diverse group of qualified individuals.” (CD 419). While the Staffing section of the Consent Decree (discussed above) requires BPD to fortify its ranks in order to fulfill its mission, the Recruitment, Hiring and Retention provisions of the Consent Decree complimentarily require BPD to do so the right way. The Recruitment, Hiring and Retention provisions thus obligate BPD to develop a detailed Recruitment Plan with “clear goals, objectives and action steps for attracting and retaining a quality work force that reflects the diversity of the Baltimore Community” (CD 420-422); conduct an in-depth review of BPD’s current hiring processes (CD 423); include specific criteria in its background investigation of officer candidates (CD 424-425); create a Retention Plan to “identify challenges and recommend solutions to improve BPD’s retention of employees” (CD 426); and conduct internal annual assessments of its recruitment and retention practices (CD 427).
Improving BPD’s performance in the recruitment, hiring and retention of highquality personnel is an inherently long-term undertaking. The First-Year Monitoring Plan focuses on the initial steps: reviewing current hiring and background investigation processes and issuing a hiring report resulting from that review (CD 423). BPD has complied with this requirement. Between April and November 2018, BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team participated in regularly scheduled, bi-weekly meetings regarding the completion of the review of BPD’s hiring processes. These meetings included discussions of State hiring criteria, Civil Service Commission procedures, and “whether any process, criterion, or requirement [has] had a disparate impact” on candidates based on their race, ethnicity, color, national origin, age, gender, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, disability status, religion, or language ability (CD 423). Additionally, the discussions covered the processes and policies for background investigations of officer candidates, as well as the retention of a potential vendor to assist with the administration of background checks and written exams. At the same time the biweekly discussions were occurring, BPD conducted “an in-depth review of [its] current hiring processes for officers,” (CD 123), which included numerous discussions with community members and officers, as well as a review of literature on recruitment and experiences in other jurisdictions. In November, as a result of its in-depth review, BPD submitted a report that, as required by Paragraph 423, addresses hiring and attrition trends, including whether any process, criterion or requirement has a disparate impact based on Demographic Categories.” The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval of the report with the Court on December 10, 2018. See ECF No. 169. The report is to be updated periodically as implementation of the Consent Decree progresses.

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In addition to producing the required report about its hiring practices, BPD is making reasonable progress toward compliance with other requirements in the Recruitment, Hiring and Retention provisions of the Consent Decree. In November 2018, as a result of its own work as well as discussions with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD adopted new standard operating procedures for its Recruitment Section. The SOPs cover the organization of the Section, hiring process and procedure, research and reporting on hiring and, consistent with Paragraphs 424-425 of the Consent Decree, background investigations for hiring officers. In addition, BPD has prepared advanced drafts of the Recruitment Plan required by Paragraphs 420422 of the Consent Decree. Given BPD’s staffing needs, BPD is to be credited for prioritizing recruitment and getting a head start on the Recruitment Plan, which is not included in the First-Year Monitoring Plan and is slated for Year Two. In the next reporting period, BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team will continue to meet to ensure the quality of BPD's review of recruitment and hiring processes.
The Monitoring Team credits BPD for exploring an innovative, communityoriented approach to hiring new officers. In this reporting period, BPD has been developing an interview process featuring a panel of interviewers that includes both current BPD officers and community members. It is rare for law enforcement agencies to include community members in the process for hiring officers. Thus far, BPD has conducted two day-long pilots with interview panels that include community members.
BPD also has replaced its civil service test with the National Testing Network’s (NTN) “FrontLine National” exam as the first stage in the BPD officer selection process. The adoption of the new exam is part of BPD’s broader effort to modernize how it recruits and selects new police officers. The FrontLine National exam is considered to be a top testing instrument for hiring law enforcement officers because it uses questions employing videos of real world policing scenarios to assess whether candidates possess the characteristics needed for community-oriented, constitutional policing.
While BPD has made progress toward satisfying the requirements of Paragraphs 420-425 of the Consent Decree, it is too soon to assess whether BPD is making progress toward meeting the other requirements in the Recruitment, Hiring and Retention section of the Consent Decree. That said, BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team have begun preliminary discussions about developing a Retention Plan (CD 426) and conducting recruiting and retention assessments (CD 427). Those discussions will continue. It is anticipated that BPD will submit its initial draft of the

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Retention Plan in the next reporting period and will finalize the plan in the subsequent reporting period.
There is one practice in the area of Hiring, Recruitment and Retention that concerns the Monitoring Team. In recent months, members of BPD’s Recruitment Section who review applications have been detailed periodically to the Patrol Division to make up for the deficit in patrol officers. The result has been a slow-down in the process for reviewing applications and, correspondingly, a slow-down in the hiring process. Given the acute need to onboard new, qualified officers, BPD should closely examine whether details from the Recruiting Section are necessary.
The Monitoring Team finally notes that, over the past year, the Mayor’s Office of Innovation has provided tremendous support in conceptualizing improvements in BPD’s recruitment, hiring and retention practices. The Monitoring Team is grateful for the office’s assistance, and anticipates that the office will continue to play a key role in the future development of BPD’s recruitment, hiring and retention practices.

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Officer Assistance and Support
Under the Consent Decree, BPD must take several important measures to support the health and wellness of its officers. The Consent Decree requires BPD to: provide, review and revise, as needed, an Employee Assistance Plan (“EAP”) that furnishes no- or low-cost counseling and mental health wellness services (CD 436437); develop peer support services (CD 438); offer all officers a voluntary mental health evaluation before returning to duty after a traumatic incident (CD 439); develop well-being protocols to be utilized during officer deployments in periods of civil unrest (CD 440); and develop protocols for annually assessing the efficacy of all of BPD’s officer assistance programs (CD 441).
The First-Year Monitoring Plan requires BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team to begin holding regular meetings or informal focus groups with sworn personnel from across the Department (by rank and geographic assignment) to address available officers wellness resources. Further, the First-Year Monitoring Plan requires BPD to review and, if needed, refine both its EAP (CD 436-437) and its traumatic and highstress incident protocols (CD 439-440).
BPD has complied with the deadlines in the First-Year Monitoring Plan and has made substantial progress toward satisfying the EAP and traumatic and highstress incident protocol requirements of the Consent Decree. BPD also has continued conduct additional officer wellness initiatives. It is too early to gauge whether BPD is making progress toward satisfying the other Officer Assistance and Support provisions.
Areas of Progress
Focus Groups
Early in the first monitoring year, in consultation with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD convened a number of informal focus groups with representative sworn personnel from across the Department. There were focus groups of officers, two of supervisors, and two of command staff. The focus groups concentrated their discussions on currently-available officer wellness resources generally, as well as desired or potentially useful protocols and resources for officers following traumatic incidents and in the midst of officer deployments during public demonstration or civil unrest. BPD will continue to utilize the focus groups to obtain additional feedback on the Department’s officer wellness programs and to ensure that new initiatives are both utilized and effective.

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Employee Assistance Plan
In this reporting period, BPD finalized revisions to Policy 1703, which is its EAP. The Monitoring Team and DOJ collaborated on a draft of the revisions, BPD issued a final draft for public comment and then, after address the public comments, submitted its final revision to the Monitoring Team and DOJ. The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval with the Court in November. See ECF No. 151.
BPD has implemented Policy 1703, and the Officer Safety and Wellness Section has commenced outreach to educate officers about it. The information campaign included posting information about the EAP and officer wellness services in each district and on social media, sending materials to supervisors for dissemination to their officers, and conducting direct personal outreach through rollcall trainings and “pop-up fairs” to the districts.
Additional Officer Wellness Initiatives
BPD has implemented a therapy dog program for its officers. The program is receiving national attention.
As noted, BPD also has conducted wellness pop-up fairs in the Districts, at OPR, and for families. Recent fairs have been held in the Northeastern District, at OPR. The fairs have attracted hundreds of participants and, demonstrating buy-in from rank-and-file officers, have been co-sponsored by the Fraternal Order of Police and the Hispanic Officers Law Enforcement Association. Event participants have included BPD’s free and confidential mental health provider, which informs officers about services available through the EAP; Acupuncturists who perform various acupuncture techniques to relieve stress, depression and anxiety and educated officers on the benefits of acupuncture; Penny, BPD’s therapy dog; a sound therapist who shares the benefits of sound in helping balance the body through audio waveform; the City’s Wellness Coordinator, who provides information on wellness benefits offered by the City; the Department of Health, which provides free blood pressure checks and instructions on reducing hypertension; physical therapists who perform onsite evaluations; nutrition advisors; and BPD’s health/life and financial insurance personnel. BPD plans to offer more of these events in the next reporting period.
Traumatic and High-Stress Incident Protocols
In this reporting period, BPD finalized revisions to Policy 1731, which are wellness protocols for (1) “all officers returning to duty following a traumatic incident

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(e.g. serious injury, officer-involved shooting, officer-involved accident involving fatality, or all other uses of force resulting in death or serious injury)” (CD 439), and (2) “officer deployments during public demonstrations or civil unrest” (CD 440). After a period of collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ and a period of public comment, BPD prepared and submitted final revisions to the Monitoring Team and DOJ in the fall. The Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval with the Court in October. See ECF No. 144. BPD has since begun training on the protocols.
The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team will begin discussing the development of both the peer support program required by Paragraph 438a of the Consent Decree and the peer intervention program required Paragraph 439b. The peer support program will be developed by BPD’s Officer and Safety Wellness Section. Through the program, specially trained officer “peers” will be available to counsel officers either following a critical incident or when otherwise requested. The peer intervention program, which will be developed by a multidisciplinary committee including BPD’s Education and Training Unit, will train officers to intervene before a fellow officer engages in unethical behavior, to accept intervention from another officer, and to provide support to officer who intervene to prevent unethical behavior.

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Community Policing and Engagement
One of the overarching goals of the Consent Decree is the adoption of a community-oriented model of policing. An interrelated overarching goal is to reestablish the community’s trust in BPD. To accomplish these twin goals, the Consent Decree imposes on BPD a number specific requirements intended to affect the way BPD officers interact with community members when taking law enforcement action. These requirements—regarding, e.g., use of force; stops, searches and arrests; fair and impartial policing; First Amendment protected activities; and interactions with youth and individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis—are addressed in the preceding sections of this report.
The Consent Decree begins, however, with certain broad requirements intended to promote both community policing and community engagement. Preliminarily, it requires issuance of a new mission statement that integrates community-oriented principles into BPD “management, policies and procedures, recruitment, training, personnel evaluations resource deployment, tactics and accountability systems” (CD15). BPD prepared and the Monitoring Team approved a new mission statement in July 2018. See ECF No. 119.
In addition to a new mission statement, the Consent Decree outlines the kind of community policing training BPD officers must receive (CD16-17), as well as the data BPD should collect (CD18). The Consent Decree also requires the City and BPD to develop community engagement plans (CD19), to obtain input from community groups on policies, practices, training, engagement programs and enforcement strategies (CD20), to develop a community outreach program to educate and communicate with City residents about the Consent Decree (CD21), to publish annual reports on BPD’s community policing efforts (CD22), and to use the results of community surveys to inform policies, training and practices (CD25).
It remains too soon to assess BPD’s progress toward satisfying any of these Consent Decree requirements. That is largely because most of the requirements are long-term and were not included in the First-Year Monitoring Plan. Two requirements, however, were included: development of a community policing plan and community engagement, which is an ongoing requirement. BPD has not yet made reasonable progress toward satisfying the first requirement. It has begun to make progress on the second.

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Community Policing Plan
A concrete, comprehensive Community Policing Plan is critical to BPD’s reform efforts, as it will define how BPD provides police services to Baltimore’s diverse communities. Under the original First-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD was supposed to draft the Community Policing Plan, receive feedback from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, receive feedback from the community, and finalize the Plan by end of the first monitoring year. BPD, however, has experienced frequent changes in leadership. This instability at the top of the Department has delayed development of the Plan. Extension of the original deadlines was necessary because the Plan must reflect the vision of the new Commissioner, and the new Commissioner should be given sufficient time to fully assess BPD’s community policing needs, capacity and goals, consistent with Consent Decree requirements, before BPD finalizes a draft.
The initial draft of the Community Policing Plan is now due toward the end of the spring of 2019. Provided that the recently-appointed Commissioner is in place by the end of February 2019, the new deadline should give the new Commissioner sufficient time to ensure that the initial draft reflects his vision for satisfying the community policing requirements of the Consent Decree.
While the Community Policing Plan will not be produced until the next reporting period, BPD has taken certain preliminary steps to prepare the plan. These include the following:
• In September 2018, BPD completed a Community Policing Plan Outline and posted it on BPD’s website for community feedback since that time. The outline broadly establishes BPD’s vision for the Community Policing Plan and how BPD anticipates implementing it.
• BPD has formed a Community Policing and Engagement Strategic Planning Committee consisting of Departmental personnel well-versed in community policy. The committee assisted with developing the Community Policing Plan Outline.
• In December 2018, BPD completed a 30-page Community Policing Report and submitted it to the Monitoring Team and DOJ. While the report focuses largely on community engagement, rather than community policing, it identifies deficiencies within BPD that currently prevent the development of a fullfledged community policing program.

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Community Engagement
Despite changes in leadership, BPD has begun in earnest to try to engage community members in the reform process. Since January 2018, BPD’s Consent Decree Implementation Unit has organized or attended numerous community events, often with sworn BPD personnel in attendance. For instance, the Consent Decree Implementation Unit has:
• Conducted nine Consent Decree community briefings—one in each District (with one aired live from Morgan State University)
• Visited over 100 community fairs, community association meetings, and community partner collaborations
• Held multiple Consent Decree workshops at three city-wide conferences • Participated in several meetings with the leadership of the Campaign for
Justice, Safety and Jobs (“CJSJ”) • Organized and attended two Consent Decree Advisory Board Meetings • Conducted two officer focus groups, one at MICA and one at Morgan State,
and 12 officer/civilian focus groups with Police Foundation assistance • Attended roll calls in each District • Participated in a community walk in the Southeastern District • Completed a community engagement inventory with Police Foundation
assistance through interviews of District command staff and other personnel who engage in community outreach • Participated in ten meetings with Civilian Oversight Task Force membership
In addition, the Consent Decree Implementation Unit and other BPD personnel have canvassed neighborhoods to distribute information on reforms and upcoming Consent Decree meetings, attended meetings in each police district and throughout City to provide information on the reform process, and utilized social media, email, online surveys, and media outlets to share and collect information about reform efforts. In recent months, as noted above, BPD has worked with the Monitoring Team, DOJ and CJSJ to develop scenario-based content for community forums aimed at informing community members about revisions to BPD policies and training, and has begun hosting and attending community meetings designed to elicit community feedback on the revisions through use of the scenarios.

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 Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 221 Filed 07/22/19 Page 1 of 1

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND

UNITED STATES

*

OF AMERICA,

*

Plaintiff,

*

v.

*

BALTIMORE POLICE

DEPARTMENT, et al.,

*

CIVIL NO. JKB-17-0099

Defendants.

*

SUBMISSION OF MONITORING TEAM’S THIRD SEMIANNUAL REPORT
Under the Amended Second-Year Monitoring Plan (“Monitoring Plan”), the Baltimore
Police Department Monitoring Team (“Monitoring Team”) hereby submits its Third Semiannual
Report (“Report”). See ECF No. 208-1, Row 272 (approved in ECF No. 210). The Report is
attached as Exhibit 1.
As the Monitoring Plan provides, the Monitoring Team held its quarterly community
meeting to discuss the contents of the Report on July 16 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at Out for Justice,
1400 East Federal Street, Baltimore, MD. On July 25 at 10:00 a.m., the Court will hold its next
quarterly hearing, which will be devoted in part to discussing the contents of the Report.
Respectfully submitted,
___________/s/_______________ Kenneth Thompson, Monitor Seth Rosenthal, Deputy Monitor VENABLE LLP 750 E. Pratt Street Baltimore, MD 21202 Ken.thompson@bpdmonitor.com Seth.Rosenthal@bpdmonitor.com (410) 244-7400

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Exhibit 1

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 221-1 Filed 07/22/19 Page 2 of 79
BALTIMORE CONSENT DECREE MONITORING TEAM
THIRD SEMIANNUAL REPORT
July 19, 2019
Venable LLP and 21CP Solutions LLC

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................... ii INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................. 6 SUMMARY OF MONITORING TEAM ACTIVITIES ............................................... 15 FINDINGS ................................................................................................................... 26
Training .................................................................................................................... 29 Misconduct Investigations and Discipline............................................................... 37 Technology ................................................................................................................ 45 Staffing, Performance Evaluations and Promotions............................................... 48 Stops, Searches, Arrests and Voluntary Police-Community Interactions ............. 51 Transportation of Persons in Custody ..................................................................... 56 Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in
Crisis................................................................................................................... 60 Interactions with Youth ........................................................................................... 66 Sexual Assault Investigations.................................................................................. 70 Recruitment, Hiring and Retention ......................................................................... 74

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OVERVIEW
THIRD SEMIANNUAL REPORT – July 19, 2019

THE MONITORING TEAM’S ACTIVITIES • Assessed and provided technical assistance on policy revisions • Assessed and provided technical assistance on training curricula • Observed and provided technical assistance on in-class training on use of force and fair and impartial policing • Assessed and provided technical assistance on improvements in the Public Integrity Bureau (PIB) • Assessed and provided technical assistance on plans and tools for collecting data on interactions with individuals in crisis and stops, searches and arrests • Continued work on community and arrestee surveys and completed officer focus groups • Finalized instruments for assessing internal investigations and use of force incidents • Commenced comprehensive assessment of internal investigations • Met community stakeholders, including from the faith community, to engage them in the reform process, and obtained public input on draft policies and training programs • Continued to deploy a team of neighborhood liaisons to educate community members about the Consent Decree and obtain feedback on BPD performance • Finalized a Second-Year Monitoring Plan

THE MONITORING TEAM’S KEY FINDINGS • BPD and City leadership continue to show genuine commitment to broad institutional reform • The appointment of P.C. Harrison promises to intensify and accelerate reform efforts • BPD is still in the preliminary stages of reform, and its ability to achieve broad institutional reform remains uncertain, but it has made reasonable progress on its threshold obligations • BPD successfully finalized additional Consent Decree-mandated policies • BPD moved swiftly to adopt best practices in police training, add ten instructors to the Training Academy, and finalize and begin delivering effective training on use of force • Upcoming training initiatives are ambitious and will present implementation challenges • PIB continues to require structural overhaul • The forthcoming Staffing Plan must prescribe realistic, achievable measures for addressing BPD’s acute staffing shortages, particularly in Patrol and PIB • Required improvements in BPD’s defective IT systems seem paused and must begin in earnest

THE NEXT SIX MONTHS • BPD will continue training officers on revised policies addressing use of force and aspects of fair and impartial policing • BPD will prepare newly-designed training on stops, searches and arrests and additional aspects of fair and impartial policing, as well as body-worn cameras, crisis intervention, and sexual assault investigations, to be delivered later in the year • BPD will finalize most remaining policies requiring revision • BPD and the City will complete a thorough analysis of the City’s behavioral health system • BPD will prepare Community Policing and Staffing Plans • The Monitoring Team will conduct assessments of internal affairs investigations, use of force incidents, and if feasible given BPD’s inadequate data, stops, searches and arrests

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The Consent Decree

INTRODUCTION

In May 2015, the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) initiated an investigation of the Baltimore Police Department (“BPD”). The investigation, completed in 2016, found that BPD was engaged in a pattern-or-practice of constitutional violations, including using excessive force, infringing on the First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly, and stopping, searching, and arresting people without probable cause and based on their race. After making these findings, DOJ entered into negotiations with BPD and the City of Baltimore in an effort to settle the parties’ differences. BPD and the City did not admit DOJ’s allegations, but they recognized that the allegations raised longstanding issues of considerable importance to City residents. As a result, BPD and the City agreed to resolve DOJ’s allegations through a Consent Decree. The Consent Decree is a court-approved settlement agreement between DOJ, the City and BPD. United States District Court Judge James K. Bredar is the judge who approved the Consent Decree. Judge Bredar now oversees the Consent Decree’s implementation. Because the Consent Decree is a court order, Judge Bredar has the power to enforce its provisions and ensure that BPD and the City do what it requires.

The Consent Decree obligates BPD and the City to adopt a comprehensive set of reforms designed to promote fair and constitutional policing, rebuild BPD’s relationships with Baltimore’s communities, and ensure public safety. The Consent Decree prescribes corrective action in a number of areas, including: community engagement; community policing; stops, searches, arrests, and voluntary policecommunity interactions; impartial policing; interacting with people with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis; use of force; interactions with youth; transportation of persons in custody; First Amendment protected activities; handling of reports of sexual assault; technology; supervision; misconduct investigations and discipline; coordination with Baltimore City School Police; recruitment, hiring, and retention; staffing, performance evaluations, and promotions; and officer assistance and support.

The Consent Decree, in short, requires transformational institutional change. BPD will achieve compliance with the Consent Decree and free itself from Court oversight when it demonstrates not only that it has successfully implemented all of the required foundational improvements required in policies, training, technology and operations, but that those improvements have translated, measurably and sustainably, into constitutional, community-oriented policing.

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Achieving transformational change in a large police department does not happen overnight. As the Consent Decree envisions, it takes time, and it requires adherence to a rigorous, methodical reform process. In each area of the Consent Decree that addresses how officers discharge their duties (e.g., stops/searches/arrests, use of force, and transportation of persons in custody, to name a few), BPD first must draft and adopt revised policies. Then BPD must develop and conduct training on those revised policies. At the same time, to ensure that the new policies and the new training take root, BPD must revamp vital components of its infrastructure. For instance, BPD must overhaul its technology to become a modern, data-driven, efficient police force, must fortify its system of internal investigations and discipline to enhance officer accountability, must improve the training and supervision of rankand-file officers to ensure lawful, effective job performance, and must increase the number of qualified patrol officers to promote community-oriented policing. It is only after officers have been trained on the new policies, and after infrastructure upgrades are well underway, that community members can expect to see sustained, tangible changes in the conduct of BPD officers. The Consent Decree contemplates that this process will take several years or more.
The Monitoring Team
On October 3, 2017, Judge Bredar appointed a Monitoring Team to assist him in overseeing implementation of the Consent Decree. The Monitoring Team consists of a lead monitor, Kenneth Thompson, and a team of experts in policing and police reform, civil rights enforcement, psychology, social science, organizational change, data and technology, and community engagement. Serving as an agent of the Court, the Monitoring Team plays three principal roles: arbiter, technical advisor, and facilitator. As arbiter, the Monitoring Team oversees the day-to-day efforts of BPD and the City to comply with the reforms the Consent Decree requires. The Monitoring Team reviews, provides feedback on, and ultimately recommends Court approval or disapproval of the changes BPD makes in its policies, its training and, ultimately, its policing practices. As technical advisor, the Monitoring Team draws upon decades of collective experience to provide BPD with technical assistance, including advice about national best practices, to help guide BPD toward satisfying the requirements of the Consent Decree. As facilitator, the Monitoring Team seeks to ensure that all stakeholders from within BPD and across Baltimore’s diverse communities have the opportunity to participate in the reform process. (CD 442).1

1 All citations to a specific paragraph of the Consent Decree follow the text that relies on that paragraph and appear in parentheses containing “CD” and the number of the cited paragraph. Thus, the citation above, which is to Paragraph 442 of the Consent Decree, follows the relied-on provision of Paragraph 442 and appears as “(CD 442).”

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While the work of the Monitoring Team is key to the successful implementation of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team’s authority is limited. The Consent Decree expressly provides that “the Monitor will only have the duties, responsibilities, and authority conferred by [the Consent Decree]. The Monitor will not, and is not intended to, replace or assume the role and the duties of the City or BPD, or any duties of any City or BPD employee…” (CD 445). The Monitoring Team is, therefore, restricted to what the Consent Decree authorizes. It does not have the power or the ability to weigh in on all police-related matters. For instance, although the Monitoring Team assesses compliance with mandated reforms in the investigation and discipline of BPD officer misconduct, the Monitoring Team cannot bring, determine whether to bring, or recommend criminal charges against police officers accused of wrongdoing in specific cases. It is not a substitute for local or federal prosecutors. Likewise, the Monitoring Team cannot intervene in employment or disciplinary matters within BPD. It does not conduct independent investigations of allegations of misconduct by BPD officers or make employment or disciplinary recommendations or decisions affecting BPD officers. What the Monitoring Team does is assess whether BPD administers its disciplinary process—from intake to investigation to outcomes—consistent with the requirements of the Consent Decree. Under the terms of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team’s job is to assess BPD’s conduct, not direct it.
It should also be noted that the Court and the Monitoring Team are not alone in overseeing BPD’s implementation of the requirements of the Consent Decree. DOJ continues to play an active role. As the plaintiff in the lawsuit that produced the Consent Decree, DOJ retains the right to enforce the Consent Decree when BPD fails to comply with its terms. Accordingly, like the Monitoring Team, DOJ is assessing BPD’s progress toward compliance and will let the Monitoring Team and the Court know when it believes BPD is making progress and when it believes BPD is not. In addition, like the Monitoring Team, DOJ provides technical assistance to BPD as BPD works toward compliance. The reform process under the Consent Decree thus involves four fully-engaged entities: BPD, the City, the Monitoring Team/the Court, and DOJ.
This Report
One of the essential duties of the Monitoring Team is to issue semi-annual public reports that inform the Court and the community about the progress BPD is making toward compliance with the Consent Decree’s requirements. The reports explain: (1) which compliance measures BPD has taken in the preceding six months; (2) whether those measures demonstrate compliance, substantial progress toward

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compliance, reasonable progress toward compliance, or non-compliance with Consent Decree requirements; (3) what challenges BPD will continue to face as it strives to achieve compliance; and (4) what to expect from BPD in the next reporting period.
This document is the Monitoring Team’s third semi-annual report. The first report was filed in July 2018; the second in January 2019. See ECF Nos. 126-1 & 1781. When reading this report, keep in mind what is explained above: achieving transformational change in a large police department takes years, not months, and requires adherence to a rigorous process for reform. Also keep in mind that the reform process began in earnest a year and half ago, with the Court’s approval of the FirstYear Monitoring Plan, a detailed, structured blueprint for the initial year of reform. See ECF No. 91-1 (initial First-Year Monitoring Plan), as modified by ECF Nos. 112, 124 & 125, and ECF No. 138-1 (Updated First-Year Monitoring Plan), as modified by ECF Nos. 147 & 165. Thus, while BPD has begun to put in place the building blocks for reform, it has not yet had substantial time to make significant progress toward lasting change. The First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans implicitly acknowledge that not every Consent Decree requirement can be met in the first two years. BPD, its officers and community members need sufficient time and opportunity to focus on each area of the Consent Decree, and on each requirement within each area, to ensure that reform is real and enduring. Change that is rushed, haphazard and superficial is not sustainable and does not qualify as true reform.
For these reasons, this report will not address BPD’s progress on each and every one of the Consent Decree’s requirements. Even a year and a half into the reform process, it remains the case that, for the many of those requirements, BPD has neither satisfied them, made reasonable progress toward satisfying them, nor failed to satisfy them. Rather, it is still getting started. Indeed, while BPD has worked diligently to revise key policies and practices, develop new training curriculum, and complete critical studies on technology and staffing, it is still completing even these initial, foundational steps. To use an analogy: if the Consent Decree requires BPD to rebuild a house from the ground up, BPD is still laying the foundation for the new house; it has not yet finished the foundation, much less started construction. For instance, BPD has only begun to train officers on policies that have successfully undergone revision; it has yet to fix structural deficiencies in its Public Integrity Bureau (formerly the Office of Professional Responsibility), which conducts internal investigations and recommends discipline; and, realistically, it remains two years away—maybe more—from fully revamping its IT systems so that they are capable of storing and aggregating the data necessary for comprehensive evaluation of the integrity of BPD’s law enforcement actions. Therefore, the Monitoring Team remains

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a long way from being able to comprehensively assess whether BPD officers are consistently and sustainably engaged in constitutional, community-oriented policing.
That said, the Monitoring Team continues to examine snapshots of BPD’s institutional performance, and continues to develop methods for measuring over the long-term whether BPD is making tangible improvements. For instance, the Monitoring Team regularly follows and assesses the progress of internal investigations of certain noteworthy disciplinary matters by the Public Integrity Bureau; periodically reviews random samples of internal investigation files to determine, for diagnostic purposes, whether investigations are thorough and properly documented and whether PIB’s conclusions and disciplinary recommendations are supported by the evidence; and recently began its first comprehensive qualitative compliance review of internal investigation files using a newly-developed assessment tool. This initial compliance review will establish a “baseline” for evaluating BPD’s future progress toward compliance in the area of misconduct investigations and discipline. In the next reporting period, the Monitoring Team will similarly begin conducting preliminary compliance reviews and establishing baselines in the areas of use of force and, depending on whether the Monitoring Team can work with the inadequate integrity of BPD data, stops, searches and arrests.
Rather than inventorying BPD’s efforts to satisfy each and every one of the Consent Decree’s separate provisions, this report assesses BPD’s progress toward satisfying the provisions that the First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans require BPD to address. In addition, this report gauges BPD’s current position along the long arc of compliance in each area of the Consent Decree and identifies the challenges BPD will have to overcome to make meaningful progress toward compliance in each area. In this way, the report implicitly demonstrates that, although crucial, BPD’s nascent work to satisfy the Consent Decree’s foundational requirements—revising policies, conducting studies, preparing plans, training, performing audits, implementing officer assistance programs—is only part of the compliance equation. Full compliance will not be achieved until, in practice, those reforms result in policing that is community-oriented, accountable and constitutional.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Over the past six months, BPD and the City have worked in good faith toward satisfying the requirements of the last month of the First-Year Monitoring Plan and the first five months of the Second-Year Monitoring Plan. See ECF No. 208-1 (approved in ECF No. 210). By identifying and establishing dozens of deadlines for Consent Decree “deliverables,” these Plans present a detailed roadmap for the progress BPD is expected to make during the first two years of monitoring, which run through February 15, 2020. Like the First-Year Plan, the Second-Year Plan focuses on the front-end of the reform process: finalizing policy revisions, developing training curriculum and training officers on the revised policies, and completing studies and action plans for improving technology, data collection, staffing, community policing, and interactions with both youth and people with behavioral health disabilities.
To their credit, BPD and the City have satisfied many of the requirements in the First- and Second-Year Plans. However, due to the ten-month absence of a permanent commissioner and the complexity of various deliverables, certain deadlines initially included in the Second-Year Plan had to be extended. BPD needed additional time to allow the new Commissioner, Michael Harrison, to formulate his vision for the Department and to ensure that changes in crucial areas, such as misconduct investigations and discipline, are neither inappropriately rushed nor superficial. See ECF Nos. 208 & 210. The Monitoring Team expects the pace of reform to accelerate now that Commissioner Harrison has settled into his position.
It remains too early to assess BPD’s progress toward satisfying the vast majority of the Consent Decree’s provisions. Consistent with the First- and SecondYear Monitoring Plans, BPD is still working on compliance with the Consent Decree’s foundational requirements. BPD will not get around to addressing the rest of the requirements until subsequent years. Thus, BPD and the City have finalized, or are finalizing, revisions to a number of policies; have begun devising and implementing training programs covering those policies; and have completed or are completing studies and implementation plans on technology, staffing, officer recruitment, hiring and retention, youth diversion, community policing, interactions with individual with behavioral health disabilities, and BPD’s relationship with Baltimore School Police. But BPD and the City have not completed certain foundational requirements—for instance, BPD is still developing most of its new training programs—and have not even begun, much less completed, work on numerous other requirements. BPD has not yet implemented new IT systems or a new IT governance structure (which likely will take at least another two years to complete). It has not increased the number of qualified officers, particularly in the Patrol Division. Nor has BPD improved the

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overall quality of internal affairs operations and investigations; implemented reforms for supervisors; or overhauled its systems for reporting, collecting and maintaining data so as to facilitate effective supervision, meaningful discipline, and useful analysis of Department trends in key areas of the Consent Decree, including stops, searches, arrests, and uses of force.
Because of the vital work BPD still must do—work that will require considerable time and effort—it remains unclear, at this point, whether BPD will be able to achieve effective and substantial compliance with all of the Consent Decree’s provisions. BPD and the City have demonstrated the will to reform. And the Monitoring Team is encouraged by the foundational work BPD and the City have done and by the appointment of a permanent commissioner who understands the imperative of change. But the challenges ahead are no less daunting than they were at the very beginning of the Consent Decree process.
The following summary describes noteworthy developments in this reporting period, as well as noteworthy challenges ahead. It does not cover all developments in the reporting period or all continuing challenges. Rather, it is a short recap of what the Monitoring Team views as certain key developments over the past six months and certain key challenges. The body of this report provides more detailed treatment of these and many other achievements and challenges.
Notable Developments
Leadership
The appointment of Commissioner Harrison has been a shot in the arm for the reform process. It is a credit to BPD—and, in particular, to the Consent Decree Implementation Unit, the Best Practices Unit, and former Acting Commissioner Gary Tuggle—that BPD made as much progress as it did in the absence of permanent leadership. However, in a few short months, Commissioner Harrison has made a difference, taking swift, decisive actions that demonstrate a firm commitment to intensifying and accelerating reform efforts. Among other things, Commissioner Harrison has:
• Sought to win the trust and support of the community by, for instance, holding “meet and greet” sessions in each police district immediately after he was appointed and by routinely attending community events

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• Named Danny Murphy as Deputy Commissioner of Compliance; Murphy ably led the New Orleans Police Department’s consent decree compliance efforts when Commissioner Harrison led NOPD
• Recruited Michael Sullivan to become Deputy Commissioner of Operations; Sullivan was Deputy Chief of the Louisville Police Department, wellrespected for his knowledge of best practices and crime-fighting experience
• Renamed the division that handles internal affairs investigations the “Public Integrity Bureau,” elevated the head of PIB to the position of deputy commissioner, and conducted a soon-to-be-concluded nationwide search to hire an experienced misconduct investigations official to serve as deputy commissioner
• Conducted nationwide searches for top talent for the positions of Chief Technology Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Training Academy commander
• Prioritized improving the operational efficiency of PIB by quickly advancing a new draft policy—coupled with a pilot program—for handling minor misconduct complaints at the District level in order to free up PIB investigators to focus on more serious complaints, including complaints involving civilian encounters
• Drafted a new mission statement to reflect Consent Decree imperatives
• Shown a commitment to transparency by, e.g., issuing a first-ever policy governing the public release of body worn camera footage of critical incidents
• Bolstered efforts to recruit new officers (including by producing a new production video encouraging Baltimoreans to be “part of the greatest comeback story ever”) and prioritized expediting the historically languid pace of processing employment applications, and
• Made clear his intolerance for unconstitutional behavior when he recommended charges against a sergeant who, in his view, had unlawfully arrested and used force against an individual who had merely questioned police actions

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Training
BPD has taken seriously the Monitoring Team’s admonition to prioritize the revitalization of its training operations. Its rapid progress toward establishing a training program consistent with national best practices is perhaps the most promising development to date.
Over the past six months, BPD finalized curriculum for its first tranche of Consent Decree training, which covers use of force and aspects of fair and impartial policing that relate to use of force (e.g., police legitimacy, procedural justice, and the effect of implicit bias on officer threat assessment). BPD worked diligently with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to draft an e-learning program, which covers the core provisions of BPD’s use of force policies. BPD officers must complete the e-learning program and score 100% on the evaluations before they can take the in-class training. BPD also worked closely with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to draft and pilot test a two-day in-class curriculum that incorporates adult learning methods, including facilitated classroom discussion based on videos and written summaries of real-world scenarios and live role-playing in the Academy gymnasium and using a simulation device. The adoption of these adult learning methods is a crucial move toward establishing a top-flight training program.
Significantly, BPD incorporated community feedback into the curriculum. It solicited and received public comments on drafts of the curriculum and established a Community Training Review Committee to take part in the pilot testing of certain course modules.
On June 10, after most officers had successfully completed the e-learning program, BPD began utilizing the new in-class curriculum to conduct in-service training for four classes of 30-36 officers each week, with the objective of training all officers in the Department by October. To facilitate this training, BPD added ten new instructors to its Academy staff, consistent with prior Monitoring Team advice. Most of the new instructors have come from Patrol, which enhances their credibility. Without the addition of these instructors, BPD would not have been able to move forward with the new training, much less deliver it effectively to the entire Department within a period of four months, as the Second-Year Monitoring Plan requires.
Academy instructors experienced a few rough patches in the initial classes, which is unsurprising given that they were utilizing facilitative, non-lecture-oriented

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teaching methods for the first time. But based on the Monitoring Team’s in-person observation, key concepts have been conveyed effectively, and instruction over the past six weeks has steadily improved. Critically, the vast majority of officers have engaged with the course material.
In addition to the admirable progress it has made on its use of force training, BPD has completed initial drafts of both an e-learning curriculum and a two-day inclass curriculum for the second tranche of Consent Decree training, which cover stops, searches and arrests and aspects of fair and impartial policing that relate to those encounters. BPD is also far along in the development of e-learning training on sexual assault investigations.
One final positive development: in this reporting period, BPD has been actively pursuing the relocation of the Training Academy to more modern facilities at the University of Baltimore. With the relocation, which could take place as soon as the end of the next reporting period, BPD will be able to host more recruit classes, provide better space and better support for interactive adult-oriented instruction, and offer an attractive learning environment that inspires pride and professionalism.
Youth Diversion Assessment
On April 1, BPD and the City published the Youth Diversion Assessment required by paragraph 219 of the Consent Decree. Prepared by the Children’s Center for Law and Policy, a well-respected, nationally-recognized nonprofit, the Assessment presents a comprehensive analysis of the impediments to, and opportunities for, diverting youth from juvenile justice system outcomes. It relies on extensive arrest and juvenile justice system processing data, as well as interviews with youth, community advocates and law enforcement personnel, to explain the benefits of effective diversion, evaluate existing diversion programs in Baltimore, identify barriers to diversion, and offer realistic recommendations for overcoming those barriers and reducing the number of youth entering the juvenile justice system.
The Youth Diversion Assessment provides an extremely useful guide for helping City officials achieve the Consent Decree’s goal of using alternatives to arrest (e.g., warn and release, counseling, referral to community services and resources; warnings, civil citations) to divert youth from formal juvenile justice system processing. (CD 218). The Mayor, and specifically the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, can begin the process by promptly bringing together all stakeholders to consider the Assessment’s recommendations. BPD can do its part by revising its policies to outline options for diverting youth from arrest, develop criteria for

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mandatory or presumptive diversion for certain offenses, and restrict the criteria for transport to the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center to youth who are eligible for detention.
Notable Challenges Ahead
Misconduct Investigations and Discipline
The first and second semiannual report describe the immense challenges that reforming the Public Integrity Bureau (“PIB”) presents. See ECF No. 126-1 at 11-13, 34-38; 178-1 at 12-13, 34-37. BPD must transform one of its most dysfunctional units into its most capable one. And to regain both the trust of the community and the respect of BPD members, it must do so as quickly as possible.
Change is underway. As previously reported, BPD has finalized PIB’s complaint intake policy and complaint classification system; altered PIB’s case assignment system to ensure investigator impartiality; and ended the practice of detailing PIB investigators to the Patrol Division, where they might be assigned to work alongside the same officers they are investigating. In addition, within the past six months, BPD finalized a first-ever protocol for information-sharing between PIB and the Civilian Review Board; worked diligently with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to develop a PIB manual that will provide comprehensive guidance to PIB personnel on misconduct investigations; drafted a policy addressing officer obligations to disclose exculpatory evidence to prosecutors in criminal cases; and drafted another policy—and is beginning a pilot program—that will permit District commanders to handle minor misconduct complaints (e.g., reporting late to roll call, failure to appear in court or for a medical appointment, loss of BPD property other than a firearm) so that PIB investigators will have more time to focus on more serious complaints, including complaints arising from officer encounters with civilians. Finally, as noted, Commissioner Harrison has prioritized hiring an experienced commander with impeccable credentials to lead PIB, and will have that individual serve in the position of deputy commissioner, one of only four in the department.
Despite these encouraging developments, there remains a long way to go before PIB is functioning properly. Baltimore City Circuit Court recently dismissed twelve separate cases involving sustained findings of misconduct, some of them quite serious, because PIB failed to initiate charges within the statute of limitations. The inexcusable negligence of PIB in these cases exposes many of PIB’s problems: too many cases for too few investigators, investigations of minor allegations crowding out investigations of more serious allegations, inadequate and unreasonably tardy

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supervisory review of investigative findings, and lack of accountability for the timeliness and thoroughness of investigations.
Failing to promptly and correctly resolve misconduct complaints erodes community trust, depletes officer morale, and diminishes officer accountability. It erodes community trust because it reinforces the perception that BPD is incapable of policing itself. It depletes officer morale because it requires officers to work for many months under a cloud, ineligible for transfer or promotion, even when a complaint is plainly unfounded or minor. And it diminishes accountability for the obvious reason that officers who engage in misconduct go undisciplined and may feel emboldened to break the rules again.
Ensuring that disciplinary investigations, findings and recommendations are both timely and thorough must be the top priority of the incoming PIB deputy commissioner. To meet that priority, BPD, at the outset, must take several readily achievable measures: provide PIB investigators with specialized training on internal investigations; require and ensure uniform documentation and organization of investigative files, which will prompt investigators to perform full, proper investigations in each case; and upgrade BPD’s version of IAPro, which will allow supervisors to track information more effectively and manage cases under investigation more dynamically. BPD has promised this upgrade for months, and it has begun the process, but it has not yet delivered.
Nor has BPD delivered on its pledge to fully address the fallout from the Gun Trace Task Force scandal. PIB has not yet completed investigations of officers who were allegedly involved in incidents with GTTF officers but not charged criminally. BPD also has not yet authorized the promised independent investigation of the root causes of the scandal.
Staffing
As explained in prior reports, BPD’s staffing deficiencies are acute and continue to deplete officer morale. This is particularly true in the Patrol Division and PIB.
By putting officers on eight hour shifts five days a week, rather than ten hour shifts four days a week, the new contract between the City and the police union has alleviated part of the problem—but only a small part. “Drafting,” i.e., forced overtime, still occurs. That is because significant shortages remain. And although recruitment numbers appear to be improving, they still do not appreciably outpace attrition.

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Delayed many months due to the absence of a permanent commissioner, the draft Staffing Plan mandated by the Consent Decree—which BPD is scheduled to deliver to the Monitoring Team and DOJ in October—must prescribe realistic, achievable objectives for increasing the number of officers in Patrol and PIB and for maintaining an appropriate number of officers in other divisions. It is promising that, over the past year, BPD has rigorously evaluated its recruiting and hiring practices and begun implementing a robust recruiting and hiring plan that appears to be attracting larger classes of new officers. But recruitment and hiring alone will not cure BPD’s staffing shortages, certainly not as quickly as needed. As the Staffing Study suggests, BPD must develop and implement a concrete plan for civilianizing certain administrative functions that are now performed by sworn officers who should be reassigned to units desperate for them. Improvements in technology can facilitate the civilianization process. Additionally, BPD must assess the utility of each specialized unit currently in existence, identify which units are duplicative or nonessential, and reassign officers from those units.
None of this will be easy. It will require a painful diagnosis of BPD’s structural flaws and potentially radical surgery to fix them.
The Next Reporting Period
In the next six months, BPD will continue to invest substantial time and resources in officer training. It will finish training officers on use of force; finalize curriculum for and begin training officers on stops, searches, and arrests; finalize and deliver to all officers e-learning on sexual assault investigations; finalize specialized curriculum for training detectives who handle sexual assault investigations; finalize curriculum for training on fair and impartial policing, body-worn cameras, and crisis intervention; and develop and implement a plan for training PIB investigators.
In addition, BPD will complete most remaining policy revisions required by the Consent Decree. These include: a PIB manual covering transparency, complaint intake, classification and investigations; protocols for supervision effectiveness; a policy prescribing rapid, negotiated resolution of minor misconduct complaints at the District level; policies governing stops, searches, and arrests for “quality of life” misdemeanor offenses; a policy addressing the disclosure of exculpatory evidence in criminal cases; a policy on BPD’s mobile field force; a policy for BPD’s peer support program; a policy on officer-involved sexual assaults; a policy on technology procurement; and policies on interactions with youth.

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In the next six months, BPD will complete diagnostic reports on officer retention, gaps in the City’s behavioral health systems, and BPD’s memorandum of understanding with Baltimore School Police. BPD also will prepare comprehensive plans for community policing and staffing. Finally, BPD will expand its early, Consent Decree-mandated efforts at self-evaluation. It will prepare reports analyzing its responses to First-Amendment-protected activities and its progress toward developing the capacity (which it now lacks) to collect and analyze data on stops, searches and arrests. BPD also will continue monthly inspections of transport vehicles to ensure they are properly equipped and begin full quarterly audits of two randomly-selected transport events in each district to ensure transport officers are complying with BPD’s revised transport policies.
In addition to continuing to assess BPD’s reform efforts and offer technical assistance, the Monitoring Team will publish its initial surveys gauging community, custodial arrestee, and officer attitudes toward BPD and reform. Further, the Monitoring Team will continue to ramp up its evaluation of BPD performance. It will complete its first comprehensive qualitative review of PIB investigations (from 2018), and begin comprehensive qualitative reviews of use of force reports/incidents and, if feasible, stops, searches and arrests. The Monitoring Team also will work with BPD and DOJ to develop proper methodologies for both qualitative and quantitative assessments in several areas of the Consent Decree, including stops, searches, and arrests.

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SUMMARY OF MONITORING TEAM ACTIVITIES
Over the past six months, the Monitoring Team has done work in each of its three roles—arbiter, technical advisor and facilitator. As arbiter, the Monitoring Team, among other things, has assessed BPD’s progress in developing and implementing new training programs, evaluated various policy revisions, reviewed and analyzed a study of City programs designed at diverting youth from the criminal justice system, reviewed BPD’s handling of various misconduct investigations, and examined BPD’s initial Department reports on stops, searches and arrests and sex assault investigations. As technical advisor, the Monitoring Team has drawn on the expertise of its members to provide BPD guidance on officer training, policy revisions, technology improvements, internal investigations and discipline, staffing issues, officer wellness issues, and interactions with individuals in crisis. As facilitator, the Monitoring Team has sought to engage both community stakeholders and BPD officers in the reform process.
The Monitoring Team’s work in this reporting period is summarized below. The details of the Monitoring Team’s work, recorded on time sheets for each Monitoring Team member in 1/10 hour increments, are reflected in the Monitoring Team’s approved invoices, which are available on the Monitoring Team’s website at https://www.bpdmonitor.com/monthly-statements. The Consent Decree provides that the Monitoring Team will be paid $1,475,000 per year in fees and expenses. For the first 19 months of its work (October 2017 through April 2019), the City paid the Monitoring Team $2,318,021.00 in fees and $105,887.21 in expenses. In addition, from October 2017 through April 2019, the Monitoring Team contributed pro bono services for its work on the Consent Decree in an amount equal to $1,215,801.05, meaning that 33% of the Monitoring Team’s work during the 19 months was at no cost to the City.
Engagement with Stakeholders
Community Engagement
The Monitoring Team continues to engage in active, affirmative community outreach. In addition to holding Consent Decree-mandated community forums in January, April and July 2019, the Monitoring Team and its community engagement team are meeting with community members where they live. In the past six months, Monitoring Team members have attended or convened community meetings in different parts of the City, including meetings of neighborhood associations, faithbased organizations, civic leaders, and affinity groups (e.g., advocates for returning

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citizens). The meetings are intended to inform community members about the Consent Decree process and to listen to their views about BPD.
The Monitoring Team’s community engagement team, including Monitoring Team leadership, continue to participate in bimonthly Facebook Live sessions from the offices of the Baltimore Community Mediation Center (“BCMC”). During these sessions, community members are given the opportunity to post questions online and obtain real-time answers from the Monitoring Team. In addition, the Monitoring Team now publishes a monthly newsletter called “The Monthly Monitor.” The newsletter is emailed to the Monitoring Team’s distribution list and linked from the Monitoring Team’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. The newsletter provides information about recent and upcoming developments under the Consent Decree, with a focus on opportunities for community members to engage in the reform process.
The Monitoring Team continues to utilize neighborhood liaisons to engage community members. In the past reporting period, the Monitoring Team hired three new liaisons. As a result, there is now one liaison in each of the City’s nine police districts. Overseen by the team’s head community liaison, Ray Kelly, and community engagement coordinator, Darnyle Wharton, the neighborhood liaisons educate their neighbors about the Consent Decree and the work of the Monitoring Team and serve as the Team’s initial points of contact for information and opinions about the performance and conduct of BPD officers, which the Team will need to fully assess BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree. The neighborhood liaisons have held “office hours” at local libraries and community centers, attended community meetings and events in their districts, and canvassed neighborhood civic organizations, businesses, and faith-based institutions to educate community members about the Consent Decree. Going forward, the neighborhood liaisons will place even greater emphasis on meeting community members where they are, especially at community gatherings.
In addition to conducting affirmative, localized outreach to inform and hear from community members about the reform process and BPD, the Monitoring Team has pursued targeted engagement with community members around specific Consent Decree requirements. In this reporting period, the Monitoring Team continued to elicit written community input on proposed BPD policies and training programs. Under the First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans, the Monitoring Team built a community feedback component into the process for revising each policy and training program. (BPD and DOJ also have their own feedback mechanisms). As the Monitoring Team’s Second-Year Monitoring Plan submission explains:

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For each policy that is being revised, and for each training curriculum that is being developed, the Second-Year Plan furnishes community members two separate opportunities to provide input and feedback. BPD will issue each draft policy or training curriculum for public comment after collaborating with the Monitoring Team and DOJ on the draft. The Initial Public Comment Period, which typically lasts a month, will be the community’s first opportunity to provide input and feedback. Following the Initial Public Comment period, BPD, again in collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, will consider and incorporate the comments received. BPD will then issue the revised policy or training curriculum for public comment in an Abbreviated Public Comment Period, which typically lasts two weeks. That will be the community’s second opportunity to provide input and feedback. It will give community members a chance to see if the initial set of comments were addressed, as well as a chance to weigh in again before the policy or training curriculum is finalized.
ECF No. 181 at 6.
Over the past six months, the Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ sought and received meaningful public comment on a draft curriculum for training on use of force and use of force-related aspects of fair and impartial policing, as well as policies addressing misconduct investigations and discipline (including civilian review), disclosure of exculpatory evidence in criminal cases, interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, use of force, and procurement of law enforcement equipment and technology. To solicit community feedback on these draft training lesson plans and policies, the Monitoring Team posted and received comments in response to surveys on its website, received detailed letters and e-mails from community members and organizations, and welcomed more informal oral feedback from community members. The Monitoring Team shared whatever feedback it received with BPD. In turn, BPD revised each draft lesson plan or policy in response to all feedback provided (that is, feedback provided to BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ), collaborated with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to ensure that the revised drafts properly reflected that feedback, and then published a final curriculum or policy following approval by DOJ and the Monitoring Team.
In addition, as explained in more detail below, BPD established a Community Training Review Committee consisting of community members who attend and provide feedback on training programs while they are being developed. In late May 2019, together with Monitoring Team members and DOJ representatives, the

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Community Training Review Committee participated in and provided feedback on one of the key modules of the use of force/fair and impartial policing training curriculum. Monitoring Team members and DOJ representatives also attended and provided feedback at earlier pilot sessions, one for Training Academy instructors and another using officers.
Subsequent sections of this report address the use of force training curriculum and revised policies that BPD finalized over the past six months.
Communications with the Parties
The Monitoring Team communicates with BPD, the City and DOJ multiple times on a daily basis—in in-person meetings, in conference calls, and by email. Monitoring Team members have worked exhaustively with the parties to make sure BPD produces all of the “deliverables” the First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans require. In the past six months, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have collaborated with BPD and provided extensive oral and written comments and written line edits on the following deliverables, among others:
(1) Drafts of revised policies due under the First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans, including policies on misconduct investigations and discipline (including civilian review), disclosure of exculpatory evidence in criminal cases, interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, and procurement of law enforcement equipment and technology, and clarifying revisions to previously approved use of force policies.
(2) Numerous drafts of e-learning and in-class curriculum for training on use of force. See ECF No. 212, as well as pilot tests of that training;
(4); A draft workplan for the Collaborative Implementation and Review Committee (“CPIC”), which establishes deadlines for Year Two deliverables involving police interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, see ECF No. 201; and
(5) A draft BPD report on stops, searches and arrests and corresponding drafts of a revised report form that captures all data the Consent Decree requires BPD to track (and which, ideally, will become an electronic report form once BPD’s technology plan is fully implemented).

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Police Engagement
In addition to conferring daily with members of BPD’s Consent Decree Implementation Unit, City Law Department attorneys representing BPD, and BPD command staff to work on implementing the requirements of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team continues to engage BPD members. Monitoring Team members have established relationships with union leaders and spent substantial time at BPD’s Training Academy (where recruit, in-service, and field training officer training is conducted) and Public Integrity Bureau (which investigates allegations of officer misconduct).
The Monitoring Team also has established and meets periodically with an informal group of rank-and-file officers to obtain their candid feedback on the Consent Decree, the positive attributes of BPD, and the challenges facing BPD. Moreover, in May 2019, as required by the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team conducted formal focus groups of BPD officers, detectives, and supervisors to listen to their thoughts and gather their ideas about effective reform.
As previously indicated, the Monitoring Team, soon after its appointment, established a protocol for notification and potential response to critical incidents involving BPD officers, such as officer-involved shootings. The notification is immediate and allows for local Monitoring Team members or out-of-town members in Baltimore to respond to the scene and observe BPD officers in action. The notification protocol has been used several times in this reporting period to respond to critical incidents.
Meetings with the Court
The Monitoring Team’s leadership, including Ken Thompson, Seth Rosenthal, Chuck Ramsey, Hassan Aden and Theron Bowman, communicate regularly with Judge Bredar—in person, by telephone, and by email—to update him on developments and to take direction from him.
In the very first stage of the reform process, Judge Bredar determined that each month he would hold a three-hour working session with the Monitoring Team and the parties to discuss developments and challenges in a specific area of the Consent Decree. In this reporting period, Judge Bredar has convened working sessions to discuss sexual assault investigations (February 2019), recruitment, hiring and retention (March 2019), fair and impartial policing (April 2019), interactions with youth (May 2019), and staffing and supervision (June/July 2019).

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Assessments and Technical Assistance
For the past six months, the Monitoring Team’s work under the First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans has focused on assessing BPD’s performance, and assisting BPD, in the following areas: completing the process of revising BPD policies; developing and providing training on revised policies; completing studies and plans assessing the City’s youth diversion programs and BPD’s personnel and technology needs; and conducting reviews of BPD’s performance in certain areas.
Policy Revisions
Although its focus for the past six months has turned to training assessment and assistance, the Monitoring Team has continued to spend time assessing BPD’s efforts to revise policies and helping BPD with those efforts based on Monitoring Team’s members’ expertise and knowledge of national best practices. In the first monitoring year, the Monitoring Team assessed and advised BPD on revisions to approximately forty policies covering nearly every area under the Consent Decree. Over the past six months, the Monitoring Team has helped BPD with policy revisions not undertaken during the first year. As explained in more detail in the Findings section below, those policies address:
• Misconduct investigations and discipline • Disclosure of exculpatory evidence in criminal cases • Interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis • Procurement of law enforcement equipment and technology
Training
In this reporting period, the Monitoring Team has worked extensively with BPD and DOJ to develop e-learning and in-class training curriculum on use of force, fair and impartial policing, and stops/searches/arrests, and e-learning curriculum on sexual assault investigations. The Monitoring Team also actively participated in and critiqued pilot testing of the first tranche of Consent Decree training, which covers use of force and aspects of fair and impartial policing. In recent weeks, as this first tranche of training has gone live in the Training Academy—the first class began June 10—Monitoring Team members have assessed the efficacy of the training by sitting in on and observing numerous classes. Based on their observations, Monitoring Team members and DOJ attorneys have provided extensive feedback to Academy personnel to encourage refinements in training delivery.

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Foundational Assessments and Reform Plans
Some of the foundational work required by the Consent Decree entails assessing BPD’s present capacity to implement reforms and, where BPD falls short, developing a plan for ensuring that those reforms are achievable. To date, the Monitoring Team has reviewed and worked with BPD and DOJ to develop the following:
• A comprehensive Technology Resource Plan, which builds on the previously completed Technology Study (described in the first semiannual report) to establish a detailed blueprint for fixing BPD’s extensive technology shortcomings and making the improvements needed to (1) facilitate more efficient recording, collection and synthesis of data on all facets of police work (e.g., stops, pat-downs, searches, arrests, uses of force, internal investigations and discipline), (2) effectively review officer performance and ensure officers are following the law, (3) in the short term, permit the Monitoring Team and the Court to comprehensively assess BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree; and (4) ensure transparency into and accountability for BPD’s performance, which the community expects and the Consent Decree requires. In late March 2019, BPD prepared and provided the Monitoring Team and DOJ with an implementation timeline for the Technology Resource Plan. The timeline, which is contingent on the receipt of funding, provides approximate dates for implementation of a host of IT upgrades between the current fiscal year and fiscal year 2023 (July 2022 – June 2023).
• A comprehensive Staffing Study, which identifies BPD’s personnel shortcomings and needs. A Staffing Plan will be prepared during the next reporting period. As noted elsewhere in this Report, BPD has had to delay its publication because of the absence of permanent Department leadership until recently.
• A detailed assessment of City programs dedicated to diverting youth from the criminal justice system, released April 1, 2019.
• Plans for improving the collection of data on use of force incidents and stops, searches and arrests.

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Surveys
Over the life of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team must conduct three different types of surveys at regular intervals to measure community attitudes about BPD and whether those attitudes change over time. These surveys include a representative survey of community residents, a survey of detained arrestees, and a survey of BPD officers. In this reporting period, the Monitoring Team has done considerable work on developing the first of each type of survey.
• The Monitoring Team is partnering with the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University (“IUR”) to devise, conduct, analyze the results of, and prepare a report on the community survey. IUR completed data collection for the community survey at the end of June 2019. The Monitoring Team will publish a report of the results of the survey by the end of August.
• The Monitoring Team is partnering with researchers from the University of Toronto and Rose Street Community Center, a local organization that assists returning citizens, to conduct the custodial arrestee survey. The University of Toronto researchers have extensive experience with arrestee surveys, including, most recently, an arrestee survey they completed last year in connection with the Cleveland Division of Police’s consent decree. The University of Toronto researchers, Rose Street Community Center associates and Monitoring Team members have developed an interview protocol and have finalized logistics for the survey, which will be conducted at Central Booking in Baltimore. The interviews have been delayed because it took the ethics board at the University of Toronto several months to approve the survey instrument. The interviews will be completed by the end of July 2019. A final report detailing the team’s findings will be published by the end of August.
• With assistance from the Crime and Justice Institute, the Monitoring Team conducted a series of eight focus groups of BPD personnel from May 21 – 23, 2019. The eight groups consisted of (1) two patrol officer groups of mixed race and ethnicity, but gender specific—one male, one female—to allow for comparison by gender, (2) three patrol officer groups, separated by race/ethnicity—one African American, one White, one Latinx—in order to make comparisons across race/ethnicity, and (3) detective, sergeant, and lieutenant groups of mixed race/ethnicity and gender. Officers from every shift and every district were represented. In total, a total of 68 sworn personnel— 40 patrol officers, nine detectives, ten sergeants, and nine lieutenants—

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participated. A final report detailing the Monitoring Team’s findings will be published by the end of July.
Diagnostic and Compliance Reviews
In this reporting period, the Monitoring Team conducted its second preliminary diagnostic review of internal investigations files from the Public Integrity Bureau. The Monitoring Team conducted its first such review a year earlier. The purpose of these preliminary reviews has been to get a general sense of whether PIB investigators are correctly classifying complaints, regularly communicating with complainants, thoroughly investigating allegations of misconduct, making appropriate determinations and disciplinary recommendations based on the evidence, and properly documenting all of their work in the files, and then to provide PIB with guidance to shore up deficiencies. The Monitoring Team’s assessment from the recent diagnostic review is included in the Findings section below.
The Monitoring Team used the recent diagnostic review to refine the assessment tool it will use for its formal compliance reviews of PIB investigations. The Monitoring Team’s first formal compliance review of PIB investigations is presently underway. The results will be reported in the next reporting period.
In addition to its first formal compliance review of PIB investigations, the Monitoring Team will soon begin its first formal compliance review of incidents involving use of force. The Monitoring Team recently finalized its assessment tool. As previously reported, the Monitoring Team also has begun developing assessment instruments for sexual assault investigations, incidents involving First Amendmentprotected activities, and stops, searches and arrests.
As explained in more detail in the Findings section below, the Monitoring Team regularly reviews BPD’s audits of both transport vehicle equipment and transport events.
As part of the work it must do to assess BPD’s compliance, the Monitoring Team also has been conducting diagnostic analyses of BPD’s performance in discrete matters. The purpose of these analyses is not to formally gauge BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree, but rather to get a sense of how certain core functions are currently being performed and, if they are not being performed effectively or in compliance with the Consent Decree, to provide BPD guidance on how to improve performance. The ultimate objective is for BPD to meaningfully engage in its own

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after-action assessments so that when it finds problems, it will self-correct and take remedial action on its own, without prompting from the Monitoring Team or DOJ.
During the initial reporting period, the Monitoring Team conducted one of these diagnostic analyses by evaluating the propriety of BPD’s interactions with civilians in the Harlem Park neighborhood following the shooting death of BPD Detective Sean Suiter. In December 2018, as a result of the Monitoring Team’s findings (as well as the findings of an Internal Review Board that conducted a separate assessment of BPD’s investigation of Detective Suiter’s death), BPD prepared and delivered a full-day training for all command staff on both constitutional requirements for conducting stops, searches and arrests and proper use of an Incident Command System for responding to significant events. In addition, BPD prepared and delivered to all officers a mandatory e-learning training program on BPD policies and constitutional requirements on stops, searches and arrests through its PowerDMS system. The Monitoring Team and DOJ provided input on the lesson plan for the command staff training, attended that training (as did Judge Bredar), and provided BPD with feedback following the training. The Monitoring Team and DOJ also provided input on the e-learning lesson plan for the officer training on stops, searches and arrests.
The Monitoring Team has continued to perform diagnostic analyses of various discrete matters over the past year. As explained in the last report, the Monitoring Team and DOJ evaluated the quality of PIB’s internal investigation and findings regarding recent allegations that an officer gave false testimony during a criminal trial. The Monitoring Team and DOJ reviewed the officer’s testimony, the PIB file and PIB’s findings, and delivered an assessment of what PIB could have done better. The assessment has led to fruitful discussions, and PIB has prepared a training program for PIB investigators that uses the case as a tool for training on proper investigative procedures and case analysis.
The Monitoring Team and DOJ have been actively monitoring approximately twenty other PIB investigations, receiving regular updates from PIB supervisors. Once the investigations are concluded, the Monitoring Team will assess whether they were conducted and resolved properly.
Finally, the Monitoring Team routinely reviews BPD-civilian encounters that draw public scrutiny—though, as noted above, it does not independently investigate such encounters. In the past two months, for instance, the Monitoring Team has examined the following:

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• In one encounter in the Southwestern District, which led to the initiation of criminal charges, a sergeant, assisted by a patrol officer, chased down, tackled, and arrested an individual after the individual, while passing by a handcuffed man seated on a curb, questioned why the man had to be placed on the wet ground. Monitoring Team members have carefully reviewed BWC footage and police reports of the encounter, and will closely monitor the State’s Attorney’s Office’s prosecution of the sergeant for second degree assault, false imprisonment, and misconduct in office, as well as PIB’s investigation of the incident.
• In an encounter in the Cherry Hill neighborhood, two officers responded to a complaint that one woman had maced another woman (a neighbor) in the face, which is an aggravated assault. After the officers spent approximately 10 minutes gathering information and de-escalating the dispute between the residents of the neighboring homes, the alleged victim confirmed for the officers that she wanted to press charges. In an effort to question the suspect, one officer obtained consent to enter the home where the suspect was located, while the other officer went around to the rear of the building. When the first officer entered the home, the suspect ran out the back door and down the street. The first officer gave chase, followed by the officer who had gone around the rear. The first officer caught up to the suspect and placed his hands on her arm to detain her, at which point she sat down on the ground. The officer began cuffing her but had difficulty doing so because she refused to give up her hands voluntarily. After a short period, during which the suspect’s brother tried to physically intervene in the arrest and had to be restrained, a third officer who arrived on the scene used an approved pressure point technique, placing his knuckle or thumb behind the suspect’s ear, to gain compliance and get the suspect to place her hands behind her back for cuffing. One portion of the incident, which shows the third officer applying the pressure point technique, was captured on video on a personal cell phone and posted to social media. The Monitoring Team has viewed BWC footage of the incident from beginning to end and will review BPD’s incident and use of force reports.
• As with all police-involved shootings, the Monitoring Team showed up to the scene of a police-involved shooting in the Northern District outside a methadone clinic on July 15, assessed the situation, attended BPD briefings, and reviewed BWC footage and police reports.

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FINDINGS
BPD and City leadership continue to demonstrate a firm commitment to implementing the reforms required by the Consent Decree. BPD’s Consent Decree compliance team and Training Academy staff have worked diligently with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to draft, revise and implement a brand new training program on use of force. That program, and forthcoming programs on stops, searches and arrests and fair and impartial policing, incorporate adult learning principles and replace static, lecture-based instruction with dynamic, scenario-based, learnerinvolved instruction. BPD also is successfully moving toward completion of the initial round of policy revisions required by the Consent Decree. As previously reported, the new, revised policies are a marked improvement over the old policies. BPD also remains focused on the dramatic structural improvements that genuine reform requires: meeting staffing needs (especially in the Patrol Division, Public Integrity Bureau (“PIB”) and Training Academy), overhauling its technology, transforming PIB and fortifying its internal affairs function, and engaging community members.
However, 18 months into the reform process, BPD still has a long way to go. Indeed, compliance efforts in a number of areas have not yet begun, nor under the First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans are they required to have begun. Certain building blocks—policies, training—are still being put in place, while other essential foundational measures remain purely conceptual. These include advancements in technological capability, improvements in PIB operations, and reinforcements for the Patrol Division through civilianization of certain administrative functions, elimination of certain specialized units, and improved recruitment, hiring and retention.
In the first and second semiannual reports, the Monitoring Team observed that, while BPD and City leadership should be commended for their willingness to reform, there were concerns about BPD’s capacity for reform. Eighteen months into the reform process, those concerns linger. To its credit, BPD has risen to several early challenges. But too much remains to be done to be certain about the long-term success of this enterprise. The Monitoring Team is undoubtedly encouraged by the hard work and thoughtfulness BPD has put into improving its policy writing, training, recruitment and hiring functions. It is similarly encouraged by the early actions of Commissioner Harrison, who has prioritized Consent Decree compliance and what he calls “culture change” in both word and deed. But will BPD correct its systemic deficiencies and usher in a new era of constitutional, community-oriented policing? That is, will it successfully address the shortcomings identified in its Staffing Study? Or fix the operational problems that continue to plague the Public Integrity Bureau and internal affairs investigations? Or overhaul its outdated information technology

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systems, as the Technology Resource Plan envisions? Or ensure that officers use the new technology, once adopted, to properly record stops, searches, arrests, and uses of force, supervise and evaluate junior officers and intervene when there are policy violations, and analyze aggregated data to assess and improve both individual officer performance and performance across the Department? Furthermore, will its officers routinely de-escalate potentially volatile situations where possible, only use force that is necessary, reasonable and proportional to the threat posed, and consistently perform stops, searches and arrests in compliance with constitutional commands? At this moment, the answers to all of these questions remain unknown. Indeed, although 18 months sounds like ample time for change to firmly take root, and although BPD has accomplished a great deal in that period (especially as compared to certain similarly situated departments operating under consent decrees), it is still too soon to know. Accordingly, in this report, the Monitoring Team continues to focus on BPD’s progress toward implementing the foundational reforms the Consent Decree prescribes.
This section sets forth the Monitoring Team’s findings regarding BPD’s progress to date in a number of areas of the Consent Decree. For each area, the Monitoring Team explains (1) what BPD will be required to do over the long term and what BPD has been required to do under the First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans, (2) what progress has been made and whether it is reasonable or not, (3) the challenges facing BPD, and (4) immediate next steps. It bears repeating that the Monitoring Team is not evaluating BPD’s progress toward satisfying each and every paragraph and each and every requirement within each area of the Consent Decree. Again, that kind of report card would not reveal much, if anything, about BPD’s performance at this point in the reform process. The Monitoring Team instead assesses BPD’s progress on the limited number of Consent Decree requirements that are included in the First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans in each area, and then describes the road ahead.
For several reasons, this report contains fewer standalone sections than the first two reports. It does not include standalone sections on either use of force or impartial policing, because the section on training covers all of the work done in those two areas over the past six months. This report also does not cover First Amendmentprotected activities because, consistent with the First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans, BPD completed all policy revisions in that area in the first year, will not begin developing training in that area until subsequent reporting periods, and thus did no direct work in that area in this reporting period. In addition, this report does not include a section on community policing. That is because BPD had to postpone

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preparation of a community policing plan until the next reporting period in order to give Commissioner Harrison time to incorporate his own vision into the plan.
Nor does this report not include a standalone section on compliance reviews and outcome assessments. While these comprehensive evaluations of BPD’s performance will be the focus of the Monitoring Team’s work in the coming years, the Monitoring Team, to date, necessarily has prioritized evaluating and providing technical assistance on the foundational work required by the Consent Decree, such as revisions to policies, training, and core operations. In subsequent reporting periods, the Monitoring Team will increasingly prioritize formal evaluations of BPD’s performance in a host of areas in order to measure BPD’s progress toward constitutional, community-oriented policing over time. The Monitoring Team already has begun its first systemic assessment of the quality of PIB internal affairs investigations. Similar evaluations of uses of force and, if feasible, stops, searches, and arrests are scheduled for the next reporting period. In subsequent reporting periods, the Monitoring Team will commence assessments in additional areas, including responses to calls for service, First Amendment-protected activities, and interactions with individuals in crisis, among others (CD 459). Accordingly, as BPD achieves compliance with and moves past the foundational requirements of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team’s reports will focus increasingly on such performance assessments.
This section begins in the area that has been at the heart of the reform effort over the past six months: training. It then addresses the areas of the Consent Decree that present among the most pressing threshold challenges facing BPD: misconduct investigations and discipline, technology, and staffing, followed by areas where DOJ found or expressed concerns about a pattern or practice of constitutional violations, including stops, searches and arrests and transportation of persons in custody. This section concludes by assessing BPD’s progress in other areas of the Consent Decree.

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Training
The Monitoring Team has previously observed that the many new or revised policies required by the Consent Decree will be ineffectual unless BPD officers understand and adhere to them. Therefore, BPD must provide its officers with training that gives clear guidance on policy requirements and meaningful opportunities to apply that guidance to simulated real world scenarios.
The Consent Decree recognizes that “proper, effective, and comprehensive training is a necessary prerequisite to constitutional policing.” (CD 291). It contains a number of specific training requirements on stops, searches, and arrests (CD 67– 68); crisis intervention (CD 106–08, 112–113); use of force (CD 166–68); transportation of persons in custody; (CD 238); First Amendment-protected activities (CD 251); sexual assault investigations (CD 259); supervision and management (CD 303, 308–10); and misconduct investigations (CD 409–15). BPD must also enhance its Field Training Officer Program for new Academy graduates. (CD 301–02). In other areas, the Consent Decree does not expressly require training. But training remains imperative because, without it, officers will not understand some of the revised policies that the Consent Decree requires BPD to implement. For instance, the Consent Decree requires BPD to revise its body-worn camera policy (which BPD has done), so even though it does not require training on body-worn cameras, BPD must provide instruction to its officers on the revisions so that officers are fairly held accountable to them.
BPD’s previous approach to training was inadequate. Consequently, the Consent Decree requires BPD to make significant changes. BPD must ensure that its training programs and Training Academy are “reasonably funded,” which includes ensuring sufficient training facilities and “an adequate number of qualified instructors . . . assigned to the training academy.” (CD 292, 293). Instructors will be qualified when they “are proficient in their subject matter,” proficient in adult learning techniques, and have an adequate performance history. (CD 296).
In this reporting period, as the remainder of this section explains, BPD has made encouraging progress in transforming its training function. Indeed, it is hard to overstate the speed and significance of the improvements BPD has made. By rapidly incorporating a wealth of best practices in adult education, BPD has embraced a fresh approach to curriculum development and instructional delivery. Moreover, by having officers attend several shorter training programs during the course of a year, rather than one extended two-week block of training, BPD will

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become more nimble. The new schedule is less disruptive to other Department operations and more capable of more rapid implementation of policy revisions.
As of June 10, BPD began Department-wide training on its revised use of force policies and certain fair and impartial policing concepts. This training is the noteworthy culmination of several months of intensive work under BPD’s new, multistage curriculum design process. Although it is only a first step, and although BPD has a long way to go before it achieves compliance with the Consent Decree’s training provisions, BPD’s determined effort to draft, refine, pilot-test and implement the new curriculum has established a foundation for successful execution of the ambitious training program that the Consent Decree requires.
Areas of Progress
Changes to Training Model
The Monitoring Team previously reported that, to meet Consent Decree requirements, BPD has switched from providing officers all annual in-service training in a single, long block to offering shorter blocks on different topics throughout the year. This staggered approach allows BPD to complete training for all officers on a particular subject more quickly and, as a result, to effectuate and hold officers accountable to new, Consent Decree-mandated policies on that subject sooner.
It bears emphasizing that this staggered model for annual training does not require more training time than BPD’s old model. The same amount of training will be provided each year. It will simply be in one or two day segments, rather than all at once. And importantly, the new model will allow BPD to be more flexible, reducing the operational impact of taking officers away from their assigned duties for training. Officers may be pulled away from their assignments for one or two days at a time but will quickly return. In contrast, under the old model, officers were out for longer blocks of time, which posed a clear impediment to shifting resources when needed to respond to public safety emergencies.
BPD has made other positive changes to its training model. For one, it is adopting a new approach to electronic learning (“e-learning”). For certain subjects, elearning will be paired with, and serve as a prerequisite for, in-class instruction; for other subjects, e-learning will be the primary method of training delivery. E-learning will focus on the core requirements of revised policies, freeing up in-class instruction for opportunities to apply the policies in practice. The goal is to transform the in-class learning environment from static and lecture-based to dynamic and scenario-based.

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In recent months, BPD personnel received guidance from the Los Angeles Police Department and the University of Baltimore on optimal e-learning practices. The early results, seen in a finalized e-learning curriculum on use of force and draft e-learning curricula on search and seizure and sexual assault investigations, show that the Training Academy is thoughtfully crafting e-learning presentations to engage officers with essential content on BPD policy and laying the necessary groundwork for the scenario-based in-class instruction that will follow.
The most significant change in BPD’s training model, as the Monitoring Team has explained before, has been the content of in-class instruction. Embracing adult learning principles, BPD will offer in-class training that is far less lecture-based and far more interactive, using videos from real world events, case studies, hypothetical scenarios, role playing, and group discussions that make learning more engaging and more practical.
Increasing Academy Staffing
Changing the training paradigm underscored how inadequately the Training Academy has been staffed. As recently as late 2018, there were only a handful of fulltime officers assigned to the Academy. As the Monitoring Team previously observed, departments of 150 or 200 officers typically have more training personnel than BPD— an agency of 2500 officers—had. The Monitoring Team has been encouraged that, over the past six months, BPD has assigned ten additional, full-time personnel to the Academy and has made delivery of in-service training their primary responsibility. This infusion of additional instructors was absolutely essential; BPD’s revamped training program would not have been able to move forward without it. The benefits of the expanded complement of instructors are already apparent in the use of force training that is now underway.
Use of Force and Fair and Impartial Policing Training
In late 2018 and early 2019, BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team convened on a number of occasions to determine training priorities for 2019 and 2020. The priorities the group established were dictated by the policy revisions that BPD finalized in 2018 and, correspondingly, by the key areas of concern identified in DOJ’s investigation: use of force, stops/searches/arrests, and fair, impartial and nondiscriminatory policing. Accordingly, BPD plans to provide training on use of force and related fair and impartial policing concepts (“UOF/FIP I”) between June and October 2019; training on stops, searches, and arrests and related fair and impartial

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policing concepts (“SSA/FIP II”) between November 2019 and March 2020; and a standalone training on additional fair and impartial policing concepts (“FIP III”) between April 2020 and August 2020.
Work began in earnest on the construction of the UOF/FIP I curriculum in January 2019. Throughout a period of robust collaboration among BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team, BPD demonstrated a genuine commitment to transforming its approach to training and adopting contemporary adult learning practices. The collaboration period included two opportunities for public comment. BPD considered community and officer feedback and directly incorporated much of it into subsequent revisions of the curriculum.
The UOF/FIP I curriculum consists of two critical, related components. The first component is an electronic learning requirement. Across three modules, the elearning addresses the substantive requirements of BPD’s newly revised use of force policies. The second component is two full, eight-hour days of in-person instruction at the Training Academy. Officers must successfully complete the e-learning component by scoring a 100% on an evaluation before qualifying to attend the in-class component. The in-class instruction uses adult learning techniques—including roleplaying and group discussions prompted by videos of real-world police encounters and by hypothetical cases—to enhance officer understanding of BPD’s use of force policies and, crucially, to allow officers the opportunity to practice applying those policies to real-world situations.
Together, the e-learning and in-class training begin to address many of the requirements of paragraph 166 of the Consent Decree regarding training on use of force. They provide officers with guidance on, among other things, use of force decision-making under a Critical Decision-Making Model; de-escalation techniques; the use of various weapons and techniques; the relationship between subject threat or compliance level and the permissible force (if any) authorized in response; and writing use of force reports. Additional requirements, such as the supervisor-specific requirements of paragraph 166(n) and the foot-pursuit-related requirements of paragraph 166(m), should be addressed in subsequent training.
The in-class training also addresses, in part, certain requirements of paragraph 93 of the Consent Decree regarding training on fair and impartial policing. In particular, it provides officers with guidance on the existence of implicit bias and the importance of police legitimacy. BPD deserves credit for incorporating into the UOF/FIP I curriculum instruction on how the use of force affects police legitimacy and on how BPD’s mission and core values must broadly guide use of force decisionmaking.

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The UOF/FIP I curriculum is the first product of BPD’s effort to overhaul its approach to curriculum development. In establishing this curriculum, BPD completed a successful, multi-stage pilot process that allowed Training Academy staff to refine the curriculum following pilot sessions before rolling it out Departmentwide. BPD conducted the pilot sessions with Training Academy instructors and officers from across the Department, with the Monitoring Team, DOJ and Training Academy and Consent Decree Implementation Unit personnel observing and providing feedback. Importantly, the pilot process included presenting parts of the training to, and obtaining feedback from, a newly-formed Community Training Review Committee, which consists of one resident from each of the City’s nine police districts, plus representatives from various community organizations.
On June 10, BPD began presenting the UOF/FIP I training to officers across the Department. For the first time, all ranks are required to attend the training together, which means that, in a given classroom, one may find patrol officers, detectives, SWAT team members, sergeants, lieutenants, majors, and senior command staff participating together. The Monitoring Team and DOJ will be conducting audits of the training sessions to ensure fidelity to the curriculum and instructional objectives. At the same time, the Monitoring Team and DOJ will continue to provide Academy staff technical assistance, as needed, to refine course content and instructional techniques.
It remains too early to determine whether officers who have completed the training have successfully internalized it and are applying it day-to-day in their work. However, BPD is receiving generally positive feedback from participating officers in post-instruction surveys, which is encouraging.
Work on Additional Training Curricula
In addition to commencing instruction on UOF/FIP I, BPD is making reasonable progress on the development of other curricula, including e-learning for all BPD officers on sexual assault investigations, and e-learning and in-class instruction on stops, searches, and arrests and additional fair and impartial policing concepts. The e-learning curriculum on sexual assault investigations is further along than the curriculum on stops, searches, and arrests, which remains a work in progress.
Long-Term Needs for Enhancing the Training Function
As the Monitoring Team, DOJ and the Court have all repeatedly made clear, the Training Academy’s facilities are inadequate. The Academy is located in a rundown school building with substandard amenities. The facilities send precisely the

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wrong message to BPD personnel about the professionalism that is expected of them. Police officers are professionals, and the resources utilized to train them must convey to them that they are professionals.
In this reporting period, BPD and the City began exploring options for moving the Academy to newer, more modern facilities at the University of Baltimore. Although BPD and the City have yet to finalize the arrangements, the relocation of the Academy to larger modern space that is more conducive to learning will enhance the training BPD can conduct and, equally important, communicate to officers that the City and BPD are committed to investing in their professional development.
Separately, as noted above, BPD has established a panel of community representatives—the Community Training Review Committee (“CTRC”)—to provide input on training curricula as they are being developed. The Monitoring Team commends BPD for beginning to make good on its commitment to include community members in officer training. The establishment of the CTRC is among the many partnership-building measures BPD needs to implement and sustain in order to improve its relationship with the community.
Finally, BPD is hiring an Academic Director, a professional with PhD qualifications to ensure adherence to best practices in curriculum writing, learning outcome objectives measurements, and instructor development.
Challenges Ahead
Ensuring All Officers Receive Training
In the first few weeks of UOF/FIP I training, the Training Academy is encountering some difficulty filling all of the spaces for scheduled in-class instruction. For BPD’s training plan to work, the Academy must provide the UOF/FIP I training to 144 officers per week, which means 36 officers per course across four courses each week. BPD has struggled to get this number of officers to the training. Additionally, BPD appears to be having some difficulty gaining compliance with the preliminary elearning requirement. Some officers have not completed the e-;earning by set deadlines, and others have had to be turned away from in-class training because they did not successfully complete the e-learning first.

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New Training Initiatives
To date, BPD has been able to focus on general systemic enhancements to its training program and on development and implementation of the UOF/FIP I training. In the next reporting period, however, the Consent Decree puts much more on the Training Academy’s plate, including construction of several sets of in-class curricula and supportive e-learning material, as well as standalone e-learning programs. Under the Second-Year Monitoring Plan, Training Academy staff will have to try to accomplish these tasks even as they continue to deliver UOF/FIP training four full days a week through the beginning of October. DOJ and the Monitoring Team will continue to provide BPD with intensive technical assistance to ensure fulfillment of the Consent Decree’s training requirements. Nevertheless, the Academy’s workload will become progressively more intensive in the coming months, which makes it even more imperative for BPD to provide the Academy with the resources it needs to deliver high quality training.
Long-Term Planning and Resources
The assignment of ten additional instructors to the Training Academy for inservice training was a necessary and significant development. However, given how depleted the Training Academy staff had become, BPD will need to determine a realistic, sustainable level of staffing to support the training function over the longterm—not only to satisfy the Consent Decree’s training requirements, but to ensure that officers receive ongoing opportunities for meaningful professional development well after BPD achieves full compliance with the Consent Decree and is released from Court oversight.
Further, to establish a first rate training program, BPD must thoughtfully address certain improvements, referenced above, that could require additional financial support: relocating the Academy to more suitable facilities; hiring either full-time specialist personnel or outside consultants to assist with curriculum development; and leveraging community resources not only to provide input on training curricula, but to actually help teach and facilitate certain training modules.
BPD has set an appropriately aggressive training schedule through mid-2020. Nevertheless, as it moves through that schedule, it will have to continue to identify training imperatives and adopt effective ways to realize them. To that end, the Training Academy must establish a system for routinely forecasting the Department’s training needs and identifying the resources available to meet them.

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The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, BPD will finalize and begin delivering e-learning training on sexual assault investigations and e-learning and in-class training on stops, searches, and arrests, and additional aspects of fair and impartial policing. BPD also will build training curricula (1) for all officers on its revised body-worn camera policy, (2) for recruits, officers and dispatchers on crisis intervention; (3) for sexual assault investigators on its revised policy on sexual assault investigations, and (4) for PIB investigators on the new PIB investigative manual and other new policies. Additionally, BPD is in the process of replacing its existing fleet of Tasers with newer models that have different functionality. Academy instructors, therefore, will begin training to introduce both the new Tasers and the policy changes that accompany them.
As noted above, BPD also must start to plan a detailed training calendar for 2020, which will be included in the Third-Year Monitoring Plan scheduled to begin in mid-February 2020.

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Misconduct Investigations and Discipline
The need for BPD to repair its Public Integrity Bureau (“PIB”)—known until recently as the Office of Professional Responsibility—is at the heart of the Consent Decree reform effort. Conversations the Monitoring Team has had with community members continue to focus on BPD’s ability to effectively police itself, underscoring that a properly functioning PIB is essential to re-establishing the community’s trust.
As the Monitoring Team explained in its previous reports, the Misconduct Investigations and Discipline section of the Consent Decree is the longest and most comprehensive, spanning 87 paragraphs and 38 pages. It covers the location, independence, resources and authority of PIB (CD 330-34); the process for receiving complaints, classifying them, and communicating with complainants about them (CD 335-42); requirements for conducting fair, thorough, reliable misconduct investigations and making misconduct determinations (CD 343-58); requirements for handling and referring allegations of criminal misconduct (CD 359-71); the lodging of disciplinary charges, the administration of disciplinary hearings, and the imposition of discipline (CD 372-88); the process for community-centered mediation as an alternative to investigation for certain minor allegations of officer misconduct affecting civilians (CD 389-91); record-keeping for misconduct investigations (CD 392-95); measures for ensuring transparency, including issuance of quarterly public reports of aggregate data (CD 396-405); a testing program designed to evaluate the efficacy of the civilian complaint intake process (CD 406-08); and training of PIB investigators and supervisors (CD 409-15).
The ultimate goals of the Consent Decree’s provisions implicating PIB are the full, fair, objective, and timely investigation of all potential officer misconduct; the rigorous review of all misconduct investigations; and an impartial, transparent, uniform process for the imposition of discipline and corrective action where appropriate. To ensure that BPD meets these ambitious goals, the Monitoring Team and DOJ continue to meet frequently with BPD and to visit PIB to engage with PIB personnel and observe operations.
BPD is making slow but steady progress toward meeting the foundational policy/procedure revision requirements of the Consent Decree in the area of misconduct investigations and discipline. BPD has not yet begun to satisfy the myriad other requirements in this area.

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Areas of Progress
Policies
Over the last six months, BPD successfully finalized complaint intake and classification protocols for PIB and the Civilian Review Board (“CRB”). These protocols identify the responsibilities of both PIB and CRB for intake and classification of complaints of officer misconduct and for exchanging information at the outset of investigations of such complaints. The issuance of the protocols is an important step toward fortifying civilian oversight of BPD. Although PIB and CRB must interact and coordinate with each other to fulfill their respective statutory roles, PIB and CRB have never—until now—developed formal protocols for informationsharing. The new protocols should foster closer coordination and improved cooperation between PIB and CRB, and should help to repair the historically troubled relationship between PIB and CRB. At bottom, as the Monitoring Team explained in its last semiannual report:
Establishing an effective information-sharing system is vital to the work of the CRB. Without ready access to routine police records like incident reports and body-worn camera footage, and without [PIB] casebooks that include additional records like witness interview recordings, CRB cannot fulfill its statutorily-mandated civilian oversight function. Establishing an effective information-sharing system is also important for BPD. Without accepting and facilitating meaningful civilian oversight, BPD will be hard-pressed to achieve the Consent Decree’s goal of rebuilding community trust.
ECF No. 178-1 at 34.
The PIB-CRB intake and classification protocols are the product of intensive, months-long collaboration among BPD, CRB, DOJ and the Monitoring Team, and also reflect input from community stakeholders. In addition to the hard work that development of such extensive operational protocols always requires, development of these protocols required careful consideration of intricate and sometimes difficult-tonavigate provisions of law found in the Maryland Public Information Act, Md. Ann. Code, Gen’l Provisions §§ 4-311, et seq., and case law interpreting the Act; the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, Md. Ann. Code, Public Safety §§ 3-101, et seq.; and Public Local Law §§ 16-41, which is the enabling statute for CRB. The Monitoring Team believes that, by working together so closely and so intensely on such a complex project for so many months, BPD/PIB and CRB have begun to bridge the historic gap between them and appear poised to cooperate more fully with each other to advance their shared goal of police accountability in Baltimore.

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With substantial input from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD also has produced a solid working draft of a policy governing the disclosure of exculpatory evidence in criminal cases. The public comment period for the draft policy recently concluded. The draft will be finalized in the next reporting period. Issuance of the policy is a noteworthy development because, once the policy is implemented, BPD will be one of the few departments in the country that prescribes specific procedures for ensuring that officers fulfill their solemn constitutional obligation to provide prosecuting authorities with evidence that might disprove the guilt of the accused, show that the accused should receive less severe punishment, or cast doubt on the credibility of a witness for the government.
The Monitoring Team notes that the draft policy tries to resolve a problem identified in the last report: the expungement of disciplinary records in cases that BPD “administratively closed” with no disciplinary action though PIB sustained findings of misconduct. See ECF No. 178 at 13, 28-31, 40. These records qualify as potential exculpatory evidence, because if an officer has investigated or will testify as a witness in a criminal case, evidence of that officer’s prior misconduct, especially evidence of prior untruthfulness, could affect the jury’s assessment of that officer’s credibility. The draft policy requires PIB to attempt to locate records of any expunged disciplinary files (including those that were administratively closed after sustained findings of misconduct) within its electronic misconduct investigations database, IAPro, which often archives disciplinary files even after expungement. If such records do not appear in IAPro, the draft policy requires PIB, where practicable, to search its voluminous hardcopy files for them.
In addition to finalizing the PIB/CRB intake and classification protocols and issuing a sound draft of an exculpatory evidence disclosure policy, BPD has worked closely with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to draft an investigative manual for PIB. The manual is intended to guide PIB investigators so that they conduct objective, comprehensive and timely investigations of complaints against BPD personnel. In the fall, BPD will issue a refined draft of the manual for public comment.
Quality of Investigations
The Monitoring Team is presently conducting a methodical, comprehensive review of PIB investigations from 2018 to determine whether PIB investigators are correctly classifying complaints, regularly communicating with complainants, thoroughly investigating allegations of misconduct, making appropriate determinations and disciplinary recommendations based on the evidence, and properly documenting all of their work in the files. Accordingly, the Monitoring Team

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is not prepared to say that the quality of PIB investigations is either good or improving. However, in the past reporting period, the Monitoring Team observed faintly encouraging signs.
In the spring of 2018, a group of Monitoring Team members spent a day reviewing a random sample of approximately 60 PIB files from 2017. As previously reported, the Monitoring Team observed that, based on that limited set of files, PIB investigations often were incomplete, the accompanying files were in disarray, the outcomes relied on faulty or insufficiently explained reasoning, and files from different cases were organized in different, non-uniform ways. Several months ago, in March 2019, a group of Monitoring Team members conducted a similar diagnostic, non-rigorous review of a random sample of several dozen PIB files from 2018. That quick overview suggested a number of the same, unacceptable deficiencies: too much time between the date of the complaint and the required communications with the complainant; excessive time to complete civilian-initiated investigations; files that were not uniformly organized and did not contain a task checklist; interviews and attempted interviews of subjects that were often delayed too long; and supervisory review and approval that too often came too late—well beyond the date the investigation was completed and investigative report was finalized. Nonetheless, the Monitoring Team’s overview also hinted at certain improvements. For instance, the Department-initiated complaints that were reviewed (as opposed to civilian-initiated complaints) generally appeared to be resolved in a timely manner; some files were quite well-organized and could serve as a model for other investigations; and with limited exceptions, the cases appeared to be properly classified by the most serious alleged policy violation, and all implicated policy provisions were identified. Moreover, most Department-initiated investigations in the reviewed files appeared to be more uniformly thorough than the investigations reviewed last year—i.e., the correct documents were gathered, the right witnesses were interviewed, the file was properly documented, and justifiable, evidence-based conclusions were reached. It bears repeating, however, that this was a brief, non-rigorous review—a snapshot— conducted for the purpose of honing the Monitoring Team’s tool for conducting more rigorous reviews and for the added purpose of providing PIB technical guidance on how to improve its investigations and record-keeping.
Challenges Ahead
Data and Technology
The past year has highlighted the need for PIB to re-evaluate the way it uses IAPro. It needs to be able to track information more effectively and manage cases

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under investigation more dynamically. BPD is presently seeking to discontinue using its existing, essentially unsupported version of IAPro, upgrade its server infrastructure in order to host a more user-friendly version of IAPro, and reassess IAPro’s capabilities to better serve PIB’s needs.
Staffing and Personnel
The Monitoring Team is encouraged that Commissioner Harrison has streamlined BPD’s organizational structure and placed a deputy commissioner—a direct report to the Commissioner—at the head of PIB. Over the last two years, each of the previous three Commissioners had unique views on the structure, staffing and composition of PIB, and all have acted on those views, making it difficult to monitor, provide technical assistance on, and work with BPD to revise PIB policies and practices. It is the Monitoring Team’s hope that the new structure implemented by Commissioner Harrison will end the recent, constant turnover in PIB command staff and usher in an era of long-needed stability. But that hope has yet to be realized. PIB remains without a permanent leader. Commissioner Harrison continues to search for the right person, but as of the date of this report, he has not yet found one. The Monitoring Team has emphasized the need to swiftly, but responsibly, find a wellqualified professional to lead PIB. This is a critical position. The deputy commissioner will have to be prepared to immediately address the need for both structural reform of PIB and a change in departmental culture regarding accountability.
Now that BPD is more stable and has clear guidance on agency priorities, it also needs to make tough decisions to address its acute staffing shortages. As noted in prior reports, adding investigators to PIB must be one of the priorities. There remain too few to handle the workload responsibly.
Timeliness of PIB Investigations
PIB investigations are too often left open too long. This has several adverse consequences. For one, officers are not promptly held accountable for misconduct when it occurs, and individuals with bona fide complaints are deprived of swift justice. In fact, in some cases, delay means no accountability at all. Last month, for instance, a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge dismissed a dozen sustained misconduct cases prior to trial board adjudication because BPD failed to obtain the required approvals and finalize charging documents within the one year statute of limitations. That is plainly unacceptable.

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There is another problem: officers who are subjects of open complaints, including complaints of minor rule violations, are ineligible for transfer or promotion. This is particularly frustrating for officers who are subjects of minor complaints that could be promptly resolved as unfounded, unsustained, or sustained through negotiated resolution. A constant refrain the Monitoring Team has heard in officer focus groups and from PIB investigators is that the length of the PIB investigative process is among the major contributors to low officer morale.
The principal cause of the problem is that, in recent years, PIB has been understaffed and PIB investigators have been required to investigate every allegation of misconduct, no matter how minor. That includes less serious allegations of rule violations that were once investigated and resolved by commanders in the subject officers’ districts or units. The result is that PIB investigators, who should be focused on more substantial complaints, such as those arising from officer-civilian interactions, often spend substantial time and resources on less serious, often Department-initiated complaints that, even if sustained, can be resolved through counseling or reprimand. This reflects what Judge Bredar has called “the filtration problem.”
The solution to this problem—in addition providing PIB with more investigators and training those investigators specifically on conducting misconduct investigations—is to have less serious allegations that do not involve police-civilian encounters investigated and resolved at the district or unit level, with the results reported to and approved by, but not independently investigated by, PIB. That would free up PIB investigators to spend their time investigating, and more promptly resolving, more serious allegations, particularly those that, if not properly handled, breed community mistrust (e.g., false arrest, excessive force, harassment, discrimination, overtime theft). At the same time, PIB would have to remain vigilant in ensuring that district commanders do not classify more serious allegations as minor and effectively sweep them under the rug; that all investigations, no matter how minor, are handled properly; that discipline meted out at the district level is consistent, uniform and fair across the department; and that all district commanders are properly trained on classifying and investigating misconduct complaints. That is crucial to the functioning of an effective disciplinary system.
BPD is currently developing policies that would delegate primary responsibility for resolving allegations of minor rule violations to district commanders. Whether BPD and PIB can successfully put those new policies into practice remains to be seen. It will require: (1) district commanders to properly resolve complaints of minor violations, and properly report the results to PIB for

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approval and record-keeping; (2) PIB to effectively oversee the investigation and discipline of officers for minor violations at the district level, ensuring that more serious allegations continue to be handled by PIB and not merely as “matters of supervision” at the district level; and (3) PIB to reset expectations for the comprehensive investigation and timely resolution of more serious complaints, including all complaints involving encounters with members of the public, which must remain the responsibility of PIB investigators.
In the next month, BPD will launch a pilot program to test a new policy aimed at efficiently resolving minor rule violations. The pilot will afford officers accused of minor violations the opportunity, at the district level, to enter into prompt negotiated settlements that achieve swift case closure and reduce disciplinary investigation workloads while at the same time imposing appropriate discipline. As the pilot gets underway, BPD will continue to develop a formal policy for negotiated settlements. Once a draft is finalized, it will be issued for public comment, consistent with the procedure for the adoption of other new policies under the Consent Decree.
Fallout from the Gun Trace Task Force Scandal
In the last report, the Monitoring Team emphasized that BPD must continue to deal with the fallout from the convictions of eight officers from its now-disbanded Gun Trace Task Force by (1) conducting thorough internal investigations of other, non-charged officers who were implicated in wrongdoing during the GTTF trial; and (2) conducting a full-blown investigation of the root causes of the scandal using an independent entity, with BPD’s full support and cooperation. See ECF No. 178-1 at 38-39.
The Monitoring Team understands that PIB is conducting internal investigations of certain non-charged officers, and the Monitoring Team has kept close watch over those investigations. The cases have been slow to conclude and are not yet completed, but the Monitoring Team understands that they are close to completion. By contrast, the Monitoring Team has not received any information that BPD is moving forward with an outside investigation of the root causes of the scandal. To prevent another scandal similar to GTTF, such an investigation remains imperative.

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The Next Six Months
For BPD, the next six months will be consumed by completing the PIB investigations manual and associated policies and training. At the same time, BPD will finalize its new policy for disclosure of exculpatory evidence in criminal cases.
The Monitoring Team will continue to receive and evaluate routine updates regarding a number of ongoing PIB cases, including eight different PIB investigations that spun off from the GTTF trial. In addition, as noted above, the Monitoring Team will continue with its initial, systemic evaluation of PIB cases, which it recently began. The purpose of this evaluation, which is examining a statistically significant sample of 2018 internal investigations, is to determine whether the integrity, quality and timeliness of those investigations and associated disciplinary actions meet the requirements of the Consent Decree. The results of the evaluation will serve as a baseline against which the Monitoring Team will gauge, over time, BPD’s progress toward achieving compliance with the Consent Decree in the area of misconduct investigations and discipline. It might also show whether there are systematic problems that continue to impede PIB’s effectiveness as BPD’s steward of accountability.

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Technology
Paragraph 267 of the Consent Decree requires BPD to “provide its officers with the Technology necessary to implement the Material Requirements of this Agreement . . . [including] the data collection and review required by this Agreement . . .” Paragraphs 268-278 then outline the Consent Decree’s technology requirements. BPD and the City previously completed and submitted a Resource Study (CD 268, 270), which identified current BPD systems, described the current state of those systems, and made preliminary recommendations for improvements. Following completion of the Resource Study, BPD and the City produced and submitted a Resource Plan (CD 269-70, 272). The Resource Plan, which must be updated annually (CD 275), addressed how BPD will provide the necessary computer equipment and access required for personnel to discharge their duties, acquire a centralized records management system, and ultimately develop of an Early Intervention System (“EIS”). BPD is required to use its best efforts to implement the Resource Plan (CD 274).
The Technology provisions of the Consent Decree also require BPD to disclose to the public the acquisition of certain new equipment or activity to be used in enforcement activities (CD 278). Further, data collection and data analysis are required in nearly every area of the Consent Decree, not only to enable the Monitoring Team to assess compliance, but to enable BPD leadership to better manage the Department. Without technology improvements, BPD will not be in a position to come into compliance with the Consent Decree. As the Consent Decree states, compliance is truly “dependent upon BPD acquiring or developing the appropriate technology.” (CD 267).
By producing the Resource Study, the Resource Plan, and a timeline for implementing the Resource Plan, BPD has satisfied the threshold requirements of the Consent Decree. Based on the implementation timeline, however, BPD remains at least two years away from completing the reforms necessary to demonstrate substantial progress toward achieving the Consent Decree’s IT objectives.
Areas of Progress
Resource Plan
In the prior reporting period, BPD submitted its Technology Resource Plan, and the Monitoring Team filed its notice of approval on December 1, 2018. See ECF No. 164. The Resource Plan identifies specific IT system needs (e.g., Records Management System, staffing systems), and addresses foundational business and

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management needs, including the need for proper IT governance, organizational change management, and IT staffing and resources. The Resource Plan also thoroughly addresses data management, governance and integration, which will be critical to Consent Decree compliance.
In this reporting period, BPD successfully identified funding to begin to hire the staff and obtain the resources needed to implement the Resource Plan. BPD also published a nationwide job posting and conducted interviews to fill a long-time vacancy for a Chief Technology Officer (“CTO”) to oversee—and ideally accelerate the pace of—all of BPD’s technology upgrades. BPD expects to identify a CTO in the near future.
In late March 2019, consistent with the Second-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD issued an implementation timeline for the Resource Plan. The timeline provides projected deadlines for every deliverable included in the Resource Plan. Among the timeline’s noteworthy deadlines, BPD is scheduled to implement an upgraded internal affairs records system by early 2020, a fully operational E-tix system by between April and June 2020, a fully upgraded Record Management System (“RMS”) (which is especially important for tracking data on stops, searches and arrests) by the end of 2020, an upgraded use of force records system in 2021, and an Early Intervention System within the first half of 2022.
Early in this reporting period, BPD engaged a consulting team to help begin implementation of a number of the action items in the Resource Plan, including documentation of RMS requirements, validation of staffing system requirements, and establishment of a governance process and IT Task Force. Recently, this effort appears to have stalled. The Monitoring Team is hopeful that the new leadership team under Commissioner Harrison will get these stalled efforts back on track and make progress in the next reporting period.
Public Disclosure of Technology Acquisitions
BPD is required to publicly disclose its acquisition of new law enforcement equipment and technology (CD 278). In furtherance of this requirement, BPD has drafted a policy governing such disclosure. The Monitoring Team and DOJ have had the opportunity to provide feedback on the draft policy, and is satisfied with the most recent draft produced by BPD. The public comment period for that draft recently closed. The policy will be finalized early in the next reporting period.

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Upgrading IAPro
IAPro is the system BPD uses to track both use of force incidents and investigations and misconduct investigations and discipline. In this reporting period, BPD’s IAPro vendor began to convert BPD’s existing, outdated IAPro database from Oracle to Microsoft SQL. Once the database conversion is completed, the IAPro vendor will upgrade IAPro to the most recent non-customized version, which will allow BPD to utilize IAPro’s full functionality, including all available reporting capabilities. The Monitoring Team has recommended that BPD document and walk through its user requirements with IAPro instructors so that those instructors can advise BPD about how to utilize IAPro to meet those requirements.
Challenges Ahead
Interviewing for a CTO and identifying funding for resources are important first steps toward implementing the Resource Plan. The City and BPD, however, must actually begin implementation, starting with resuscitation of its stalled efforts to document RMS and staffing system requirements and establish proper IT governance.
Further, the Resource Plan identifies inadequate IT staff as a Departmental deficiency, and recommends that BPD and the City create a Consent Decree IT Task Force with a specific organizational structure. Now that the City and BPD have identified funding to obtain the most critical staff and resources for the IT Task Force, they must work quickly to hire staff and acquire resources, while finding the right balance between hiring and contracting with IT professionals and utilizing sworn and civilian operational subject matter experts.
The Next Six Months
The Monitoring Team will closely follow the steps the City and BPD take to acquire the resources needed to establish the Consent Decree IT Task Force and implement the Resource Plan. It will also closely monitor whether the City and BPD stay on track to meet the deadlines in the Resource Plan implementation timeline, starting with documentation of RMS and staffing system requirements and development of the IT governance and organizational change management structures identified in the Resource Plan.

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Staffing, Performance Evaluations and Promotions
BPD agreed to complete a comprehensive Staffing Study to determine the appropriate number of sworn and civilian personnel needed to effectively provide police services, enable supervision, and satisfy the requirements of the Consent Decree (CD 428). Based on the Staffing Study, BPD must develop a Staffing Plan that will ensure a sufficient number of deployed personnel to, among other things: implement and sustain effective community and problem-oriented policing; conduct timely misconduct investigations; supply sufficient patrol officers to each District without resorting to drafting (i.e., forced overtime), except in unforeseeable circumstances; promote unity of command when feasible; provide a sufficient number of supervisors; and account for BPD’s and the City’s existing and projected resources (CD 429). BPD must implement the Staffing Plan, but may do so in a phased manner that reflects the City’s and BPD’s fiscal resources (CD 430).
As for performance evaluations and promotions, the Consent Decree obligates BPD to have supervisors meet with officers to discuss their annual performance reviews, which must include written discussions of the officers’ performance during the rating period, any areas for growth and achievement, and any areas requiring further training and supervision (CD 431). Direct supervisors must use a formalized system to document annual performance evaluations for each officer and quarterly evaluations of probationary employees (CD 432). In addition to these formal evaluations, supervisors must meet with their subordinates on an ongoing basis to discuss performance and must document their communications regarding performance challenges and areas for growth (CD 433). The Consent Decree further requires BPD to conduct performance evaluations of each supervisor (from first line supervisor through commander), which will include assessments of ability and effectiveness in conducting performance reviews, including monitoring, deterring and addressing misconduct by officers they supervise (CD 434). Finally, BPD must ensure its promotional system has clear criteria prioritizing effective, constitutional, and community-oriented policing as factors for promotion (CD 435).
BPD has begun work only on the foundational requirements in the Staffing, Performance Evaluations and Promotions section of the Consent Decree. It has produced a Staffing Study and continues to work on a Staffing Plan, which has been delayed because of the ten-month absence of a permanent commissioner. BPD has not yet commenced efforts to comply with any of the other requirements, and because the foundational requirements must be satisfied first, neither the First- nor SecondYear Monitoring Plan has required BPD to do so.

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Staffing Study and Plan
As explained in the last report, BPD met the deadlines for issuing the Staffing Study. On September 11, 2018, the Monitoring filed its notice of approval with the Court. See ECF No. 137. In the notice of approval, the Monitoring Team identified several concerns, including making sure that (1) Patrol Division staffing is tailored to BPD’s unique needs, including its community policing needs, (2) BPD adequately accounts for the need for more first-line supervisors and unity of command, and (3) BPD adequately accounts for the need for additional personnel in both PIB and the training academy. The Monitoring Team understood then, and understands now, that the Staffing Plan will address these concerns.
BPD has not met prior deadlines for the Staffing Plan. In fact, the deadline for the initial draft has had to be extended twice. The first extension was required because, at the time the first draft was initially due, BPD still lacked a permanent Commissioner. A long-term Staffing Plan cannot be properly developed in the absence of clear direction from permanent leadership. The Court granted the second extension in May 2019 for a related reason: although a permanent Commissioner, Commissioner Harrison, is finally in place, he needs time to understand the Department’s personnel needs and develop his own vision for meeting them, and also needs time to work with the consultant BPD hired to assist with the Staffing Plan (Alexander Weiss Consulting). The initial draft of the Staffing Plan—together with the initial draft of the Community Policing Plan, which similarly requires the informed input of the new Commissioner—is now due in October. BPD will continue to work with a third party contractor to develop the plan.
Because increasing the number of sworn personnel, particularly in Patrol, is among BPD’s most pressing organizational needs, the delay in the preparation of the Staffing Plan has been frustrating. The delay is understandable—the Staffing Plan requires the input of a permanent leader—but it has been frustrating nonetheless. The Monitoring Team expects the Staffing Plan due in October to comprehensively address BPD’s staffing needs, including plugging the gaps the Monitoring Team identified in the Staffing Study.
Challenges Ahead
The last report identified the long-term challenges BPD faces in achieving and sustaining adequate staffing levels. See ECF No. 178-1 at 45-46. Those challenges remain the same.

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The short-term challenge is to develop a meaningful, realistic Staffing Plan. A successful Plan will be dependent, in part, on the integrity of the data regarding staffing levels and needs. The Monitoring Team identified data shortcomings in the Staffing Study in the last report. It is essential that the Staffing Plan resolve and account for these deficiencies. With valid data in hand, BPD must carefully consider how BPD will satisfy the Staffing Study’s recommendations for civilianization of certain functions currently performed by sworn personnel. It must also consider the possibility of eliminating certain specialized units and redeploying their personnel to Patrol, as well as effective recruitment and hiring practices.
The Next Six Months
BPD will submit the draft Staffing Plan to the Monitoring Team and DOJ by October 15, 2019. The Plan will be finalized and submitted to the Court by January 20, 2020. In the interim, community members will have the opportunity to provide input. The Monitoring Team and DOJ will work with BPD to refine and finalize the Plan to ensure that it complies with the requirements of the Consent Decree.

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Stops, Searches, Arrests and Voluntary Police-Community Interactions
In recognition of the importance of the Consent Decree’s requirements on stops, searches, arrests and voluntary police-community interactions (“S/S/A”), the Consent Decree’s provisions addressing those interactions are extensive. They compel BPD to revise its policies and training curricula; provide thorough prescriptions for communicating with individuals, performing field interviews, and conducting stops, pat downs, searches and arrests; and establish detailed training, documentation, supervisory, and data collection and review obligations (CD 29-86).
In this reporting period, BPD continued revising certain S/S/A-related policies that have not yet been revised. It also produced its first draft report on investigative stops, and worked on altering its forms for reporting stops, searches and arrests so that they capture presently uncaptured data required by the Consent Decree and simultaneously prepare officers for furnishing the data that, once adopted, electronic forms will require them to furnish. In addition, as explained in the section on training above (and not repeated here), Training Academy staff have spent considerable time preparing e-learning and in-class lesson plans for comprehensive S/S/A training.
With its work on these deliverables, BPD has made reasonable progress toward satisfying certain foundational requirements in the S/S/A section of the Consent Decree. Given that it is still early in the reform process, BPD has not begun to make progress on the bulk of the S/S/A requirements, and the Monitoring Plans have yet not called for BPD to do so.
Challenges Ahead
Finalizing Policy Revisions
In the first monitoring year, BPD successfully completed revisions to two different sets of S/S/A policies. Under the First- and original Second-Year Monitoring Plans, BPD was expected to finalize revisions to a third and final set, which includes Civil and Criminal Citation Procedures (Policy 808), Marijuana—Uniform Civil Citation (Policy 809), Misdemeanor Shoplifting Arrest Procedures (Policy 812), and Quality of Life Offenses—Core Legal Elements (Policy 1018) (collectively “S/S/A Policy Set III”). However, because these policies are closely related to community policing, and because the deadline for the Community Policing Plan was recently extended until mid-October 2019 to give Commissioner Harrison time to imbue the plan with his own vision, the deadline for producing a draft of these policies was also extended to mid-October. As a result, in this reporting period, DOJ and the

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Monitoring Team have continued to collaborate with BPD to revise drafts of the policies in S/S/A Policy Set III.
At one point during the reporting period, BPD also produced to the Monitoring Team and DOJ newly revised versions of thirteen previously approved policies addressing S/S/A and impartial policing. BPD suggested that the proposed revisions addressed specific requirements in Maryland state law. But the Monitoring Team and DOJ agreed that the vast majority of the proposed revisions did not appear to be required by Maryland law. Thus, the Monitoring Team and DOJ asked BPD to revisit its suggested edits and remove any that were not specifically dictated by Maryland law. The Monitoring Team and DOJ found the suggestions to be potentially problematic unless Maryland law required them, given that the policies had just undergone a lengthy period of Consent Decree-mandated collaboration and public comment prior to final approval. In response, BPD produced a pared-down version of the proposed revisions. But the Monitoring Team and DOJ again concluded that the suggestions did not appear to be required by Maryland law. So the Monitoring Team and DOJ again asked BPD to include only changes necessitated by Maryland law, to explain why Maryland law compelled them, and to justify why the changes could not simply be made when, as the Consent Decree requires (CD 287), BPD performs its annual review of all revised policies. The Monitoring Team and DOJ have not heard back from BPD for several months, and presumes BPD has concluded that the changes are not in fact required by Maryland law, but that if they are nonetheless advisable for ensuring clarity, they can be made when BPD conducts its annual policy review under paragraph 287 of the Consent Decree.
Data Collection
In its previous reports, the Monitoring Team explained the myriad problems that afflict the reporting, collection and maintenance of BPD data on investigative stops. See, e.g, ECF No. 178-1 at 55-58. In short, stops are dramatically underreported and, even when reported, recorded in BPD’s Record Management System either extremely late or not at all. Yet the Consent Decree obligates BPD to accurately record and maintain data on stops, and requires both the Monitoring Team and BPD to evaluate that data on a regular basis. In fact, accurate data on stops is arguably among the most important data for BPD to maintain under the Consent Decree. That is because DOJ’s findings emphasized that BPD was engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional stops, and that alleged pattern or practice is one of the primary causes of community mistrust.

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BPD’s stops documentation deficiencies should be resolved once BPD implements an upgraded, modern Record Management System. But full implementation of a new RMS is at least 18 months away. Thus, BPD has been exploring the feasibility of revising, and possibly consolidating, its paper report forms to facilitate accurate reporting of stops in the short-term. In this reporting period, the Monitoring Team and DOJ worked with BPD to devise a comprehensive, yet easy-touse method for recording stops, as well as all other S/S/A actions that must be evaluated under the Consent Decree. The Monitoring Team provided BPD with sample paper forms from other departments and offered edits to a revised form that BPD prepared.
A threshold question is whether BPD should utilize a single form to capture all civilian encounters, or two forms. BPD currently uses two forms—a “stop ticket” for field interviews, traffic stops and citations, and civil citations (but not for investigative pedestrian stops), and an “incident report form” for everything else, including investigative stops, weapons-pat downs, searches, property seizures, and arrests. The purported benefits of using one comprehensive form are that it is less cumbersome and will lead to less under-reporting. The counterargument is that it requires recording too much data and will thus lead to even more under-reporting. BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have extensively discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. In the end, the Monitoring Team indicated it would defer to BPD's view about the best way to get officers to accurately and consistently report their civilian encounters, investigative stops in particular.
Despite these active discussions in the early spring, the effort to revise BPD’s report forms has stalled. There appears to be a concern that adopting new forms when BPD will be implementing a comprehensive electronic field-based reporting mechanism and an upgraded RMS in roughly 18 months (and a fully operational Etix system even sooner) would not be worth the effort and could meet with resistance from officers, which would defeat the purpose. One counterargument is that, because new forms will include data fields that officers will be required to complete when electronic field-based reporting is implemented, new forms will prepare and pave the way for officers to adapt to electronic field-based reporting. The other counterargument—an important one—is that, until BPD adopts a form that effectively captures all of the S/S/A data that the Consent Decree requires BPD to maintain, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the Monitoring Team to begin performing empirically valid assessments of BPD’s S/S/A performance. And that could mean BPD will remain subject to the Consent Decree and court oversight longer than it otherwise might.

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Ultimately, because BPD is now in the process of devising new S/S/A training, BPD will have to decide promptly whether to implement new forms for reporting investigative stops. If it chooses to adopt new forms, the S/S/A training will have to include instruction on how to complete them.
Whichever course of action BPD chooses prior to the implementation of electronic field-based reporting 18 months to two years from now, BPD must do the following:
• Implement an effective system to hold supervisors accountable for ensuring that officers report all encounters, including investigative stops
• Improve its system for collecting reports and transmitting them promptly to Central Records for timely input into the existing RMS; as the Monitoring Team has observed, the current system is cumbersome, prone to error and extraordinary delay, and rife with incomplete data
• Develop an effective message regarding any new reporting mechanism, e.g., make sure officers understand it is intended to make reporting less cumbersome and less confusing, to effectively capture all the data BPD needs to assess Departmental trends and performance, and, critically, to ease the transition to field-based reporting
BPD’s S/S/A Data Reports
In this reporting period, consistent with the Second-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD drafted its inaugural Quarterly S/S/A Data Collection and Analysis Report. As BPD itself recognized, the manifest deficiencies in its system for recording and maintaining data on investigative stops, as well as other civilian encounters, severely limits—and likely obviates altogether—the utility of any such report. BPD timely produced a draft of the report to the Monitoring Team and DOJ, but after conferring with both of them, elected not to file it. Instead, BPD met with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to revise the draft so that its contents are more meaningful. Rather than containing “findings” or “conclusions” supported by admittedly incomplete and unreliable data, the report, delivered in June, explains BPD’s progress in setting up a bona fide system for recording and maintaining S/S/A data, and establishes a structure for the S/S/A data reports BPD will generate once it resolves its data collection deficiencies. Until those deficiencies are fully resolved, the S/S/A data reports will similarly describe BPD’s progress toward resolving them.

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The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, as explained in the Training section above, BPD will focus on developing and delivering both e-learning and in-class instruction on S/S/A policies. In addition, BPD will finalize S/S/A Policy Set III covering stops, searches and arrests for quality of life/misdemeanor offenses.
BPD also will continue working to improve its methods for recording and collecting S/S/A data so that both the Monitoring Team and BPD command staff are able to begin meaningfully evaluating BPD’s S/S/A performance. Correspondingly, the Monitoring Team will attempt to develop a mechanism for such evaluations based on the current (deficient) state of BPD’s S/S/A data.

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Transportation of Persons in Custody
Ensuring the safety of individuals in police custody is among the most important obligations of any law enforcement agency. It was the death of Freddie Gray following transport in a BPD van that triggered unrest and demonstrated the deep divide between BPD and parts of the Baltimore community. For that reason, early compliance efforts focused quickly on the Consent Decree’s transportation of persons in custody provisions.
The Consent Decree requires BPD to: (1) equip all transport vans with seatbelts, holding straps located along the rear area of each seat that individuals being transported may grip for security during transport, and transport vehicle cameras (TVCs), and also equip all transport cruisers with seatbelts (CD 223-24); (2) inspect transport vehicles monthly and create logs to memorialize the inspections (CD 225); (3) establish and adhere to appropriate procedures for transporting prisoners (including using seatbelts, straps, and TVCs) (CD 226-33), (4) establish and adhere to protocols for documenting and comprehensively auditing prisoner transport events (CD 234-37), and (5) revise policies and training curricula to ensure safe, effective prisoner transport (CD 238).
Thus far, BPD has made substantial progress toward satisfying the equipment requirements in Paragraphs 223-225 and the policy revision requirements in Paragraph 238. During the first reporting period, BPD outfitted all transport vehicles with the proper equipment and began routinely conducting monthly inspections to ensure the equipment is functional. In the last reporting period, BPD completed the required initial revisions to its transport policies.
In this reporting period, BPD has begun making progress toward satisfying the transport procedures requirements in Paragraphs 226-233. It still has a long way to go before it demonstrates substantial progress toward meeting these requirements.
Audits of Transport Vehicle Equipment and Transport Events
To gauge compliance with Consent Decree requirements, the Monitoring Team conducts two types of assessments of BPD’s transport practices. First, the Monitoring Team evaluates whether BPD has installed and continues to maintain the proper equipment in its transport vehicles. Second, the Monitoring Team evaluates whether BPD has implemented the transport policies required by the Consent Decree and whether officers are adhering to those policies and using the transport equipment correctly and consistently.
As previously reported, BPD has installed all required equipment in its transport vehicles. All transport vans have been equipped with seatbelts for each

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seat, holding straps that prisoners can grip for stability during transport, and transport vehicle cameras (TVCs) that allow live monitoring of every occupant. All transport cruisers have been equipped with seatbelts.
The Monitoring Team confirms that BPD is also routinely performing monthly inspections of all transport vehicles and, as the Consent Decree commands, creating logs to memorialize the inspections. These logs, which are used to verify the continued presence and functionality of all required equipment, are readily available for inspection by both the Monitoring Team and DOJ. The Monitoring Team has routinely reviewed the logs prepared during the reporting period, and reports that they appear complete and show that BPD is working hard to ensure that its transport vehicles remain properly equipped.
The Monitoring Team has devoted most of its effort in this reporting period to auditing transport events. Last year, BPD developed an audit matrix tool to help guide its audits. BPD used this guide in its first attempt at a quarterly audit in October 2018. Because of technological problems that impeded the collection of all necessary data, that initial audit did not address every transport requirement of the Consent Decree. See ECF No. 178-1 at 68-69. In the past six months, BPD has continued to examine those problems. It has become clear, however, that final resolution of at least some of them may have to await implementation of BPD’s Technology Plan.
As explained in the last report, BPD already captures most of the required data effectively (e.g., the location the subject is picked up, the time the transport vehicle leaves that location, the number of persons transported, the destination, the starting and ending mileage of the vehicle, the time of arrival at the destination). But the technological shortcomings in BPD’s storage of video and audio recordings of transport events makes certain key data points extraordinarily difficult to retrieve and time-consuming to audit. For instance, to determine whether transport officers are routinely checking on the welfare of prisoners during transport, auditors must review TVC recordings, but there is no quick or easy way to obtain the videos from the TVC system since it was never designed for these types of audits. As BPD has explained in an internal memo:
BPD purchased the current VMS in 2015. The system is best suited for archiving and retrieving video upon a request for a specific video. Archiving a video is a multi-step process that involves removing the hard drive from the vehicle, replacing the hard drive with an unused one, and then uploading (copying) the video files to storage for later retrieval. Copying video files from the hard drive to storage is straight forward; however, the copy time frequently mirrors the real-time

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recording time. Thus, a video that is 30 minutes in length typically takes approximately 30 minutes to copy on this system.
The VMS is located on a server at TierPoint, a remote location outside of the agency. The VMS server is a virtual machine that shares space with other applications. The potential for latency (delay in networking) is high, creating issues with directly accessing the data. Given the size and quantity of video data files to be audited, the best course of action at this time is to make local copies. Local copying involves copying files from TierPoint to the local user’s machine. Again, the length of time required to copy is dependent on the length of time of each recorded video.”
To overcome the latency problem, it will be necessary to migrate the VMS to a server located within BPD headquarters. But that still will not provide a complete fix. It will provide a more reliable storage and retrieval system, but the time required to download videos for review will not be reduced. To facilitate the full transport event audits required by the Consent Decree, BPD will have to implement technology upgrades that make it easier to upload and review TVC recordings (as well as audio recordings of calls with dispatch).
Despite its challenges completing all aspects of the transport event audits required by paragraph 236 of the Consent Decree, BPD has begun performing equipment audits of at least three randomly chosen transport vehicles from each district every three months, as required by paragraph 236(d). In addition, although BPD has not yet been able to conduct comprehensive audits that satisfy every requirement of paragraph 236, it has begun conducting random spot checks of transport events with the resources that are available, including body worn camera footage.
BPD’s Audits and Inspections Unit conducted the first round of these random quarterly inspections in January and February, and completed and distributed its draft report up the chain of command at the end of April. The ransomware attack on the City’s email system delayed final distribution of the report. However, based on the Monitoring Team’s review of the draft, it appears the Audits and Inspections Unit found adherence to the transport equipment requirements of the Consent Decree. And although the Audits and Inspections Unit only spot-checked a total of 14 transport events using available resources, and could not perform all of the assessments required by the Consent Decree, it also appeared to find adherence to the requirements it reviewed. In particular, the Audits and Inspections Unit found:
• 100% of inspected vans and cruisers had operational seatbelts • 100% of inspected vans had operational holding straps

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• 100% of inspected vans had operational TVCs • In 100% of all audited events, a transport vehicle with safety barriers was used • In 100% of all reviewed transport events, male and female prisoners were
transported separately • In 100% of all reviewed transport events, youth and adult prisoners were
transported separately • In 100% of all reviewed transport events, any prisoner who complained or
displayed obvious signs of injury was provided medical attention • In all but one reviewed transport event (or 92.9%), the transporting officer’s
BWC was activated during transport, and corrective action was taken with the non-compliant officer
Note that the Audits and Inspections Unit reviewed only 14 transport events, rather than the 45 required by paragraph 236a of the Consent Decree. That is because of the above-described technological problems with video access.
In short, BPD’s system for storing video and audio recordings of transport events does not readily facilitate the transport event audits required by the Consent Decree. To demonstrate compliance with Consent Decree requirements, BPD will have to find a solution.
The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, BPD will continue conducting its monthly equipment inspections of transport vehicles, and will begin to complete full audits of transport events—not just spot-checks—from every district. Because BPD’s technological shortcomings make completing full audit so time-consuming, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have agreed, as an interim step only, to allow BPD to begin the full audit process by auditing only two events from each district every quarter, for a total of 18 full audits per quarter (two per district), as opposed to the 45 events (five per district) required by paragraph 236a of the Consent Decree. As BPD becomes more experienced in the audit process, as it improves that process with the assistance of the Monitoring Team and DOJ, and as it upgrades its technology, it will increase that number and work toward completing 45 audits every quarter, as the Consent Decree requires.

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Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in Crisis
The Consent Decree reinforces BPD’s “commit[ment] to responding to individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis in a manner that respects individuals’ civil rights and contributes to their overall health and welfare.” Paragraph 96 envisions that BPD will accomplish this goal by using appropriate crisis response techniques. Such techniques will help prevent situations that could lead to the unreasonable use of force, promote connection of people with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis to the behavioral health system, and decrease the inappropriate involvement of people with behavioral health disabilities in the criminal justice system. Paragraph 96 thus challenges BPD and the City not only to provide effective law enforcement responses to events involving individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, but to participate in the development of an effective community strategy for improving the City’s support system for such individuals.
In this area, the Consent Decree identifies a series of objectives that were addressed in the First-Year Monitoring Plan. These objectives include the expansion of the Collaborative Planning and Implementation Committee (“CPIC”), which advises BPD on crisis intervention policies (CD 104-05); a work plan to accomplish the requirements of the Consent Decree (CD 96,105); an assessment by CPIC of the gaps in the City’s behavioral health system coupled with recommendations for solutions (“Gap Analysis”) (CD 97); maintenance of a Crisis Intervention Team (“CIT”) whose officers have primary responsibility for responding to incidents involving individuals in crisis (CD 101-03, 110, 119); development of a Crisis Intervention Plan and CIT Officer Selection Process to ensure the efficacy of the CIT (CD 120); appointment and training of a Crisis Intervention Team leader (CD 11518); training for all officers on responding to individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, and specialized training for CIT officers and dispatch personnel (CD 106- 13); revision of policies, including dispatch policies for responding to incidents involving individuals in crisis (CD 98, 114); and identification of quantitative and qualitative performance measures for the CIT program and collection of data needed to make those assessments (CD 121-22). Over the long-term, BPD will analyze the data and will issue quarterly public reports gauging its performance in responding to individuals in crisis.
As previously reported, BPD and the City have satisfied a number of the Consent Decree’s preliminary requirements. BPD and the City expanded CPIC membership; BPD appointed a CIT Coordinator; and together with CPIC, BPD and

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the City completed a crisis intervention plan and a plan for selecting CIT officers, and created a form to track data on responses to individuals in crisis.
In this reporting period, together with CPIC, BPD and the City have made reasonable progress toward satisfying additional preliminary requirements, including developing revised crisis intervention policies for patrol officers and dispatchers and working toward completion of the Gap Analysis (CD 97).
Areas of Progress
BPD and the City are in a challenging and intense phase of their work on strengthening behavioral health initiatives. The Consent Decree initially required them to demonstrate a firm commitment to change, which included forming partnerships with diverse stakeholders to examine existing BPD and City programs that affect individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis. The purpose of these initial requirements was to establish a structure in which community members could join with BPD and City officials to improve how BPD members address situations involving individuals in crisis. That structure includes an expanded and fortified CPIC.
In this reporting period, CPIC, BPD and the City have made progress in their joint foundational work toward reform. They are formally assessing the community’s capacity to respond to the needs of individuals with a wide range of behavioral health disabilities, writing new policies to assist BPD officers in responding to those in crisis, developing training curriculum for improving the crisis intervention skills of officers and dispatchers, and enhancing the technological capacity of BPD to collect and analyze data regarding BPD officer interactions with individuals in crisis so that BPD can determine if reforms are having the intended salutary effect. In pursuit of these objectives, CPIC continues to meet each month, and its subcommittees often meet every two weeks.
Under the Second-Year Monitoring Plan, CPIC, BPD and the City thus far have accomplished the following:
• Completion of CPIC’s Second-Year Workplan. The eight-page document, which the Monitoring Team approved in April, identifies a number of CPIC deliverables under the Second-Year Monitoring Plan, as well as associated deadlines. The workplan establishes timelines for completion of (1) crisis intervention policies, (2) curricula for crisis intervention training for recruits, officers, dispatchers, and CIT officers, (3) the Gap

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analysis, and (4) recommendations for amending other policies (i.e., use of force, de-escalation, and fair and impartial policing, Homeless Outreach Team, and Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion) to account for interactions with individuals in crisis.
• Continued expansion of CPIC membership. In expanding its membership in recent months, CPIC has paid special attention to recruiting and including members with lived experiences with behavioral health disabilities. There are ongoing efforts to include representation from local hospitals, members of the judiciary, and other participants in the criminal justice system.
• Revisions to BPD policies addressing interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis. CPIC and BPD achieved an important landmark with publication of draft revisions to three policies addressing crisis intervention for both officers and dispatchers: Policy 712 (Crisis Intervention Program), Policy 713 (Petitions for Emergency Evaluation and Voluntary Admission), and Policy 715 (Behavioral Health Crisis Dispatch). After intensive collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, CPIC and BPD issued a first draft of the policies for public comment at the beginning of May. CPIC and BPD received community feedback through the first week in June, made revisions based on that feedback (despite challenges presented by the ransomware attack on the City’s IT systems), and prepared final drafts for approval by late June. On July 15, the Monitoring Team filed a notice of approval with the Court.
CPIC deserves substantial credit for the revised policies. Its subcommittee on policy, which was tasked with drafting the revisions, is chaired by a community member and a police officer, and includes as members individuals with lived experience, BPD officers, City officials, advocates, healthcare and education professionals, and representatives of Behavioral Health System of Baltimore. Drafting the revised policies required significant inter-agency coordination. For instance, the policy governing dispatchers required cooperation with the Baltimore Fire Department, which has responsibility for 911 dispatchers. Police and fire-related 911 procedures are quite different, so CPIC, BPD and BFD had to parse the policy revisions carefully to ensure that BPD and BFD would each be able to meet their obligations.

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• Revisions to BPD’s training curriculum regarding interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis. In the next reporting period, CPIC and BPD will produce draft training curricula regarding interactions with individuals in crisis for recruits, officers, and dispatchers, and specialized training for CIT officers. CPIC has a training subcommittee devoted to helping BPD’s Training Academy and CIT Training Committee prepare this curricula. Work on the curricula for recruits is well underway, as is conceptual work for the other curricula. Drafting the curricula requires substantial time and effort. Helpfully, many of the same individuals who worked on the revisions to the crisis intervention policies are also working on training curricula preparation. These CPIC members and BPD officers are diligently tackling the work and are on track to meet the timelines established in the Second-Year Monitoring Plan.
• Data collection to examine gaps in the City’s behavioral health system. The Gap Analysis is critical to the success of much of the work the Consent Decree requires to improve BPD interactions with individuals in crisis. The analysis should help inform how the City can reduce reliance on law enforcement to address behavioral health crises.
The deadline for submission of a draft of the Gap Analysis had to be extended until October to allow for comprehensive data collection. Active data collection has been underway for several months. Health Services Research Institute (“HSRI”), the researcher CPIC chose to conduct the analysis, has contacted and obtained feedback from a wide range of community stakeholders.
In addition to these accomplishments, CPIC’s data subcommittee has begun examining strategies for using available data on BPD interactions with individuals in crisis in order to evaluate outcomes. The subcommittee is conducting a systematic review of available reports and studies regarding BPD’s behavioral health intervention programs, including BPD’s Crisis Response Team, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, and Homeless Outreach Team. Among the data it is seeking to mine are data from the revised BPD Data Collection Form for crisis events, which was approved last year. See ECF No. 170.

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Challenges Ahead
The most immediate challenge in this area will be to complete a comprehensive Gap Analysis on time. The deficiencies in BPD’s IT systems, and the resulting inadequacies of BPD’s data on crisis events, are making it difficult for HSRI to complete its work, and already have resulted in an extension of the deadline for an initial draft of the Gap Analysis. HSRI has made good progress in its research, and reports having obtained excellent cooperation from BPD, the City and the State of Maryland, but obtaining the data it needs to produce a useful report has proven difficult.
Other challenges include: developing high-quality training curricula addressing behavioral health crises when, as explained above, the Training Academy’s resources are already heavily taxed with the development and delivery of other curricula; selecting a sufficient number of qualified CIT officers to meet Departmental needs, particularly when BPD is facing personnel shortages; ensuring that BPD officers properly complete the Crisis Data Form approved last year so that the Monitoring Team and BPD itself can assess whether BPD’s response to crises comply with the Consent Decree; and over the long-term, ensuring that BPD officers consistently comply with the Consent Decree’s specific requirements for handling crisis events in the field, includes ensuring compliance with requirements regarding on-scene supervision.
The greatest challenge facing BPD and the City remains addressing and ultimately fixing the shortcomings in the City’s behavioral health support systems. Diverting individuals in crisis from the criminal justice system into a system of community-wide support is a primary Consent Decree objective. BPD and the City will not be able to achieve that objective without a system of community-wide support that is capable of providing diverted individuals the services they need.
The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, the primary task for CPIC and BPD will be to incorporate the recently revised crisis intervention policies into training curricula for recruits, officers, dispatchers and CIT officers, and to commence training on crisis intervention for recruits, officers and dispatchers. Recruit training curricula will be finalized in October, officer training curricula will be finalized in late November, dispatcher training curricula will be finalized in January 2020, and CIT officer training will be finalized in March 2020. Training for recruits, officers and dispatchers will begin in early 2020.

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By the middle of October, CPIC and BPD will publish for public feedback a draft of the Gap Analysis identifying barriers to BPD’s diversion objectives. The final report will be filed with the Court at the end of December.
CPIC, BPD and the City have had a lot to do thus far, and have worked at an impressive pace. All—and especially the CPIC members who participate as volunteers—deserve recognition for developing a solid foundation for the work ahead. That work will be even more substantial, and require even more effort, than the work done to date.

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Interactions with Youth and Coordination with Baltimore School Police
The Consent Decree requires BPD to alter its approach to how it interacts with youth. The Consent Decree obligates BPD officers to account for the personal characteristics (age, size developmental/mental status, disability status and maturity) of the youth they encounter and, where practical, use alternatives to arrest (e.g. warn and release, counseling, referral to community services and resources; warnings, civil citations) in order to divert youth from criminal justice system (CD 218). As a first step, the Consent Decree requires the City to conduct a comprehensive assessment of its effort to reduce youth involvement in the juvenile and criminal justice systems (“Youth Diversion Assessment”) (CD219). It further requires BPD to revise its policies and training as needed, and conduct training in order to properly guide officers in their interactions with youth (CD220-21).
The Consent Decree also contains several provisions addressing BPD’s relationship with the Baltimore School Police (“BSP”). In particular, Paragraph 417 of the Consent Decree requires BPD to conduct an initial assessment of its memorandum of understanding (“MOU”) with BSP and evaluate how BSP has used BPD’s authorization to exercise law enforcement powers throughout the City. The assessment should include an analysis of data reflecting the frequency with which BSP officers respond to calls, make stops, searches, and arrests, and use force under the MOU. BPD will use the assessment to identify deficiencies and opportunities for improvement, amend the MOU as needed, implement other appropriate corrective action, and document the changes it makes. Following the initial assessment and amendment of the MOU, BPD will conduct a biennial evaluation of its coordination with BSP, and make any modification needed to ensure effective coordination with BSP.
Thus far, BPD has made reasonable progress toward satisfying the early-stage requirements of the Youth and BSP sections of the Consent Decree. It has successfully completed the Youth Diversion Assessment, begun evaluating policies implicating youth interactions, and developed a methodology for performing the BPDBSP MOU Assessment.

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Areas of Progress
Youth Diversion Assessment
Consistent with the Second-Year Monitoring Plan, the City finalized and published the Youth Diversion Assessment on April 1, 2019. The assessment, prepared by the Center for Children’s Law and Policy, presents a comprehensive evaluation of diversion opportunities for Baltimore youth. Relying on meticulous data analysis and interviews with law enforcement personnel, community advocates, and a number of youth, the Assessment included data on arrests and juvenile court processing of youth, barriers to diversion at different stages in the juvenile justice process, and thoughtful, achievable recommendations for reducing the number of youth entering each stage of the juvenile justice system while at the same time preserving public safety.
Youth Policies
In this reporting period, BPD identified several policies that implicate interactions with youth and require revisions to ensure that officers in those interactions account for age, size, developmental status, and maturity. BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ then agreed that BPD should not only make revisions to existing policies addressing youth interactions, but develop new youth-specific policies (e.g., youth interrogations) and add youth-specific provisions to other existing policies (e.g., use of force). BPD provided the Monitoring Team and DOJ with an initial set of draft policies in April, and is now collaborating with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to make refinements. It will be important for the revisions and new policies not only to satisfy the technical requirements of paragraph 220 of the Consent Decree, but to account for the empirical realities of adolescent development and the diversion recommendations included in the Youth Diversion Assessment.
Challenges Ahead
Building on the Youth Diversion Assessment
The Youth Diversion Assessment made a number of trenchant recommendations for change. The challenge will be to ensure that all community members with a vested interest in youth diversion work collectively to explore the recommendations and implement those that are practicable. It is noteworthy that the Mayor, and specifically the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, is now tasked with considering the recommendations. As a result, the City is well-positioned to lead the

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implementation process by bringing all stakeholders together. The Monitoring Team urges BPD and the City to move forward expeditiously. The momentum built by both the stakeholder collaboration that informed the Youth Diversion Assessment and the recommendations that it contains must not be lost.
To that end, while some of the Assessment’s recommendations depend on broader community partnerships, BPD can implement certain recommendations independently. For example, the Assessment recommended that BPD revise its policies to outline clearly the options to divert youth from arrest, develop criteria for mandatory or presumptive diversion for certain offenses, and restrict the criteria for transport to the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center to youth who are eligible for detention. As BPD revises its youth policies, it must keep these recommendations in mind.
Evaluating and Revising BPD’s MOU with Baltimore School Police
The Second-Year Monitoring Plan required BPD to provide the Monitoring Team and DOJ with its methodology for conducting the MOU assessment in early May. BPD found that retrieving the data necessary to conduct a thorough assessment will present challenges. Currently, BSP officers report all incident data the same way, regardless whether they are acting solely in their capacity as BSP officer or are instead acting with official police powers under the MOU. Accordingly, to facilitate the assessment, BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ agreed on a methodology in which BPD will review approximately 1,300 incident reports and determine whether, for each incident, the BSP officer was acting under the jurisdiction of BPD. If BPD determines that an incident did not occur on school grounds, BPD will qualitatively examine the incident file to see if the actions taken by BSP officers were in accordance with the MOU and BPD policies.
Because BSP’s current data collection practices make proper analysis of BSP’s actions under the MOU extremely cumbersome, BPD has determined that those practices must be refined. BPD, the Monitoring Team, and DOJ thus agreed that the MOU assessment will not only analyze a sampling of the data that is currently available, but also will identify the gaps within BSP’s current reporting of data to BPD, flag any other operational deficiencies that a new MOU should address, and make recommendations for correcting such deficiencies.

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The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, BPD will publish the youth-related policies for public comment and then, by January 2020, finalize them. BPD will also conduct the BSP MOU assessment this summer, submit a draft of the assessment to the Monitoring Team and DOJ in September, solicit public comments, publish a final report containing the assessment in January 2020, and complete any revisions to the MOU necessitated by assessment by the end of February 2020.

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Sexual Assault Investigations
The Consent Decree requires BPD to enhance the trust of victims of sexual assault, to strengthen its response to and investigations of reports of sexual assault, and to combat gender bias (CD 257). To achieve these goals, the Consent Decree requires BPD to: revise the policies and procedures for responding to and investigating reports of sexual assault (CD 258); provide initial and on-going annual training to support the revised policies and procedures (CD 259); ensure through proper supervision and internal oversight that reports of sexual assaults are thoroughly investigated (CD 260, 262, 263); ensure that officers transport victims to a medical facility for a forensic exam in all instances in which a forensic exam is warranted and the victim consents (CD 261); enhance its collection, analysis and reporting of data regarding the nature and extent of sexual assault crimes (CD 264); and share information about its sexual assault investigations with other law enforcement agencies, the public, and the Sexual Assault Response Team (“SART”) (CD 265). The City and BPD will ensure that their policies and protocols with the SART enable them to engage in periodic reviews of services provided by BPD and to review samples of open cases and those classified as unfounded (CD 266).
As previously reported, the Monitoring Team notified the Court of its approval of Policy 708 (Rape and Sexual Assault) and the standard operating procedure on sexual assault investigations on November 6, 2018. See ECF No. 152. The SecondYear Monitoring Plan thus turns to development and delivery of training on revised Policy 708. It also requires BPD to prepare its inaugural report on sex assault investigations under paragraph 264 of the Consent Decree. In this reporting period, BPD has made reasonable progress toward satisfying both requirements.
Areas of Progress
Training for patrol officers on Policy 708
BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team agreed that the best and most efficient way to begin training officers on the revisions to Policy 708, and ensure that Policy 708 takes effect as quickly as possible, was through e-learning. As explained in the Training section above, training via e-learning can be delivered much more quickly Department-wide than in-service training, it is sometimes more well-suited to teaching officers about policy, and comprehension of the material can be readily tested on-line.

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BPD worked with the Monitoring Team and DOJ from mid-April through midJune to develop the curriculum and testing for the e-learning program on Policy 708. During that two month period, the Monitoring Team and DOJ reviewed and provided feedback on successive iterations of the e-learning materials. BPD then issued the materials for public comment on June 24, as the Second-Year Monitoring Plan requires. The public comment period will remain open through July 24. BPD will address the feedback it receives, work with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to make additional adjustments, post a final draft for additional public comment, and then finalize the e-learning curriculum for Monitoring Team approval by mid-September.
The development of the e-learning curriculum on Policy 708 for patrol officers is a vital first step toward implementing a new approach to responding to and investigating sexual assaults in Baltimore. It presents officers not only with changes in procedure for sex assault investigations, but key changes in BPD’s philosophy regarding how police officers should view and address sexual offenses, offenders and victims. The curriculum introduces the concepts of trauma-informed and victimcentered investigation. These are somewhat complex concepts to convey, let alone put into practice. The well-developed e-learning curriculum, which incorporates adult learning principles, provides a sound introduction to these concepts. BPD will develop and implement a more intensive in-service curriculum next year. However, the implementation of the new policy cannot wait until next year, which is one of the reasons BPD chose to start with e-learning.
Data Analysis
In this reporting period, BPD worked with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to issue its first annual Sexual Assault Investigations Data Report, which contains information on reported sexual assaults for 2018. Paragraph 264 of the Consent Decree requires these annual reports to include data on: the number and nature of sex offenses reported during the year; the number and demographics of the alleged offenders; the number and demographics of the alleged victims; the resolution of sex offense cases; and the processing of forensic medical exams. Due to BPD’s technology limitations, BPD was unable to include some of this data in the initial draft of its report, which it furnished to the Monitoring Team and DOJ in April. The Monitoring Team and DOJ conferred with BPD about how to address paragraph 264’s requirements in the final report given its technology limitations, and how to satisfy those requirements in future reports. BPD filed the final report with the Court at the end of May. The report is available on BPD’s website.

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Challenges Ahead
As explained, Policy 708 reflects a new approach to sex assault investigations. BPD must be vigilant in ensuring that the e-learning materials adequately train patrol officers on that approach and ultimately that the approach is put into practice.
As with so many other areas of the Consent Decree, BPD’s ability to report all required data on sexual assault investigations in its first annual report was hampered by the shortcomings in BPD’s IT systems. The first report shows that there are simply too many gaps in available data for BPD to fully comply with paragraph 264. BPD will only be able to fill these gaps by implementing the new systems and processes identified in the Technology Plan. There are some partially satisfactory interim solutions. For example, BPD will begin tracking the various ways cases are referred to the State’s Attorney Office, developing and utilizing a new form to track additional data on LGBTQ victims, and analyzing demographic data in more depth. BPD is also considering surveying victims on their experiences with BPD services.
These measures are cumbersome, and they are no substitute for a revamped IT system that houses all required data in one place. Nonetheless, BPD’s willingness to pursue interim solutions demonstrates a commitment to improving how the Department handles and tracks sex assault investigations. BPD is building the ship while sailing—a difficult though laudable undertaking.
The Next Six Months
The e-learning program will be finalized by mid-September, and training will begin soon after. All patrol officers are required to successfully complete the training by November 25.
As BPD finalizes e-learning for patrol officers, it will begin its work on developing training curriculum for sexual assault investigators. The first draft of the curriculum is due to the Monitoring and DOJ near the end of September. BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have already had some discussions about the curriculum, and agree that outside experts should be used to develop and deliver a portion of it. BPD will work with the Monitoring Team and DOJ through December to finalize a draft of the curriculum for public comment. Following the public comment period, BPD will incorporate the community’s feedback, publish a final draft for public comment, and then finalize it for final approval in late February 2020, at the very beginning of the third monitoring year.

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Finally, BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ agreed last year that BPD needed to add to the Second-Year Monitoring Plan development of a new policy on investigating officer-involved sexual misconduct. The new policy will address the roles and responsibilities of (1) BPD’s Sex Offense Unit in the investigation of an alleged sexual assault by a BPD officer and (2) PIB in the investigation of administrative rule violations by a BPD officer accused of sexual assault. BPD submitted a first draft of this policy to the Monitoring Team and DOJ in June. The Monitoring Team and DOJ will work with BPD to refine the draft so that BPD is ready to issue it for public comment by September 18. The expectation is that the policy will be finalized by mid-December.

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Recruitment, Hiring and Retention
For a number of years, BPD has had very serious challenges hiring enough officers and maintaining appropriate staffing levels. The challenges can be measured in basic mathematical terms. In recent years, BPD on average has hired fewer officers than the number of officers it has lost by attrition. The cause of this “hiring deficit” may be subject to debate, but the fact that BPD finds itself understaffed and facing significant hurdles in recruiting, hiring and retention is not. Further, the failure to retain good officers presents profound operational problems: it undermines departmental cohesiveness and morale, disrupts established relationships with community members and makes effective community policing more difficult, and depletes the reservoir of officers who can mentor younger officers and ascend to leadership.
All parties recognize and agree that BPD’s recruitment and hiring program, as well as its efforts to retain officers, are in need of significant improvement. The Consent Decree expressly requires such improvement. It obligates BPD to: (1) develop and implement a Recruitment Plan “clear goals, objectives and action steps for attracting and retaining a quality work force that reflects the diversity of the Baltimore Community” (CD 420-22); (2) review and reform its hiring processes (CD 423-25); (3) develop and implement a Retention Plan “identify challenges and recommend solutions to improve BPD’s retention of employees” (CD 426); and (4) routinely assess its recruitment, hiring, and retention practices (CD 427).
Improving BPD’s in the recruitment, hiring and retention of high-quality personnel is an inherently long-term undertaking. BPD has not begun to make sustainable progress toward meeting the long-range goals set by the Consent Decree. As previously reported, however, it is making reasonable progress toward satisfying the Consent Decree’s preliminary requirements. See ECF No. 178-1 at 89-90 (highlighting preparation and publication of a hiring report, development of standard operating procedures for BPD’s Recruitment Section, piloting an interview process that includes community members on interview panels, and adopting the National Testing Network’s “FrontLine National” exam as the first stage in BPD’s officer selection process). That progress continued in this reporting period, though it has not yet produced consistent increases in the number of new hires.
In the area of recruitment, BPD has moved aggressively to meet Consent Decree requirements. In fact, BPD exceeded the requirements of the First-Year Monitoring Plan by issuing a Recruitment Plan, which was not due in Year One. BPD’s progress on recruitment strategies was due in no small part to its partnership

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with the Mayor’s Office on Innovation, which helped identify the root causes of inadequate staffing and helped establish strategies for addressing the shortage.
Despite BPD’s aggressive efforts to get a jump on hiring deficits, hiring numbers have continued to lag behind the attrition rate and well behind BPD’s hiring goals. One positive development is that, since implementing changes in its hiring practices, including retaining National Testing Network to administer its hiring examination, BPD has been receiving a greater number of applications than in the recent past. However, those applicants have not been successfully converted to new hires at a rate sufficient to meet staffing needs.
Part of the problem has been the significant backlog in application processing. The Monitoring Team has worked with BPD to address the backlog, particularly delays caused by lengthy background checks. These delays were resulting in applicants losing interest or becoming frustrated and giving other employers an opportunity to attract and hire them. BPD acknowledged that it could not continue to afford to lose quality candidates to other opportunities due to deficient internal processes. To its credit, BPD recently has addressed its process delays and is now timely processing applications. Timely application processing is essential to erasing the hiring deficit.
Another noteworthy measure BPD has taken is the adoption of RecruitStat. Shortly after Commissioner Harrison’s appointment, the Mayor’s Office on Innovation, in cooperation with BPD, created RecruitStat to examine recruiting and hiring activity on a weekly basis, much like command staff reviews crime statistics on a weekly basis. RecruitStat enables the City and BPD to make rapid adjustments in recruitment and hiring practices in order to optimize its recruitment and hiring processes.
In June, BPD issued the first draft of a Retention Plan. BPD will collaborate with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to refine the draft through the end of September, and then issue it for public comment. It is scheduled to be finalized and filed with the Court in December. Among other things, the draft Retention Plan calls for adoption of a process that identifies reasons for officer resignations prior to pension eligibility. The draft plan advocates a number of incentives for experienced officers.

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 Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 279 Filed 01/21/20 Page 1 of 2

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND

UNITED STATES

*

OF AMERICA,

*

Plaintiff,

*

v.

*

BALTIMORE POLICE

DEPARTMENT, et al.,

*

CIVIL NO. JKB-17-0099

Defendants.

*

SUBMISSION OF MONITORING TEAM’S FOURTH SEMIANNUAL REPORT (CORRECTED)

Under the Updated Second-Year Monitoring Plan (“Monitoring Plan”), the Baltimore

Police Department Monitoring Team (“Monitoring Team”) hereby submits a “corrected” version

of its Fourth Semiannual Report (“Report”). See ECF No. 243-1, Row 219 (approved in ECF No.

245). The corrected Report is attached as Exhibit 1. The Report is “corrected” because the original

submission, ECF No. 278, contained certain formatting errors.

As the Monitoring Plan provides, the Monitoring Team will hold its quarterly community

meeting to discuss the contents of the Report this evening, January 21, 2020, from 6:00 – 8:00

p.m. at New Song Academy, 1530 Presstman Street, Baltimore, MD. On January 22, 2020, at

10:00 a.m., the Court will hold its next quarterly hearing, which will be devoted in part to

discussing the contents of the Report.

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 279 Filed 01/21/20 Page 2 of 2
Respectfully submitted,
___________/s/_______________ Kenneth Thompson, Monitor Seth Rosenthal, Deputy Monitor VENABLE LLP 750 E. Pratt Street Baltimore, MD 21202 Ken.Thompson@bpdmonitor.com Seth.Rosenthal@bpdmonitor.com (410) 244-7400

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EXHIBIT 1

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BALTIMORE CONSENT DECREE MONITORING TEAM
FOURTH SEMIANNUAL REPORT
January 21, 2020
Venable LLP and 21CP Solutions LLC
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page
OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................... ii INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................. 5 SUMMARY OF MONITORING TEAM ACTIVITIES ............................................... 10 FINDINGS ................................................................................................................... 23
Training .................................................................................................................... 25 Misconduct Investigations and Discipline............................................................... 29 Technology ................................................................................................................ 36 Staffing, Performance Evaluations and Promotions............................................... 41 Stops, Searches, Arrests and Voluntary Police-Community Interactions ............. 44 Use of Force .............................................................................................................. 49 Transportation of Persons in Custody ..................................................................... 52 Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in
Crisis................................................................................................................... 55 First Amendment Protect Activities ........................................................................ 63 Interactions with Youth ........................................................................................... 67 Sexual Assault Investigations.................................................................................. 71 Recruitment, Hiring and Retention ......................................................................... 74 Officer Assistance and Support................................................................................ 77
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OVERVIEW FOURTH SEMIANNUAL REPORT – January 21, 2020
THE MONITORING TEAM’S ACTIVITIES • Assessed and provided technical assistance on training on numerous Consent Decree subjects • Observed and provided technical assistance on training on use of force • Assessed and provided technical assistance on policy revisions • Completed compliance review of internal investigations from 2018 • Commenced planning of compliance reviews and outcome assessments in other areas • Published reports on arrestee survey and officer focus groups and completed research for community survey • Met community stakeholders to engage them in the reform process and obtained public input on draft policies and training programs • Continued to deploy a team of neighborhood liaisons to educate community members about the Consent Decree and obtain feedback on BPD performance
THE MONITORING TEAM’S KEY FINDINGS • BPD continues to make good progress on threshold Consent Decree obligations, and the infrastructure necessary for BPD to achieve sustainable compliance is beginning to take shape • Highly qualified, committed leadership—Commissioner Harrison, his Deputy Commissioners, a new Chief Technology Officer, and a new Training Academy commander, among others—should accelerate the pace of reform • BPD successfully finalized additional Consent Decree-mandated policies • BPD commendably added key Training Academy staff, continued the transition to new training methods that employ adult learning principles, opened its new training facility, and completed training on use of force and e-learning on responding to reports of sexual assault • Upcoming training initiatives are ambitious and will present implementation challenges • BPD’s partnership with community stakeholders on the Collaboration Planning and Implementation Committee is producing encouraging work on policies, training, data collection, and systemic needs in the area of crisis intervention and behavioral health awareness • Reform has begun, but overhauling the Public Integrity Bureau (PIB) remains challenging • Staffing needs, especially in Patrol and PIB, are acute and require urgent action • Improvements in BPD’s IT systems and governance are underway but are far from completion
THE NEXT SIX MONTHS • BPD will train officers on revised policies on stops, searches and arrests, behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention, body worn camera use, sexual assault investigations, and fair and impartial policing • BPD will finalize many of the remaining policies requiring revision • BPD will hire a vendor to implement a new Records Management System and implement other recommendations from its Technology Resource Plan • BPD will finalize Community Policing and Staffing Plans • The Monitoring Team will conduct compliance review of use of force incidents
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INTRODUCTION
The Consent Decree
In May 2015, the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) initiated an investigation of the Baltimore Police Department (“BPD”). The investigation, completed in 2016, found that BPD was engaged in a pattern-or-practice of constitutional violations, including using excessive force, infringing on the First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly, and stopping, searching, and arresting people in violation of the Fourth Amendment and based on their race. After making these findings, DOJ entered into negotiations with BPD and the City of Baltimore in an effort to settle the parties’ differences. BPD and the City did not admit DOJ’s allegations, but they recognized that the allegations raised longstanding issues of considerable importance to City residents. As a result, BPD and the City agreed to resolve DOJ’s allegations through a Consent Decree. The Consent Decree is a court-approved settlement agreement between DOJ, the City and BPD. United States District Court Judge James K. Bredar is the judge who approved the Consent Decree. Judge Bredar now oversees the Consent Decree’s implementation. Because the Consent Decree is a court order, Judge Bredar has the power to enforce its provisions and ensure that BPD and the City do what it requires.
The Consent Decree obligates BPD and the City to adopt a comprehensive set of reforms designed to promote fair and constitutional policing, rebuild BPD’s relationships with Baltimore’s communities, and ensure public safety. The Consent Decree prescribes corrective action in a number of areas, including: community engagement; community policing; stops, searches, arrests, and voluntary policecommunity interactions; impartial policing; interacting with people with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis; use of force; interactions with youth; transportation of persons in custody; First Amendment protected activities; handling of reports of sexual assault; technology; supervision; misconduct investigations and discipline; coordination with Baltimore City School Police; recruitment, hiring, and retention; staffing, performance evaluations, and promotions; and officer assistance and support.
The Consent Decree, in short, requires transformational institutional change. BPD will achieve compliance with the Consent Decree and free itself from Court oversight when it demonstrates not only that it has successfully implemented all of the required foundational improvements in policies, training, technology and operations, but that those improvements have translated, measurably and sustainably, into constitutional, community-oriented policing.
Achieving transformational change in a large police department does not happen overnight. As the Consent Decree envisions, it takes time, and it requires
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adherence to a rigorous, methodical reform process. In each area of the Consent Decree that addresses how officers discharge their duties (e.g., stops/searches/arrests, use of force, and transportation of persons in custody, to name a few), BPD first must draft and adopt revised policies. Then BPD must develop and conduct training on those revised policies. At the same time, to ensure that the new policies and the new training take root, BPD must revamp vital components of its infrastructure. For instance, BPD must overhaul its technology to become a modern, data-driven, efficient police force, must fortify its system of internal investigations and discipline to enhance officer accountability, must improve the training and supervision of rankand-file officers to ensure lawful, effective job performance, and must deploy its officers and improve recruiting and retention so as to simultaneously enhance public safety and promote community-oriented policing. It is only after officers have been trained on the new policies, and after infrastructure upgrades are well underway, that community members can expect to see sustained, tangible changes in the conduct of BPD officers. The Consent Decree contemplates that this process will take several years or more.
The Monitoring Team
On October 3, 2017, Judge Bredar appointed a Monitoring Team to assist him in overseeing implementation of the Consent Decree. The Monitoring Team consists of a lead monitor, Kenneth Thompson, and a team of experts in policing and police reform, civil rights enforcement, psychology, social science, organizational change, data and technology, and community engagement. Serving as an agent of the Court, the Monitoring Team plays three principal roles: arbiter, technical advisor, and facilitator. As arbiter, the Monitoring Team oversees the day-to-day efforts of BPD and the City to comply with the reforms the Consent Decree requires. The Monitoring Team reviews, provides feedback on, and ultimately recommends Court approval or disapproval of the changes BPD makes in its policies, its training and, ultimately, its policing practices. As technical advisor, the Monitoring Team draws upon decades of collective experience to provide BPD with technical assistance, including advice about national best practices, to help guide BPD toward satisfying the requirements of the Consent Decree. As facilitator, the Monitoring Team seeks to ensure that all stakeholders from within BPD and across Baltimore’s diverse communities have the opportunity to participate in the reform process (CD 442).1
The Court and the Monitoring Team are not alone in overseeing BPD’s implementation of the requirements of the Consent Decree. DOJ continues to play an active role. As the plaintiff in the lawsuit that produced the Consent Decree, DOJ
1 All citations to a specific paragraph of the Consent Decree follow the text that relies on that paragraph and appear in parentheses containing “CD” and the number of the cited paragraph. Thus, the citation above, which is to Paragraph 442 of the Consent Decree, follows the relied-on provision of Paragraph 442 and appears as “(CD 442).”
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retains the right to enforce the Consent Decree when BPD fails to comply with its terms. Accordingly, like the Monitoring Team, DOJ is assessing BPD’s progress toward compliance and will let the Monitoring Team and the Court know when it believes BPD is making progress and when it believes BPD is not. In addition, like the Monitoring Team, DOJ provides technical assistance to BPD as BPD works toward compliance. The reform process under the Consent Decree thus involves four fully-engaged entities: BPD, the City, the Monitoring Team/the Court, and DOJ.
This Report
One of the essential duties of the Monitoring Team is to issue semi-annual public reports that inform the Court and the community about the progress BPD is making toward compliance with the Consent Decree’s requirements. The reports explain: (1) which compliance measures BPD has taken in the preceding six months; (2) whether those measures demonstrate compliance, substantial progress toward compliance, reasonable progress toward compliance, or non-compliance with Consent Decree requirements; (3) what challenges BPD will continue to face as it strives to achieve compliance; and (4) what to expect from BPD in the next reporting period.
This document is the Monitoring Team’s fourth semi-annual report. The first report was filed in July 2018; the second in January 2019; and the third in July 2019 See ECF Nos. 126-1, 178-1 & 220-1. When reading this report, keep in mind what is explained above: achieving transformational change in a large police department takes years, not months, and requires adherence to a rigorous process for reform. Thus, two years into the reform process, while BPD has begun to put in place the building blocks for reform, it has not yet made, or had time to make, significant progress toward lasting change. The First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans— detailed plans establishing deadlines for all deliverables in the first two years of reform—implicitly acknowledge that not every Consent Decree requirement can be met in the first two years. BPD, its officers and community members need sufficient time and opportunity to focus on each area of the Consent Decree, and on each requirement within each area, to ensure that reform is real and enduring. Change that is rushed, haphazard and superficial is not sustainable and does not qualify as true reform.
For these reasons, this report will not address BPD’s progress on each and every one of the Consent Decree’s requirements. Even two years into the reform process, it remains the case that, for the some of those requirements, BPD has neither satisfied them, made reasonable progress toward satisfying them, nor failed to satisfy them. Rather, it is getting started. Indeed, while BPD has worked diligently to revise key policies and practices, develop new training, and produce critical studies on technology, staffing and the City’s behavioral health system, it is still completing even these initial, foundational steps. For instance, BPD has only begun to train officers on policies that have successfully undergone revision; it has yet to fix
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structural deficiencies in its Public Integrity Bureau (formerly the Office of Professional Responsibility), which conducts internal investigations and recommends discipline; and, realistically, it still remains two years away from fully revamping its IT systems so that they are capable of storing and aggregating the data necessary for comprehensive evaluation of the integrity of BPD’s law enforcement actions. Therefore, the Monitoring Team is not yet able to comprehensively assess whether BPD officers are consistently and sustainably engaged in the type of policing that the Consent Decree envisions.
That said, the Monitoring Team continues to examine snapshots of BPD’s institutional performance and has begun a series of initial compliance reviews in different areas of the Consent Decree. For instance, the Monitoring Team regularly follows and assesses internal investigations of certain noteworthy disciplinary matters by the Public Integrity Bureau. It also recently completed a comprehensive review of a statistically significant sample of PIB investigations from 2018 to determine whether the investigations were thorough and properly documented and whether PIB’s conclusions and disciplinary recommendations were supported by the evidence. A report is forthcoming. This initial compliance review will establish a “baseline” for evaluating BPD’s future progress toward compliance in the area of misconduct investigations.
Rather than inventorying BPD’s efforts to satisfy each and every one of the Consent Decree’s separate provisions, this report assesses BPD’s progress toward satisfying the provisions that the First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans have required BPD to address. In addition, this report gauges BPD’s current position along the long arc of compliance in each area of the Consent Decree and identifies the challenges BPD will have to overcome to make meaningful progress toward compliance. In this way, the report implicitly demonstrates that, although crucial, BPD’s nascent work to satisfy the Consent Decree’s foundational requirements— revising policies, conducting studies, preparing plans, training, performing audits, implementing officer assistance programs—is only part of the compliance equation. Full compliance will not be achieved until, in practice, those reforms result in policing that is community-oriented, accountable and constitutional.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Over the past six months, BPD and the City have worked in good faith toward satisfying the requirements of the Second-Year Monitoring Plan. See ECF No. 208-1 (approved in ECF No. 210), updated in ECF No. 243-1 (approved in ECF No. 245). By identifying and establishing dozens of deadlines for Consent Decree “deliverables,” the Second-Year Plan presents a detailed roadmap for the progress BPD and the City are expected to make during the second year of monitoring, which runs through February 15, 2020. Like the First-Year Plan before it, the Second-Year Plan focuses on the front-end of the reform process: finalizing policy revisions, developing training curriculum and training officers on the revised policies, and completing studies and action plans regarding Departmental operations and related City services.
Under the leadership of Commissioner Michael Harrison, BPD and the City satisfactorily completed most of the deliverables due in this reporting period. BPD finished revisions to many of the remaining policies that the Consent Decree requires BPD to revise, including, importantly, an investigations manual for the Public Integrity Bureau. It prepared detailed analyses of officer staffing and retention needs and the efficacy of its memorandum of understanding with Baltimore School Police. It began the process of self-evaluation by producing initial (though, due to data limitations, incomplete) reports on sexual assault investigations and responses to First Amendment-protected conduct. Most significantly, after bolstering its Training Academy staff and developing lessons that utilize scenario-based, adult learning concepts, BPD completed Department-wide in-service training on new use of force policies and e-learning on responding to reports of sexual assault. BPD also drafted training curricula on stops, searches and arrests, body-worn camera use, and behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention, with training on those subjects to occur in 2020. Because training on use of force and sexual assault response are complete, the revised policies in those areas, approved in prior reporting periods, are now in effect. Revised policies cannot take effect until officers are trained on them.
In addition to BPD’s progress on training, among the most encouraging developments has been BPD’s work with community stakeholders on the Collaborative Planning and Implementation Committee (“CPIC”), which is dedicated to improving police interactions with—and, more broadly, the City’s system for supporting—individuals with behavioral health disabilities and substance abuse issues. In the past two reporting periods, BPD has partnered with CPIC to generate new crisis intervention policies; develop curricula on behavioral health awareness for both recruit and in-service training; begin work on specialized training curricula for both dispatchers/911 call-takers and Crisis Intervention Team officers; identify BPD’s data collection needs so that BPD can begin to more meaningfully track officer interactions with individuals in crisis; initiate difficult yet constructive discussions about BPD practices affecting individuals with behavioral health disabilities; and produce a thorough, detailed “Gap Analysis”—a report on the systemic shortcomings
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in Baltimore’s behavioral health system and proposed solutions for addressing them. This is an impressive body of collaborative work in a relatively short period, and it holds substantial long-term promise for improving the way BPD officers handle encounters with individuals in crisis.
BPD also deserves credit for making improvements outside the Second-Year Monitoring Plan. These include developing a transparent system for promotions and implementing a policy for the prompt, negotiated resolution of complaints of minor misconduct (e.g., reporting late to roll call, failure to appear in court or for a medical appointment, and loss of BPD property other than a firearm). Both developments are responsive to officer concerns and aimed at improving officer morale. The early resolution policy also seeks to enhance officer accountability by freeing up overburdened internal affairs investigators to spend increased time on more serious complaints of misconduct, including those involving civilian encounters.
Notwithstanding these achievements, there have been delays in this reporting period, most necessitated by the need for Commissioner Harrison to familiarize himself with the Department and develop his own vision for it before initiating changes. Thus, preparation of Staffing and Community Policing Plans took months longer than originally planned, and implementation of the Technology Resource Plan stalled—although, notably, it recently has begun in earnest. With the installation of a full, permanent leadership team that has demonstrated a genuine commitment to Consent Decree compliance, and with certain first-stage reform measures complete, the Monitoring Team anticipates that the pace of reform will accelerate.
As with prior reports, it remains too early to assess BPD’s progress toward satisfying many of the Consent Decree’s provisions. Consistent with the First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans, BPD is still in the process of trying to satisfy foundational requirements. BPD and the City have finalized revisions to most key policies; have begun devising and implementing training programs covering those policies; and have completed or are completing studies and implementation plans on technology, staffing, officer recruitment, hiring and retention, youth diversion, community policing, interactions with individual with behavioral health disabilities, and BPD’s relationship with Baltimore School Police. But BPD and the City still have not completed certain foundational requirements—for instance, BPD is still working diligently to implement training—and have not begun, much less completed, work on numerous other Consent Decree requirements that have not yet been included in a Monitoring Plan.
Some of these longer-term requirements continue to present daunting challenges. As explained in prior reports:
• BPD has not addressed its acute staffing needs, particularly in the Patrol Division and Public Integrity Bureau. To fortify those two components, BPD
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must redeploy and reassign existing resources (including by eliminating or reducing the size of some specialized units), civilianize certain functions, and— critically—recruit, hire and retain more qualified officers than it loses due to attrition. Additionally, although BPD recently has bolstered its Training Academy staff, the onboarding of new training personnel has been slow and certain key positions, e.g., curriculum writers, still have not been filled.
• BPD has not yet begun to sustainably improve the quality of its misconduct investigations or its disciplinary system. To its credit, BPD is laying the groundwork. A new Deputy Commissioner has been appointed; a new classification system is being implemented; an investigations manual for the Public Integrity Bureau (“PIB”) is now complete; a first-ever informationsharing protocol for PIB and the Civilian Review Board has been developed; a potentially resource-liberating, morale-enhancing policy for early resolution of minor complaints has been initiated; the case assignment system has become more streamlined and now ensures greater impartiality; and an independent investigation of the causes of the Gun Trace Task Force scandal has begun. But PIB is a long way from being repaired. It still must complete certain rudimentary steps, including developing an intake manual, revising its disciplinary policy, providing investigators with specialized training on internal investigations, and finalizing the upgrade of IAPro, the IT system for tracking investigations and discipline. As for the Consent Decree’s ultimate objective of improving the speed and quality of investigations and the integrity of disciplinary outcomes, there are still too many cases for too few investigators, serious allegations are not investigated promptly, supervisors do not timely review investigations, and data on outcomes is not yet properly collected or analyzed.
• After a delay, BPD has begun implementing its previously approved Technology Resource Plan under the leadership of a new Chief Technology Officer. But the necessary overhaul of BPD’s IT governance structure is a work in progress, and the full implementation of revamped IT systems, including a records management system that supports electronic field-based reporting, likely remains two years away. This revamped system for collecting and maintaining data is essential for effective supervision, meaningful discipline, and useful analysis of Department trends in key areas of the Consent Decree, including stops, searches, arrests, and uses of force.
• BPD has not yet begun implementing targeted measures for improving supervisory performance, beginning with revising core supervisory policies and furnishing supervisory training.
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The upshot is that BPD is undoubtedly moving in the right direction, but all the work that is left to do makes it impossible at this point to determine when BPD will be able to achieve effective and substantial compliance with all of the Consent Decree’s provisions. BPD is well on its way to implementing threshold reforms. Now, it must begin the challenging process of translating those reforms into meaningful, sustained, Department-wide improvement in performance. At this moment, the key question is whether, notwithstanding their genuine devotion to achieving compliance, BPD leadership can provide clear guidance to lieutenants, sergeants and rank-andfile officers and get them to embrace the reform effort—to recognize and take advantage of the benefits the Consent Decree offers them and commit themselves to constitutional, community-oriented policing.
***
In the next six months, BPD will continue to invest substantial time and resources in officer training. It will deliver training to all officers on stops, searches, and arrests, behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention, and body worn camera use. BPD will also deliver specialized training on behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention to Crisis Intervention Team officers and on sexual assault investigations to sex crimes investigators. Additionally, BPD will prepare training curriculum on fair and impartial policing, community policing, and peer intervention (to encourage ethical policing) for all officers, as well as specialized training on internal investigations for Public Integrity Bureau investigators, crisis intervention for emergency dispatchers, supervision for sergeants and lieutenants, and field training for Field Training Officers.
In addition, BPD will complete nearly all remaining policy revisions required by the Consent Decree. These include policies governing stops, searches, and arrests for low-level misdemeanor offenses; standard operating procedures on BPD’s mobile field force; policies on interactions with youth; and manuals on the intake of complaints officer misconduct and on BPD’s disciplinary process.
In the next six months, BPD will finalize and begin implementing comprehensive plans for community policing and staffing. BPD also will continue to build out its early, Consent Decree-mandated efforts at self-evaluation. It will utilize a revamped Performance Review Board to assess critical incidents, including officerinvolved shootings, with an eye toward improving policies, tactics, training, and supervision where performance deficiencies are observed. BPD also will issue reports analyzing its responses to First Amendment-protected activities and its progress toward developing the capacity (which it now lacks) to collect and analyze data on stops, searches and arrests. Additionally, BPD will continue monthly inspections of transport vehicles to ensure they are properly equipped, as well as full quarterly audits of randomly-selected transport events in each district to ensure transport officers are complying with BPD’s revised transport policies.
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SUMMARY OF MONITORING TEAM ACTIVITIES
Over the past six months, the Monitoring Team has done work in each of its three roles—arbiter, technical advisor and facilitator. As arbiter, the Monitoring Team, among other things, has assessed BPD’s progress in developing and implementing new training programs, evaluated various policy revisions, reviewed and analyzed a study of City programs designed to assist individuals with behavioral health disabilities, and examined BPD’s reports on the Department’s sex assault investigations, the Department’s responses to First Amendment-protected conduct, and the Department’s memorandum of understanding with Baltimore School Police. As technical advisor, the Monitoring Team has drawn on the expertise of its members to provide BPD guidance on officer training, policy revisions, technology improvements, internal investigations and discipline, staffing issues, officer wellness issues, and interactions with individuals in crisis. As facilitator, the Monitoring Team has sought to engage both community stakeholders and BPD officers in the reform process.
The Monitoring Team’s work in this reporting period is summarized below. The details of the Monitoring Team’s work, recorded on time sheets for each Monitoring Team member in 1/10 hour increments, are reflected in the Monitoring Team’s approved invoices, which are available on the Monitoring Team’s website at https://www.bpdmonitor.com/monthly-statements. The Consent Decree provides that the Monitoring Team will be paid $1,475,000 per year in fees and expenses. For the first 25 months of its work (October 2017 through October 2019), the City paid the Monitoring Team $3,223,082.25 in fees and $139,276.27 in expenses. In addition, from October 2017 through October 2019, the Monitoring Team contributed pro bono services for its work on the Consent Decree in an amount equal to $1,493,806.30, meaning that 31% of the Monitoring Team’s work during the 25 months was at no cost to the City.
Engagement with Stakeholders
Community Engagement
The Monitoring Team continues to engage in active, affirmative community outreach. In addition to holding Consent Decree-mandated community forums in July and October 2019, the Monitoring Team and its community engagement team are meeting with community members where they live. In the past six months, Monitoring Team members have attended or convened dozens of community meetings in different parts of the City, including meetings of neighborhood associations, faithbased organizations, civic leaders, and affinity groups (e.g., the Maryland chapter of the National Association for Social Workers and the Campaign for Justice, Safety and Jobs). The meetings are intended to inform community members about the Consent
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Decree process, to obtain input on improving the process, and to listen to their views about BPD.
The Monitoring Team’s community engagement team, including Monitoring Team leadership, continue to participate in bimonthly Facebook Live sessions from the offices of the Baltimore Community Mediation Center (“BCMC”). During these sessions, community members are given the opportunity to post questions online and obtain real-time answers from Monitoring Team leadership. In addition, the Monitoring Team publishes a monthly newsletter called “The Monthly Monitor.” The newsletter is emailed to the Monitoring Team’s distribution list and linked from the Monitoring Team’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. The newsletter provides information about recent and upcoming developments under the Consent Decree, with a focus on opportunities for community members to engage in the reform process.
The Monitoring Team continues to utilize neighborhood liaisons to engage community members. There is one liaison in each of the City’s nine police districts. Overseen by the team’s head community liaison, Ray Kelly, and community engagement coordinator, Darnyle Wharton, the neighborhood liaisons educate their neighbors about the Consent Decree and the work of the Monitoring Team and serve as the Team’s initial points of contact for information and opinions about the performance and conduct of BPD officers, which the Team will need to fully assess BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree. The neighborhood liaisons hold regular “office hours” at local libraries and community centers, attend community meetings and events in their districts, and canvass their neighborhoods to educate community members about the Consent Decree.
In addition to conducting affirmative, localized outreach to inform and hear from community members about BPD and the reform process, the Monitoring Team has pursued targeted engagement with community members around specific Consent Decree requirements. In this reporting period, the Monitoring Team continued to elicit written community input on proposed BPD policies and training programs. Under the Second-Year Monitoring Plan, the Monitoring Team built a community feedback component into the process for revising each policy and training program. (BPD and DOJ also have their own feedback mechanisms). As the Monitoring Team’s Second-Year Monitoring Plan submission explains:
For each policy that is being revised, and for each training curriculum that is being developed, the Second-Year Plan furnishes community members two separate opportunities to provide input and feedback. BPD will issue each draft policy or training curriculum for public comment after collaborating with the Monitoring Team and DOJ on the draft. The Initial Public Comment Period, which typically lasts a month, will be the community’s first opportunity to provide input and feedback.
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Following the Initial Public Comment period, BPD, again in collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, will consider and incorporate the comments received. BPD will then issue the revised policy or training curriculum for public comment in an Abbreviated Public Comment Period, which typically lasts two weeks. That will be the community’s second opportunity to provide input and feedback. It will give community members a chance to see if the initial set of comments were addressed, as well as a chance to weigh in again before the policy or training curriculum is finalized.
ECF No. 181 at 6.
Over the past six months, the Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ sought and received meaningful public comment on a draft curriculum for training on stops, searches and arrests and related aspects of fair and impartial policing, behavioral health awareness, and sexual assault investigations; a “gap” analysis identifying the deficiencies in the City’s behavioral health systems; an assessment of BPD’s memorandum of understanding with Baltimore School Police; a plan for officer retention; and policies addressing misconduct investigations and discipline, interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, youth interrogations, stops, searches and arrests, and officer peer support programs. To solicit community feedback on these deliverables, the Monitoring Team posted and received comments in response to surveys on its website, received detailed letters and e-mails from community members and organizations, and welcomed more informal oral feedback from community members. The Monitoring Team shared whatever feedback it received with BPD. In turn, BPD revised each deliverable in response to all feedback provided (that is, feedback provided to BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ), collaborated with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to ensure that the revised drafts properly reflected that feedback, and then published a final curriculum, report, plan or policy following approval by DOJ and the Monitoring Team.
In addition, BPD continued to utilize a Community Training Review Committee consisting of community members who attend and provide feedback on training programs while they in development. In December 2019, together with Monitoring Team members, the Community Training Review Committee participated in and provided feedback on two of the key modules of the stops, searches, arrests and impartial policing training curriculum. Monitoring Team members and DOJ representatives also attended and provided feedback at subsequent pilot sessions involving both Training Academy instructors and other officers.
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Communications with the Parties
The Monitoring Team communicates with BPD, the City and DOJ multiple times on a daily basis—in in-person meetings, in conference calls, and by email. Monitoring Team members have worked exhaustively with the parties to make sure BPD produces all the deliverables the Second-Year Monitoring Plan requires. In the past six months, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have collaborated with BPD and provided extensive oral and written comments and written line edits on the following deliverables, among others:
• Numerous drafts of e-learning and in-class curriculum for training on stops, searches and arrests, as well as pilot tests of that training;
• Numerous drafts of e-learning and in-class curriculum for training on behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention;
• Numerous drafts of e-learning on both body worn camera use and investigations of reports of sexual assault;
• Drafts of revised policies, including policies on misconduct investigations and discipline, youth interrogations, disclosure of exculpatory evidence in criminal cases, interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, stops, searches and arrests, officer peer support, and First Amendmentprotected activities;
• Draft BPD reports on deficiencies in the City’s behavioral health systems, an assessment of BPD’s memorandum of understanding with Baltimore School Police, BPD responses to First Amendment-protected activities, and sex crimes investigations; and
• Draft community policing, staffing and retention plans.
Police Engagement
In addition to conferring daily with members of BPD’s Consent Decree Implementation Unit, City Law Department attorneys representing BPD, and BPD command staff, the Monitoring Team continues to engage BPD members. Monitoring Team members have established relationships with union leaders and spent substantial time at BPD’s Training Academy (where recruit, in-service, and field training officer training are conducted) and Public Integrity Bureau (which investigates allegations of officer misconduct).
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The Monitoring Team also has established and meets periodically with an informal group of rank-and-file officers to obtain their candid feedback on the Consent Decree, the positive attributes of BPD, and the challenges facing BPD. Monitoring Team members—and the Court itself—also periodically go on ride-alongs with BPD officers who regularly furnish their views on the Consent Decree and policing in Baltimore. Moreover, in May 2019, as required by the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team conducted formal focus groups of BPD officers, detectives, and supervisors to listen to their thoughts and gather their ideas about effective reform. The report from those focus groups is discussed below.
As previously indicated, the Monitoring Team, soon after its appointment, established a protocol for notification and potential response to critical incidents involving BPD officers, such as officer-involved shootings. The notification is immediate and allows for local Monitoring Team members or out-of-town members in Baltimore to respond to the scene and observe BPD officers in action. The notification protocol was used twice in this reporting period to respond to officerinvolved shootings.
Meetings with the Court
The Monitoring Team’s leadership, including Ken Thompson, Seth Rosenthal, Chuck Ramsey, Hassan Aden and Theron Bowman, communicate regularly with Judge Bredar—in person, by telephone, and by email—to update him on developments and to take direction from him.
Early on in the reform process, Judge Bredar determined that each month he would hold a three-hour working session with the Monitoring Team and the parties to discuss developments and challenges in a specific area of the Consent Decree. In this reporting period, Judge Bredar has convened working sessions to discuss staffing and supervision (June/July 2019), misconduct investigations and discipline (September 2019), community policing and engagement (October 2019), compliance reviews and outcome assessments (November 2019), and technology (December 2019).
Assessments and Technical Assistance
For the past six months, the Monitoring Team’s work under the Second-Year Monitoring Plan has focused on assessing BPD’s performance and assisting BPD in the following areas: policy revisions; developing and providing training on revised policies; completing studies and plans involving staffing, community policing, the City’s behavioral health system, and BPD’s memorandum of understanding with the Baltimore School Police; and conducting reviews of BPD’s performance in certain areas.
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Policy Revisions
Although its focus has turned to training assistance and assessment, the Monitoring Team continues to evaluate BPD’s efforts to revise policies and to help BPD with those efforts based on the Monitoring Team’s expertise and knowledge of national best practices. In the first 18 months of monitoring, the Monitoring Team assessed and advised BPD on revisions to approximately fifty policies covering nearly every area of the Consent Decree. Over the past six months, the Monitoring Team has helped BPD with additional policy revisions. As explained in more detail in the Findings section below, those policies address:
• Misconduct investigations and discipline • Disclosure of exculpatory evidence in criminal cases • Youth interrogations • Interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis • First Amendment-protected activities • Officer peer support
Training
In this reporting period, the Monitoring Team has spent considerable time observing and assessing the first tranche of Consent Decree-mandated training, which covered use of force and related aspects of fair and impartial policing. That training was delivered to all sworn BPD personnel (with minor exceptions) between June and October 2019. Based on their observations, Monitoring Team members and DOJ attorneys provided extensive feedback to Academy instructors throughout the period of delivery.
The Monitoring Team also worked extensively with BPD and DOJ to develop e-learning and in-class training curriculum on stops, searches, arrests and related aspects of fair and impartial policing, behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention, and e-learning curriculum on sexual assault investigations and body worn camera use. On stops, searches and arrests training, the Monitoring Team actively participated in and critiqued pilot testing of the in-class curriculum. The training is set to go live shortly.
Foundational Assessments and Reform Plans
Some of the foundational work required by the Consent Decree entails assessing BPD’s present capacity to implement reforms and, where BPD falls short, developing a plan for ensuring that those reforms are achievable. Over the past six months, the Monitoring Team has reviewed and worked with BPD, the City and DOJ to develop the following:
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• A comprehensive staffing plan, which seeks to address BPD’s personnel shortcomings and needs.
• A community policing plan designed to ensure that BPD officers do not spend all of their time responding to calls for service and instead spend adequate time on pro-active policing, engaging with community members and earning their trust.
• A detailed, critical assessment, or “gap analysis,” of City programs devoted to assisting individuals with behavioral health disabilities and histories of substance abuse.
• An assessment of BPD’s memorandum of understanding with Baltimore School Police. The objective of the assessment is to improve BPD’s coordination with BSP and to modify the MOU accordingly.
• A plan for improving BPD’s efforts to retain officers.
Surveys
Over the life of the Consent Decree, the Monitoring Team must conduct three different types of surveys at regular intervals to measure community attitudes about BPD and whether those attitudes change over time. These surveys include a representative survey of community residents, a survey of detained arrestees, and a survey of BPD officers. In this reporting period, the Monitoring Team has performed work on each survey.
Community Survey
The Monitoring Team has partnered with the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University (“IUR”) to devise, conduct, analyze the results of, and prepare a report on the community survey. IUR completed data collection for the community survey at the end of June 2019. IUR interviewed 645 Baltimore residents from across the City. It used several different methods for recruiting participants.
The Monitoring Team plans to publish IUR’s report on the survey in the coming weeks.
Custodial Arrestee Survey
Researchers from the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and Rose Street Community Center, a local organization that assists returning citizens, conducted the custodial arrestee survey and published a report of its findings at the beginning of September 2019. Based on the researchers’
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interviews of 70 individuals in Baltimore’s central booking facility shortly after their arrests, the report found that “most detainees we interviewed judge policing on the basis of their experiences before arrest [rather] than during it.” The researchers determined that over half of the interviewees thought BPD was doing either a “bad” or “terrible” job, while fewer than 20% thought BPD was doing a “good” or “excellent” job, and roughly 25% said BPD’s work was neither good nor bad. Importantly, according to the researchers, this largely negative appraisal was not the result of prejudice against police officers or bias against policing in general. Rather, “much of [the interviewees’] dismay about policing in Baltimore today stems from a sense that the police ‘don’t care’ about their community, despite the persistence of social problems they believe the police can help fix.” The full report, titled “Experiences and Perceptions of the Police in Baltimore,” can be found here.
Officer Focus Groups
On behalf of the Monitoring Team, the Crime and Justice Institute conducted a series of eight focus groups of BPD personnel from May 21 – 23, 2019. The eight groups consisted of (1) two patrol officer groups of mixed race and ethnicity, but gender specific—one male, one female—to allow for comparison by gender, (2) three patrol officer groups, separated by race/ethnicity—one African American, one White, one Latinx—in order to make comparisons across race/ethnicity, and (3) detective, sergeant, and lieutenant groups of mixed race/ethnicity and gender. Officers from every shift and every district were represented. In total, a total of 68 sworn personnel—40 patrol officers, nine detectives, ten sergeants, and nine lieutenants— participated.
The Monitoring Team published CJI’s final report on the officer focus groups at the end of July 2019. Among the report’s key findings:
➢ Officers believe a majority of residents supports and trusts them, though support varies significantly by district, and individuals most likely to interact with the police—both offenders and victims—are less trustful and supportive.
➢ Officers are unclear about BPD’s expectations around community policing and, because they spend so much time responding to calls for service, they have little or no time for pro-active policing. Officers favor a return to post assignments, which give them a chance to engage with and get to know the residents of one neighborhood.
➢ Command staff and supervisors have not adequately communicated Consent Decree objectives and requirements to rank-and-file officers. More clarity and better communication are needed. A frequently cited example is
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the lack of clarity around the use of force reporting policy—specifically, which actions constitute a reportable “Level 1” (minor) use of force.
➢ Morale is low due to deficiencies in leadership, supervision and staffing. Rank-and-file officers feel disconnected from command staff, and the lack of a permanent Commissioner for a lengthy period resulted in the absence of clear and consistent direction. Officers believe that commanders are more concerned about BPD’s image than their welfare. Officers also maintain the Department is understaffed: they are often forced to work overtime (“drafted”), are generally overextended, and have no time for pro-active or community policing. According to focus group participants, BPD could improve morale by more consistently recognizing superior performance; effectively communicating changes and expectations down the chain of command; improving equipment, technology and facilities; improving the efficiency of the internal affairs process, which takes far too long; and addressing staffing issues by, e.g., eliminating certain specialized units and redeploying the assigned officers to Patrol, hiring civilians for administrative positions, and terminating certain deployment strategies that take officers off the street.
➢ Participants believe that, due to staffing problems, officers are often promoted too quickly. They also believe that, historically, promotions and transfers have been based on “who you know,” rather than on “how well you do.”
The full report, titled “Feedback from the Field: A Summary of Focus Groups with Baltimore Police Officers,” can be found here.
Compliance Reviews and Outcome Assessments
The Consent Decree requires the Monitoring Team to conduct both compliance reviews and outcome assessments. Compliance reviews are qualitative evaluations of BPD performance in different areas of the Consent Decree. They are conducted with an eye toward determining how far BPD has come, and how far it still needs to go, to achieve compliance with Consent Decree requirements (CD 454). For instance, over time, are the quality of internal investigations improving, are uses of force increasingly better justified, or are investigative stops more routinely supported by well-articulated reasonable suspicion and arrests more routinely supported by wellarticulated probable cause?
Outcome assessments, by contrast, are quantitative assessments designed to determine whether the reforms required by the Consent Decree in each area are having a tangible, measurable impact—whether, independent and apart from BPD’s progress toward compliance with Consent Decree requirements, policing is changing
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in the real world (CD 456). For instance, are the policy revisions and training in the area of stops, searches and arrests producing a greater percentage of investigative stops that turn up evidence of prosecutable criminal activity and a lesser percentage of weapons pat downs and searches that turn up no guns or contraband? Or are the policy revisions and training on use of force, which emphasize de-escalation, leading to fewer encounters requiring more serious Level 2 and Level 3 uses of force?
While providing technical assistance and evaluating policy revisions, training and plans for organizational change (e.g., in staffing, supervision, and technology) make up much of the Monitoring Team’s work in the early years of the Consent Decree, compliance reviews and outcome assessments will make up most of the work in later years, once the foundational reforms are in place.
The Consent Decree process is now nearing the point at which the Monitoring Team and the parties should focus increasingly on measuring progress through compliance reviews and outcome assessments. Presently, however, measuring progress is effectively limited to qualitative evaluations of BPD performance. That is because the manifest deficiencies in BPD’s IT systems and data collection practices substantially restrict evaluations that rely on quantitative data. Thus, while the Monitoring Team may begin to conduct qualitative compliance reviews in certain areas, it will be severely hampered in its ability to conduct many of the outcome assessments required by paragraph 459 of the Consent Decree, as well as compliance reviews that entail reliance on quantitative data. At this stage, the unreliability, incompleteness or total absence of relevant data would make such evaluations useless. The unfortunate result is that, in many areas, the Monitoring Team will not be able to establish meaningful baselines against which to measure BPD’s progress for another 18 months to two years. That delay will inevitably prolong the life of the Consent Decree, as BPD must be able to show sustained improvement in each area in order to achieve substantial and effective compliance.
In this reporting period, the Monitoring Team conducted its first comprehensive compliance review of internal investigations by the Public Integrity Bureau. The review covered a statistically significant number of the investigations PIB conducted in 2018. A report of the Monitoring Team’s conclusions from this compliance review is forthcoming and will be published separately.
Because the PIB assessment was the first qualitative assessment the Monitoring Team conducted, the Monitoring Team and the parties needed to (1) engage in basic discussions about approach and methodology for all compliance reviews and (2) create protocols for obtaining records from BPD. Because this work established processes for all future compliance reviews, the PIB compliance review likely took more time than others will.
During this reporting period, the Monitoring Team and the parties also collaborated on the instrument that the Monitoring Team will use to review a
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statistically-significant sample of use of force cases. Using this instrument, the Monitoring Team will evaluate, in each reviewed case, both the appropriateness of the officer’s use of force and the quality of BPD’s investigation of the incident. As with the review of PIB investigations, the use of force review will involve Monitoring Team experts determining whether, in each case, officers and the Department adhered to Consent Decree requirements. The Monitoring Team will conduct this qualitative compliance review in the next reporting period.
Due to the deficiencies in BPD’s IT systems and data collection practices, the Monitoring Team’s work on outcome assessments has been preparatory thus far. In the first year of monitoring, the Monitoring Team and statistical expert Dr. Ralph Taylor invested significant time in understanding which relevant data BPD has available and which, if any, of the required outcome assessments would be worthwhile or even possible. In December 2018, due to competing professional commitments, Dr. Taylor had to resign from the Monitoring Team. After an extensive search, the Monitoring Team contracted with the Crime and Justice Institute at Community Resources for Justice (“CJI”) to help design and perform its outcome assessments. The Monitoring Team and CJI will partner with Dr. Gabriela Wasileski of the University of Baltimore, a statistical and social science expert.
The Monitoring Team has worked extensively with its new experts for the past several months to chart a course for completing certain outcome assessments in the upcoming year. Those assessments will be incorporated into a forthcoming plan for the third monitoring year.
One area of note is stops, searches and arrests. DOJ’s investigation found a pattern or practice of race-based and otherwise unlawful stops, searches and arrests. The fractured relationship between BPD and the communities it serves is also thought to be largely attributable to such a pattern or practice. For these reasons, the availability and integrity of BPD’s data on stops, searches and arrests has been of particular concern to the Monitoring Team as it considers which compliance reviews and outcome assessments to perform. The Monitoring Team has previously reported that this data, particularly on stops and searches, is both notoriously hard to access (requiring manual review of scanned paper reports) and incomplete (due to underreporting by BPD officers). Given the data’s inadequacy, the Monitoring Team and the parties have frequently discussed, and will continue to discuss, the feasibility and the utility of evaluating stop, searches and arrests prior to the introduction of a new Records Management System that incorporates electronic field-based reporting. Unfortunately, it is likely that the quantitative review of the data that the Consent Decree requires—to determine aggregate performance and investigate disparate impact—is presently impracticable. A qualitative compliance review of some subset of reports on stops, searches or arrests—to determine officer compliance with policy on conduct and reporting, plus adherence to Consent Decree requirements on
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supervision—may be feasible, but to make it so, the Monitoring Team will first have to find a way to reduce the cumbersomeness of the exercise.
Diagnostic Performance Reviews
As part of the work it must do to assess BPD’s compliance, the Monitoring Team also has been conducting diagnostic analyses of BPD’s performance in discrete matters. The purpose of these analyses is not to formally gauge BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree, but rather to get a sense of how certain core functions are currently being performed and, if they are not being performed effectively or in compliance with the Consent Decree, to provide BPD guidance on how to improve performance. The ultimate objective is for BPD to meaningfully engage in its own after-action assessments so that when it finds problems, it will self-correct and take remedial action on its own, without prompting from the Monitoring Team or DOJ.
During the initial reporting period, the Monitoring Team conducted one of these diagnostic analyses by evaluating the propriety of BPD’s interactions with civilians in the Harlem Park neighborhood following the shooting death of BPD Detective Sean Suiter. In December 2018, as a result of the Monitoring Team’s findings (as well as the findings of an Internal Review Board that conducted a separate assessment of BPD’s investigation of Detective Suiter’s death), BPD prepared and delivered a full-day training for all command staff on both constitutional requirements for conducting stops, searches and arrests and proper use of an Incident Command System for responding to significant events. In addition, BPD prepared and delivered to all officers a mandatory e-learning training program on BPD policies and constitutional requirements on stops, searches and arrests through its PowerDMS system. The Monitoring Team and DOJ provided input on the lesson plan for the command staff training, attended that training (as did Judge Bredar), and gave BPD with feedback following the training. The Monitoring Team and DOJ also provided input on the e-learning lesson plan for the officer training on stops, searches and arrests.
In this reporting period, the Monitoring Team continued to perform diagnostic analyses of discrete civilian encounters that draw public scrutiny. (The Monitoring Team is not empowered to, and thus does not, independently investigate such encounters.) In particular, the Monitoring Team participated in briefings and reviewed evidence regarding two police-involved shootings (one on August 28, 2019 near the intersection of N. Caroline and E. Fayette, the other on October 30, 2019 at 6300 York Road), an incident involving an officer’s alleged use of a chokehold (captured on a cell phone and posted on Twitter), and several incidents that have led to the indictment of a BPD sergeant for allegedly abusing his authority by using excessing force and making false arrests.
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FINDINGS
BPD and City leadership have begun to make marked progress on implementing certain Consent Decree requirements that are foundational to the reform process:
• BPD is nearing completion of the initial round of policy revisions required by the Consent Decree. The new policies are clearer and more comprehensive than their predecessors.
• With technical assistance from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, and with additional input from community members, BPD has worked diligently to prepare e-learning and in-service training curriculum in a number of areas; has completed new, Department-wide in-service training on use of force and e-learning on responses to reports of sexual assault; and will soon begin new, Department-wide instruction on stops, searches and arrests, related aspects of fair and impartial policing, behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention, and body worn camera use. Importantly, the in-service components of these new training programs incorporate adult learning principles, replacing static, lecture-based instruction with dynamic, scenariobased, learner-involved instruction.
• BPD has taken early steps toward making the dramatic, long-term structural improvements that genuine reform requires. Although stalled for months due to gaps in leadership that have now been filled, BPD has begun implementing a Technology Resource Plan, has produced competent drafts of Staffing and Community Policing plans, continues programmatic efforts to transform and strengthen its internal affairs function within the Public Integrity Bureau, and is making preliminary strides toward better community engagement.
As vital and significant as these foundational reforms are, they are still just the beginning. Consent Decree-mandated training, while underway, is far from complete, which means a number of revised policies have not yet been made effective. And plans are just that—plans. Necessary improvements in BPD’s IT systems are still as much as two years away. Essential reinforcements for the Patrol Division and PIB—through reassignment of officers from other units, civilianization of certain administrative functions, and improved recruitment and retention—have not yet materialized and remain largely conceptual. Reforming PIB is a work in progress.
In the first three semiannual reports, the Monitoring Team observed that, while it had little doubt about BPD’s willingness to reform, it had concerns about BPD’s capacity for reform. With BPD’s forward progress on various foundational reform measures, and with the recent installation of permanent, Consent Decreecommitted leaders in key positions—Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner for
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Compliance, Deputy Commissioner for Operations, Deputy Commissioner for PIB, Chief Technology Officer, Training Academy commander—the Monitoring Team has increased confidence in BPD’s capacity for reform. But given the enormous challenges presented by the structural and cultural changes that the Consent Decree requires, the Monitoring Team’s early concerns have not substantially abated. BPD is still in the “easy part” of the reform process—policy revision, training, self-evaluation, planning. BPD has yet to prove that it can do the “hard part.” It has not yet shown that it will be able to implement and properly utilize new technology, employ and properly deploy sufficient personnel, ensure effective supervision, hold officers accountable, perform rigorous self-evaluation and self-correction, and obtain officer and supervisor buy-in so that constitutional, community-oriented policing becomes the Departmental norm.
This section of the report sets forth the Monitoring Team’s findings regarding BPD’s progress to date in a number of areas of the Consent Decree. For each area, the Monitoring Team explains (1) what BPD will be required to do over the long term and what BPD has been required to do in the current reporting period under the Second-Year Monitoring Plan, (2) what progress has been made and whether it is substantial, reasonable, or unsatisfactory (3) the challenges facing BPD, and (4) immediate next steps. It bears repeating here that the Monitoring Team is not evaluating BPD’s progress toward satisfying each and every paragraph and each and every requirement within each area of the Consent Decree. Again, that kind of report card would not reveal much, if anything, about BPD’s performance at this still-early stage in the reform process. The Monitoring Team instead assesses BPD’s progress on the specific Consent Decree requirements that are included in the First- and Second-Year Monitoring Plans in each area, and then describes the road ahead.
This section begins in the area that has been at the heart of the reform effort over the past six months: training. It then addresses the areas of the Consent Decree that present among the most pressing threshold challenges facing BPD: misconduct investigations and discipline, technology, and staffing, followed by areas where DOJ found or expressed concerns about a pattern or practice of constitutional violations, including stops, searches and arrests, use of force, and transportation of persons in custody. This section concludes by assessing BPD’s progress in other areas of the Consent Decree.
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Training
The Monitoring Team has previously emphasized the importance of officer training to the success of the reform process. Whenever BPD changes a policy or practice, it must effectively communicate its new expectations to its officers. Even the best policies mean nothing if officers are not properly trained to follow them.
The Consent Decree provides that “proper, effective, and comprehensive training is a necessary prerequisite to constitutional policing” (CD 291). It contains a number of specific requirements for required training for stops, searches, and arrests (CD 67–68); crisis intervention (CD 106–08, 112–113); use of force (CD 166– 68); transportation of persons in custody (CD 238); First Amendment-protected activities (CD 251); sexual assault investigations (CD 259); supervision and management (CD 303, 308–10); and misconduct investigations (CD 409–15). BPD must also enhance its Field Training Officer Program for new Academy graduates. (CD 301–02). Even in areas where the Consent Decree does not set forth detailed requirements for training, the full implementation of new policies or procedures requires similarly rigorous, high-quality training to translate paper into practice.
This report elsewhere details the important progress that BPD has made in training on specific subjects during the reporting period, including training on use of force; stops, searches and arrests; impartial policing; behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention; investigation of reports of sexual assault; and body-worn camera use. This section briefly addresses BPD’s progress toward improving and enhancing its general training function. Overall, the Monitoring Team remains encouraged by BPD’s adoption of a new training paradigm and by its investment in the resources necessary to provide high-quality adult education to its officers.
Areas of Progress
Use of Force and Stop, Searches, and Arrests Training
In November 2019, BPD certified that nearly all eligible officers successfully completed the Consent Decree-required, Court-approved training on BPD’s new use of force policies. That integrated, scenario-based training also focused on foundational concepts related to fair and impartial policing. The completion of this training, known as “UOF/FIP I,” marks a significant milestone. It not only means that BPD can now fully implement and hold officers accountable to the new use of force policies, but also that BPD has demonstrated its ability to conduct training in a new, dynamic way. As the Monitoring Team has explained in prior reports, BPD previously relied on static, lecture- and PowerPoint-based classroom instruction conducted once per year in a single, lengthy, all topics course. The use of force training signals successful progress toward the adoption of a new approach, in which training incorporates real-world
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scenarios, opportunities for officers to practice their skills, and adult learning techniques.
BPD also made progress toward providing training on its new policies on stops, searches, and arrests. Drafting curriculum that incorporates the required, new approaches to training—using scenarios and focusing on skill-building rather than rote policy recitation—has taken longer than originally anticipated. However, after a number of pilot trainings, intensive collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, and feedback from community members, the curriculum will soon be ready for roll out. Department-wide training on stops, searches, and arrests begins shortly.
Changes to Training Structure and Approach
BPD has adopted important innovations in training structure and methods during the development and delivery of early Consent Decree training programs. BPD has established a panel of community representatives to provide ongoing feedback and guidance on training initiatives. The panel, called the Community Training Review Committee (“CTRC”), met with BPD to review new training curricula on both use of force and stops, searches and arrests early in the piloting periods. Additionally, as BPD begins to develop training curriculum on core aspects of fair and impartial policing in the coming months, it will begin to utilize community members more directly, both to help devise the curriculum and to participate in the training (CD 94).
BPD’s collaboration with the CTRC, on top of the opportunities it is providing for public feedback on drafts of training curricula, demonstrates a noteworthy commitment to encouraging community participation in the Consent Decree process. There undoubtedly remains room for improvement, but through its actions, BPD at least has begun to acknowledge the importance of giving community members a voice in how they are policed.
Relatedly, BPD continues to innovate its approach to developing and implementing its training initiatives. By using a new, comprehensive, multi-stage pilot process, BPD is providing Academy instructors the opportunity to revise and fine-tune training curricula before they are rolled out Department-wide.
BPD also continues to strengthen its Academy. During this reporting period, BPD hired a civilian curriculum coordinator who is an accomplished academic and police professional with years of experience in developing high-quality, evidencebased education programs for law enforcement agencies. Additionally, the Academy continues to avail itself of programs and resources from other departments, including the Los Angeles Police Department. Recently, several BPD representatives traveled again to Los Angeles for an intensive week of training programming at LAPD’s training academy.
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Training Academy Facilities
Encouragingly, BPD has started relocating its Training Academy from its longtime, deficient facilities to more modern facilities at the University of Baltimore. Despite some indications that the Academy might be moved as early as mid-fall 2019, the transition to the new facilities has only recently begun. It will be completed in early spring. As both the Court and the Monitoring Team have emphasized, new training facilities are imperative: through its Academy—its “front door”—BPD must convey to both recruits and officers that policing is a profession and that the Department takes seriously their development as professionals.
Challenges Ahead
Balancing Training Imperatives
As BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team have turned their attention to developing a Third-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD’s substantial training obligations under the Consent Decree have come sharply into focus. The Monitoring Team previously has noted that training demands will increase as BPD completes revisions to an increasing number of policies. Because work is either underway or will start soon on implementing training programs on a host of new policies, Academy staff will have to balance a number of significant, competing initiatives in the coming year.
Long-Term Resources and Capacity
To date, the Academy has been able to—and indeed has needed to—design and implement one Consent Decree training initiative at a time. Given the substantial amount of training that will be required over the next two years, BPD will have to expand the Academy’s capacity so that multiple in-service trainings can be conducted simultaneously, even as the Academy designs and pilots still other training initiatives. BPD has provided the Academy with additional staff over the past year, but even more personnel are needed to satisfy the Consent Decree’s training requirements. The need for additional full-time instructors and curriculum writers is the most pressing. Just one year ago, there were only three full-time instructors available to develop and conduct in-service training. In the first part of 2019, BPD furnished the Academy ten additional officers to serve as full-time instructors. That infusion of personnel has facilitated the successful implementation of use of force training and the development of BPD’s imminent training on stops, searches, and arrests. However, given the vast number of training requirements that must be satisfied over the two years, BPD must continue to rigorously examine how many additional high quality, full-time instructors the Academy will need—and, critically, must ensure that its historically underperforming Human Resources unit expeditiously hires and onboards needed personnel. The forthcoming Staffing Plan,
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which remains in draft form and was recently out for public comment (see Staffing section below), makes several personnel recommendations for the Academy, including hiring more civilian instructors.
As it considers its long-term staffing needs at the Academy, BPD also must account for its new training paradigm as the “new normal.” BPD has appropriately determined that it will no longer deliver annual in-service training covering a grabbag of topics in a single one- or two-week block of time (though BPD will continue to conduct state-required training on First Aid/CPR, firearms and other topics in one shorter block). If BPD is committed to providing its officers with scenario-based, skillbuilding, problem-solving instruction on different topics at different times throughout the year, it must account for the increased time, resources, and personnel that such a modern, integrated approach requires. Any training that employs role playing, group discussions, videos, scenarios, and assessing and debriefing officer performance will require more personnel.
The Next Six Months
During the next six months, BPD will provide Consent-Decree required training on stops, searches, arrests and related aspects of fair and impartial policing, as well as e-learning on body-worn camera use. Within the reporting period, BPD also will begin training for all officers on behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention, specialized training for both dispatchers/911 call-takers and Crisis Intervention Team officers on behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention, and specialized training for sex crimes investigators on sexual assault investigations. Meanwhile, Academy staff will develop curriculum for training on “advanced” fair and impartial policing topics, which will integrate additional scenario-based instruction on use of force and stops, searches and arrests. Separately, Academy staff will develop training curriculum on responding to reports of sexual assault, peer intervention (ethical policing), and community policing, as well as specialized training on supervision for supervisors. Independent of the Training Academy, the Public Integrity Bureau will provide specialized training on internal investigations to its investigators and the Patrol Division will develop a program for Field Training Officers that will include training curriculum previously approved in 2018. As always, the Monitoring Team and Parties will be working with the Academy and BPD to provide the assistance necessary to ensure rigorous, high-quality officer instruction.
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Misconduct Investigations and Discipline
The new policies BPD is formulating will mean little if BPD does not hold officers accountable for following them. As Paragraph 329 of the Consent Decree explains, “[a] robust and well-functioning accountability system in which officers are held to the highest standards of integrity is critical to BPD’s legitimacy and a priority of the Department.” The need for BPD to repair its internal affairs function, housed in its Public Integrity Bureau (“PIB”) (known until recently as the Office of Professional Responsibility), is thus at the heart of the reform effort. Indeed, BPD’s ability to effectively police itself is essential to re-establishing the community’s trust.
The Misconduct Investigations and Discipline section of the Consent Decree is the longest and most comprehensive, spanning 87 paragraphs and 38 pages. It covers the location, independence, resources and authority of PIB (CD 330-34); the process for receiving complaints, classifying them, and communicating with complainants about them (CD 335-42); requirements for conducting fair, thorough, reliable misconduct investigations and making misconduct determinations (CD 343-58); requirements for handling and referring allegations of criminal misconduct (CD 35971); the lodging of disciplinary charges, the administration of disciplinary hearings, and the imposition of discipline (CD 372-88); the process for community-centered mediation as an alternative to investigation for certain minor allegations of officer misconduct affecting civilians (CD 389-91); record-keeping for misconduct investigations (CD 392-95); measures for ensuring transparency, including issuance of quarterly public reports of aggregate data (CD 396-405); a testing program designed to evaluate the efficacy of the civilian complaint intake process (CD 406-08); and training of OPR investigators and supervisors (CD 409-15). The ultimate goals of the Consent Decree’s provisions implicating PIB are the full, fair, objective, and timely investigation of all potential officer misconduct; the rigorous review of all misconduct investigations; and an impartial, transparent, uniform process for the imposition of discipline and corrective action where appropriate.
In this reporting period, the structural reform of PIB and its internal affairs function continued apace. BPD hired a well-qualified Deputy Commissioner, former FBI leader Brian Nadeau, to head PIB. It completed an investigations manual for PIB, which provides detailed guidance to PIB investigators on conducting timely, comprehensive investigations of alleged officer misconduct; made headway on revising PIB’s intake and classification manual, which sets forth policies and procedures for receiving, processing and classifying complaints of misconduct and communicating with complainants; finalized and implemented a new policy allowing for early resolution of allegations of minor misconduct; will soon begin piloting a new Unified Complaint Form for civilian complaints of officer misconduct; finalized a policy governing the disclosure of exculpatory evidence in criminal cases; and authorized an independent investigation of the root causes of the Gun Trace Task Force scandal, which will include a critical evaluation of PIB’s historic shortcomings.
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Based on these measures, BPD is making reasonable progress toward implementing the foundational requirements of the Consent Decree in the area of misconduct investigations and discipline. Yet BPD remains a long way from satisfying the longrange requirements and achieving compliance.
Areas of Progress
Leadership
After more than a year without stable, permanent leadership, PIB now has a new, well-qualified leader. In this reporting period, Commissioner Harrison hired Brian Nadeau to head PIB. Demonstrating the importance of revitalizing PIB to fostering a new culture of accountability within BPD, Commissioner Harrison made Mr. Nadeau a Deputy Commissioner, only one of four in the Department. Deputy Commissioner Nadeau is an experienced leader in law enforcement. After working ten years as a police officer in Maine, he joined the FBI, where he investigated organized crime cases in New York, proceeded to become the head of the FBI’s public corruption unit at FBI headquarters, and most recently served as Assistant Special Agent in Charge of FBI’s field office in Baltimore.
PIB Investigations Manual
After months of intensive collaboration among BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ, and two rounds of public comment from community members (including the Civilian Review Board), BPD finalized its investigations manual for PIB, which the Monitoring Team approved in November 2019. See ECF No. 263. The completion of the investigations manual was a milestone achievement. The manual provides a complete guide to internal affairs investigations for PIB investigators, supervisors and commanders. There are potential points of failure at every phase of the internal investigations process. The manual takes special care to guide PIB personnel through each phase and, as a result, establishes a comprehensive investigations procedure that, if followed, will yield thorough, fair and timely investigations that produce appropriate disciplinary recommendations. In the view of the Monitoring Team’s subject matter experts, the manual is among the most thorough internal affairs investigations manuals they have seen.
PIB Intake and Classification Manual
Since the completion of the investigations manual, the parties and the Monitoring Team have invested significant time and effort developing the companion manual addressing complaint intake and classification. This manual will establish clear guidance on the proper receipt, processing and classification of internal affairs complaints. The manual thus covers the front of the internal affairs process, vital to
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ensuring that complaints are promptly acted upon, uniformly classified, and handled from the outset with the seriousness they deserve.
BPD issued an initial draft of PIB’s intake and classification manual for public comment in mid-December 2019. The public comment period runs through February 1, 2020. With continued input from the Monitoring Team, DOJ and BPD will address any public feedback in producing a subsequent draft, which it will issue for a final round of public comments between February 11 and 28. BPD will then finalize the manual, which the Monitoring Team will approve or disapprove by March 18.
Providing for the Expedited Resolution of Minor Misconduct Allegations
Toward the end of the last reporting period, BPD initiated the process of developing a policy for the negotiated resolution of allegations of minor officer misconduct through the prompt admission of responsibility. A pilot program policy, Policy 321, was finalized in this reporting period and approved by the Monitoring Team in September 2019. The Second-Year Monitoring Plan did not initially require the adoption of Policy 321, but based on his prior experience, Commissioner Harrison, shortly after joining BPD, felt the policy was needed to improve the operational efficiency of BPD’s internal affairs investigation function. See ECF No. 216.
Policy 321 excludes all misconduct allegations involving officer interactions with members of the public and applies only to “minor” complaints of misconduct (e.g., reporting late to roll call, failure to appear in court or for a medical appointment, and loss of BPD property other than a firearm). The policy permits District commanders, rather than PIB investigators, to handle such complaints and allows officers to resolve those complaints quickly at the District level through negotiated settlements that achieve swift case closure. One objective of the policy is to reduce PIB misconduct investigation workloads so that PIB investigators will have more time to focus on more serious complaints, including complaints arising from officer encounters with civilians. The policy does not remove PIB from the process altogether. PIB will continue to receive and classify complaints at the front end of the process, and obtain reports and retain records of negotiated resolutions at the back end, in order to ensure consistency in the application of the policy.
By allowing District commanders to handle policy violations that generally call for supervisory correction and thus freeing up PIB investigators to focus on more serious complaints, the goal of Policy 321 is to have all complaints, minor and serious alike, resolved more quickly. More expeditious resolution should ensure that officers who engage in misconduct are more promptly held accountable for it, that community members with bona fide complaints receive swifter justice, and that officers who are subjects of complaints that can be promptly resolved as unfounded, unsustained or sustained through negotiated resolution are not left in limbo and kept ineligible for transfer or promotion for unreasonable periods of time, as has been the case in recent
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years due to PIB backlogs. The intended benefits of Policy 321 are described in greater detail in the Monitoring Team’s last semiannual report. See ECF No. 220-1 at 41-43. BPD has not yet begun to formally assess whether the policy is achieving these benefits.
Exculpatory Evidence Disclosure Policy
BPD finalized Policy 1809 (Exculpatory Evidence Disclosure Requirements), which the Monitoring Team approved in September 2019. See ECF No. 246. The policy is intended to ensure that all BPD members comply with their obligation under federal and Maryland law to disclose potential exculpatory and impeachment evidence in criminal cases. The policy requires BPD members to identify and disclose to the prosecution, as soon as possible following the initiation of criminal charges in state or federal court, evidence that is favorable to a criminal defendant because it may disprove the guilt of the defendant, may cast doubt on the credibility of a witness for the government, or may show the defendant should receive less severe punishment.
When Policy 1809 is fully implemented, BPD will take an important step forward in recognizing the importance of ensuring fairness in the criminal justice system, joining a small but growing number of law enforcement agencies that have written requirements concerning the disclosure of exculpatory evidence. These are requirements that not only respect the constitutional and statutory rights of the accused, but also promote public safety by seeking to ensure the integrity of criminal prosecutions, which can be compromised and even dismissed if tainted by the nondisclosure of exculpatory evidence.
PIB/CRB Information Sharing Protocol
BPD and CRB finalized their first-ever information-sharing guide—an intake and classification protocol—in March 2019. Under the protocol, CRB is furnished prompt, consistent, electronic access to PIB data through IAPro, BPD’s records system for misconduct investigations and discipline. To facilitate the new relationship between PIB and CRB, BPD has assigned a CRB liaison and the CRB Administrator and PIB Major have begun to meet regularly. Although the Monitoring Team has not yet assessed the quality and effectiveness of the new relationship between PIB and CRB, the Monitoring Team is preliminarily encouraged that the relationship has gotten off the ground.
Independent Investigation of the Root Causes of GTTF Scandal
Over the past year, the Monitoring Team and the Court itself have emphasized the importance of BPD’s hiring an outside, independent team of investigators to conduct a post mortem of the Gun Trace Task Force scandal that examines its scope,
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its causes, and how it evolved, with a focus on why it happened. What was it about BPD’s culture that allowed the scandal to unfold without any internal repercussions for the officers involved—lax and indifferent supervision, improper training, an inadequate internal affairs function, other contributing causes?
Recently, BPD hired Michael Bromwich and his firm to conduct the investigation the Monitoring Team and the Court have sought. Mr. Bromwich has a credentialed history of doing such work. The former Inspector General of the Department of Justice, he served as monitor of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. when MPD underwent DOJ-monitored reforms similar to the reforms BPD is now undertaking, and he has conducted several high-profile investigations involving misconduct by law enforcement officers. Mr. Bromwich’s independent investigation is now underway. A timeline for completing the investigation has not yet been established, as Mr. Bromwich’s team is still determining what needs to be done to conduct a thorough probe that generates sound recommendations for remedial action that will ensure BPD does not countenance similar misconduct again.
Challenges Ahead
Staffing
As the draft Staffing Plan concludes, PIB remains extraordinarily short on qualified personnel. According to the draft Plan, BPD needs to assign an additional 46 investigators to PIB to eliminate the backlog of cases and to ensure timely, comprehensive investigations in the future. It goes without saying that adding 46 officers will require a substantial, difficult reallocation of existing resources, a serious infusion of new resources, or both. The need for so many additional investigators underscores BPD’s historical lack of commitment to officer accountability. It also highlights the risk of burnout for experienced investigators, who PIB is currently relying on to assume heavier workloads.
One unacceptable consequence of PIB’s understaffing is that PIB investigations are too often left open too long. In its last report, the Monitoring Team explained at length the myriad problems caused by delays in resolving PIB cases, including the absence of swift accountability, delayed justice (sometimes no justice) for complainants, and depleted officer morale. See ECF No. 220-1 at 41-43. The new policy on negotiated resolution of minor misconduct allegations, Policy 321, is part of the solution. But the problems will not be cured until BPD assigns to PIB and properly trains more qualified investigators.
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Training
Current investigators require effective, particularized training on internal investigations—training many of them have never received. BPD is presently working with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to develop such training, which is scheduled to be finalized by mid-July 2020 and delivered to all PIB investigators between mid-July and the end of August.
Technology
BPD must complete its upgrade of IAPro, which has been a long-time coming and is needed to ensure more reliable, more uniform data collection on investigations and discipline. In addition, BPD must begin to start thinking actively about devising an Early Intervention System (“EIS”), which will permit supervisors to identify and intervene to correct the behavior of officers who begin to display a tendency for violating policy. As discussed in greater detail in the Technology section of this report, BPD is still at least two years away from implementing a fully functional, modern EIS. But because the EIS will depend upon source data from other systems that are being upgraded or overhauled (e.g., IAPro and the Records Management System), BPD must begin to establish the data requirements for the EIS now, as it embarks on implementation of the Technology Resource Plan issued last year.
BPD also must develop a plan for collecting the data needed to complete the statistical reports and internal PIB audits required by paragraphs 402 and 405 of the Consent Decree.
Quality of Investigations
During the reporting period, the Monitoring Team conducted a comprehensive assessment of a statistically significant, random sample of Public Integrity Bureau investigations of officer misconduct from 2018. Eight Monitoring Team experts used a structured, electronic qualitative evaluation instrument to review nearly 250 investigations. The assessment instrument, which BPD and DOJ approved, required reviewers to make core determinations about whether specific requirements of the Consent Decree were or were not followed in a given investigation.
The purpose of the assessment was to establish a baseline against which to measure the quality of internal investigations of officer misconduct in the future. In many ways, the parties and Monitoring Team knew that the results were likely to reveal deficiencies. That is because, in 2018, BPD was just beginning work on revising policies and procedures for conducting internal investigations. In other words, the Monitoring Team has been evaluating BPD’s performance against Consent Decree obligations to which BPD knew it was not yet adhering.
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A full report of the Monitoring Team’s findings is forthcoming.
***
The appointment of Deputy Commissioner Nadeau inspires confidence that BPD is poised to tackle these challenges, which at long last have moved to the “front burner.” But the magnitude of the work that continues to be required to reverse BPD’s record of dysfunction in the area of officer accountability cannot be overstated.
The Next Six Months
In the next six months, as indicated, BPD will finalize an intake manual for PIB and develop comprehensive training for PIB investigators, and Michael Bromwich and his team will proceed with their independent investigation of the root causes of the GTTF scandal. In addition, BPD will begin to develop revised disciplinary policies to complement PIB’s manuals on intake, classification, and investigations. These are the policies that will be used to guide the disciplinary process when PIB sustains allegations of misconduct and makes recommendations for discipline. BPD also plans to develop training curriculum on ethical policing and peer intervention, called Ethical Policing is Courageous or “EPIC.” EPIC trains officers on how to effectively intervene to prevent or address misconduct by their fellow officers.
In the next reporting period, under paragraph 402 of the Consent Decree, both BPD and CRB will submit their initial quarterly reports, which will contain aggregate data on the receipt, processing, investigation, and resolution of misconduct complaints and the outcomes of any disciplinary charges, as well as aggregate data on officers with persistent misconduct issues.
Finally, together with DOJ, the Monitoring Team will continue to receive routine updates regarding a discrete set of ongoing, PIB cases. The objective of evaluating these individual cases is to offer, if warranted, “trouble shooting” technical assistance aimed at remediating any systemic deficiencies in the performance of misconduct investigations or the resolution of disciplinary matters that such cases might reveal.
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Technology
Paragraph 267 of the Consent Decree requires BPD to “provide its officers with the Technology necessary to implement the Material Requirements of this Agreement . . ..” Paragraphs 268-278 then set forth the Consent Decree’s technology requirements.
BPD and the City previously completed and submitted a Resource Study (CD 268, 270), which identified current BPD systems, described the current state of those systems, and made preliminary recommendations for improvements. Following completion of the Resource Study, BPD and the City prepared and published a Resource Plan (CD 269-70, 272), which the Monitoring Team approved on December 1, 2018. See ECF No. 164. The Resource Plan, which must be updated annually (CD 275), addressed how BPD will: provide the necessary computer equipment and access required for personnel to discharge their duties; acquire a centralized records management system; and ultimately develop an Early Intervention System (“EIS”). BPD is required to use its best efforts to implement the Resource Plan (CD 274).
The Technology provisions of the Consent Decree also require BPD to disclose to the public the acquisition of certain new equipment or activity to be used in enforcement activities (CD 278). Further, data collection and data analysis are required in nearly every area of the Consent Decree, not only to enable the Monitoring Team to assess compliance, but to enable BPD leadership to better manage the Department. BPD must review and analyze data in a number of subject areas, including investigatory stops and detentions (CD 41), vehicle stops (CD 46), stops, searches and arrests (CD 82-86), use of force (CD 211-217), transport of persons in custody (CD 232), and misconduct investigations (CD 392), among others.
Without technology improvements, BPD will not be able to achieve compliance with the Consent Decree. As the Consent Decree states, compliance is truly “dependent upon BPD acquiring or developing the appropriate technology.” (CD 267).
Despite a months-long lull following the completion of the Resource Plan, BPD is again making reasonable progress toward satisfying the Technology requirements of the Consent Decree. With the recent hiring of a new Chief Technology Officer, BPD has begun fortifying its IT governance structure. After repeatedly asserting it would upgrade IAPro—its system for tracking internal investigations, discipline, and use of force incidents—it is finally nearing completion of the process. And it is now beginning to act on plans to acquire a new Records Management System (“RMS”), which is indispensable to achieving substantial and effective compliance in nearly every area of the Consent Decree.
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Areas of Progress
IT Staffing
BPD has taken steps to put in place the staffing necessary to begin the implementation of the Technology Resource Plan. BPD recently hired a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to lead the Information Technology Section (ITS) and oversee the implementation of the Resource Plan. The CTO/ITS reports directly to the Deputy Commissioner for Compliance. Though only on board for several months, the CTO immediately implemented measures to improve IT governance and program management.
BPD also recently hired two Project Managers, one Business Analyst, two Developers, and one Enterprise Architect. It is currently working to hire a Fiscal Analyst and a Systems Integration Specialist. Thus, after some delay, BPD is now earnestly revamping ITS to ensure it has the personnel needed to implement the Resource Plan.
IT Governance
As previously reported, proper IT governance will be critical to the successful implementation of the Resource Plan. Failures in large technology initiatives are often due not to failures in the technology, but rather to deficiencies in the planning and management of technology implementation. Proper IT governance should enable sound IT decision-making, prevent the creation of information silos, advocate for needed funding, develop appropriate IT policies, provide for ongoing training and education, and work to understand the needs and requirements of system users.
As noted above, efforts to establish proper IT governance within BPD were stalled for several months. Fortunately, the recently hired CTO, who has a background in IT governance and management, promptly assessed ITS operations, identified the unit’s shortcomings and needs, and started to implement foundational structures and processes that have long been absent. Once these structures and processes are in place, BPD must adhere to them if it is to successfully deploy and sustain the IT reforms envisioned by the Consent Decree.
Records Management System
The Resource Study and Resource Plan both pointed to a number of deficiencies in BPD’s existing Records Management System (RMS) and, correspondingly, in BPD’s capture and use of data. Following publication of the Resource Plan, BPD spent several months documenting requirements for a modern RMS. On September 30, 2019, BPD released a Request for Information (RFI) for a new RMS.
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BPD recently began reviewing vendor submissions in response to the RFI. It will be participating in vendor demonstrations through March 2020. BPD expects to make a vendor selection in April 2020. While obviously a positive development, the receipt of proposals is only the first of many steps required to implement a new RMS, which typically takes 18 to 24 months. To keep pace, BPD must move through RMS procurement as quickly as possible, while preserving the integrity of the process and adhering to the requirements set forth in the RFI.
IAPro
IAPro is the system BPD uses to track both use of force incidents/investigations and misconduct investigations/discipline. After saying for the better part of a year that it would have its vendor convert its existing, outdated IAPro database from Oracle to Microsoft SQL so that the database could fully capture the information required by the Consent Decree, BPD finally had the vendor undertake the upgrade in this reporting period. The process has taken several months thus far and is not quite finished. When the upgrade is completed, BPD should be able to fully utilize the most recent, non-customized version of IA Pro, with all available reporting capabilities.
The Monitoring Team has recommended that BPD document and walk through its user requirements with IAPro instructors so that the instructors can advise BPD about how to best configure and utilize the system to meet those requirements. To the Monitoring Team’s knowledge, BPD has not yet done so.
Policy regarding Public Disclosure of Technology Acquisitions
BPD is required to publicly disclose the acquisition of certain new equipment or technology to be used in enforcement activities (CD 278). During the reporting period, in furtherance of this requirement, BPD finalized Policy 606, which establishes the procedure for such disclosure. The Monitoring Team and DOJ consulted with BPD as it drafted and refined the policy, and the public was given an opportunity to provide feedback. The Monitoring Team approved the policy in September 2019. See ECF No. 239. The policy is among the many measures BPD is adopting under the Consent Decree to enhance the transparency of its operations. The policy will not take effect until the relevant personnel have been trained on it.
Body-Worn Camera Policy Revisions and E-Learning
BPD recently acquired new body-worn camera technology. It has drafted revisions to its BWC policy to reflect the changes and prepared a Department-wide elearning to train officers on use of the new BWCs. The first public comment period on the revised policy and e-learning just ended. BPD will consider and address the feedback it has received, issue revised drafts for another round of comments, and then
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finalize both. The Monitoring Team is due to approve or disapprove the policy revisions and e-learning by mid-February 2020, and the e-learning is scheduled to delivered to all officers and completed by March 13, 2020.
Challenges Ahead
While BPD has taken initial steps to address its technology deficits, it still has a long way to go to fully realize a modern and sustainable IT environment. As the Monitoring Team indicated to the Court and the parties more than one year ago, BPD must plan for and sustain its IT infrastructure needs to integrate data silos, eliminate duplicative data entry, improve data quality, and collect and maintain data thoroughly. Otherwise, BPD will fail to achieve compliance with the Consent Decree—and not only with its Technology requirements, but with the numerous other requirements that depend upon BPD’s ability to capture, maintain, synthesize and analyze comprehensive electronic data regarding its law enforcement activities.
The Technology Resource Plan identifies specific IT system needs (e.g., RMS, Early Intervention System, staffing systems) and addresses foundational business and management needs, including the need for proper IT governance, organizational change management, and IT staffing and resources. Although BPD has begun to hire the staff identified in the Resource Plan and is in the process of procuring a new RMS, it has not meaningfully started implementing most of the other recommendations in the Resource Plan.
Further, as BPD embarks on implementing the Resource Plan’s recommendations, it must be vigilant about ensuring three things for each and every constituent IT initiative. First, each initiative must be accompanied by clear, consistent policy and training. Second, to ensure proper accountability and maximum effectiveness of each IT initiative, BPD must consider how that initiative, as well as the data it generates and retains, will be audited, reviewed or evaluated for a solution. Third, BPD must keep its eye on the long-range development of an Early Intervention System. EIS implementation will come toward the back end of BPD’s modernization timeline because BPD must first capture quality data in each source system. Accordingly, the data requirements for BPD’s EIS must be integrated into each IT solution implemented under the Resource Plan. What that means is that BPD must determine which data it needs for its EIS as it configures the data requirements for RMS, IAPro, Workforce Management, and any other system that will contain data upon which the EIS will rely.
The Next Six Months
Within the next two months, as noted, BPD will train officers on and fully implement updated BWC technology. In addition, as discussed in the Stops, Searches and Arrests section of this report, BPD will begin to make greater use of the Maryland
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In the next reporting period, BPD plans to continue moving forward with implementation of the Resource Plan. Areas of focus will include:
• Completing RMS procurement and starting RMS implementation • Completing the IAPro upgrade • Implementing a Learning Management System • Implementing a Workforce Management System
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Staffing, Performance Evaluations and Promotions
The Consent Decree requires BPD to complete a comprehensive Staffing Study to determine the appropriate number of sworn and civilian personnel needed to effectively provide police services, enable supervision, and satisfy the requirements of the Consent Decree (CD 428). The Consent Decree further requires that, based on the Staffing Study, BPD must develop a Staffing Plan that will ensure a sufficient number of deployed personnel to, among other things: implement and sustain effective community and problem-oriented policing; conduct timely misconduct investigations; supply sufficient patrol officers to each District without resorting to drafting (i.e., forced overtime), except in unforeseeable circumstances; promote unity of command when feasible; provide a sufficient number of supervisors; and account for BPD’s and the City’s existing and projected resources (CD 429). BPD must implement the Staffing Plan, but may do so in a phased manner that reflects the City’s and BPD’s fiscal resources (CD 430).
As for performance evaluations and promotions, the Consent Decree obligates BPD to have supervisors meet with officers to discuss their annual performance reviews, which must include written discussions of the officers’ performance during the rating period, any areas for growth and achievement, and any areas requiring further training and supervision (CD 431). Direct supervisors must use a formalized system to document annual performance evaluations for each officer and quarterly evaluations of probationary employees (CD 432). In addition to these formal evaluations, supervisors must meet with their subordinates on an ongoing basis to discuss performance and must document their communications regarding performance challenges and areas for growth (CD 433). The Consent Decree further requires BPD to conduct performance evaluations of each supervisor (from first line supervisor through commander), which will include assessments of ability and effectiveness in conducting performance reviews, including monitoring, deterring and addressing misconduct by officers they supervise (CD 434). Finally, BPD must ensure its promotional system has clear criteria prioritizing effective, constitutional, and community-oriented policing as factors for promotion (CD 435).
BPD is making reasonable progress on the foundational requirements in these areas. In December 2018, BPD produced a Staffing Study compliant with Paragraph 428 and is in the final phases of completing a Staffing Plan under Paragraph 429— though the Staffing Plan has encountered several delays. BPD also has begun to conceptualize a new promotions regime under Paragraph 435, including a formal application and committee review process that would represent a significant, positive break from past practice. BPD has not yet begun work on other Consent Decree requirements for staffing, performance evaluations and promotions.
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Areas of Progress
BPD has not met several deadlines for the Staffing Plan. In fact, the deadline for the initial draft has had to be extended three times. The first extension was required because, when the first draft was initially due, BPD still lacked a permanent Commissioner. A long-term Staffing Plan cannot be properly developed in the absence of clear direction from permanent leadership. The Court granted the second extension in May 2019 for a related reason: although a permanent Commissioner, Commissioner Harrison, was finally in place, he needed time to understand the Department’s personnel needs and develop his own vision for meeting them, and also needed time to work with the consultant BPD hired to assist with the Staffing Plan (Alexander Weiss Consulting). A third extension was taken to ensure that, prior to issuing the Staffing Plan for public comment, BPD had sufficient time to refine it, particularly in response to comments from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, which received several iterations of the draft in the fall of 2019. The Staffing Plan was finally posted for public comment on December 13, 2019. The comment period recently ended. BPD is presently considering the community’s feedback, will then issue a revised draft for another round of comments, will consider those comments, and then will submit a final version for approval. The final version is set to be approved or disapproved by the Monitoring Team by the end of February 2020.
The Monitoring Team expects the Staffing Plan to provide detailed recommendations and options for how BPD should address the staffing demands necessitated by BPD’s obligation to ensure the safety of Baltimore residents. The present draft of the Staffing Plan makes the following key findings and recommendations:
• BPD needs 805 police officers, 115 sergeants and 27 lieutenants assigned to the Patrol Division in order to satisfy BPD’s call-for-service demands and still reserve 40% of officers’ time on activities other than responding to calls-forservice, community policing in particular.
• The time to dispatch an officer to a call for service is unusually long in Baltimore, likely because of inadequate dispatch policies and procedures and an inefficient patrol deployment scheme.
• Sergeants have limited contact and time with the officers they supervise because of the existing patrol work schedule. This prevents unity of command and precludes effective supervision. The consultants recommend that sergeants be assigned the same day-off group as their subordinates and an additional 27 sergeants be assigned to patrol.
• Certain specialized units should be consolidated, while others should have fewer sworn personnel or should be eliminated, and certain administrative
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functions should be performed by civilians, freeing up sworn personnel for other assignments. • The Public Integrity Bureau needs an additional 46 investigators to address the current backlog in complaint investigations and to meet the requirements of the Consent Decree. • BPD continues to lose officers through retirement and other forms of separation faster than it is adding new officers. Increasing the size of recruit classes, increasing the number of recruit classes, and reducing the Academy attrition rate would increase the number of sworn officers. So, too, would reducing the officer attrition rate, which BPD must figure out how to address. Challenges Ahead It is expected that a good deal of political will be required to fully implement the Staffing Plan. Functions and units may have to be cut back, eliminated or relocated. Personnel may need to be reassigned. Civilians may replace sworn personnel in certain assignments. Recruitment and hiring efforts must be sustainably improved, and attrition must be reduced. Additional fiscal resources may be required to satisfy the Plan’s recommendations. It has taken a good while to complete the Staffing Plan. But drafting the Plan is the easy part. Implementing the Plan is where the hard work lies. The Next Six Months Between now and the end of February 2020, BPD will finalize the Staffing Plan. From that point forward, it will begin to implement the Plan. Additionally, over the next six months, BPD will begin draft a revised set of the performance evaluation policies contemplated by paragraphs 431 – 435 of the Consent Decree. Those policies will not be finalized until late in 2020.
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Stops, Searches, Arrests and Voluntary Police-Community Interactions
In recognition of the importance of the Consent Decree’s requirements on stops, searches, arrests and voluntary police-community interactions (“SSA”), the Consent Decree’s provisions addressing those interactions are extensive. They compel BPD to revise its policies and training curricula; provide thorough prescriptions for communicating with individuals, performing field interviews, and conducting stops, pat downs, searches and arrests; and establish detailed training, documentation, supervisory, and data collection and review obligations (CD 29-86).
In this reporting period, BPD’s work in the SSA area has focused on developing e-learning and classroom training, developing policies concerning misdemeanor “quality of life” offenses, and revising certain previously approved SSA policies to reflect both minor changes in the law and the philosophical orientation of BPD’s new leadership.
BPD is making reasonable progress toward satisfying the Consent Decree’s requirements on SSA policies and training. There have been some delays, but BPD is presently on schedule to complete both policy revisions and training in the next reporting period.
BPD still has a long way to go before the Monitoring Team can conclude that BPD is making any progress toward the Consent Decree’s overarching SSA requirements. The principal stumbling block continues to be BPD’s well-known deficiencies in technology and data collection, which prevent the Monitoring Team (and BPD itself) from even commencing, much less completing, a meaningful evaluation of the quality of the Department’s stops, searches and arrests.
Areas of Progress
Policies
BPD is working closely with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to revise SSA policies that address low-level offenses, including “quality of life” offenses. BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have communicated a number of times by phone and email to refine drafts of the policies and will complete these revisions during the next reporting period. The policies include: Civil and Criminal Citation Procedures (Policy 808), Marijuana-- Uniform Civil Citation (Policy 809), Misdemeanor Shoplifting Arrest Procedures (Policy 812), and Quality of Life Offenses—Core Legal Elements (Policy 1018) (collectively, “SSA Policy Set III”). This is the third set of SSA policies revised under the Consent Decree. The two previous sets already have been approved by the Monitoring Team and will be the subject of the Department-wide SSA training that begins shortly (see below).
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Because SSA Policy Set III is integral to advancing the Consent Decree’s objective of community-oriented policing, which will be reflected in BPD’s Community Policing Plan, the deadline for issuing drafts of these policies for public comment was extended to accommodate the extension of the deadline for publication of the initial draft of the Community Policing Plan. The public comment period on the draft policies, revisions to the drafts in response to public comments, and issuance of the finalized policies will occur in the next reporting period.
The parties and Monitoring Team will ensure that SSA Policy Set III properly prioritizes enforcement actions that preserve public safety while simultaneously promoting fair, non-arbitrary police practices that foster the community’s trust. Although SSA Policy Set III will not be finalized prior to the commencement of SSA training, the principles that will be reflected in SSA Policy Set III are reinforced throughout the SSA training curriculum, particularly in the lesson plan on “least intrusive response.” That lesson plan teaches officers to exercise their discretion to take the least intrusive law enforcement action consistent with preserving public safety when confronted with an individual who may be committing a quality of life offense, such as loitering, open container, trespassing, failure to obey, disorderly conduct, and marijuana possession.
Training
The central component of BPD’s SSA work in this reporting period has been the development of robust training initiatives, both e-learning and in-class, on the first two sets of BPD’s revised SSA policies. These policy sets include BPD’s core policies on voluntary contacts, field interviews, stops, arrests, interviews/ interrogations, weapons pat-downs, and searches, as well as policies on foot pursuits, least intrusive response, custody, transport, and booking. Because these particular policies must guide BPD officers in their everyday interactions with civilians, and because DOJ’s investigation found that BPD officers were routinely failing to carry out stops, searches and arrests in a constitutional manner, BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ understand that it is absolutely critical for BPD to get this training right. Part of getting it right includes integrating instruction on previously approved policies on fair and impartial policing (“FIP”), including Policy 317 (Fair and Impartial Policing) and Policy 720 (Interactions with LGBTQ Individuals). With input from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, the approach BPD has taken to integrating the FIP polices with the SSA policies is similar to the approach BPD took to integrate FIP policies into the successfully concluded training on use of force.
BPD drafted and finalized an effective, six module e-learning curriculum relatively quickly. Officers must complete the e-learning and pass tests for each module before becoming eligible for in-class instruction. The e-learning curriculum benefited from input from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, as well as feedback from certain community members.
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While BPD developed the SSA/FIP II e-learning rather seamlessly, it has had some difficulty developing an in-class SSA/FIP II curriculum that effectively incorporates adult learning concepts. That was not unexpected. The number of policies covered is voluminous, and it is challenging to develop state-of-the-art classroom training in this area, as it requires officers to demonstrate not only knowledge of SSA and FIP policies, but also tactical facility following and adhering to them. PowerPoint-based lectures that present the policies one-by-one and overload officers with policy minutiae—BPD’s traditional approach—will not connect and are bound to fail. Scenario-based training, preferably with scenarios that implicate multiple policies at once (because that is what happens in real life), is required. Because of the challenges inherent in developing this kind of training, and because of BPD’s historical reliance on lecture-based training, BPD went through several iterations of the SSA/FIP II curriculum before getting it right. BPD moved gradually from passive, lecture-based content in early drafts to more active, scenario-based content in the draft that BPD ultimately issued for public comment in late November 2019. The result was a draft curriculum that brought the new SSA and FIP policies to life through interactive activities, scenarios and role plays that layered in the requirements of multiple policies at once (e.g., a scenario involving an investigative stop for a misdemeanor offense, which implicated Policy 1112’s provisions on stops, Policy 1106’s provisions on least intrusive charging, and Policy 317’s provisions on fair and impartial policing).
The draft issued for public comment in late November 2019 was separately piloted for the Community Training Review Committee and a group of officers in December. Following those initial pilots, and after receiving public feedback during the comment period, BPD refined the curriculum further, piloted it again twice with groups of officers, and then issued a refined draft for a final round of public comments. In the meantime, officers began completing the SSA/FIP II e-learning, which, as mentioned above, is a prerequisite to the in-class training. The in-class training goes live Department-wide in the coming weeks.
Challenges Ahead
SSA Data Collection and Reporting
As explained in prior reports, deficient technology and heavy reliance on manual, paper-based reporting has prevented BPD from producing meaningful quarterly evaluations of the Department’s stops, searches and arrests, as required by paragraph 86 of the Consent Decree. At the same time, BPD’s deficiencies in reporting and data collection have prevented the Monitoring Team from conducting compliance reviews and outcome assessments regarding BPD’s SSA practices.
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At the suggestion of the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD requested that the Court approve amendments to the Second-Year Monitoring Plan that relieved BPD of its obligation to produce quarterly SSA reports. The Court granted the request. Until BPD implements an updated, comprehensive records management system capable of facilitating meaningful SSA reporting, BPD will be required to routinely update the Monitoring Team and DOJ on its efforts to develop that system.
BPD recently made one technological advancement in SSA reporting: it began to more fully utilize Maryland State Police's traffic citation software, E-tix, and continues explore ways to use more of its functionality. E-tix allows officers to scan the license of a stopped driver during a traffic stop, electronically enter traffic violation information, and print a paper copy of the report (whether a warning or a citation) for the driver. The information is stored in MSP's system and provided periodically to BPD, which is working toward integrating the information into its own records management system. In this reporting period:
• The Monitoring Team and DOJ agreed that BPD officers who make traffic stops no longer need to prepare a citizen contact receipt for the driver in addition to entering information into E-tix and providing the driver a paper copy of the E-tix report. BPD reports that eliminating the requirement to prepare citizen contact receipts will save officers time in the field and reduce the number of contact receipts that BPD’s data entry personnel need to enter manually into the current (inefficient) record management system. Not every patrol car is currently equipped with E-tix capacity—in fact, a majority of patrol cars still are not—but this change in practice should be beneficial for officers with patrol cars that do have such capacity.
• The Monitoring Team and DOJ have agreed that, for BPD’s use, BPD can have MSP add three new fields to E-tix’s traffic data module: “Ordered to Exit Vehicle,” “Vehicle Search Conducted,” and “Weapon Drawn on Approach.” Data from these fields potentially could be used in Consent Decree reporting.
• BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have conferred about BPD’s request to begin utilizing the “field interview” field in E-tix so that BPD officers can begin using E-tix, rather than paper citizen contact receipts, to document field interviews. The transition to E-tix for recording field interviews could also save time.
• The Monitoring Team and DOJ have asked BPD to explore with the MSP the possibility of using E-tix’s “vehicle search module,” which could permit BPD to electronically record, for the first time, whether or not a vehicle search results in the seizure of a firearm or contraband and, if so, what was recovered. These are data that the Consent Decree requires both BPD and the Monitoring Team to track.
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Training BPD’s history of stopping, searching and arresting people without legal justification and based on race explains, in large part, why BPD’s relationship with the community is fractured—and why the Consent Decree is in place. Effective delivery of SSA/FIP II training is, therefore, critical to the success of the reform process. Over the next few months, BPD must ensure that its officers fully understand and know how to apply BPD’s revised SSA policies. That could be a tall order: as much as any of the reform measures implemented thus far, these revised policies reflect the culture change that the Consent Decree is intended to achieve, i.e., an emphasis on policing that is both engaged/pro-active and constitutional. At the same time it is delivering the SSA/FIP II training, BPD must develop additional training on fair and impartial policing that focuses on the biases that can affect officers’ interactions with civilians, particularly their decisions regarding stops, searches and arrests. BPD will draft this “FIP III” training curriculum in the next six months. In anticipation of this work, BPD has begun reviewing existing programs regarding non-discriminatory and bias-aware policing, including training used by the Seattle Police Department and training developed for the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice. The Next Six Months In the next reporting period, as noted, BPD will deliver SSA/FIP II training to all officers, draft FIP III training, to be delivered in early 2021, and complete SSA Policy Set III. In addition, BPD will continue to work with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to determine whether, in advance of the development of a new records management system, it can utilize any of the capabilities of E-tix to begin to effectively collect and aggregate at least some of the SSA data that the Consent Decree requires BPD and the Monitoring Team to evaluate.
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Use of Force
The Consent Decree obligates BPD to ensure that its officers resolve incidents without using force when possible, employ de-escalation techniques to minimize the need to use force, avoid unnecessary injury or risk of injury to officers and civilians when force is necessary, stop other officers from using excessive force, report all uses of force, and be held accountable for using unreasonable force (CD 124). To accomplish these objectives, the Consent Decree’s section on Use of Force contains requirements regarding policies on use of force (including weapons-specific policies) (CD 125-65), training on use of force (CD 166-68), reporting, reviewing and investigating use of force incidents (CD 169-210), and collecting, analyzing and reporting data on use of force incidents (CD 211-17).
In the first monitoring year, BPD successfully completed revisions to its use of force policies, which it continues to examine and update as needed to ensure best practices (e.g., it recently adjusted the policies to account for circumstances involving youth). In the first part of the second monitoring year, after completing the revised policies, BPD worked collaboratively with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to develop e-learning and in-class training on the revised policies and, after piloting and adjusting the curriculum several times, initiated the training Department-wide. In this reporting period, BPD completed the training. BPD filed a certification of completion with the Court in November 2019. See ECF No. 260.
Given these developments over the first two years of monitoring, BPD has made substantial progress toward satisfying the Consent Decree’s requirements on use of force policies and training. It has not yet been required to make, and thus has not made, meaningful progress on satisfying the Consent Decree’s longer-term use of force requirements.
Areas of Progress
Training
From June through October 2019, all officers were required to complete elearning (with a minimal acceptable score of 100%) and attend a two day in-class course on the new use of force policies. The e-learning covered the new policies in detail. The in-class training was scenario-based. For several modules, officers viewed videos from actual encounters or reviewed written hypotheticals (or both) and then worked in small groups to answer questions that required them to apply their knowledge of the new policies. Another module utilized a video machine—a “TI Simulator”—that presented officers with simulated real-time events that required reactive responses consistent with both the new policies and tactical training. Officers were critiqued by instructors and their colleagues following their performance. Another module took place in a gym, where officers worked in pairs, using their
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knowledge of policy and tactics to address situations that presented various realworld options involving live subjects that were role-played by instructors. Officers were also critiqued/debriefed following these exercises. All the scenarios—whether in-class, on the simulator, or in the gym—demonstrated the tactical benefits of deescalation and provided hands-on guidance on using only force that is necessary, reasonable and proportional to the threat presented.
By the end of October 2019, as BPD informed the Court, there were still a small number of officers who had not yet completed the training because they had been on military leave, were injured, were on light duty status, or were precluded due to disciplinary action. DOJ and the Monitoring Team have been working with BPD to determine the best way to ensure that all these officers receive training on the revised use of force policies as they return to active duty.
The use of force training, which is the first tranche of Consent Decree training, is proving extremely valuable to the reform process—not only for providing vital instruction on use of force, which is a key area of the Consent Decree, but also for enhancing the capacity of the Training Academy. The use of force training program required BPD to hire more instructors; it introduced BPD to the process of creating a training program that incorporates both e-learning and an intensive, scenario-based in-class curriculum that employs adult learning principles; and it allowed Academy instructors to hone their teaching skills and gain more confidence in the classroom, particularly in addressing difficult, pointed questions from their peers.
Performance Review Board
In this reporting period, BPD began piloting a new Performance Review Board (“PRB”) model. The PRB reviews serious use of force incidents with the objective of improving policies, tactics, training, and supervision where performance deficiencies are observed. In recent years, the PRB has not served its intended purpose. It often has not reviewed events until many months (sometimes a year) after they take place, and PRB members have been inappropriately reluctant to conduct meticulous, meaningful reviews out of concern that their findings could result in disciplinary action against the involved officers. The new model being piloted includes a review panel consisting exclusively of Deputy Commissioners, reviews of events that are much more recent, ideally no more than 30 days old, and an emphasis on the ameliorative purposes of the PRB—i.e., identifying needed improvements in policies, tactics, training and supervision.
The first pilot took place toward the end in early December 2019. The Monitoring Team was very encouraged by the proceedings, which reviewed an officerinvolved shooting that had occurred roughly a month before. The panel members (three Deputy Commissioners) and other attendees were fully engaged, the presentation and discussion prompts were well-structured and thoughtful, and the
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proposed action items that grew out of the discussion were exactly what the PRB is designed for. The Monitoring Team looks forward to seeing how the PRB pilot process continues to progress. Challenges Ahead
BPD must now hold officers accountable to the revised use of force policies on which they have been trained. Department-wide, that will require diligently collecting data and carefully analyzing both use of force incidents and the adequacy of reporting on such incidents. BPD does not have a track record, much less an impressive track record, of self-evaluation on these subjects, and its data collection capabilities remain deficient, as explained elsewhere in this report. BPD thus has a steep hill to climb to satisfy the Consent Decree’s requirements on use of force data collection and analysis.
More than anything, however, holding officers accountable to the new policies will require acceptance, supervision and enforcement by sergeants and lieutenants. The new policies will not take hold until these supervisors diligently review force incidents and force reporting, praise officers for upholding policy, counsel officers whose performance is inadequate, and discipline officers for misconduct. Upper management will need to do their part by making sure that first-line supervisors properly review use of force incidents and reporting and by adjusting policy and training when needed. The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, BPD will continue to conduct Performance Review Board pilots. The objective will be to establish a new PRB policy, which BPD will begin to draft during the next reporting period.
In the next six months, the Monitoring Team plans to commence its first comprehensive review of BPD use of force incidents and reporting, likely focusing on incidents from 2019.
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Transportation of Persons in Custody
Ensuring the safety of individuals in custody is among the most important obligations of any law enforcement agency. The Consent Decree requires BPD to: (1) equip all transport vans with seatbelts, holding straps located along the rear area of each seat that individuals being transported may grip for security during transport, and transport vehicle cameras (TVCs), and also equip all transport cruisers with seatbelts (CD 223-24); (2) inspect transport vehicles monthly and create logs to memorialize the inspections (CD 225); (3) establish and adhere to appropriate procedures for transporting prisoners (including using seatbelts, straps, and TVCs) (CD 226-33), (4) establish and adhere to protocols for documenting and comprehensively auditing prisoner transport events (CD 234-37), and (5) revise policies and training curricula to ensure safe, effective prisoner transport (CD 238).
The Monitoring Team is assessing the Consent Decree’s transport requirements in two phases. The transport equipment phase focuses on whether BPD has installed the required equipment in its transport vehicles and is maintaining the equipment in working order. The transport procedures phase focuses on whether BPD has implemented the transport policies required by the Consent Decree and whether officers are adhering to those policies and using the transport equipment correctly and consistently.
As reported in the first year of monitoring, BPD has installed in its transport vehicles all equipment required by the Consent Decree. All transport vans have been equipped with seatbelts for each seat, holding straps located along the rear area of each seat that individuals may grip for security, and TVCs to allow live monitoring of every transported occupant. In addition, all transport cruisers have been equipped with seatbelts. BPD continues to perform monthly inspections of all transport vehicles and creates logs to memorialize those inspections. The logs, which will be used to verify the continued presence and functionality of all required equipment, are available for inspection by the Monitoring Team and DOJ. In the Monitoring Team’s view, BPD has made substantial progress toward satisfying the transport requirements of the Consent Decree.
BPD is also making reasonable progress toward satisfying the transport procedures requirements of the Consent Decree. It has been working to implement more thorough data collection and audit capabilities. It will also be training officers on transport procedures in the forthcoming training on stops, searches and arrests.
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Areas of Progress
Transport Audits
As explained in the prior semiannual report, BPD’s Inspection Unit began developing and adjusting the tool that will be used to perform the required transport event audits. This work continues. Previously described technological problems that hamper BPD’s ability to gather all the required audit information remain. However, BPD is employing workarounds to complete the audits. In this reporting period, the Inspection Unit was able to complete two quarterly pilot audits of 18 transport events (two per district) apiece. This was the compromise the Monitoring Team, DOJ and BPD agreed upon as BPD sought to understand what each audit will require, including the amount of staff time needed. The Consent Decree requires quarterly audits of 45 events (five per district).
BPD has agreed that, starting in 2020, it will attempt to complete even more than the required number of audits. After performing the 18 event audit pilots during the second half of 2019, BPD believes that it now understands how much time audits should take. BPD’s plan is to conduct monthly audits of at least two events for each of the nine districts and for the Warrant Apprehension Task Force (“WATF”), which will bring the total to 20 audited transport events per month and 60 per quarter—15 more than the Consent Decree requires. BPD decided to include audits of WATF transport events, alongside audits of transport events in each district, because WATF does numerous transports, and none of them would be evaluated if the audits were limited to the districts. This is the right decision: in the last pilot audit, BPD found a number of violations of its transport policies in the WATF transport events that were evaluated. BPD devised an action plan to remediate WATF’s performance. The plan included additional transport training, which WATF members already have undergone. Upcoming audits will determine whether the remediation has been effective.
The benefit of having moved forward with the pilot audits, even without a finalized audit tool and fully updated technology, is that the pilots brought to light the difficulties presented by certain Consent Decree requirements and thus have given BPD an opportunity to address those difficulties promptly.
In addition to performing 18 full transport event audits, the Inspection Unit completed 27 random spot checks of transport events (three per district) during each of the past two quarters, as required by Paragraph 236.d. of the Consent Decree.
Training
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booking. In preparation for the course, officers must complete six modules of elearning, one of which includes BPD policy requirements on transport. Challenges Ahead
In December 2019, the Monitoring Team and DOJ had a follow-up meeting with audit staff and the Deputy Commissioner of Compliance about the progress of the required audits. At the meeting, BPD unveiled a revised audit tool that employs a “weighting” system designed specifically to evaluate transport events for consent decree compliance. The Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ will continue to engage in discussions around developing and finalizing the weighting system so that it accurately captures BPD’s performance during transport events. The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, BPD will continue to work with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to finalize the transport event audit scorecard, assigning the appropriate weight to each evaluation category. BPD also will address issues uncovered in the recent pilot audits, including how to determine if transport officers are constantly checking on subjects’ welfare (potentially by having officers “mark” the TVC when they visually check subjects or by having them audibly record their inquiries into subjects’ welfare on their body worn cameras), and how to handle subjects who constantly unbuckle their seatbelts, which requires officers to stop and re-seatbelt those subjects each time. The audits have revealed many instances where subjects have unbuckled themselves multiple times. One potential remedy under evaluation is the deployment of a device that prohibits a seatbelt from being unbuckled without the use of some kind of key.
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Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in Crisis
The Consent Decree reinforces BPD’s “commit[ment] to responding to individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis in a manner that respects individuals’ civil rights and contributes to their overall health and welfare.” Paragraph 96 envisions that BPD will accomplish this goal by using appropriate crisis response techniques. Such techniques will help prevent situations that could lead to the unreasonable use of force, promote connection of people with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis to the behavioral health system, and decrease the inappropriate involvement of people with behavioral health disabilities in the criminal justice system. Paragraph 96 thus challenges BPD not only to provide effective law enforcement responses to events involving individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, but to participate in the development of an effective community strategy for improving the City’s support system for such individuals.
The Consent Decree identifies a series of requirements to accomplish these objectives. They include the expansion of the Collaborative Planning and Implementation Committee (“CPIC”), which works with BPD to improve crisis response (CD 104-05); a work plan to accomplish the requirements of the Consent Decree (CD 96, 105); an assessment of the gaps in the City’s behavioral health system coupled with recommendations for solutions (“Gap Analysis”) (CD 97); maintenance of a Crisis Intervention Team (“CIT”) whose officers have primary responsibility for responding to incidents involving individuals in crisis (CD 101-03, 110, 119); development of a Crisis Intervention Plan and CIT Officer Selection Process to ensure the efficacy of the CIT (CD 120); appointment and training of a Crisis Intervention Team leader (CD 115-18); training for all officers on responding to individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, and specialized training for CIT officers and dispatch personnel (CD 106-13); revision of policies, including dispatch policies, for responding to incidents involving individuals in crisis (CD 98, 114); and identification of quantitative and qualitative performance measures for the CIT program and collection of data needed to make those assessments (CD 121-22). Over the long-term, BPD will analyze this data and issue quarterly public reports gauging its performance in responding to individuals in crisis.
As previously reported, BPD and the City have satisfied a number of the Consent Decree’s preliminary requirements, including expanding CPIC membership, appointing a CIT Coordinator, completing (with CPIC) a crisis intervention plan and a plan for selecting CIT officers, creating a form to track data on responses to individuals in crisis, and revising three policies addressing crisis intervention for both officers and dispatchers: Policy 712 (Crisis Intervention Program), Policy 713 (Petitions for Emergency Evaluation and Voluntary Admission), and Policy 715 (Behavioral Health Crisis Dispatch).
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In this reporting period, BPD has continued making reasonable progress toward satisfying the building-block requirements in this area of the Consent Decree. It completed and published the Gap Analysis after some delay, finalized training curricula on behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention for both recruits and officers, and began working on specialized training curricula on behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention for CIT officers and dispatchers.
Areas of Progress
BPD has shown a commitment to working with community members to strengthen its behavioral health initiatives and improve its officers’ capacity to respond to individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis. BPD’s work in this area is intensive. It requires a significant amount of time not only from BPD personnel, but from community stakeholders, advocates, individuals with lived experience, and behavioral health professionals who are volunteering. CPIC continues to meet each month and the subcommittees often meet every two weeks. CPIC’s tasks under the Consent Decree require attention to detail, a close review of the material under consideration, and a willingness to stay engaged over the long term. It is encouraging that the attendance at full committee and subcommittee remains good, that the level of energy remains high, and that the discussions remain respectful of the wide range of diverse opinions expressed.
Together with CPIC, BPD produced several important monitoring plan deliverables over the past six months.
Gap Analysis Report and Recommendations
The Gap Analysis is critical to achieving the Consent Decree’s long-term initiatives regarding police interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities. The objective of the analysis is to identify ways to improve the City’s behavioral health system so that BPD is relied upon less often to resolve, through law enforcement action, matters involving individuals experiencing behavioral health crises.
The City funded the Gap Analysis. Behavioral Health System of Baltimore (BHSB) worked with CPIC and selected a respected national firm, Health Services Research Institute (HSRI), to conduct it. BPD and the City issued the initial draft for public comment in early September 2019. Following two rounds of public comments and additional input from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD submitted the final report to the Monitoring Team and DOJ for approval in early December 2019. The Monitoring Team recently approved the final report.
The final report is a vital foundational document. It provides a roadmap for improving the overall quality of behavioral health care in Baltimore and, at the same
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time, for supporting BPD in its effort to respond properly to events involving individuals in crisis. Using a mixed methods approach to identify unmet needs in the City’s behavioral health system and offer recommendations for improvement, HSRI collected and synthesized an impressive amount of data. It reviewed existing qualitative and quantitative data from dozens of relevant prior reports, interviewed numerous key informants, conducted focus groups with local stakeholders, analyzed over seven million Medicaid, state-funded insurance and uninsured claims for behavioral health services from nearly 105,000 individuals, and reviewed BPD data on calls for service and officer training. Based on its analysis, HSRI makes over 40 specific recommendations for addressing the City’s behavioral health needs. Among the key recommendations:
Crisis Services. The City should strengthen its crisis response system by providing for 24/7, around-the-clock crisis centers and expanding mobile crisis teams. The goal of a fortified system would be to utilize a “least restrictive setting” model so that community providers become a natural, integral part of the crisis service continuum. Developing a centralized “air traffic control” system to manage crisis response would improve the availability of crisis services and increase efficiency and accountability.
BPD. BPD should routinely collect detailed data in all districts on encounters with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and explore why specialized CIT officers are not responding to behavioral health calls at higher rates. BPD also should continue to improve its training on behavioral health awareness, offer advanced training once officers complete introductory lessons and, critically, ensure that officers are made aware of and utilize existing community-based alternatives to law enforcement action.
Service Integration. The City should establish an oversight committee that coordinates with key stakeholders, including CPIC, to promote a “No Wrong Door” approach that integrates mental health and substance use services and workforce programs. The system should support the availability of behavioral health outpatient services in primary healthcare settings.
Healthcare Professionals. A revamped behavioral health system should address behavioral health workforce recruitment, retention and competency, exploring strategies to attract and retain qualified providers to work in community-based mental health settings.
Peer Support. The behavioral health system should support the financial sustainability of peer-run organizations. It should draw on public and private funding sources, including state government, local partners, and private insurers, and work to develop additional funding streams.
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Housing. The government should increase the availability of housing vouchers and subsidies, enhance landlord engagement through education designed to combat stigma in order increase the availability of housing units, and ensure that permanent supportive housing programs are implemented.
The Consent Decree’s requirement for a Gap Analysis (CD 97) will not be fully satisfied until BPD is able to evaluate a meaningful sample of officer encounters with individuals in crisis. With an eye toward identifying solutions to the deficiencies observed in the Gap Analysis, the evaluation of each encounter should include what precipitated the crisis, what services could have prevented the crisis, how police became involved, and what could be done to prevent a similar crisis in the future. Because of BPD’s data collection deficiencies, BPD was not able to include such an evaluation in the Gap Analysis report. In the coming year, BPD and CPIC will develop a process for gathering the required data and performing the evaluation.
Training Curriculum on Behavioral Health Awareness and Crisis Intervention
The CPIC Training subcommittee was especially busy this reporting period. It deserves credit for completing a tremendous amount of high-quality work in a short period, particularly given that many of its community members are volunteers. Working together, the subcommittee’ s members, BPD Training Academy instructors, and CIT officers developed and finalized a basic behavioral health awareness training curriculum for new BPD recruits, plus an in-service curriculum for BPD officers. In addition, this group has begun drafting specialized curriculum for 911 call-takers and emergency dispatchers, and also began developing specialized curriculum for CIT officers. All the curricula employ adult learning techniques to provide instruction on BPD’s new policies. The techniques include group discussion, realistic videos, applied learning exercises, and role-playing scenarios. The training will be delivered by teams of behavioral health professionals, experienced police instructors, advocates, and individuals with lived experience.
Behavioral health awareness (“BHA”) training for BPD Recruits. The BHA recruit training curriculum, approved in September 2019, see ECF No. 247, consists of thirteen modules taught over three days. Day One covers an introduction to BPD’s crisis strategies, an exercise in understanding auditory hallucinations, an overview of mental illness, an introduction to BPD new behavioral health policies, and an introduction to working with individuals in suicidal crisis. Day Two includes working with youth, understanding neurocognitive impairments (dementia), a personal story of mental illness from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and an introduction to neurodevelopmental disorders (intellectual and developmental disabilities). Day Three covers substance use disorders, de-escalation, emergency evaluations/ voluntary admissions, and incident-based scenarios. See ECF No. 247 for a complete description of the curriculum.
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By requiring 24 hours of instruction, CPIC and BPD chose to include in BHA recruit training an amount of instruction that exceeds the 16 hours required in the Consent Decree. See ECF No. 2-2, ¶ 112.b. CPIC and BPD made the determination that additional hours were needed after CPIC’s Training subcommittee reviewed BPD’s existing curriculum, examined the requirements of the Consent Decree, and obtained the input of behavioral health experts and individuals with lived experience. Increasing the hours of BHA instruction required of new recruits reflects BPD’s commitment to ensuring that its officers have a solid understanding of behavioral health and are more adequately equipped to interact with individuals with behavioral health disabilities.
In-service BHA training for officers. The in-service officer BHA training curriculum, approved in November 2019, see ECF No. 262, consists of five modules taught over two days. The first module includes a brief history of the treatment of individuals with behavioral health disabilities and an introduction to the goals of the training. The next two modules are an overview of behavioral health disabilities provided by the program “Mental Health First Aid for Public Safety” (MHFA). The first MHFA module covers a range of topics, including the prevalence and impact of mental health problems in the United States, the symptoms and warning signs of depression and anxiety, and an action plan for responding to individuals who are experiencing depressive symptoms or anxiety and may be a threat for suicide or selfinjury. The second MHFA module provides an action plan for responding to individuals who are experiencing a traumatic event and may be in crisis, an overview of the risk factors and warning signs of psychotic disorders, an action plan for responding to individuals who are exhibiting symptoms of psychosis or are in a related crisis, an overview of the risk factors and warning signs of substance use disorder, and an action plan for responding to individuals exhibiting symptoms of a substance use disorder or a related crisis. The last two modules are designed to provide BPD officers with a comprehensive overview of BPD’s revised policies relating to interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis. These modules include an examination of BPD’s main crisis intervention policy and information covering behavioral health emergency evaluations/voluntary admissions. See ECF No. 262 for a complete description of the curriculum.
By requiring more than 11 hours of in-service instruction, CPIC and BPD exceeded the 8 hours required in the Consent Decree. See ECF No. 2-2, ¶ 112.a. BPD also has committed to supplementing the in-service BHA curriculum with Baltimorespecific content.
BHA curriculum for 911 call intake and emergency police dispatch. This curriculum, which is still being drafted, will provide eight hours of instruction using facilitated discussion, case studies, and group learning exercises. The first lesson will provide a BHA overview. Call takers and dispatchers will learn about the history of
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the mental health system, the role of first responders in crisis intervention, and the impact of bias and stigma relating to behavioral health disabilities. The first lesson will also cover trauma-informed crisis response, as well as the signs, symptoms and behavioral indications of mental illness, substance use disorder, developmental disabilities, and cognitive impairments. The second lesson will include an introduction to BPD’s policies regarding interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis. It will also cover available community resources and proper assignment of calls for service that may be diverted or may require a CIT officer response.
Evaluating Data on BPD’s Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities and in Crisis
In this reporting period, CPIC’s Data Committee has been evaluating available data on BPD officer encounters with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis in order determine which performance measures it can reliably analyze and include in the reports required by paragraph 122 of the Consent Decree. In particular, the subcommittee has been systematically reviewing available reports and outcome studies on BPD’s behavioral health intervention programs, including BPD’s Crisis Response Team (CRT), Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, and Homeless Outreach Team (HOT). For each initiative, the subcommittee is examining data on behavioral health calls in each police district and attempting to extrapolate the call volume to the district’s population. The results are intended to determine the number of CIT officers needed in each district.
The subcommittee is also attempting to understand BPD’s current hospital referral practices involving individuals in crisis by examining hospital emergency room data. The goal is to determine whether there are opportunities for diversion to community-based alternatives. Initial examination of the data suggests a great deal of variability in emergency room referrals. The variability, however, might not be related to the number of behavioral crisis events in surrounding neighborhoods. Speculatively, the utilization data could suggest the importance of clarifying admissions criteria for each hospital so that patrol officers have adequate guidance on making emergency room referrals.
When BPD conducted new behavioral health training in FY2018 and FY2019, it added a module on behavioral health resources that highlighted the Baltimore Crisis Response Inc.’s crisis information and referral (CIR) line and also directed officers to a resource app on their phones. The new training was delivered not only to recruit classes, but to officers during in-service classes. CPIC’s Data subcommittee reported that, as compared to the four years prior to the training, officer calls to the CIR hotline in the period since the training began have increased significantly. This strongly suggests that BPD officers are open to and interested in the availability of community resources.
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Challenges Ahead
The Gap Analysis calls for systemic change. Implementing its recommendations will be a long-term, intensive enterprise. Establishing an integrated system of community-based care will require cooperative planning across multiple state, city, and non-profit institutions. The funding required to develop this system will be significant and will need to draw on multiple sources. The City’s primary behavioral health care agency, BHSB, has limited control over funding streams and cannot always implement new programs or strong mechanisms for quality control. Additionally, because of Baltimore’s history of “siloing” programs within the behavioral health system, there remains the risk that new programs will continue to be “siloed” and will not be incorporated into an integrated, cohesive system.
Despite these substantial challenges, Baltimore has a track record of innovative programming and a wealth of professional talent. The City also enjoys a reputation for conducting incisive studies involving behavioral health and developing service models that appear to hold promise, even if they have not endured. The fact that HSRI reviewed 38 different analytical reports regarding behavioral health care delivery in the City is a testament to the work that already has been done here. The challenge will be to make the response to the Gap Analysis more effective and more sustainable than the responses to the other studies.
In addition to implementing the long-term recommendations in the Gap Analysis, BPD and the City continue to face more immediate challenges under the Consent Decree. First, BPD must conduct four different training programs on behavioral health awareness in the coming year—for recruits, officers, dispatchers, and CIT officers. That will undoubtedly tax the resources of the Training Academy. Second, as previously reported, BPD has not historically collected and maintained all the data that the Consent Decree requires it to collect and maintain regarding officer interactions with individuals in crisis. Last year, BPD developed a new crisis intervention data form that should capture the required information, see ECF No. 170, but the Monitoring Team and BPD itself will not be able to comprehensively assess compliance with Consent Decree requirements until BPD officers routinely use the forms and BPD is technologically capable of maintaining and analyzing data from the forms in a modernized record management system. Third, BPD will need to select a sufficient number of qualified CIT officers to meet Departmental needs. Finally, BPD and its officers will have to consistently comply with the Consent Decree’s specific requirements for handling crisis events in the field, including requirements regarding on-scene leadership and supervision.
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The Next Six Months In the next six months, BPD, the City and CPIC members will continue to lay
the groundwork for implementing the recommendations in the Gap Analysis. Recently, Disability Rights of Maryland (a CPIC member) worked with BHSB to conduct a two-day workshop on effectuating those recommendations. Presenters from other cities spoke about their own successful efforts to establish integrated behavioral health systems, while local advocates and individuals with lived experienced shared their ideas and voiced their concerns about implementing the Gap Analysis’s recommendations.
In the next reporting period, as noted, BPD will begin conducting BHA training for recruits and officers and will finalize specialized BHA training curriculum for dispatchers and CIT officers. For its part, CPIC will develop a work plan for the third year of monitoring. The work plan will include, among other things, a schedule for integrating BPD’s various behavioral health-related initiatives (e.g., LEAD, CRT, HOT) into a coherent intervention strategy.
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First Amendment-Protected Activities
As the Consent Decree and BPD’s revised policy on First Amendment Protected Activity explain, the exercise of First Amendment rights is fundamental to democratic governance because it promotes the free exchange of ideas. Moreover, the preservation and protection of First Amendment rights is vital to maintaining public trust in the rule of law because it fosters transparency and accountability in government functions, including policing (CD 239).
For these reasons, the Consent Decree requires BPD to protect several different First Amendment rights: the right to free speech and expression, which includes the right to criticize law enforcement and engage in speech in the presence of law enforcement without being subject to retaliation (CD 240-44); the right to freely organize and participate in lawful public assemblies (CD 245); and the right to observe and record the actions of BPD officers in the public discharge of their duties (CD 247). The Consent Decree also protects First Amendment rights by prohibiting the warrantless search and seizure of recorded video and images, except in limited circumstances (CD 249-50). The Consent Decree prescribes protection for all of these constitutional rights by obligating BPD to revise its policies and training programs (CD 239, 244, 246, 251); require supervisory approval for dispersing assemblies, seizing recording devices and recordings, and arresting individuals engaged in expressive activity (CD 252-54); and conduct annual assessments of its practices relating to First Amendment-protected activity (CD 255).
In the first monitoring year, BPD completed revision of two policies addressing First Amendment-protected activities—the core policy, Policy 804 (First Amendment Protected Activity) and the policy regarding recording of police activity, Policy 1016 (Public Observation and Recording of Officers). See ECF No. 140. In the past six months, BPD has begun revising standard operating procedures (“SOP”) for its Mobile Field Force, which polices both planned and unplanned protests and assemblies. BPD also has initiated the Consent Decree-mandated evaluation of Departmental performance in responding to First Amendment activities. BPD has not yet crafted or delivered training on First Amendment-protected conduct, and given BPD’s historical data collection deficiencies, the Monitoring Team has not yet been able to commence compliance reviews or outcome assessments in this area. Accordingly, although BPD has satisfied its obligations in this area under the Firstand Second-Year Monitoring Plans, it remains too soon to gauge BPD’s progress toward long-term compliance.
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Areas of Progress
Policy Revisions
BPD’s Mobile Field Force consists of over 200 specially trained officers from across the Department. The Mobile Field Force is called upon to monitor, maintain order, and protect the right to assemble and speak at both planned and spontaneous public demonstrations. If demonstrations turn violent, the Mobile Field Force intervenes to preserve public safety while respecting First Amendment rights.
BPD currently has a policy (Policy 413) that generally addresses its Mobile Field Force. However, during the first monitoring year, when BPD was revising its First Amendment-related policies, BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team agreed that it would be more fitting for Policy 804 to incorporate the general provisions of Policy 413, and for a comprehensive set of SOPs to replace Policy 413 and provide detailed tactical guidance to Mobile Field Force officers about how to carry out their responsibilities while preserving First Amendment rights. BPD, the Monitoring Team, and DOJ determined that rescission of Policy 413 and replacement with SOPs made sense because the policy is not so much a policy as it is an outline for a tactical procedural manual. Policy 413 will not be rescinded until the SOPs are finalized and implemented.
In this reporting period, BPD began work on the SOPs. BPD produced an initial draft modeled after SOPs for well-functioning civil disturbance units in other jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia. After receiving feedback from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD agreed to revise the draft so that it more closely tracks the Mobile Field Force SOPs for the Maryland State Police, which has adopted a more progressive, European model of mobile field force deployment. Neighboring jurisdictions with which BPD often partners to monitor large crowds are undertaking a similar review of their mobile field force operations.
BPD is presently working on the revised SOPs, which will be issued for public comment, refined, and ultimately finalized in the next reporting period. The SOPs must incorporate the First Amendment principles reflected in Policy 804 and provide BPD’s Mobile Field Force officers with the guidance they need to carry out their duties properly.
Self-Evaluation
Under the Second-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD is required to prepare its first annual audit of the Department’s responses to First Amendment-protected activities (CD 255). The purpose of these audits is to implement “corrective action or improvement measures” where deficiencies are identified (CD 256).
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In this reporting period, BPD collaborated with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to devise an appropriate audit tool. The challenge was to devise an instrument that evaluates not only BPD’s responses to larger, planned assemblies and internal affairs complaints based on alleged First Amendment violations, but also the responses of officers to individuals who exercise their First Amendment rights in the course of a routine police encounters by, e.g., criticizing the officer’s actions. Evaluating BPD’s responses to such routine exercises of First Amendment rights is critical because those encounters are far more frequent than either encounters that spawn internal affairs complaints or larger assemblies. And as DOJ found in its investigation, officers may be more likely in those encounters to take unconstitutional retaliatory law enforcement action, including bringing unwarranted criminal charges or using unreasonable force. In an effort to capture BPD’s responses to these more routine exercises of First Amendment rights, BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ agreed that BPD would use its Performance Standards Section to review body-worn camera footage of events that involve allegations of disorderly conduct. While disorderly conduct cases obviously do not encompass all situations in which officers might be confronted with First Amendment conduct, the parties concluded that, at least initially, such cases might prove useful for exploring whether officers are retaliating against individuals for exercising their rights.
Based on this agreement, BPD’s first annual audit report evaluates (1) cases involving internal affairs complaints based on alleged First Amendment violations for 2019, (2) BPD’s response to two larger First Amendment events in 2019—one involving a protest of the establishment of a university police force at Johns Hopkins, and another involving a speech given in Baltimore by Donald Trump, and (3) 2018 cases involving disorderly conduct arrests that were determined to have implicated First Amendment conduct (a number of disorderly conduct cases, of course, did not). The final report will be submitted to the Court within the next two weeks, at the beginning of February 2020. The Monitoring Team will include an evaluation of the report in its next report.
Challenges Ahead
BPD must develop and implement a comprehensible, scenario-based training curriculum to ensure that officers respect First Amendment protections. That curriculum is scheduled to be developed this year, with training to take place in 2021, though BPD, in the interim, is expected to train officers periodically on First Amendment protections during roll calls and through e-learning.
BPD also must ensure vigilant supervisory review and data collection and analysis of BPD actions addressing First Amendment activity. BPD’s first annual audit, discussed above, is a promising start. Isolating disorderly conduct cases, and then determining which of those cases implicate First Amendment conduct, is a good way to begin identifying routine police encounters that BPD (and the Monitoring
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Team and DOJ) ought to review for the purpose of gauging BPD’s progress toward compliance with Consent Decree requirements. However, other types of cases also might implicate First Amendment conduct, and BPD should determine the feasibility of identifying such cases and locating and collecting the relevant data.
The biggest challenge facing BPD is the long-term challenge of ensuring that its officers respect the protections the First Amendment offers to individuals in routine police encounters, particularly the right to criticize police action. In its investigation, DOJ found that BPD officers were engaged in a pattern or practice of violating the First Amendment by routinely responding to oral criticisms, insults and non-violent provocations by using unreasonable force. Although perhaps isolated, recent events suggest that at least some BPD officers continue to devalue First Amendment rights. Over the past 18 months, two different officers, Officer Arthur Williams and Sergeant Ethan Newberg, have been charged with crimes for using unreasonable force and bringing criminal charges in retaliation for the exercise of free speech rights. The Monitoring Team has reviewed BWC footage and incident reports from these cases, and it appears that these officers in fact responded to nonviolent, constitutionally protected provocations with force, criminal charges, or both. Officer Williams was convicted of the charges against him in 2019. Sergeant Newberg has not yet been tried. But the case against him, which alleges nine different instances of unlawful retaliatory conduct over the span of just ten months (July 2018 – May 2019), is particularly troubling, because as an experienced first-line supervisor with 24 years on the job, he has been setting an example for potentially dozens of patrol officers.
These cases provide BPD an important opportunity to instruct officers not only on proper charging and the use of force generally, but on improper charging and the use of unreasonable force in response to oral remarks that might be irritating, but present no risk of physical harm or of interference with police activities and are thus constitutionally protected.
The Next Six Months
BPD will finalize Standard Operating Procedures for its Mobile Field Force in the first part of 2020. In addition, BPD will begin developing training curriculum that corresponds with its revised First Amendment policies, Policies 804 and 1016.
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Interactions with Youth and Coordination with Baltimore School Police
The Consent Decree requires BPD to alter its approach to interacting with youth. The Consent Decree obligates BPD officers to account for the personal characteristics (age, size developmental/mental status, disability status and maturity) of the youth they encounter and, where practical, use alternatives to arrest (e.g. warn and release, counseling, referral to community services and resources; warnings, civil citations) in order to divert youth from the justice system (CD 218). As a first step, the Consent Decree requires the City to conduct a comprehensive assessment of its effort to reduce youth involvement in the juvenile and criminal justice systems (“Youth Diversion Assessment”) (CD 219). It further requires BPD to revise its policies and training, as needed, and conduct training in order to properly guide officers in their interactions with youth (CD 220-21).
The Consent Decree also contains several provisions addressing BPD’s relationship with the Baltimore School Police (“BSP”). In particular, Paragraph 417 of the Consent Decree requires BPD to conduct an initial assessment of its memorandum of understanding (“MOU”) with BSP and evaluate how BSP has used BPD’s authorization to exercise law enforcement powers throughout the City. The assessment should include an analysis of data reflecting the frequency with which BSP officers respond to calls, make stops, searches, and arrests, and use force under the MOU. BPD will use the assessment to identify deficiencies and opportunities for improvement, amend the MOU as needed, implement other appropriate corrective action, and document the changes it makes. Following the initial assessment and amendment of the MOU, BPD will conduct a biennial evaluation of its coordination with BSP, and make any modification needed to ensure effective coordination with BSP.
In the last reporting period, BPD satisfied a threshold Consent Decree requirement by issuing the Youth Diversion Assessment. In this reporting period, BPD has made reasonable progress toward satisfying other requirements relating to youth interactions and its relationship with BSP. In particular, BPD initiated the process of reviewing and revising policies affecting youth and completed an assessment of its memorandum of understanding with BSP.
Areas of Progress
Policies Affecting Youth
Under the Second-Year Monitoring Plan and moving into the third year of monitoring, BPD is reviewing and revising policies affecting its interactions with youth in three phases. The first phase entails developing Policy 1207 on youth interrogations and revising previously approved use of force policies to account for
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youth interactions. The second phase entails revising Policy 1202, the core policy on youth interactions. The third phase entails developing a policy on diverting youth from the justice system.
In this reporting period, BPD completed the first phase. It developed and finalized Policy 1207, the new youth interrogations policy. The development of the policy entailed extensive collaboration with the Monitoring and DOJ and included addressing and incorporating substantial feedback from community members and organizations. The collaboration and public comments proved particularly useful for Policy 1207, as BPD ultimately made substantial amendments to its initial draft in response to input from the Monitoring Team, DOJ, and community members.
The final version new policy requires fundamental changes in the way BPD members question youth subjects. BPD has never before placed any formal limitations on interrogating youth. Under Policy 1207: all youth under 18 must have a parent/legal guardian and/or an attorney present during an interrogation, with a preference for having both a parent/legal guardian and an attorney present; all youth 15 and under must consult with an attorney prior being advised of their Miranda rights; officers may not use deception when questioning any individual under age 18; and BPD’s advice and waiver of rights form has been modified for youth suspects so that it informs youth of their rights in more comprehensible language
In addition to issuing Policy 1207, BPD made certain revisions to Policy 1115, its previously approved core policy on use of force. The revisions prohibit using pain compliance and control techniques on youth unless deadly force is threatened. They further prohibit using force against youth who are restrained. BPD’s review also resulted in changes to Policy 719 (Conducted Electrical Weapon), Policy 1111, (Batons), and Policy 1118 (Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) Spray). BPD officers are now restricted from using these instruments on youth who are “preteen or younger.” Below in italics are examples of the language amended in Policy 1115:
• “As with any encounter, members are expected to continually assess the situation, employ De-Escalation Techniques, and seek peaceful resolutions during incidents involving children and youth. Officer presence may be intimidating and threatening to youth, therefore, members should approach youth calmly and respectfully in a non-confrontational manner while avoiding physical contact, if possible, in order to defuse tension and anxiety while maintaining safety.”
• “Members will, when feasible, recognize and employ developmentallyappropriate and trauma-informed communication tactics including, but not limited to, using a calm and measured tone, simple and concrete language, and direct phrases. Members may use repetition in a clear voice in order to reinforce instructions. Members will not use threats and intimidation to gain compliance.
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When appropriate, members will allow youth time to comply with instructions. Members will also account for any fear-based reactions children and youth may experience during an encounter which may manifest as aggression, defensiveness, defiance, or flight.”
Evaluating and Revising BPD’s MOU with Baltimore School Police
Utilizing a methodology approved by the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD conducted an initial assessment of the memorandum of understanding between BPD and BSP. The assessment was intended to examine how BSP has been exercising law enforcement powers off of school property under the MOU (CD 417). The report on the assessment can be found here.
The assessment reaffirmed that BSP does not adequately record and maintain the data required for evaluation purposes, including data on the frequency with which BSP officers exercise law enforcement powers under the MOU, as well as data on calls for service, incidents, stops, arrests and uses of force involving BSP officers acting under the MOU. The limited data that BPD was able to review showed that, over the last three years (2016-2019), most of BSP’s activity off school grounds was to support BPD at special events, such as concerts and ball games, and that BSP personnel did most of that work on overtime details.
BPD’s report on the assessment contains recommendations for addressing the gaps in data collection that the assessment uncovered. Data collection requirements will be included in a new MOU, which will be prepared and executed in the next reporting period. The report also recommends that the new MOU contain clear guidance to BSP officers on reporting uses of force off school property, as well as clear guidance to BPD officers on taking and investigating complaints involving actions of BSP officers off of school property.
Challenges Ahead
The Third-Year Monitoring Plan will establish a timeline for completing the second and third phases of policy revisions, which will address the policy on youth interactions (Policy 1202) and a new policy on youth diversion. BPD must work hard to meet the deadlines, and the deadlines are important, because until the policies are finalized, the process of developing and delivering particularized training on youth interactions—i.e., the process of ultimately implementing and holding officers accountable to the policies—cannot begin.
The new policy on youth diversion will be especially significant. As explained in the last semiannual report, creating a diversion policy that clearly presents officers with options other than arrest, criteria for mandatory or presumptive diversion for certain offenses, and guidelines on transporting youth eligible for
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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 279-1 Filed 01/21/20 Page 74 of 82 detention to the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center is central to implementing a key recommendation from the Youth Diversion Assessment. In turn, it is a vital component of the City’s broader effort, under the Consent Decree, to develop and promote programs designed to divert youth from the juvenile and criminal justice systems to community-based alternatives. The Next Six Months
In the next reporting period, BPD will revise Policy 1202 on youth interactions and will begin drafting a new policy on youth diversion.
In addition, based on the recently completed assessment of its MOU with BSP, BPD will draft and enter into a new MOU with BSP. As noted, the new MOU must contain provisions that require, among other things, the recording, collection, maintenance, and reporting of comprehensive, accurate, segregable data on BSP law enforcement activities off school premises, including off-premises responses to calls for service, stops, arrests, uses of force, and incidents that generate complaints.
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Sexual Assault Investigations
The Consent Decree requires BPD to enhance the trust of victims of sexual assault, to strengthen its response to and investigations of reports of sexual assault, and to combat gender bias (CD 257). To achieve these goals, the Consent Decree requires BPD to revise the policies and procedures for responding to and investigating reports of sexual assault (CD 258); provide initial and on-going annual training to support the revised policies and procedures (CD 259); ensure through proper supervision and internal oversight that reports of sexual assaults are thoroughly investigated (CD 260, 262, 263); ensure that officers transport victims to a medical facility for a forensic exam in all instances in which a forensic exam is warranted and the victim consents (CD 261); enhance its collection, analysis and reporting of data regarding the nature and extent of sexual assault crimes (CD 264); and share information about its sexual assault investigations with other law enforcement agencies, the public, and the Sex Offense Unit (CD 265). The City and BPD will ensure that their policies and protocols with the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) enable them to engage in periodic reviews of services provided by BPD and to review samples of open cases and those classified as unfounded (CD 266).
As previously reported, BPD satisfied the threshold requirement to revise both its policy on sexual assault investigations (Policy 708) and its standard operating procedure on such investigations. See ECF No. 152. In this reporting period, it made minor, technical revisions to that policy to ensure consistency with other policies. See ECF No. 266. BPD also successfully created and finalized a brand new policy on member-involved sexual misconduct. See ECF No. 269. Additionally, it developed and completed e-learning training for all officers on responding to reports of sexual assault, see ECF Nos. 242 & 267, devoted considerable time and effort to preparing a draft training curriculum for Sex Offense Unit investigators, and produced its inaugural report on sex assault investigations. See ECF No. 235. In view of this work, BPD has made reasonable progress toward satisfying the Consent Decree’s preliminary requirements in the area of sexual assault investigations.
Areas of Progress
Officer Training on Policy 708
As of November 25, 2019, 2,085 sworn personnel completed e-learning training on responding to reports of sexual assault. That is an important first step toward promoting a victim-centered, trauma-informed approach to reports of sexual assault. The training presented officers not only with changes in procedure for responding to reports of sexual assault, but also with changes in BPD’s philosophy regarding how police officers should view and address alleged sexual offenses, offenders and victims. The curriculum emphasized the concepts of trauma-informed and victim-centered, suspect-focused investigation.
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A total 181 officers did not complete the training, either without good cause or because they were on medical leave, military leave, or disciplinary suspension. BPD is presently determining how many sworn personnel failed to complete the training without a valid excuse and what actions must be taken to discipline those officers.
Policy on Member-Involved Sexual Misconduct
BPD’s Policy 322 (Member-Involved Sexual Misconduct) was approved and filed with the Court in December 2019. See ECF No. 269. This policy memorializes BPD’s zero tolerance policy regarding member-involved sexual misconduct and establishes responsibilities and guidelines for conducting both criminal investigations of allegations of such misconduct under previously approved Policy 708 (Rape and Sexual Assault) and internal administrative investigations of such misconduct by BPD’s Public Integrity Bureau. The Monitoring Team and DOJ worked closely with BPD over several months to develop this policy.
Training Curriculum on Investigations for Sexual Assault Investigators
During the last six months, BPD and the Baltimore City Sexual Assault Response Team has worked closely with the Monitoring Team, DOJ, and experts in sexual assault investigations to develop training curriculum for sexual assault investigators. Consistent with Consent Decree requirements, the draft curriculum stresses a trauma-informed, victim-centered approach to sexual assault investigations, with a focus on the alleged offender’s behavior. The draft curriculum is based on the new, previously approved standard operating procedure for BPD’s Sex Offense Unit.
The draft curriculum already has been published once for SART feedback. Within the next two weeks, a final draft will be published for additional SART feedback. The Monitoring Team will approve or disapprove the curriculum by February 21, 2020. Training using the new curriculum is scheduled to take place between late February and mid-April 2020.
Report on Sexual Assault Investigations
Paragraph 264 of the Consent Decree requires BPD to collect and analyze data regarding its sexual assault investigations. The data should include: the number and nature of sex offenses reported; the number and demographics of the alleged offenders; the number and demographics of the alleged victims; the resolution of sex offense cases; and the processing of forensic medical exams.
At the end of May 2019, BPD published its inaugural annual report on sexual assault investigations. See ECF No. 235. The report, which can be found here,
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contains data on BPD’s investigations in 2018. Due to BPD’s technology limitations, including an inadequate case management system, the report does not include a significant amount of the data required by the Consent Decree. The Monitoring Team and DOJ have conferred with BPD about how to address the Consent Decree’s requirements until the deficiencies in BPD’s case management system and reporting technology are remedied.
BPD has indicated that, for its next report, it will track certain data missing from the initial report, even though its technological limitations will continue to prevent it from tracking all required data. For example, BPD states that it will begin tracking the various ways cases are referred to the State’s Attorney’s Office, explore developing technology to track data on LGBTQ victims when available based on selfreporting, and analyze demographic data in more depth. BPD is also considering surveying victims on their experiences with BPD services.
Challenges Ahead
With e-learning completed, Policy 708 (Rape and Sexual Assault) is now in effect. Officers must adhere to it when responding to reports of sexual assault, and supervisors must ensure compliance. Correspondingly, with specialized training for sexual assault investigators taking place over the next several months, it will be incumbent on BPD to ensure that sexual assault investigations are conducted in compliance with the new standard operating procedure.
An important part of ensuring compliance with the new policies and standard operating procedure will be properly collecting and evaluating all relevant data bearing on the efficacy of BPD’s sexual assault investigations. BPD has never engaged in meaningful self-evaluation of such investigations and has never before collected the data necessary for the analyses required by the Consent Decree. Ideally, BPD’s next report on sexual assault investigation, due later this year, should establish a more definitive baseline for assessing BPD’s performance going forward.
The Next Six Months
In the next six months, BPD will finalize and deliver training to sexual assault investigators. Training should be completed by mid-April 2020. BPD also must begin to address how to educate officers on the requirements of new Policy 322 (MemberInvolved Sexual Misconduct).
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Recruitment, Hiring and Retention
The Consent Decree recognizes that BPD’s recruitment and hiring program, as well as its efforts to retain officers, are in need of significant improvement. The Consent Decree obligates BPD to: (1) develop and implement a Recruitment Plan with “clear goals, objectives and action steps for attracting and retaining a quality work force that reflects the diversity of the Baltimore Community” (CD 420-22); (2) review and reform its hiring processes (CD 423-25); (3) develop and implement a Retention Plan to “identify challenges and recommend solutions to improve BPD’s retention of employees” (CD 426); and (4) routinely assess its recruitment, hiring, and retention practices (CD 427).
Improving the recruitment, hiring and retention of high-quality personnel is an inherently long-term undertaking. BPD is making reasonable progress toward satisfying the Consent Decree’s preliminary requirements, including producing a hiring report, a retention plan and a recruitment plan, developing standard operating procedures for BPD’s Recruitment Section, piloting an interview process that includes community members on interview panels, and adopting the National Testing Network’s “FrontLine National” exam as the first stage in BPD’s officer selection process. However, the Consent Decree’s long-term objectives of increased hiring (especially hiring that outpaces attrition), prompt onboarding, and effective retention are a long way from being satisfied.
Areas of Progress
Evaluation of Hiring SOP
BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ continue to engage in regularly scheduled meetings regarding the completion of the required "in-depth review of BPD's current hiring processes for officers.” In the last part of 2019, these meetings included addressing modifications to BPD’s standard operating procedure for hiring, which is undergoing continuous analysis consistent with Paragraph 423 of the Consent Decree. One of the modifications under discussion addressed the requirement of registration with the Selective Service System by age 26. It was discovered that a number of potential hires who were otherwise well qualified for employment have been prevented from advancing in the hiring process because of their failure to register. Although failure to register is a violation of federal law, the last prosecution for non-registration was in January 1986, and the Department of Justice and Selective Service agreed to suspend any further prosecutions of non-registrants in 1988, more than 30 years ago.2 Accordingly, BPD determined that barring candidates
2 To encourage registration, Congress has since passed laws that, with certain exceptions, require registration as a condition of eligibility for financial aid, federal
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from employment based on a failure to register would both deprive the Department of otherwise qualified candidates and retain a hiring requirement with potentially disparate effect.3 BPD has now modified the SOP to allow candidates that have not registered previously to obtain a waiver through the selective service “information letter” exception process, rather than automatically disqualifying them.
Background Checks
BPD has conducted a successful trial with an outside vendor, Kentech Consulting, to assist with the administration of background checks during the hiring process. As a result, BPD is integrating Kentech into the background investigation pipeline. The objective is to expedite the hiring process, which remains too slow. Historically, delays in background checks have been a primary reason for delays in hiring.
RecruitStat
BPD has now fully implemented RecruitStat, the procedure for routinely reviewing the Department’s progress on recruiting, hiring and retention.
Retention
In the last part of 2019, BPD, in collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, worked to develop and finalize the Retention Plan required by Paragraph 426 of the Consent Decree. The process of developing the Plan included opportunities for input from both rank and file officers and community members. The Monitoring Team filed its notice approving the Plan in late December 2019. See ECF No. 274. The plan is available here. BPD is now beginning implementation.
Challenges Ahead
Despite its efforts to meet threshold Consent Decree requirements and remove historical impediments in the hiring process, BPD continues to lose more officers to attrition than it is hiring. As of December 23, 2019, according to RecruitStat, BPD
grants and loans, certain government benefits, most federal employment, and citizenship (if the person is an immigrant)
3 Don Benton, Director of the Selective Service Agency, validated this concern in a 2017 interview: “What we’ve found is in states that have either a lot of rural poverty, or high-population density centers where there are pockets of poverty ... those tend to not do as well.” See https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/politicsgovernment/article156013729.html#storylink=cpy.
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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 279-1 Filed 01/21/20 Page 80 of 82 hired 156 officers, but lost 187 due to retirement or resignation, in 2019. These discouraging figures underscore the amount of work BPD must do to meet its staffing needs. The Next Six Months
BPD will continue to seek to make the hiring process more efficient, implement the Retention Plan, and use RecruitStat to track progress and identify ways to improve its recruitment, hiring and retention practices.
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Officer Assistance and Support
Under the Consent Decree, BPD must adopt several important measures to support the health and wellness of its officers. The Consent Decree requires BPD to: provide, review and revise, as needed, an Employee Assistance Plan (“EAP”) that furnishes no- or low-cost counseling and mental health wellness services (CD 436437); develop peer support services (CD 438); offer all officers a voluntary mental health evaluation before returning to duty after a traumatic incident (CD 439); develop well-being protocols to be utilized during officer deployments in periods of civil unrest (CD 440); and develop protocols for annually assessing the efficacy of all of BPD’s officer assistance programs (CD 441).
In the first year of monitoring, BPD refined its EAP (CD 436-437) and its traumatic and high-stress incident protocols (CD 439-440). These policies are now in effect. In the past reporting period, BPD adopted a revised peer support program policy (CD 438). Accordingly, BPD has made substantial progress toward satisfying the foundational requirements of the Officer Assistance and Support section of the Consent Decree. Further, over the past year, the Officer Safety and Wellness Section (“OSW”) has actively offered support services to BPD officers. It remains too soon to gauge BPD’s progress on measuring the efficacy of its support programs (CD 441). BPD will develop a methodology for such measurement in the coming year.
Areas of Progress
Early Intervention/Support and Guidance
Over the course of 2019, OSW completed 56 early intervention sessions and 217 support and guidance sessions. In collaboration with Behavioral Health Services Baltimore (“BHSB”), OSW also furnished critical incident stress debriefings to officers involved in shootings and other critical incidents, consistent with BPD’s highstress and traumatic incident protocols. Mental health professionals provide these debriefings to officers prior to their release from duty; OSW, BHSB, or peer support program personnel provide follow up support.
BPD utilizes BHSB to assist in furnishing mental health services to BPD officers and their family members. BHSB is a central participant in the Collaborative Planning Implementation Committee, discussed in the Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities section above. In addition to furnishing field counseling and critical incident debriefing, BHSB assists BPD with hosting health fair “pop-ups.” According to BHSB, 6.5% of BPD employees now utilize EAP services, which is 20% higher than the national average.
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Stress Reduction In 2019, OSW conducted weekly “Managing Stress in the Workplace” presentations reaching over 2,100 sworn members. Additionally, approximately 100 civilian employees were provided stress reduction training during several “lunch and learn” sessions. Peer Support In November 2019, the Monitoring Team approved BPD’s revisions to its peer support program. See ECF No. 258. The revisions were finalized after input from BPD and community members. This year, BPD had 24 members of its Peer Support Team trained by the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation to respond to critical and traumatic incidents. The Peer Support Team provides emotional support to officers and their families and are on-call to respond to incidents as needed. Health Fair “Pop-ups” OSW conducted 10 pop-up health fairs in 2019. These workplace events present BPD members with resources related to physical fitness, mental health, and financial well-being. The resources made available during health fairs in 2019 included nutritional services, meal preparation services, physical therapy, fitness training, acupuncture, meditation, yoga, sound therapy, and financial planning. The Next Six Months In the next reporting period, BPD will prepare a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of its officer support programs. It will then collaborate with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to refine the methodology. The methodology will be finalized toward the end of 2020.
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EXHIBIT A

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BALTIMORE CONSENT DECREE MONITORING TEAM
FIRST COMPREHENSIVE RE-ASSESSMENT
September 30, 2020

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
OVERVIEW3

INTRODUCTION

4

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

8

FINDINGS23

Training25

Misconduct Investigations And Discipline

30

Technology37

Staffing, Performance Evaluations And Promotions

40

Stops, Searches, Arrests And Voluntary Police-Community Interactions

44

Impartial Policing

50

Use Of Force

53

Transportation Of Persons In Custody

56

Interactions With Individuals With Behavioral Health Disabilities And In Crisis

59

First Amendment-Protected Activities

67

Interactions With Youth And Coordination With Baltimore School Police

74

Community Policing And Engagement

78

Sexual Assault Investigations

82

Recruitment, Hiring And Retention

86

Officer Assistance And Support 

90

SUMMARY OF MONITORING TEAM ACTIVITIES

95

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OVERVIEW
THE MONITORING TEAM’S KEY FINDINGS: Overall
 The Consent Decree is working as designed, with BPD and the City making substantial progress on foun-
dational reforms in policy revisions, training and planning due to the steady, stabilizing work of the Consent Decree Implementation Unit and the committed leadership of Commissioner Harrison, his Deputy Commissioners, a new Training Academy commander, a new Chief Technology Officer and others
 BPD’s substantial progress on foundational reforms has given the Monitoring Team greater confidence in
BPD’s capacity to achieve compliance
 While promising, the threshold reforms have not yet translated into consistent, observable change on the
street, as training on the reforms is not complete and BPD’s outdated record-keeping systems continue to render inaccessible or unusable the key data required for rigorous performance assessment
Specific Areas
 BPD has successfully revised most Consent Decree-mandated policies  BPD has fortified its Training Academy by adding sworn and civilian staff, moving to modern facilities at
the University of Baltimore, and adopting new training methods that employ adult learning principles
 BPD has conducted effective, Consent Decree-mandated in-class training and/or e-learning on use of force,
impartial policing, stops, searches and arrests, body-worn camera use, and sexual assault response
 Upcoming training initiatives are ambitious, particularly during a pandemic, and will present implemen-
tation challenges
 BPD’s partnership with community stakeholders on the Collaboration Planning and Implementation Com-
mittee has generated an impressive body of work—new crisis intervention policies and training curricula, new data requirements for crisis events, an analysis of the gaps in the City’s behavioral health support system (“gap analysis”)—and established a practical guide to systemic reform
 Other agencies must match BPD’s commitment to implementing the recommendations in the gap analysis  BPD’s tempered, lawful response to recent large-scale protests is a preliminary, if limited, indicator of the
Consent Decree’s positive impact
 The overhaul of BPD’s internal investigations and discipline functions is slow but progressing  Staffing needs, especially in Patrol and Public Integrity, are acute and continue to require urgent action  Necessary improvements in BPD’s antiquated IT systems and historically deficient IT governance struc-
ture are gaining steam after some delay, but remain a year or more from completion and thus hamstring the ability of the Monitoring Team and BPD itself to conduct Consent Decree-required analysis of police encounters, particularly stops, searches and arrests
 Implementation of a robust community policing model has been halting and, even with a sound new com-
munity policing plan, will be extremely challenging given community mistrust, the persistence of violent crime and Patrol officer shortages
The Next Six Months
 BPD will provide an array of Consent Decree-mandated training on various subjects  BPD will finalize nearly all remaining policies requiring revision  BPD will begin developing new records management and learning management systems, enhance its
workforce management system, and identify requirements for an Early Intervention System
 The Monitoring Team will conduct qualitative reviews of use of force incidents and quantitative assess-
ments in areas where reliable BPD data is available

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INTRODUCTION

THE CONSENT DECREE

In May 2015, the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) initiated an investigation of the Baltimore Police Department (“BPD”). The investigation, completed in 2016, found that BPD was engaged in a pattern-or-practice of constitutional violations, including using excessive force, infringing on the First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly, and stopping, searching, and arresting people in violation of the Fourth Amendment and based on their race. After making these findings, DOJ entered into negotiations with BPD and the City of Baltimore in an effort to settle the parties’ differences. BPD and the City did not admit DOJ’s allegations, but they recognized that the allegations raised long-standing issues of considerable importance to City residents. As a result, BPD and the City agreed to resolve DOJ’s allegations through a Consent Decree. The Consent Decree is a court-approved settlement agreement between DOJ, the City and BPD. United States District Court Judge James K. Bredar is the judge who approved the Consent Decree. Judge Bredar now oversees the Consent Decree’s implementation. Because the Consent Decree is a court order, Judge Bredar has the power to enforce its provisions and ensure that BPD and the City do what it requires.

The Consent Decree obligates BPD and the City to adopt a comprehensive set of reforms designed to promote fair and constitutional policing, rebuild BPD’s relationships with Baltimore’s communities, and ensure public safety. The Consent Decree prescribes corrective action in a number of areas, including: community engagement; community policing; stops, searches, arrests, and voluntary police-community interactions; impartial policing; interacting with people with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis; use of force; interactions with youth; transportation of persons in custody; First Amendment protected activities; handling of reports of sexual assault; technology; supervision; misconduct investigations and discipline; coordination with Baltimore City School Police; recruitment, hiring, and retention; staffing, performance evaluations, and promotions; and officer assistance and support.

The Consent Decree, in short, requires transformational institutional change. BPD will achieve compliance with the Consent Decree and free itself from Court oversight when it demonstrates not only that it has successfully implemented all of the required foundational improvements in policies, training, technology and operations, but that those improvements have translated, measurably and sustainably, into constitutional, community-oriented policing.

Achieving transformational change in a large police department does not happen overnight. As the Consent Decree envisions, it takes time, and it requires adherence to a rigorous, methodical reform process. In each area of the Consent Decree that addresses how officers discharge their duties (e.g.,

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stops/searches/arrests, use of force, and transportation of persons

in custody, to name a few), BPD first must draft and adopt revised policies. Then BPD must develop and conduct training on those revised policies. At the same time, to ensure that the new policies

THE CONSENT DECREE, IN

and the new training take root, BPD must revamp vital components of its infrastructure. For instance, BPD must overhaul its technology to become a modern, data-driven, efficient police force, must fortify

SHORT, REQUIRES TRANSFORMATIONAL

its system of internal investigations and discipline to enhance officer

INSTITUTIONAL

accountability, must improve the training and supervision of rankand-file officers to ensure lawful, effective job performance, and

CHANGE.

must deploy its officers and improve recruiting and retention so as

to simultaneously enhance public safety and promote community-

oriented policing. It is only after officers have been trained on the

new policies, and after infrastructure upgrades are well underway, that community members can expect

to see sustained, tangible changes in the conduct of BPD officers. The Consent Decree contemplates that

this process will take several years or more.

THE MONITORING TEAM
On October 3, 2017, Judge Bredar appointed a Monitoring Team to assist him in overseeing implementation of the Consent Decree. The Monitoring Team consists of a lead monitor, Kenneth Thompson, and a team of experts in policing and police reform, civil rights enforcement, psychology, social science, organizational change, data and technology, and community engagement. Serving as an agent of the Court, the Monitoring Team plays three principal roles: arbiter, technical advisor, and facilitator. As arbiter, the Monitoring Team oversees the day-to-day efforts of BPD and the City to comply with the reforms the Consent Decree requires. The Monitoring Team reviews, provides feedback on, and ultimately recommends Court approval or disapproval of the changes BPD makes in its policies, its training and, ultimately, its policing practices. As technical advisor, the Monitoring Team draws upon decades of collective experience to provide BPD with technical assistance, including advice about national best practices, to help guide BPD toward satisfying the requirements of the Consent Decree. As facilitator, the Monitoring Team seeks to ensure that all stakeholders from within BPD and across Baltimore’s diverse communities have the opportunity to participate in the reform process (CD 442).1
The Court and the Monitoring Team are not alone in overseeing BPD’s implementation of the requirements of the Consent Decree. DOJ continues to play an active role. As the plaintiff in the lawsuit that produced the Consent Decree, DOJ retains the right to enforce the Consent Decree when BPD fails to comply with its terms. Accordingly, like the Monitoring Team, DOJ is assessing BPD’s progress toward compliance and lets BPD, the Monitoring Team and the Court know when it believes BPD is making progress and when it believes BPD is not. In addition, like the Monitoring Team, DOJ provides technical assistance to BPD as BPD works toward compliance. The reform process under the Consent Decree thus involves four fully-engaged entities: BPD, the City, the Monitoring Team/the Court, and DOJ.

1

All citations to a specific paragraph of the Consent Decree follow the text that relies on that paragraph and appear in

parentheses containing “CD” and the number of the cited paragraph. Thus, the citation above, which is to Paragraph 442 of the

Consent Decree, follows the relied-on provision of Paragraph 442 and appears as “(CD 442).”

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THIS REPORT
Every two years, the Monitoring Team is required to prepare a “comprehensive re-assessment to determine whether the material requirements of [the Consent Decree] have been achieved,” to recommend any modifications to the Consent Decree that are necessary to achieve or sustain compliance when “changed circumstances or the unanticipated impact (or lack of impact)” of any requirement are interfering with compliance, and to “address areas of greatest achievement and the requirements that appear to have contributed to this success, as well as areas of greatest concern, including strategies and Technical Assistance, for accelerating Full and Effective Compliance.” (CD 469-70).
This report is the Monitoring Team’s first comprehensive re-assessment. It incorporates the findings from our first four semi-annual reports (issued in July 2018, January 2019, July 2019 and January 2020), as well as our findings regarding the performance of BPD and the City since January 2020. Consistent with the requirements of Paragraph 469 of the Consent Decree, this report explains (1) the Monitoring Team’s evaluation of the progress BPD and the City are making toward compliance with the requirements of the Consent Decree in each area of reform; (2) the challenges BPD and the City will continue to face as they strive to achieve compliance with Consent Decree requirements in each area; (3) the areas of greatest achievement and the Consent Decree requirements that we believe have contributed to BPD’s and the City’s success, as well as the areas posing the greatest challenges and the steps we believe BPD and the City must take to meet them; and (4) the Consent Decree requirements that BPD and the City are expected to address in the immediate future.
Beginning with this report, the Monitoring Team will not only provide a narrative assessment of the progress BPD and the City are making in each area of reform, but a compliance score, too. The compliance scores in each area are reflected in the spreadsheet in Exhibit 1 and included in the body of this report. The compliance scoring framework is as follows:
0 - Not Assessed: The Monitoring Team has yet to assess if the City/Department has made progress or complied with the requirement.
1 - Not Started: The City/Department has not yet demonstrated progress toward implementing the requirement, possibly in order to work on other, necessary projects.
2 – Planning/Policy Phase: The City/Department is addressing the planning and/or policy provisions for the requirement.
3 – Training Phase: The City/Department is addressing the training provisions for the requirement, based on approved policy.
4 – Implementation Phase: The City/Department is in the implementation phase for the requirement, having developed any required plan or policy and conducted any required training, but has not yet demonstrated compliance with the requirement.
4a – Implementation - Not Assessed: The City/Department has initiated the implementation phase for the requirement, but the Monitoring Team has not yet assessed the City/Department’s progress in implementation.
4b – Implementation - Off Track: The City/Department is not making satisfactory progress toward compliance with the requirement.

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4c – Implementation - On Track: The City/Department is making satisfactory progress toward compliance with the requirement.
4d – Implementation - Initial Compliance: The City/Department has demonstrated compliance with the requirement but has not sustained compliance for the required time period specified in paragraph 504 of the Consent Decree.
5 – Sustained Compliance: The City/Department has complied fully with the requirement and has demonstrated sustained compliance by consistently adhering to the requirement over time, as defined in paragraph 504 of the Consent Decree.
When reading this report and examining the compliance scores, again bear in mind that achieving transformational change in a large police department takes years and requires adherence to a rigorous process for reform. Thus, two and a half years into the reform process, which began with the approval of the First-Year Monitoring Plan in February 2018, BPD and the City have put in place many of the essential building blocks for sustainable change; they have, in fact, come a long way. But they still have a long way to go. That fact is reflected in their compliance scores. In most areas of reform, BPD and the City do not score above a “3”—they have not yet completed the “training phase” of reform—though in a couple of areas, including use of force, they score a “4a” and have moved to the “implementation phase.” See Exhibit 1.
This does not mean BPD and the City are off track. To the contrary, they are mostly on track. Prior to March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic required cessation of in-service training for four months, as well as a reallocation of certain BPD resources, BPD and the City met the vast majority of the deadlines and satisfied most the requirements in the Monitoring Plans. Even amid the pandemic and the constraints it has imposed, BPD and the City have largely kept pace. Nevertheless, as the Monitoring Plans implicitly acknowledge, most Consent Decree requirements simply cannot be satisfied in three years. BPD, its officers, the City, community members, the Monitoring Team and DOJ need sufficient time and opportunity to focus on each area of reform, and on each requirement within each area, to ensure that change is real and enduring. Change that is rushed, haphazard and superficial is not sustainable and does not qualify as true reform.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

With the approval of the First-Year Monitoring Plan in February 2018, BPD and the City started down the long road to Consent Decree compliance. Over the past two and a half years, they have covered a lot of ground and made good progress. They have finalized most key policies, are devising and implementing core training lessons, and have completed studies and implementation plans on technology, staffing, officer recruitment/hiring/retention, youth diversion, community policing, the City’s behavioral health system, and BPD’s relationship with Baltimore School Police. These foundational reforms are not fully completed, particularly in the area of training, which has entered a critical phase. That is significant because revised policies cannot take effect until officers have been trained on them. Nevertheless, the foundational reforms are advancing toward completion at an appropriately aggressive pace, even in the face of a global pandemic that has taxed BPD’s resources and altered normal operations.
The Monitoring Team has previously observed that the Consent Decree’s foundational reforms, while time-consuming and labor-intensive, are the easy part of the reform process. The hard part—sustainable, tangible improvement in organizational and officer performance—lies ahead. But the fact that policy revisions, training and planning are comparatively easy does not make them any less vital. Without clear policy to guide officers and hold them accountable, without effective training to ensure adherence to policy on the street, and without detailed plans for methodically addressing organizational deficiencies in components ranging from technology to internal affairs, the Consent Decree’s long-term goal of constitutional, community-oriented policing cannot be achieved.
From the beginning, the Monitoring Team has had little doubt about BPD’s commitment to pursuing this goal. It showed its commitment by diving headlong into drafting policies, conducting studies and preparing plans. Yet because of the overwhelming systemic challenges BPD faces, the Monitoring Team questioned BPD’s capability to reform itself. Over the past year, our concerns have begun to recede. We have grown more confident that BPD’s capability to reform matches its commitment to reform. Our growing faith stems from two interrelated organizational developments: the fast maturation of a wellstructured, fully accountable Consent Decree Implementation Unit (“CDIU”) and the installation of a police commissioner and command staff that is devoted to action, not mere words.
CDIU, whose creation is mandated by the Consent Decree (CD 481), deserves considerable credit for BPD’s progress to date. BPD went through three different police commissioners and revolving command staff between October 2017, when the Monitoring Team was appointed, and April 2019, when current Commissioner Michael Harrison took over. Amid these head-spinning changes, CDIU was a stabilizing force. Engaging other BPD components as needed, it pressed forward with key policy revisions, important planning documents, and a new approach to training. There was no slow-rolling or delay. Despite the

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instability in leadership, BPD met nearly every single Monitoring Plan deadline for dozens of deliverables over the first 18 months (all except the deadlines for the two deliverables—the now-completed Staffing and Community Policing Plans—that relied directly on the vision of a permanent commissioner). This early progress surpassed what most other agencies under consent decrees have been able to accomplish in a similar amount of time.

In the Monitoring Team’s view, CDIU has been able to push BPD forward in the face of significant challenges because it has had a sufficient number of qualified personnel to do the work, has assigned each staff member to a specific area of the Consent Decree, and has held that member accountable for the deliverables in that area. In other words, from the beginning, CDIU has been well-resourced and well-managed. In drafting the Consent Decree, the City, BPD and DOJ were astute to mandate the creation of a permanent, properly supported BPD unit to manage Consent Decree compliance.
CDIU’s work has proceeded apace under Commissioner Harrison. In fact, while BPD was making progress before Commission Harrison took over, the breadth and depth of the reform enterprise has appreciably accelerated under his command. The evidence is readily apparent to the Monitoring Team. Having successfully steered the New Orleans Police Department through the early and middle stages of its own consent decree before he came to BPD, Commissioner Harrison has surrounded himself with highly competent, committed deputies and other top-level command who have begun revamping key departmental functions. For example:

NEVERTHELESS, THE FOUNDATIONAL REFORMS ARE
ADVANCING TOWARD COMPLETION AT
AN APPROPRIATELY AGGRESSIVE PACE, EVEN IN THE FACE OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC THAT HAS TAXED BPD’S RESOURCES AND ALTERED NORMAL
OPERATIONS.

 The Training Academy has been transformed, as described in more detail below.
 Previously stalled improvements in technology and IT governance, essential to modernizing BPD
and achieving Consent Decree compliance, are gaining steam. Commissioner Harrison hired an experienced Chief Technology Officer, who in turn has hired new technical personnel and reorganized the Technology Section based on well-defined assignments of responsibility. Among other things, the Section has adopted a more vigilant approach to IT governance and project management; begun implementing a workforce management system to facilitate scheduling and resource deployment and a learning management system to track and deliver officer training; and, crucially, has hired a vendor to design and install a new records management system (“RMS”) scheduled to be completed next year. The new RMS will move BPD from cumbersome, siloed, paper-reporting systems to integrated, electronic, field-based reporting, which will increase officer efficiency, facilitate more effective supervision, and enable necessary but previously impracticable analysis of Department-wide, district, unit and individual officer trends in performance and constitutional policing metrics.
 There are early—if still inconclusive—signs that the Performance Standards Section, which
conducts internal inspections and audits, has started to function the way it should to monitor compliance with law and policy. The Section routinely performs transportation vehicle equipment inspections and random transport event audits. This year, it published its first annual analysis of responses to First Amendment-protected activity and completed its second annual analysis of sexual assault investigations. It is also currently finishing up its first quarterly analysis of arrests that result in individuals being released without charges.

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 Commissioner Harrison is acting aggressively to address a culture that has been overly tolerant of
misconduct and poor performance. Sending a strong message about the importance of reform, he elevated to the position of Deputy Commissioner both the head of the Public Integrity Bureau (“PIB”), which investigates misconduct, and the civilian head of the Compliance Bureau, which is responsible for Consent Decree implementation. To bolster the coordination and efficiency of the reform effort, Commissioner Harrison placed CDIU, the Training Academy, the Technology Section, and the Performance Standards Section within the same Division—the Compliance Division. Additionally, one of the first policies Commissioner Harrison adopted and has piloted (Draft Policy 321, also not required by any Monitoring Plan) authorizes minor allegations of misconduct to be promptly resolved through acceptance of responsibility and negotiated resolution. The policy promises to increase PIB efficiency, ensure greater accountability and improve officer morale. The serious challenges BPD faces in the area of accountability cannot be overstated. They are explained in the next section. But Commissioner Harrison and his commanders have recognized the imperative of culture change and have begun attempting to achieve it.
 To underscore the relationship between ethical policing and officer wellness and support, BPD will
soon be among the first major city police agencies to conduct training and adopt a program on peer intervention/“active bystandership” called Ethical Policing Is Courageous. Though not required by the current Monitoring Plan, BPD is also proactively implementing policies mandating a duty to intervene and prohibiting retaliation for reporting misconduct.
A Consent Decree is only as good as the people implementing it. In BPD’s case, because of CDIU, Commissioner Harrison and his commanders, the reforms the Consent Decree envisions are advancing. Thus, at this point, the Consent Decree is working. Its provisions do not need to be amended to accomplish its objectives. The implementation process should be permitted to unfold as designed.
To be clear, this does not mean—at least not yet—that the Consent Decree ultimately will succeed. Rather, it means that, thirty months in, early-stage threshold reforms have taken shape and are showing that BPD has the capability to reform. These reforms have not yet translated into widespread changes in officer conduct. Indeed, because BPD’s antiquated reporting and record-keeping systems effectively render key data inaccessible or unusable, the Monitoring Team has not yet been able to meaningfully evaluate whether such changes are occurring. Nevertheless, the work BPD has done on the Consent Decree’s foundational reforms is beginning to show that BPD can fix its structural and operational shortcomings and can provide constitutional, accountable, community-oriented policing to the residents of Baltimore.
Certain areas of the Consent Decree have stood out thus far. Some stand out because they vividly demonstrate BPD’s capacity for sustainable reform. These include training, responding to individuals in crisis, and First Amendment-protected activity. Other areas stand out because they continue to pose serious challenges to the prospects for sustainable reform. These include accountability (which encompasses misconduct investigations, discipline and supervision) and community policing. We address these areas below. We explain which features of the Consent Decree are working as designed, as well as those BPD should focus on if it is to meaningfully progress toward compliance.

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AREAS OF GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT
|TRAINING
The Monitoring Team reported in July 2019 that BPD’s “rapid progress toward establishing a training program consistent with national best practices is perhaps the most promising development to date.” ECF No. 220-1. That was 14 months ago. The performance of BPD’s Education and Training Section—the Training Academy—has only continued to improve since then, even with a four-month interruption in in-service training because of the pandemic.
The amount of Consent Decree work the Academy has done over the past two years is considerable. It is detailed elsewhere in this report. It includes developing and delivering department-wide e-learning and in-class instruction on use of force, stops/searches/arrests, interviews/interrogations, transportation of persons in custody, impartial policing, body-worn camera use, and responding to reports of sexual assault, as well as the ongoing development of e-learning and in-class curriculum on numerous other Consent Decree topics, to be delivered continuously through the end of 2021.
What distinguishes BPD’s work on training, however, is not simply its quantity. Rather, it is the qualitative improvement BPD has made in a short time in both the management of its training function and the quality of instruction. The rapid improvements BPD has made compare favorably to the slower pace of improvement in other departments under consent decrees.
In the Monitoring Team’s view, the Training Academy’s accomplishments are principally attributable to two developments: the appointment of additional dedicated personnel, including new leadership, and a commitment to a modern, more dynamic approach to officer education. The Consent Decree requires both (CD 292-93, 295-97).
From the beginning, the Monitoring Team made clear to BPD that it would need to increase the number of instructors assigned to the Academy. There was simply no way BPD could satisfy the intensive training requirements of the Consent Decree without dramatically increasing the number of full-time instructors. BPD has delivered. In spring 2019, prior to the first tranche of Consent Decree classroom training, which covered use of force and impartial policing, BPD assigned ten new police instructors to the Academy. In early 2020, prior to the beginning of the second major tranche of Consent Decree classroom training, which covers stops, searches and arrests and additional aspects of impartial policing, BPD hired several additional law instructors. Recently, it brought on two new curriculum writers, civilian employees who will be essential to the development of the raft of new training programs scheduled to be delivered over the next 12 - 15 months.
Importantly, BPD has coupled the augmentation of its Academy staff with the installation of highly qualified leadership. Commissioner Harrison promoted Martin Bartness to Major and tapped him to head the Academy. A 23-year BPD veteran, Major Bartness is an experienced, respected leader with a proven devotion to the mission of modernizing and professionalizing police education. In addition to promoting Major Bartness, BPD hired a first-ever civilian academic director, Gary Cordner. Director Cordner is an accomplished academic and police professional with years of experience developing highquality, evidence-based education programs for law enforcement agencies. Director Cordner now oversees the development of new curriculum, including curriculum on Consent Decree topics.
Under the leadership of Major Bartness and Director Cordner, BPD has adopted a new approach to training. BPD has switched from providing officers all annual in-service training in a single, lengthy block

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to offering shorter blocks on different topics throughout the year. This staggered approach, concentrating on one or two topics at a time, slows things down and facilitates increased retention of training material. It also allows for greater staffing/scheduling flexibility, reducing the operational impact of taking officers away from their assigned duties for training for longer periods.

Even more important, the Training Academy is embracing adult learning principles. In so doing, it has

taken advantage of programs and resources from other agencies. For instance, on several occasions,

different Academy personnel have traveled to Los Angeles for programming on adult learning at the

LAPD Academy, a leader in the field. BPD’s new model utilizes e-learning to introduce officers to

departmental policies, followed by scenario-based classroom instruction designed to teach officers how

to apply the policies in practice. Officers may not commence the classroom component until they pass

an online test that accompanies the e-learning. Classroom instruction, previously dominated by static

lectures and dense PowerPoint presentations, now features

WHAT DISTINGUISHES

dynamic, interactive problem-solving exercises that incorporate videos from actual police encounters, written scenarios, in-

BPD’S WORK ON TRAINING, HOWEVER,
IS NOT SIMPLY ITS QUANTITY. RATHER, IT IS THE QUALITATIVE

person role playing and digital simulations. Before going live, the classroom component undergoes a piloting process. The piloting process includes sessions with officers, as well as sessions with community members. Notably, BPD formed a Community Training Review Committee to vet and provide feedback on draft training curricula.

IMPROVEMENT BPD HAS MADE IN A SHORT
TIME IN BOTH THE

BPD has used the new format to deliver critical Consent Decree training on use of force, stops/searches/arrests, transport, interviews/interrogations, and impartial policing. It will continue to use the format to deliver training in other Consent Decree

MANAGEMENT OF ITS TRAINING FUNCTION

areas. Based on the Monitoring Team’s first-hand observations, the results have been encouraging. Academy instructors have gained increasing confidence and ability in delivering the

AND THE QUALITY OF INSTRUCTION.

material through facilitated discussion, as opposed to lectures. They have also become increasingly adept at addressing difficult, pointed questions from their peers and conveying the rationale

for policies, including Consent Decree-mandated policies, that

have met with skepticism among some participants. Moreover,

officers participating in classroom learning appear engaged.

They are generally not sitting in their chairs with their arms folded or looking at their cell phones

(and instructors are getting better at re-engaging them when they do). Officers are taking part in the

discussions and sharing their views. That is reflected in the results from the surveys officers have taken

at the end of each course. The vast majority have indicated that they value the change in approach and

find it effective. For instance, for the training on stops/searches/arrests, which has now been delivered

to roughly three-quarters of the Department, roughly 85% of officers agree or strongly agree that the

training is engaging, while only 5% disagree or strongly disagree.

In short, the significant strides the Academy has made mean that officers are receiving better, more practical training on core policing activity. The new training now must translate into practice on the street.

The Monitoring Team expects the quality of training to continue to improve as instruction using adult learning concepts becomes further ingrained in Academy operations. The Monitoring Team also expects the quality of learning to improve as a result of the Academy’s recent move to the University of Baltimore.

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Early on, the Monitoring Team emphasized the need for BPD to upgrade its training facility, which was housed in a decrepit old school in Northwest Baltimore. The use of that facility conveyed to officers and recruits that BPD did not prioritize training, did not value their professional development, and did not recognize policing as a vocation that requires specialized knowledge and skill. The new facilities at the University of Baltimore—which are expansive, modern, clean, and well-equipped for the use of technology–appropriately convey the opposite message.

Although the Academy has made great progress over a short

period, there remain areas for improvement. Classroom instruction sometimes can be uneven, particularly at the start of a course. This

AT A GLANCE

potentially indicates the need to fortify the piloting process. More

fundamentally, it suggests that BPD should consider establishing an in-house facilitator development program, similar to the program certain Academy instructors have attended at LAPD. The

AREAS OF GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT

quality of curriculum writing, though improving, also must get

better. Curriculum development continues to require substantial technical assistance from the Monitoring Team and DOJ. The recent addition of new curriculum writers should help. Relatedly, early drafts of training curriculum for specialized units (e.g., sex

 TRAINING  RESPONDING TO

offense unit investigators) have not employed adult learning techniques as readily as Department-wide curriculum drafted within the Academy. Going forward, BPD must ensure that the

INDIVIDUALS IN CRISIS

development of specialized curriculum is closely coordinated with Academy personnel and that such curriculum is delivered with or under the supervision of Academy personnel.

 FIRST AMENDMENTPROTECTED ACTIVITY

Finally, although the Academy has had sufficient staff to deliver

the first two tranches of classroom Consent Decree training and

to prepare curriculum for others, the Monitoring Team is concerned that the Academy’s future staffing

needs will not be met. The Staffing Plan issued earlier this year recommends increasing professional

civilian staff at the Academy by 38 and decreasing sworn staff by 24. Reductions in BPD’s FY21 budget

have slowed efforts to create new civilian positions in line with the Plan. At least in the short run, BPD

will not be able to implement the Plan’s recommendations for the Academy until next fiscal year at

the earliest. As a result, BPD will not be able to civilianize certain Academy functions (and will not be

able redeploy sworn officers to Patrol or PIB, where they are needed) and will continue to operate at a

personnel deficit, even if not one as large as before.

|RESPONDING TO INDIVIDUALS IN CRISIS
In addition to BPD’s progress on training, among the most reassuring developments has been the groundwork done to address officer interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis. In a relatively short period, BPD and the City have satisfied most of the threshold requirements in this area: appointing a Crisis Intervention Team coordinator; developing a crisis intervention plan; identifying BPD’s data collection needs on encounters with individuals in crisis and creating a new crisis intervention form to record such data; revising three different crisis intervention policies; creating four different sets of training curricula on behavioral health awareness (for recruits, officers, dispatchers/911 call-takers, and specialized CIT officers (the last of which is still in development)); and producing a painstakingly detailed “Gap Analysis” that identifies the shortcomings in Baltimore’s behavioral health system and recommends solutions for addressing them.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 15 of 164 The catalyst for all these achievements has been the coordination of the City, its nonprofit partner Behavioral Health System Baltimore (“BHSB”) and BPD with community stakeholders on the Collaborative Planning and Implementation Committee (“CPIC”). The expansion of CPIC, and the coordination of CPIC with BPD and the City, are required by the Consent Decree (CD 104). CPIC includes relevant City and State officials, advocacy groups such as Disability Rights Maryland and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, individuals with lived experience, community mental health providers, substance use services providers, local hospitals, advocates, and committed philanthropists. CPIC’s leadership represents key components of the crisis intervention system and includes the CEO of BHSB and representatives of the Mayor’s Office. CPIC has different committees, each responsible for a category of Consent Decree requirements (e.g., policy, training, Gap Analysis, data).
The policies, training curricula, studies and data needs analysis that BPD and the City have generated under the Consent Decree were all prepared by CPIC. In other words, all of them are the result of close collaboration among BPD, City officials and community members. At the beginning of each monitoring year, CPIC has devised a workplan to ensure that all Monitoring Plan deadlines for all deliverables in the area of behavioral health are satisfied and that there is adequate time within those deadlines for the community stakeholders on CPIC’s committees to contribute. Using this organizational framework, CPIC has produced an impressive body of work in just over two years. That work is a testament to what BPD and City officials can achieve by working together with devoted, informed community members to improve policing and behavioral health support in Baltimore.
CPIC has fostered meaningful discussion about other matters as well. Even before the Gap Analysis was completed, the City, BHSB and BPD were exploring ways to integrate different programs that provide support for individuals in need, drawing on the collective experience of CPIC’s members to do so. These disparate programs focus respectively on homelessness, substance abuse, and mental illness, but all share the common goal of diverting individuals in crisis from the criminal justice system to the health care system. The City, BHSB and BPD are aware that individuals can struggle with multiple issues. With CPIC’s input, they have been looking into how to develop a comprehensive, integrated support system.
The discussions around integrating behavioral health services in Baltimore have included a closer review of BPD’s dedicated crisis intervention programs. These programs include the Crisis Response Team (CRT), the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) Team, and what was formerly known as the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT). CPIC members have expressed concerns that these programs present the risk that program officers, despite good intentions, might violate the rights of the programs’ intended beneficiaries during street encounters, intimidate and thus unintentionally discourage them from seeking help, or paternalistically override their decisions to forgo treatment. BPD has shown a willingness to engage in constructive discussions around these concerns. In fact, in early 2020, partly in response to these concerns, BPD eliminated HOT and assigned its officers to CRT. CPIC members have discussed moving to a system that ensures CRT responds to calls involving individuals in crisis and seeks to connect them with support services when appropriate, but does not affirmatively initiate contact like HOT did, leaving such contacts to non-police outreach workers.
The Monitoring Team has participated in CPIC discussions regarding BPD’s crisis intervention programs and the City’s support systems. We have been impressed with the conviction of community members, the City and BPD to resolve their differences in pursuit of common goals. While the conversations have not always been easy, they have been vital, as they have fostered working relationships among key stakeholders in a single forum and have laid the foundation for what is now CPIC’s central mission: implementing the recommendations in the Gap Analysis.
It is important to understand that implementing these recommendations is not the work of BPD alone.

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BPD is, of course, responsible for strengthening its crisis response function. But the point of the Gap

Analysis is to identify and shore up deficiencies in the City’s behavioral health system so that BPD is

relied upon less often to resolve matters involving individuals in crisis and so that, when it does respond,

it has bona fide options for diversion to support services. Thus,

CPIC HAS PRODUCED AN IMPRESSIVE BODY OF WORK IN JUST OVER

the responsibility for implementing the recommendations in the Gap Analysis falls most heavily on City agencies, which must begin to match BPD’s commitment to CPIC’s work. Those recommendations include providing 24/7 around-the-clock crisis centers and expanding the presently limited availability

TWO YEARS. THAT WORK IS A TESTAMENT
TO WHAT BPD AND CITY OFFICIALS CAN ACHIEVE BY WORKING

of mobile crisis teams, furnishing behavioral health outpatient services in primary care settings, establishing an integrated “no wrong door” approach to behavioral health and substance abuse services, recruiting and retaining competent behavioral health workers, particularly in community-based settings, and developing permanently supported housing programs.

TOGETHER WITH DEVOTED, INFORMED COMMUNITY MEMBERS

By paying heed to the City’s broader mental health care needs, the Consent Decree was prescient. It recognizes that police should not be asked or expected to fill the gaps in behavioral health support systems, and it embraces the reforms that

TO IMPROVE POLICING AND BEHAVIORAL HEALTH
SUPPORT IN BALTIMORE

many have been advocating during the protest movement this summer. Because of the Consent Decree, Baltimore already has the blueprint for “re-imagining” policing.
Both the City and BPD have a lot of hard work ahead. The

City and its partner, BHSB, must set about implementing the

demanding recommendations in the Gap Analysis, which will

require a sustained, long-range commitment. BPD, for its part, still must train its officers and dispatchers

on behavioral health awareness, assemble a Crisis Intervention Team to respond routinely to calls

involving individuals in crisis and, above all, handle encounters with individuals in crisis in accordance

with policy to reduce the number of outcomes involving the criminal justice system. Nevertheless, the

Consent Decree is working as planned so far. The early-stage accomplishments and continuing maturation

of CPIC, with buy-in from the City, BHSB and BPD, have set the stage for addressing the formidable

challenges ahead.

|FIRST AMENDMENT-PROTECTED ACTIVITY
Because BPD has been focused on foundational reforms and is still developing the technological capacity to collect comprehensive data needed for assessment, there is not yet substantial evidence that the Consent Decree is having an observable or measurable impact on the street. This underscores the reality that transformational change in a major city police department does not happen overnight. Recently, however, the first signs of observable progress began to emerge. Although the evidence is anecdotal and limited, it is noteworthy.

Based on dozens of hours of Monitoring Team observation over a two-week period, BPD responded admirably to this summer’s protests calling for police reform in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. Community organizers deserve substantial credit for keeping the protests peaceful, but BPD also deserves credit for diligently complying with law and policy. BPD performed more capably than most of its peer agencies around the country and, in fact, was hailed as a national model for honoring First Amendment rights while maintaining public safety.

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BPD officers allowed community members to assemble in public spaces and march on public streets and sidewalks without intervention; deliver speeches denouncing law enforcement and criticize officers faceto-face without restriction or retaliation; and make video and audio recordings of police activity without impediment. As Judge Bredar observed at the latest public hearing in July, “I take all of it as a measure of progress. The evidence is there. Baltimore didn’t burn. A lot of cities did.”

As explained in more detail in the body of this report, the Monitoring Team attributes BPD’s performance

to three developments. First, protest leaders were well-organized, committed to non-violence, and willing

to share information needed for BPD to maintain public safety while respecting the First Amendment.

Second, BPD commanders lowered the temperature and avoided

provocation by permitting the protests to proceed unimpeded;

refraining from unnecessary arrests for minor infractions; allowing temporary traffic disruptions; deploying officers largely in their ordinary uniforms rather than in riot gear; keeping BPD’s

COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS DESERVE

civil disturbance unit away from the protest activity but ready to deploy in case the protests turned violent; and encouraging officers to calmly engage in discussion with protestors and

SUBSTANTIAL CREDIT FOR KEEPING THE

march alongside them. Third, BPD rigorously adhered to an

PROTESTS PEACEFUL,

effective Incident Command System, which provided officers clear direction both in advance and as events unfolded. The ICS prevented confusion on the street and led to coordinated,

BUT BPD ALSO DESERVES CREDIT FOR DILIGENTLY

measured police action.

COMPLYING WITH

The Monitoring Team believes these developments are traceable

LAW AND POLICY.

to the Consent Decree. Under the Consent Decree, BPD officers

have undergone training on use of force, and BPD has adopted

revised, comprehensive policies on First Amendment-protected

activity, which include new, detailed protocols for responding to mass demonstrations. Though not yet

formally active because Department-wide training has not yet been conducted, command staff used those

policies as a guide. The policies emphasize not only the imperative of permitting unimpeded assembly

and speech except in limited circumstances where they imminently threaten public safety, but the

importance of working with community members to ensure peaceful protest activity. Further, BPD has

placed renewed emphasis on the necessity of utilizing an Incident Command System to respond to both

ordinary crime scenes and major events. In the Monitoring Team’s review of BPD’s response to the death

of Detective Sean Suiter in late 2017, one of the missteps we observed was the breakdown of the ICS.

The training delivered to all commanders in response to the Monitoring Team’s review included refresher

instruction on ICS.

BPD’s response to the recent protests is yet additional evidence that, so far, the Consent Decree is working.

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AREAS POSING THE GREATEST CHALLENGES
|ACCOUNTABILITY (MISCONDUCT INVESTIGATIONS, DISCIPLINE AND SUPERVISION)
The Consent Decree will not be a success unless and until BPD establishes a robust culture of accountability. A culture of accountability means the Public Integrity Bureau openly accepts, properly classifies, and timely and thoroughly investigates complaints of misconduct; the Department metes out discipline fairly and impartially; officers intervene to stop their peers from engaging in misconduct; and sergeants and lieutenants rigorously monitor officer performance, appropriately rewarding exceptional work and swiftly correcting missteps. For years, there has been no culture of accountability at BPD. The City spends millions annually in settlement payouts for lawsuits alleging misconduct. The Department is still reeling from the Gun Trace Task Force scandal. Maryland courts recently affirmed the dismissal of a dozen administrative cases of major misconduct because PIB’s investigations were not completed on time. With numbing regularity, the press reports serious allegations of officers abusing their power—by planting evidence, using excessive force, making unlawful arrests in retaliation for questioning police action, falsifying official reports, and even enlisting colleagues to extort a contractor for a reimbursement for shoddy work on a personal home improvement. There will inevitably be violations of policy in police agencies; hence the need for internal affairs units. But when officers feel as emboldened to cross the line as some BPD officers appear to have been, there is an institutional problem.
And this is just what the community reads about in the paper. Over the past 30 months, the Monitoring Team has observed first-hand the flaws in BPD’s accountability structure. PIB is and remains severely understaffed—short more than three dozen investigators, according to BPD’s recent Staffing Plan. To compound the problem, PIB investigators are inadequately trained to conduct internal affairs investigations, which are different than ordinary criminal investigations. The natural consequence of understaffing and poor training is there are too many cases for too few investigators, serious allegations are not investigated promptly, and investigative findings are often inadequately supported. Further, PIB supervisors do not timely review investigations upon completion, and data on outcomes is not yet adequately collected or analyzed to gauge unit efficacy and departmental trends.
The Monitoring Team recently completed its first comprehensive compliance review of misconduct investigations. The results were sobering, if predictable. The review focused on investigations from 2018, which was prior to full implementation of early-stage reforms. Among other things, the Monitoring Team found:
 An unacceptable percentage of investigations were of poor quality.
 Over 40 percent of the reviewed investigations were “administratively closed,” an outcome the Consent
Decree forbids (CD 344.k.iv.).
 Case files were often in disarray, and investigations were not documented in a consistent, uniform
manner, leading to a lack of clarity in some cases about the factual issues presented and the investigative steps taken.
 Communications with involved parties were poor, with complainants receiving notice of receipt of
their complaints in less than one-quarter of all cases; officers received proper notice that they were subjects of complaints at a similarly low rate.
 Well over half of investigations were not completed within the Consent Decree’s 90-day deadline, with
extensions of time never requested or approved.

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 Complainants were interviewed in less than half of cases, as were subjects, and fewer than a quarter
of cases had complete video or audio records of all witness interviews.
 Investigations failed to flag related operational and performance issues that were exposed, such as
training deficiencies, repetitive problematic behavior, and potential policy shortcomings.
The public perception of BPD’s ability to police itself matches what the Monitoring Team has found. The Monitoring Team’s community and arrestee surveys, completed within the past 15 months, reveal that Baltimoreans generally do not believe that BPD holds its officers accountable for misconduct. Officers, too, are frustrated. In focus groups last summer, one of the main reasons officers cited for low morale was that, because PIB takes too long to investigate cases, they are often left in limbo for extended periods, even for unfounded complaints or minor administrative infractions that should be resolved quickly.

Beyond PIB’s shortcomings, BPD’s supervisory systems are in need of repair. As the Staffing Study

completed in 2018 found, unity of command has too often been absent. That was particularly true within

the Patrol Division where, due to staffing schedules, officers could go days, even weeks, without working

the same shift as their assigned sergeant. Although the new patrol schedule seeks to address this problem,

it was a major problem for years, adversely affecting not only accountability but officer wellness, as officers

cannot be sure about the support they have. Further, performance evaluations have been historically

uneven. And because BPD has an outdated, ineffectual record-

AT A GLANCE

keeping system, supervisors have never conducted systematic assessments of the performance of officers under their command. On

paper, BPD has an early intervention system, which is supposed to

AREAS POSING THE GREATEST

identify officers with emerging performance issues so that prompt corrective action can be taken. But without adequate, accessible data, the system has never functioned well.

CHALLENGES

The Consent Decree prescribes solutions for BPD’s myriad

deficiencies, and BPD has started slowly down the path of reform. It

 ACCOUNTABILITY

has designed a new, more refined system for classifying misconduct complaints, and recently completed a model intake/classification/

 COMMUNITY POLICING

investigations manual for PIB investigators and supervisors, which is coupled with protocols for sharing information with the Civilian Review Board. Relatedly, PIB has streamlined its case

assignment system. BPD authorized a long-needed independent

investigation of the causes of the Gun Trace Task Force scandal,

which is underway, and drafted a best-practices policy ensuring that all BPD members comply with

their constitutional obligation to disclose potential exculpatory evidence in criminal cases, which will be

implemented once officers are trained on it. Additionally, as noted above, Commissioner Harrison has

made efforts, even outside the Consent Decree, to transform PIB.

Change, however, is not yet observable. There is some anecdotal evidence that BPD’s oversight functions— PIB, District commanders, and the Performance Standards Section (body-worn camera review unit)—are gradually beginning to identify misconduct when it occurs and are responding as warranted by taking non-disciplinary corrective action, opening an internal investigation, or initiating a criminal referral. But this is far from the norm. That is not because BPD is not trying hard to achieve change. Rather, it is because, in this area, change is especially difficult and slow to take root. BPD has multiple layers of accumulated dysfunction to clear away.

At this point, the formula for change is to stay the course and give BPD an opportunity to do what the Consent Decree prescribes. It begins with providing training to PIB investigators, which is set to take place

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 20 of 164 in 2021. PIB investigators still have not received specialized instruction in internal investigations. The new PIB investigations manual, as good as it is, will only collect dust until PIB investigators are trained on its provisions. There has been some frustration getting this training off the ground. The pandemic has slowed development, and BPD had to switch to a new consultant after spending months attempting to reach an arrangement and develop a curriculum with another. The completion of training should accelerate improvement in the quality of investigations and the integrity of disciplinary recommendations. Something as straightforward as ensuring that all investigators work off of a set task list and maintain case files in a standard, uniform fashion—the Monitoring Team has never seen uniformly organized files in its PIB case reviews—would go a long way toward consistent completion of timely, complete, wellsupported investigations, findings and recommendations.
Peer intervention (EPIC) training, set to be delivered this fall and winter, is also vital, coupled with the finalization of new policies mandating a duty to intervene and prohibiting retaliation for reporting misconduct. A program requiring officers to stop their peers from engaging in misconduct and to intervene when they do, EPIC is inherently about changing culture and improving community trust. Indications are that it is proving successful in the New Orleans Police Department, also under a consent decree. It holds the same promise for BPD.
A number of other mandated accountability reforms are on deck:
 A new policy on performance evaluations
 Revisions to the full suite of disciplinary policies
 Integration of civilians into disciplinary trial boards
 Implementation of a revamped Field Training Officer program
 Expansion of the oversight work of the Performance Standards Section
 Establishment and implementation of a plan for collecting the data needed to complete the statistical
reports and internal PIB audits required by Paragraphs 402 and 405 of the Consent Decree
 Development of an e-based Early Intervention System that is fully integrated with IAPro (BPD’s
misconduct database) and the nascent Record Management System
This is a lot. BPD needs to have the chance to conduct training and implement all these other measures before the Monitoring Team is able to determine whether the Consent Decree’s accountability provisions are accomplishing what they are designed to achieve. Put differently, it is still too soon to tell whether BPD is failing to implement the Consent Decree’s accountability reforms as urgently and effectively as it must or whether the Consent Decree fails to address accountability reform in all the right ways.
Establishing a stout system of accountability very likely poses the greatest challenge to the prospects of the reform enterprise. Unless first-line supervisors and field training officers embrace the change that is afoot, patrol officers will not internalize it and constitutional policing will not become a consistent reality on the street. Unless PIB dramatically improves its operations, certain officers will continue to feel emboldened to break the rules while the rest will continue to suffer from low morale. And unless BPD starts to prove that it can police itself, it will not win the community’s trust. BPD needs to get accountability reform right. It has taken baby steps so far. In the coming year, it must start taking full strides.

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|COMMUNITY POLICING
Together with constitutional policing, developing an effective community policing model is the Consent Decree’s principal objective. It depends on building and maintaining the trust of community members so that, through collaborative problem-solving, crime can be prevented, reduced and solved more readily. Establishing this model will transform how BPD provides police services. Right now, it is far from clear that BPD will be able achieve such transformation.

Currently, BPD patrol officers spend most of their time responding to calls for service. Officers have little

time for proactive relationship-building. Under the Community Policing Plan, published in April 2020,

that is supposed to change. The Plan envisions that officers will spend up to 40% of their time on proactive,

community-oriented policing and 60% on calls for service. The 40% figure, which applies to all officers,

includes engagement with community members through informal interactions (pursuing unplanned

interpersonal interactions between calls), formal programming (participating in neighborhood events

and community meetings and establishing partnerships), and problem-solving (proactively working

with community members to address recurrent localized issues and

prevent future neighborhood disorder).

OVER THE PAST

The challenges to implementing this appropriately ambitious plan are profound. First, as the Monitoring Team’s community and arrestee surveys show, satisfaction with and trust in BPD are

30 MONTHS, THE MONITORING TEAM

low. A majority of respondents do not believe that BPD effectively fights crime or respects or tries to cultivate good relationships with community members. A majority also believe that BPD officers do

HAS OBSERVED FIRST-HAND THE

not care about their communities, expressed reluctance to contact

FLAWS IN BPD’S

BPD about most crimes, and reported observing BPD officers engage in misconduct, such as racial profiling, excessive force, and using verbally abusive language. Much lower percentages of participants

ACCOUNTABILITY STRUCTURE.

have more positive views on these subjects. Because Baltimoreans

have diminished faith in BPD, engagement and problem-solving

are going to be hard. That said, many survey participants said they

would like to see improved relations with BPD, expressed a willingness to engage, and feel comfortable

communicating with BPD when necessary.

Second, violent crime persists in Baltimore. The persistence of violent crime makes community members more skeptical of the police’s ability to prevent and solve crime and, in the City’s most challenged neighborhoods, more fearful of engagement because of a fear of retaliation.

Third, as the Staffing Plan has established, BPD needs to significantly enhance Patrol Division staffing to realize the goal of having officers spend 40% of their time on proactive, community-oriented activity. As of this summer, according to the Staffing Plan, BPD needs over 175 additional patrol officers and over 30 additional sergeants. Simply put, and as the Community Policing Plan acknowledges, BPD will not be able to realize its community policing objectives absent a meaningful increase in the number of patrol officers.

In the face of these challenges, BPD’s progress toward the Consent Decree’s community policing requirements has been halting. The development of the Community Policing Plan—the threshold reform measure in this area—took over a year longer than initially scheduled. Prior to the pandemic, it stood out as among the very few Monitoring Plan deliverables that BPD did not complete on time. As noted, the delay was due in large part to the serial changes in commissioners prior to the appointment of

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Commissioner Harrison. A community policing plan naturally should reflect a commissioner’s vision. Nevertheless, completion of the Plan still took longer than anticipated because the initial draft was inadequate—little more than a repackaging of BPD’s 2019 crime reduction plan. BPD essentially had to
go back to the drawing board.

IN THE FACE OF THESE

The Plan now in place is sound. It provides a good foundation for achieving Consent Decree compliance. Indeed, the International

CHALLENGES, BPD’S PROGRESS TOWARD THE CONSENT DECREE’S

Association of Chiefs of Police recently featured the Plan as a model in one of its publications. However, the Plan will have to be continually reassessed and updated. That is particularly true given the events of the past several months in the wake of

COMMUNITY POLICING REQUIREMENTS HAS

the killing of George Floyd. Those events have called attention to inadequacies in policing and underscore the need to re-think community-based strategies for maintaining public safety. In the

BEEN HALTING.

“Responding to Individuals in Crisis” section above, we stress

the necessity of improving the City’s behavioral health system

in order to improve BPD’s responses to individuals in crisis. An

effective community policing strategy might similarly require a

more holistic approach, incorporating City resources—not just

BPD resources—to address localized issues through collaborative problem-solving.

Because BPD only recently completed the Community Policing Plan, it has not yet been required to complete the other Consent Decree deliverables for community policing. Thus, as in the area of accountability, it is too soon to say whether BPD is falling short or whether the Consent Decree’s community policing provisions need to be modified. However, there are clearly reforms BPD must implement to advance more quickly toward the Consent Decree’s community policing goals. Because effective community policing genuinely depends on complying with the requirements in every other area of the Consent Decree, BPD’s “to do list” could encompass the entire agreement. To take a prominent example, BPD will not earn the community’s trust, essential for effective community policing, until it shows progress toward the Consent Decree’s requirements for accountability and constitutional policing. Nevertheless, there are more immediate concrete measures BPD must take. They include the following:

Training | BPD has yet to deliver training on community policing. No community policing model can be implemented without providing officers specific guidance on the type of engagement and problem-solving that is expected of them. In recognition of the centrality of adopting a community policing model to Consent Decree compliance, community policing training is now being prioritized and has been moved up on the training schedule. Curriculum development is underway, e-learning should begin in early 2021, and in-class instruction should begin in the second quarter of 2021.

Implementation of Community Policing Plan | The Community Policing Plan calls for incorporating community policing assessment criteria into field training evaluations and performance evaluations after training is delivered. It similarly calls for establishing data collection requirements and data-driven measurements for community policing and, correspondingly, including reports on community policing data in weekly Comstat meetings. It also envisions incorporating community policing performance into promotion criteria. BPD should move forward with these performance measurements as quickly as possible once training is completed.

The Community Policing Plan requires the development of localized Neighborhood Policing Plans to address the issues unique to each City neighborhood afflicted by high crime. A piloting process is supposed to begin in two districts in the coming months, all commanders and Neighborhood Coordination Officers

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 23 of 164 are supposed to undergo training on the plans in mid-2021, and plans are supposed to be deployed in every district by the end of 2021. Because implementing these micro-plans is an important feature of the Community Policing Plan, BPD must proceed with alacrity. The calls for reform both nationwide and in Baltimore have only amplified the urgency of prompt implementation.
Consistent with BPD policy, the Community Policing Plan requires fair and impartial policing and adherence to the tenets of procedural justice. Supervisors must ensure that the officers under their command treat the people they encounter with simple respect, including when taking law enforcement action.
During a community-wide call in August 2020 to explain what happened when several blocks in the Eastern District had to be barricaded for over 24 hours because an armed man had fired his gun in the presence of family members, was experiencing a crisis, and refused to come out of his home, one resident complained that two officers stationed on a nearby corner brushed her off when she asked when unimpeded access to her home might be restored. The Chief of Patrol immediately jumped in to assure the resident that the officers’ response was unacceptable and asked for the officers’ names and the time and location of the encounter so that he could address them directly. That is precisely the type of decisive command- and supervisor-level conduct that conveys to officers the importance of procedural justice, assures community members that BPD is listening to them, and lays the groundwork for an effective community policing strategy.
Equipment/Patrol Cars | BPD has developed recruitment, hiring and retention plans under the Consent Decree. To have enough patrol officers to foster community policing, it must continue to implement them. One of the concrete measures BPD can take (and has begun to take) to attract and retain quality officers is to provide them the equipment they need to do their jobs effectively. The completion of a new records management system is vital. By facilitating electronic field-based reporting, the new RMS will reduce the amount of time officers must spend on writing reports and increase the amount of time available for community policing activity. Equally if not more important, BPD must continue replacing its aging fleet of patrol cars with new ones. In the focus groups the Monitoring Team conducted last summer, one of officers’ central complaints was the condition of their patrol cars. They indicated that a simple way to improve job quality and officer morale was to ensure their cars—which are effectively their office space— are clean, modern and fully functional.

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FINDINGS

Since February 2018, when their work under the First-Year Monitoring Plan began, BPD and City leadership have made evident progress toward satisfying the Consent Decree’s foundational requirements. Notably, BPD and the City achieved this progress despite instability in BPD and City leadership during the first 12 to 18 months of reform and notwithstanding certain unavoidable delays in implementation caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The accomplishments of BPD and the City in the face of these challenges is attributable to the consistent commitment of BPD’s various commanders to the reform process and the hard work of BPD’s Consent Decree Implementation Unit and the functions that support it, especially the Training Academy.
BPD has almost completed the initial round of policy revisions required by the Consent Decree. Under the Consent Decree, BPD has issued upwards of 50 new policies. These policies provide clearer, more comprehensive guidance to BPD officers.
BPD has prepared and begun conducting training on many of these new policies. It drafted and delivered e-learning and in-class instruction on use of force and related aspects of fair and impartial policing. It prepared and delivered e-learning, and is in the midst of classroom training, on stops, searches and arrests and related aspects of fair and impartial policing. It drafted and is now providing instruction on behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention to recruits. It furnished e-learning to all officers on body-worn camera use and responding to reports of sexual assault. It has finalized and has begun classroom instruction for all officers on behavioral health awareness/crisis intervention and sexual assault investigations, and will soon begin specialized instruction on behavioral health awareness/crisis intervention for dispatchers and 911 call-takers. The classroom components of all of these new training programs incorporate adult learning principles, replacing static, lecture-based instruction with dynamic, scenario-based, problem-solving exercises.
In addition to drafting policies and conducting training, BPD and the City have made at least preliminary progress toward implementing the organizational and structural improvements required by the Consent Decree. They have completed a Technology Resource Study and a Technology Resource Plan and are now carrying through with the Plan. They have conducted studies and/or finalized plans on staffing, hiring, recruitment, community policing and engagement, diversion of youth from the criminal justice system, ameliorating the City’s behavioral health system, and refining BPD’s memorandum of understanding with Baltimore School Police. And critically, BPD has begun the long, difficult process of transforming its historically ineffectual Public Integrity Bureau.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 25 of 164 Finally, BPD has made initial strides toward developing the capacity for self-assessment and selfcorrection. It is now regularly conducting monthly equipment audits of its transport vehicles. It has begun conducting quarterly audits of a random sample of transport events. And it has issued its first two annual reports regarding the efficacy and integrity of its sexual assault investigations; published an inaugural report its responses to First Amendment-protected activities, including large-scale protests, video recording of police conduct, and simple criticism of police action; and is finalizing its initial report on performance issues revealed by arrests that result in individuals being released without charge.
Despite the achievements of BPD and the City over the past two and a half years, the challenges ahead remain voluminous and acute. Beyond the need to successfully complete training on numerous revised policies, BPD must stand up a well-functioning system of internal investigations and discipline so that officers understand there will be real consequences for misconduct—and for passively standing silent in the face of it. BPD must carry through with modernizing its IT systems and, once those systems are operational, ensure that its officers appropriately use them, including their time-saving, data-liberating electronic field-based reporting capability. BPD must provide essential reinforcements for its Patrol Division and Public Integrity Bureau through reassignment of officers from other units, civilianization of certain administrative functions, and improved recruitment and retention. The City must fill the yawning gaps in its behavioral health system so that BPD officers are not always expected to be the first responders to individuals in crisis. Ultimately, BPD must change its culture. It must get its officers, and especially their supervisors, to own the reform project for themselves so that constitutional, communityoriented policing is the Departmental norm. There is no other way to rebuild community trust and, in the end, no other way to fight crime effectively.
As required by Paragraph 469, this section of the report sets forth the Monitoring Team’s findings regarding “whether the material requirements of [each area of the Consent Decree] have been achieved.” For each area, the Monitoring Team explains (1) the Consent Decree’s requirements over the long term, (2) the progress BPD has made along the arc of compliance and the numeric compliance score BPD is receiving (3) the challenges facing BPD, and (4) immediate next steps. The Monitoring Team is not evaluating BPD’s progress toward satisfying each and every paragraph and each and every requirement within each area of the Consent Decree. That kind of report card would not reveal much, if anything, about BPD’s performance at this stage in the reform process. The Monitoring Team instead assesses BPD’s progress on the specific Consent Decree requirements that are included in the First-, Second- and Third-Year Monitoring Plans in each area, and then describes the road ahead.
This section begins in the area that has been at the heart of the reform effort over the past year: training. It then addresses the areas of the Consent Decree that present among the most pressing threshold challenges facing BPD: misconduct investigations and discipline, technology, and staffing, followed by areas where DOJ found or expressed concerns about a pattern or practice of constitutional violations, including stops, searches and arrests, impartial policing, use of force, and transportation of persons in custody. This section concludes by assessing BPD’s progress in other areas of the Consent Decree.

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TRAINING
No changes to BPD policies, practices, or procedures can be implemented without making them clear to officers. As the Monitoring Team has observed in prior reports, even the best policies amount to nothing if officers do not receive appropriate training on how to comply with them.
The Consent Decree therefore provides that “proper, effective, and comprehensive training is a necessary prerequisite to constitutional policing” (CD 291). It outlines specific training requirements for stops, searches, and arrests (CD 67–68); crisis intervention (CD 106–08, 112–113); use of force (CD 166–68); transportation of persons in custody (CD 238); First Amendment-protected activities (CD 251); sexual assault investigations (CD 259); supervision and management (CD 303, 308–10); and misconduct investigations (CD 409–15). BPD must also overhaul its Field Training Officer Program for new Academy graduates. (CD 301–02). Even in areas where the Consent Decree does not provide detailed requirements for training, the full implementation of new policies and procedures requires similarly rigorous, highquality training to translate paper into practice.
This report elsewhere details the important progress that BPD has made in training on specific subjects, including training on use of force; stops, searches and arrests; impartial policing; behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention; investigation of reports of sexual assault; and body-worn camera use. This section addresses BPD’s progress toward improving and enhancing its overall training function.
BPD has begun developing a first-rate training program for its officers. It is successfully transforming from a static, lecture-based approach to an approach that incorporates interactive e-learning coupled with facilitated, scenario-based classroom discussion—a far more dynamic method of instruction that provides officers the practical skills they need to solve the problems they confront on the street. Although BPD still has a distance to travel toward full and successful implementation of this forward-thinking approach to officer training, the Monitoring Team remains encouraged that BPD leadership and Academy staff are eagerly embracing it.
BPD has made substantial progress toward satisfying the Consent Decree’s general training requirements regarding Academy facilities, staffing, operations, and approach to instruction. BPD also has developed and delivered training in certain Consent Decree areas, including use of force and body-worn camera use. However, BPD must successfully complete the transformation of its approach to training, and it must continue to collaborate with the Monitoring Team, DOJ and the community to develop and deliver new training curricula in all other areas of the Consent Decree.
Accordingly, even though BPD is on its way to compliance with the Consent Decree’s general training requirements, significant work remains before it reaches sustained compliance. Its compliance score in the “Training Generally” category is “4a” (implementation not yet assessed).

TRAINING GENERALLY

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

4A

ImplementationNot Yet Accessed

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|AREAS OF PROGRESS
Implementation of Training Requirements
As noted elsewhere in this report, BPD has provided officers important training on core policies revised under the Consent Decree, particularly in areas in which DOJ found a pattern or practice of constitutional violations. In November 2019, BPD certified that nearly all eligible officers successfully completed e-learning and classroom training on its new use of force policies, as well as new policies addressing fair and impartial policing (UOF/FIP I). Further, in late 2019, BPD provided e-learning, and beginning in February 2020 began classroom training, on new policies on stops, searches, and arrests and related aspects of fair and impartial policing (SSA/FIP II). After the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted this inperson training in March 2020, BPD re-started the training in July 2020 and plans to complete it by the end of this year. For the e-learning that preceded in-class instruction in both of UOF/FIP I and SSA/FIP II training, officers were required to score 100% on tests administered at the end of the e-learning in order to become eligible for the classroom component.
In addition to this vital UOF, SSA and FIP training, BPD has provided and confirmed completion of classroom training for field training officers (note that the FTO program, including training, is now undergoing revision) and Department-wide e-learning on both body-worn camera use and responding to reports of sexual assault. BPD is increasingly using its e-learning platform as a means of not only introducing new policies in advance of in-person training and thereby making the in-person training more impactful and effective, but to provide ongoing training to ensure continuing skill development and adherence to performance expectations.
Even as the COVID-19 pandemic prevented in-person officer training for several months in 2020, BPD has continued to develop e-learning and/or classroom training programs in the following Consent Decree areas:
 Peer invention; (Ethical Policing is Courageous – EPIC)
 Sexual assault investigations
 Supervisory review of stops, searches and arrests
 Vehicle pursuits
 First Amendment-protected activities
 Behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention
 Misconduct investigations
 Community Policing
 Stops, searches and arrests for lesser offenses
BPD’s continued, intensive work over the last six months will help to ensure that officers receive training on core Consent Decree policies with pandemic-related delays that are as short as possible.
Staffing, Resources and Facilities
At the start of the Consent Decree process, BPD’s Training Academy was “severely understaffed” and significantly under-resourced. ECF No. 178-1 at 17. As recently as early 2019, there were only three full-

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 28 of 164 time instructors available to develop and conduct in-service training required by the Consent Decree. ECF No. 279-1 at 31. BPD’s rapid leadership turnover throughout 2018 directly contributed to “BPD’s delay in providing adequate resources and personnel to the Training Academy.” Id. at 15.
In the past year and a half, BPD has begun investing appropriately in officer training:
 In early 2019, before UOF/FIP I classroom training began, BPD provided the Academy with ten
additional full-time instructors. As the Monitoring Team has audited the performance of these instructors in UOF/FIP I and SSA/FIP II, we have been encouraged by the development and progression of their teaching capabilities.
 In the second half of 2019, BPD hired a civilian Academic Director who is an accomplished academic
and police professional with years of experience in developing high-quality, evidence-based education programs for law enforcement agencies.
 In the first part of 2020, BPD added two curriculum writers.
 In the first part of 2020, BPD added several new civilian law instructors to assist with SSA/FIP II
training.
The fortification of the Academy’s staff is encouraging. As explained in the Challenges Ahead section below, BPD expects to fulfill numerous training objectives simultaneously in the near future. To state the obvious, BPD would not be able to fulfill those objectives without the new personnel it has brought in to the Academy.
The Consent Decree requires BPD to update its training facilities (CD 292). In compliance with that requirement, BPD has moved its Training Academy from “its long-time, deficient facilities to more modern facilities at the University of Baltimore.” ECF No. 279-1 at 31. As of April 2020, all training functions had transitioned to the new facilities. It is hard to overstate the significance of this development. As both the Court and the Monitoring Team have emphasized, modern training facilities are vital to establishing a first-rate police force. With attractive, state-of-the-art facilities, BPD conveys to both recruits and officers that policing is a profession and that the Department takes seriously their development as professionals.
Adoption of New Training Paradigm
Prior to the Consent Decree, BPD officers received training in the form of unengaging, lecture-based instruction that covered all topics within a single in-class block of time each year. ECF No. 178-1 at 1718. Further, BPD developed its training curricula with minimal or no input from other components of the Department or the community.
Under the Consent Decree, BPD has invested substantial time and effort in implementing a fundamentally different approach to officer training. BPD has hired civilian personnel to coordinate curriculum development and provide legal instruction. Academy staff have learned from other departments that have incorporated contemporary adult learning principles into their training programs. Most important, the Academy has embraced these principles for its own training programs. It has adopted a model that employs integrated, scenario-based learning focused on officer decision-making, problem-solving and skill development rather than the static, passive receipt of information.
To ensure that Consent Decree-mandated policies can be implemented as quickly as possible, and to keep officers more actively engaged in their own professional development, BPD also has moved from offering one long block of in-service training each year to holding in-service training in smaller blocks

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throughout the year. Further, by using a new, comprehensive, multi-stage pilot process, BPD is providing Academy instructors the opportunity to revise and fine-tune training curricula before they are rolled out Department-wide.

Significantly, BPD is, for the first time, developing training on core subjects in collaboration with community members. As explained above, it is providing for public and officer feedback on training curricula while it is still in draft form. Additionally, BPD has created a Community Training Review Committee, “a panel of community representatives to provide ongoing feedback and guidance on training initiatives.” ECF No. 279-1 at 30. CTRC attended and provided feedback at pilot training sessions on both UOF/FIP I and SSA/FIP II. As BPD continues to transform its training approach, it will “utilize community members more directly, both to help devise the curriculum and to participate in the training.” Id.

|CHALLENGES AHEAD

Balancing Training Imperatives

As previously reported, the training demands of the Consent Decree continue to increase. ECF No. 2791 at 31. As the slate of training curricula identified above is finalized, the Training Academy’s staff will need to balance a greater number of concurrent training initiatives than ever before. BPD will need to ensure the Academy has the resources and support it needs to provide the high-quality training that the Consent Decree requires. This will be particularly challenging in the face of the civilian hiring freeze for Fiscal Year 2021, which delays BPD’s plans to civilianize various Academy functions and re-assign sworn officers to the Patrol Division.

Long-Term Resources and Capacity

The Monitoring Team also has reported that BPD will need adapt to a more intensive model of inservice training as “the new normal.” Id. at 32. Providing such training—which is based on facilitated discussion, problem-solving and decision-making that incorporates scenarios, simulations, role-playing, and performance assessments—requires substantial time and effort and, therefore, substantial staff. For that reason, the Consent Decree requires the Academy to maintain “an adequate number of qualified instructors.” (CD 293, 296.)

BPD is presently operating under budgetary constraints, especially because of the pandemic’s effect on the City’s financial resources. In circumstances like these, it may be tempting to reduce investment in officer training and professional development. But if the Consent Decree’s reforms are to be implemented, that temptation must be resisted. The work of the Academy is indispensable to achieving sustainable compliance with the Consent Decree. Even as the City and BPD must weigh competing priorities, they must recognize that BPD’s ability to provide community-oriented, constitutional policing will depend on its ability to provide officers with the requisite training, based on the model that the Academy has been working diligently to adopt.

|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to make it difficult to forecast with certainty the training requirements BPD will be able to satisfy in the near future. Nevertheless, BPD has resumed SSA/FIP II and, using a modified schedule with reduced class sizes, plans to complete it by the end of the year. At the same time, BPD will begin Consent Decree-required training in other critical areas. The Ethical Policing is Courageous (“EPIC”) training, which addresses the need for peer intervention and “active bystandership,”

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 30 of 164 is slated to begin in November 2020, with all officers trained by March 2021. Virtual training on patrol response to both behavioral health crises and reports of sexual assault began earlier this month, with all officers trained by March 2021. Classroom training on defensive tactics should begin in fall 2020. Specialized in-class training on sexual assault investigations for members of the Sex Offense Unit should be held next month (October 2020).
In the coming months, BPD will deliver e-learning on other Consent Decree subjects, including First Amendment-protected activity, deadly force, and proactive policing.
Finally, BPD will develop classroom and e-learning curricula for community policing and stops, searches and arrests for low-level “quality of life” offenses and specialized training on misconduct investigations for Public Integrity Bureau and Civilian Review Board investigators.

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MISCONDUCT INVESTIGATIONS AND DISCIPLINE
The new policies BPD has adopted in other areas of the Consent Decree will mean little if BPD does not hold all officers accountable for following them. As Paragraph 329 of the Consent Decree explains, “[a] robust and well-functioning accountability system in which officers are held to the highest standards of integrity is critical to BPD’s legitimacy and a priority of the Department.” The need for BPD to repair its internal affairs function, now housed in the Public Integrity Bureau (“PIB”), is thus at the heart of the Consent Decree.
As the Monitoring Team observed in previous reports, the Misconduct Investigations and Discipline section of the Consent Decree is the longest and most comprehensive, spanning 87 paragraphs and 38 pages. It covers the location, independence, resources and authority of PIB (CD 330-34); the process for receiving complaints, classifying them, and communicating with complainants about them (CD 335-42); requirements for conducting fair, thorough, reliable misconduct investigations and making misconduct determinations (CD 343-58); requirements for handling and referring allegations of criminal misconduct (CD 359-71); the lodging of disciplinary charges, the administration of disciplinary hearings, and the imposition of discipline (CD 372-88); the process for community-centered mediation as an alternative to investigation for certain minor allegations of officer misconduct affecting civilians (CD 389-91); recordkeeping for misconduct investigations (CD 392-95); measures for ensuring transparency, including issuance of quarterly public reports of aggregate data (CD 396-405); a testing program designed to evaluate the efficacy of the civilian complaint intake process (CD 406-08); and training of OPR investigators and supervisors (CD 409-15).
The ultimate goals of the Consent Decree’s provisions implicating PIB are the full, fair, objective, and timely investigation of all potential officer misconduct; the rigorous review of all misconduct investigations; and an impartial, transparent, uniform process for the imposition of discipline and corrective action where appropriate.
In each of the compliance categories addressing misconduct investigations and discipline, BPD has made reasonable progress toward implementing preliminary Consent Decree requirements. It bears noting, however, that as compared to most other areas of the Consent Decree, BPD’s progress toward substantial and effective compliance has been modest. That is not because BPD has not done the work it has been required to do under the Monitoring Plans, nor is it because BPD has failed to show the commitment required to achieve compliance. Rather, it is because, in this area, BPD has an extremely tough row to hoe: BPD must completely overhaul an internal affairs system that has been broken for years and that, because of its dysfunction, bears considerable responsibility for the community’s lack of faith in the Department.
In the area of “Misconduct – Intake,” BPD’s compliance score is “2” (policies/planning), as it has nearly completed policy revisions, but not quite. In the area of “Misconduct – Investigations,” BPD’s compliance score is “3” (training), as it has completed policy revisions and has begun drafting training curriculum for PIB investigators. In the areas of “Misconduct – Discipline” and “Misconduct – Transparency,” BPD has only recently begun revising policies, so its compliance score is “1” (not yet assessed).

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COMPLIANCE SCORE:

MISCONDUCT – INTAKE

2

Policies/ Planning

MISCONDUCT – INVESTIGATIONS

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

3

Training

MISCONDUCT – DISCIPLINE

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

1

Not Yet Assessed

MISCONDUCT – TRANSPARENCY

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

1

Not Yet Assessed

|AREAS OF PROGRESS

Policies and Procedures

Intake and Classification | Baltimore residents and DOJ identified deficiencies in BPD’s misconduct complaint intake and classification process as areas of serious concern during DOJ’s investigation. Over the past two years, BPD has taken a number of important steps toward adopting a uniform, reliable, user-friendly complaint intake and classification system.

At the outset of the reform process, BPD made filing complaints easier. Previously, individuals who wanted to lodge misconduct complaints against police officers had to make their complaints in person, sign them, and have them notarized. BPD’s revised policies have removed these impediments. Additionally, BPD changed its website to facilitate the acceptance of complaints online and via email and established a dedicated telephone number for individuals to call to make complaints.

In 2018, BPD collaborated with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to finalize revisions to Policy 306, which addresses complaint intake, complaint classification and communication with complainants, and PIB’s Classification Protocols. The policy and protocols were finalized and approved in December 2018. See ECF No. 175.

In late August 2020, after over a year of collaboration, BPD completed the intake and classifications section of the PIB manual for investigators. See ECF No. 336. This section of the manual covers the front end of the internal affairs investigation process, vital to ensuring that complaints are promptly acted upon, uniformly classified, and handled from the outset with the seriousness they deserve. Neither this section of the manual nor Policy 306 nor the investigations section of the manual, discussed below, will be fully active until PIB investigators are trained on it.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 33 of 164 Finally, BPD and the Civilian Review Board (CRB) have created a Unified Complaint Form, to be used by individuals filing misconduct complaints with BPD or CRB. BPD is developing an e-learning curriculum to deliver training on the use of the form in preparation for Department-wide rollout late this year or early next year. BPD will pilot test the form in the near future. The form is already in use by the CRB.
Investigations | In addition to improving policies and procedures for misconduct complaint intake and classification, BPD has worked diligently to improve policies and procedures governing misconduct investigations—investigations that, historically, have moved too slow, lacked thoroughness, and reached unjustified or inadequately justified conclusions.
After months of intensive collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, and two rounds of public comment from community members (including the Civilian Review Board), BPD finalized its investigations manual for PIB, which the Monitoring Team approved in November 2019. See ECF No. 263. The completion of the investigations manual was a milestone achievement. The manual provides a complete guide to internal affairs investigations for PIB investigators, supervisors and commanders. It establishes a comprehensive investigations procedure that, if followed, will yield thorough, fair and timely investigations that produce appropriate disciplinary recommendations. The Monitoring Team’s subject matter experts believe the manual is among the most comprehensive and effective internal affairs investigations manuals in the country. However, it will not be fully implemented until PIB investigators are trained on it.
Expedited Resolution of Minor Misconduct Allegations | In mid-2019, shortly after arriving at BPD, Commissioner Harrison developed a policy for addressing complaints of minor misconduct on an expedited basis. The new policy, Policy 321, permits District commanders, rather than PIB investigators, to handle such complaints and allows officers to obtain prompt case closure at the District level by admitting responsibility in negotiated settlements. The Monitoring Team approved the new policy in September 2019. See ECF No. 216.
Policy violations eligible for prompt, negotiated resolution include reporting late to roll call, failure to appear in court or for a medical appointment, and loss of BPD property other than a firearm; they do not include alleged misconduct in officer interactions with members of the public (e.g., excessive force, false arrests, harassment). Policy 321 does not remove PIB from the disciplinary process for minor policy violations. PIB will continue to receive and classify complaints at the front end of the process and obtain reports and retain records of negotiated resolutions at the back end in order to ensure consistency in the application of the policy.
By allowing District commanders, rather than PIB, to address minor policy violations that call for supervisory correction, Policy 321 promises to advance several Consent Decree objectives. First, it should reduce the number of minor misconduct cases assigned to PIB investigators, which in turn should free PIB investigators to focus on more serious complaints and enable all misconduct complaints, minor and serious alike, to be resolved more quickly. Officers who engage in misconduct should more promptly be held accountable, and community members with bona fide complaints should receive swifter justice. Second, by speeding up complaint resolution, officers who are the subject of complaints that can be promptly resolved as unfounded, unsustained or sustained through negotiated resolution should not be left in limbo and kept ineligible for transfer or promotion for unreasonable periods of time, as has been the case in recent years due to PIB backlogs. Given that the duration of misconduct investigations has been a primary cause of officer dissatisfaction, Policy 321 could help boost officer morale. Third, by enabling District commanders to resolve policy violations appropriate for supervisory correction, Policy 321 should fortify BPD’s command structure and supervisory performance in each district and unit.

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Neither BPD nor the Monitoring Team have begun to evaluate whether, in fact, Policy 321 is accomplishing these objectives. BPD will begin to do so shortly and will include the results in its forthcoming quarterly PIB reports.

PIB-CRB Information Sharing Protocols | In March 2019, BPD successfully finalized complaint intake and classification protocols for PIB and the Civilian Review Board (“CRB”). These protocols identify the responsibilities of both PIB and CRB for intake and classification of misconduct complaints and for exchanging information at the outset of complaint investigations. The issuance of the protocols was an important step toward improving civilian oversight of BPD. PIB and CRB must interact and coordinate with each other to fulfill their respective statutory roles, but until the adoption of these protocols, PIB and CRB had never developed a formal process for information sharing.
Under the new protocols, CRB must be furnished prompt, consistent, electronic access to PIB data through IAPro, BPD’s records system for misconduct investigations and discipline. To facilitate the new relationship between PIB and CRB, BPD also has assigned a CRB liaison. The Monitoring Team has not yet assessed the quality and effectiveness of the new relationship between PIB and CRB. It is too soon to tell whether the protocols can fully repair the historically troubled relationship between PIB and CRB, but the Monitoring has preliminarily observed that they appear to be fostering improved cooperation.
Having completed the intake/classification information sharing protocols last year, BPD and CRB proceeded to draft and complete information sharing protocols for misconduct investigations in 2020. See ECF No. 336. As with the information sharing protocols for intake/classification, the information sharing protocols for investigations promise to ensure that PIB and CRB are working with the same information when each conducts its own independent investigations of misconduct allegations.
Disclosure of Exculpatory Evidence Policy | In September 2019, the Monitoring Team approved a new BPD policy, Policy 1809, on exculpatory evidence disclosure requirements. See ECF No. 246. The policy is intended to ensure that all BPD members comply with their obligation under federal and Maryland law to disclose potential exculpatory and impeachment evidence in criminal cases. The policy requires BPD members to identify and disclose to the prosecution, as soon as possible following the initiation of criminal charges in state or federal court, evidence that is favorable to a criminal defendant because it may disprove the guilt of the defendant, may cast doubt on the credibility of a witness for the government, or may show the defendant should receive less severe punishment.
Once Policy 1809 becomes active, which will occur after officers are trained on it, BPD will join a small but growing number of law enforcement agencies that have formal procedures concerning the disclosure of exculpatory evidence. These are requirements that not only respect the constitutional and statutory rights of the accused, but also promote public safety by seeking to ensure the integrity of criminal prosecutions, which can be compromised if tainted by the nondisclosure of exculpatory evidence.

Independent Investigation of the Root Causes of GTTF Scandal

The Monitoring Team and the Court itself made clear that BPD needed to retain an outside, independent team of investigators to thoroughly examine the Gun Trace Task Force scandal and attempt to discern how far it reached, how it evolved, and how BPD could have allowed it to occur without any internal repercussions for the officers involved. In response, BPD hired Michael Bromwich and his firm in 2019 to conduct to conduct such a review. Mr. Bromwich has a credentialed history of doing such work. The former Inspector General of the Department of Justice, he served as monitor of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. when MPD underwent DOJ-monitored reforms similar to the reforms BPD is now undertaking, and he has conducted several high-profile investigations involving misconduct by law enforcement officers. Mr. Bromwich’s independent investigation is underway.

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|CHALLENGES AHEAD
Quality of Investigations
Improving the quality of PIB investigations is a central goal of the Consent Decree. In 2019-20, the Monitoring Team conducted its first comprehensive compliance review of PIB investigations. The review covered a significant sample of PIB investigations conducted in 2018. The report detailing the Monitoring Team’s compliance review is attached as Exhibit 2.
The review serves as a preliminary “baseline” assessment of the quality of PIB investigations. It is intended to show BPD’s performance as of 2018, prior to implementation of the major reforms required by the Consent Decree. As of 2018, PIB had sought to implement certain improvements but was still contemplating core improvements. BPD has conceded that improving the quality of PIB misconduct investigations was a work in progress in 2018.
As a pre-reform “baseline” assessment, the Monitoring Team’s review did not consider the current quality of BPD’s internal investigations. Thus, it does not reflect the impact of the systemic changes, summarized above, that have been underway since 2018.
Because the Monitoring Team reviewed PIB investigations from a pre-reform period, our overall conclusion is unsurprising: PIB will need to dramatically improve on its performance from 2018 before its investigations are of sufficiently high quality to comply with the Consent Decree. The Monitoring Team’s specific findings are as follows:
 The overall quality of BPD’s misconduct investigations in 2018 was low. Some 40 percent
of misconduct investigations in 2018 were of “fair” or “poor” overall quality. Many cases (42 percent) were “administratively closed” without a disposition on the merits—a disposition prohibited by the Consent Decree—and cases that resulted in a specific disposition often failed to adequately outline the factual basis for that disposition.
 The condition of misconduct case files was poor. Documentation of investigations was chaotic
and inconsistent, leading to great uncertainty in a number of instances about both the factual issues presented and the investigative steps taken.
 Communication with involved civilians and officers was poor. Individuals making complaints
to BPD were sent written notice that their complaint was received in only one-quarter of cases. Implicated BPD personnel received notification in less than one-quarter of cases.
 Inefficiencies and poor management resulted in missed timelines and wasted efforts in
minor cases. It appeared that some 60 percent of investigations were not completed within the Consent Decree’s 90-day deadline, with extensions of time never requested. Several cases remained pending for extended periods of time without explanation, justification or approval.
 Investigators too often failed to interview complainants and other necessary witnesses.
Complainants were interviewed only 41 percent of the time; subject employees were interviewed in 44 percent of cases. Where interviews occurred, the quality of those interviews appeared encouraging, but only 22 percent of cases had complete audio or video records of all witness interviews.
 Investigations failed to flag related operational and performance issues exposed by the
investigation, such as training deficiencies, repetitive problematic behavior, and potential policy shortcomings.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 36 of 164 Although the Monitoring Team identified some encouraging data points—e.g., complaints of excessive force, unlawful search and seizure, and First Amendment violations were both relatively rare and well-investigated—our findings confirm the need for PIB to transform the way it investigates officer misconduct.
Staffing
The challenges facing PIB remain severe. PIB needs additional investigators—the Staffing Plan estimates a need for three dozen more—to eliminate the case backlog and ensure timely, thorough, fair resolution of misconduct allegations. The new policy on negotiated resolution of minor misconduct allegations should help. But the problems caused by investigative delays, including the absence of swift accountability and the depletion of officer morale, will not be cured until BPD assigns and trains additional, qualified PIB investigators.
Training
The completion of the PIB investigations manual in November 2019 was to be closely followed by the development of a training curriculum designed for PIB investigators, supervisors and commanders. The initial draft of the curriculum was due to Monitoring Team and DOJ in early February 2020, to be followed by several months of collaboration and public comment, with a completion date of July 1, 2020, and a start date of July 15, 2020. The deadlines for this crucial training had to be extended for two reasons. First, the work restrictions necessitated by the COVID-19 delayed preparation of the curriculum. Second, for financial and other logistical reasons, BPD elected to not move forward with the program developed by Roger Williams University, which it had originally selected.
BPD has now identified a skilled subject matter expert to assist in the development of the PIB investigator training curriculum in the coming months. The Monitoring Team and DOJ will collaborate with BPD throughout the curriculum development process. Under a newly revised schedule, the curriculum is to be finalized and the training set to take place in the first quarter of 2021.
In addition to training for PIB investigators, BPD is presently developing a curriculum for Departmentwide training to implement a program on officer intervention called Ethical Policing is Courageous (“EPIC”). EPIC replicates a well-received initiative implemented in the New Orleans Police Department. It provides officers with practical skills and techniques to employ when facing situations in which they must intervene to prevent or stop misconduct and problematic performance by a fellow officer. Commissioner Harrison views EPIC training as an important part of the culture change BPD is undertaking. The Monitoring Team and Judge Bredar agree. Currently, BPD projects beginning in-person EPIC training in October 2020. As with many other training deadlines, public health realities may compel changes in the projected timeline.
Technology and Reporting
BPD must begin devising an Early Intervention System (“EIS”), which will permit supervisors to identify and intervene to correct the behavior of officers who begin to display a tendency for violating policy. As discussed in greater detail in the Technology section of this report, BPD is still more than a year away from implementing a fully functional, modern EIS. But because the EIS will depend upon source data from other systems that are being upgraded or overhauled (e.g., IAPro and the Records Management System), BPD must begin to establish the data requirements for the EIS now, as it embarks on implementation of the Technology Resource Plan issued last year.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 37 of 164 BPD also must develop a plan for collecting the data needed to complete the statistical reports and internal PIB audits required by paragraphs 402 and 405 of the Consent Decree.
Deputy Commissioner Brian Nadeau has solidified his leadership of PIB. Despite the serious challenges PIB continues to face, the Monitoring Team has growing confidence that, with D.C. Nadeau in charge, BPD is not only committed to PIB reform, but capable of achieving it.
In the short run, the Monitoring Team remains concerned that the benefits derived from our previous in-person discussions with PIB staff will begin to erode if pandemic-induced restrictions on in-person meetings remain in place for a prolonged period. Even if these measures must remain in place, however, the Monitoring Team is committed to finding ways to innovate, to maintaining our close working relationships with PIB staff, and to continuing our rigorous oversight of PIB.
|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
In the next reporting period, in collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD will complete and disseminate its first Quarterly PIB Report (CD 402) compiling comprehensive aggregate data regarding misconduct complaints, both internal and external. The Monitoring Team has reviewed an initial draft, which is of high quality. (The Monitoring Team has not yet conducted its own assessment of the data under Paragraph 469.n. of the Consent Decree).
BPD will continue to work closely with the Monitoring Team and DOJ on BPD’s comprehensive review of its policies pertaining to discipline. The scope of this review is significant, as there are numerous policies implicating discipline that need to be reviewed and updated or drafted and approved. Included among these policies is BPD’s core policy on discipline, which includes BPD’s disciplinary matrix. The matrix prescribes disciplinary outcomes based on the severity of a violation and the officer’s history of discipline.
As noted, BPD will develop a training curriculum for PIB investigators, supervisors and commanders. BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have established a bi-weekly call intended to prioritize the development of the curriculum. In addition, BPD will develop the curriculum for and deliver EPIC training.

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TECHNOLOGY
Paragraph 267 of the Consent Decree requires BPD to “provide its officers with the Technology necessary to implement the Material Requirements of this Agreement . . ..” Paragraphs 268-278 then set forth the Consent Decree’s technology requirements.
BPD and the City previously completed and submitted a Resource Study (CD 268, 270), which identified current BPD systems, described the current state of those systems, and made preliminary recommendations for improvements. Following completion of the Resource Study, BPD and the City prepared and published a Resource Plan (CD 269-70, 272), which the Monitoring Team approved on December 1, 2018. See ECF No. 164. The Resource Plan, which is being updated annually (CD 275), addresses how BPD will provide the necessary computer equipment and access required for personnel to discharge their duties, acquire a centralized records management system, and ultimately develop an Early Intervention System (“EIS”). BPD is required to use its best efforts to implement the Resource Plan (CD 274).
The Technology provisions of the Consent Decree also require BPD to disclose to the public the acquisition of certain new equipment or activity to be used in enforcement activities (CD 278). Further, data collection and data analysis are required in nearly every area of the Consent Decree, not only to enable the Monitoring Team to assess compliance, but to enable BPD leadership to better manage the Department. BPD must review and analyze data in a number of subject areas, including investigatory stops and detentions (CD 41), vehicle stops (CD 46), stops, searches and arrests (CD 82-86), use of force (CD 211-217), transport of persons in custody (CD 232), and misconduct investigations (CD 392), among others.
Without technology improvements, BPD will not be able to achieve compliance with the Consent Decree. As the Consent Decree states, compliance is truly “dependent upon BPD acquiring or developing the appropriate technology.” (CD 267).
After some delay, BPD is now diligently implementing the Technology Resource Plan. With the hiring of a new Chief Technology Officer and additional professional staff, BPD has fortified its IT governance structure. Further, BPD has now selected a vendor, secured funding, and begun working in earnest to design and develop a new Records Management System (“RMS”), which is indispensable to achieving compliance in nearly every area of the Consent Decree.
In short, BPD has completed the planning process and moved into the implementation phase of compliance. However, because it has only recently begun implementation, its compliance score in the Technology Modernization category is “4a” (implementation – not yet assessed).

TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

4A

Implementation – Not Yet Assessed

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|AREAS OF PROGRESS
IT Staffing and Governance

BPD hired a Chief Technology Officer and additional IT staff, including two Project Managers, a Business Analyst, two Developers, an Enterprise Architect, a Fiscal Analyst and a Systems Integration Specialist. Further, the CTO has begun to establish proper IT governance. He promptly assessed his unit’s operations, identified the unit’s needs, and implemented foundational workflow management structures and processes that have long been absent.

Records Management System

On September 30, 2019, BPD released a Request for Information (RFI) for a new Record Management System (“RMS”). After an extensive evaluation of responses to the RFI, BPD identified Axon Enterprises to provide the new RMS. A statement of work was developed, and implementation is beginning.

IAPro
IAPro is the system BPD uses to track both use of force incidents/investigations and misconduct investigations/discipline. Though it took much longer than expected, BPD was able to complete its upgrade of IA Pro, and is now on the most current, standardized version of the platform. This will ensure that BPD is able to support and maintain the system going forward, and leverage all of the features and functionality available to IAPro customers.
Workforce Management System

BPD has identified and deployed and is currently configuring a department-wide work schedule management application (e-Resource), which is nearly complete.

Learning Management System

BPD has identified a vendor to provide Learning Management System (“LMS”) services. The acquisition package has been completed and was submitted for City approval. The LMS is on track for full implementation by October 2020.
Body-Worn Cameras

BPD acquired new body-worn camera technology and the related policy was approved. While initial deployment was delayed as a result of COVID-19, it is now in progress.  

Transport Vehicle Cameras

BPD has begun to install new cameras in its transport vehicles. The new cameras will make it less cumbersome to upload and review recordings of transport events.

Policy regarding Public Disclosure of Technology Acquisitions

BPD is required to publicly disclose the acquisition of certain new equipment or technology to be used in enforcement activities (CD 278). In furtherance of this requirement, BPD finalized Policy 606, which establishes the procedure for such disclosure in September 2019. See ECF No. 239. The policy is among the many measures BPD is adopting under the Consent Decree to enhance the transparency of its operations.

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|CHALLENGES AHEAD
While BPD has taken initial steps to address its technology deficits, it still has a long way to go to fully realize a modern and sustainable IT environment. BPD must continue to plan for and sustain its IT infrastructure needs to integrate data silos, eliminate duplicative data entry, improve data quality, and collect and maintain data thoroughly. Otherwise, BPD will fail to achieve compliance with the numerous Consent Decree requirements that depend upon BPD’s ability to capture, maintain, synthesize and analyze comprehensive electronic data regarding its law enforcement activities. As explained elsewhere in this report, BPD’s long-standing technological deficiencies:
 Make it more difficult for supervisors to assess, commend and correct deficiencies in the performance
of their officers
 Increase the amount of time officers must spend writing reports
 Lead to under-reporting of non-arrest police encounters, especially investigative stops and weapons
pat-downs
 Diminish the amount of time officers have for community policing and additional enforcement activity
 Make Consent Decree-required analyses of police encounters (particularly stops, searches and arrests)
impracticable, if not impossible
 Constrain BPD’s ability to assess performance by officer, unit, District and Department-wide
 Limit public transparency of BPD enforcement activity
If used properly, a new RMS featuring electronic field-based reporting should address each of these issues.
BPD must be vigilant about ensuring three things for each and every IT initiative. First, each initiative must be accompanied by clear, consistent policy and training. Second, to ensure proper accountability and maximum effectiveness of each IT initiative, BPD must consider how that initiative, as well as the data it generates and retains, will be audited, reviewed or evaluated for a solution. Third, BPD must keep its eye on the long-range development of an Early Intervention System. EIS implementation will come toward the back end of BPD’s modernization timeline because BPD must first capture quality data in each source system. Accordingly, the data requirements for BPD’s EIS must be integrated into each IT solution implemented under the Resource Plan. What that means is that BPD must determine which data it needs for its EIS as it configures the data requirements for the RMS, and any other system that will contain data upon which the EIS will rely.
|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
Over the next reporting period, BPD will focus on the implementation of the RMS and the deployment of the new body-worn cameras. RMS implementation, in particular, is extremely complex and will impact nearly every area of the police department. BPD must commit sufficient time and resources to ensure the proper coordination of the project.

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STAFFING, PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS AND PROMOTIONS
The Consent Decree requires BPD to complete a comprehensive Staffing Study to determine the appropriate number of sworn and civilian personnel needed to effectively provide police services, enable supervision, and satisfy the requirements of the Consent Decree (CD 428). The Consent Decree further requires that, based on the Staffing Study, BPD must develop a Staffing Plan that will ensure a sufficient number of deployed personnel to, among other things: implement and sustain effective community and problem-oriented policing; conduct timely misconduct investigations; supply sufficient patrol officers to each District without resorting to drafting (i.e., forced overtime), except in unforeseeable circumstances; promote unity of command when feasible; provide a sufficient number of supervisors; and account for BPD’s and the City’s existing and projected resources (CD 429). BPD must implement the Staffing Plan, but may do so in a phased manner that reflects the City’s and BPD’s fiscal resources (CD 430).
As for performance evaluations and promotions, the Consent Decree obligates BPD to have supervisors meet with officers to discuss their annual performance reviews, which must include written discussions of the officers’ performance during the rating period, any areas for growth and achievement, and any areas requiring further training and supervision (CD 431). Direct supervisors must use a formalized system to document annual performance evaluations for each officer and quarterly evaluations of probationary employees (CD 432). In addition to these formal evaluations, supervisors must meet with their subordinates on an ongoing basis to discuss performance and must document their communications regarding performance challenges and areas for growth (CD 433). The Consent Decree further requires BPD to conduct performance evaluations of each supervisor (from first line supervisor through commander), which will include assessments of ability and effectiveness in conducting performance reviews, including monitoring, deterring and addressing misconduct by officers they supervise (CD 434). Finally, BPD must ensure its promotional system has clear criteria prioritizing effective, constitutional, and communityoriented policing as factors for promotion (CD 435).
In December 2018, BPD produced a Staffing Study compliant with Paragraph 428. BPD completed the Staffing Plan required under Paragraph 429 in February 2020.
In a significant, positive break from past practice, BPD has conceptualized a new promotions regime under Paragraph 435, including a formal application and committee review process. Policy 1738, focused on command promotions for the ranks of Captain and Major, was recently approved. See ECF No. 340. Because Paragraph 435 also references “promotional systems,” meaning promotions to all ranks, the development of a promotions policy for sergeants and lieutenants is currently underway.
BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team have also started work on BPD’s performance evaluation system.
BPD is making reasonable progress on the foundational requirements in these areas. On Staffing (which is coupled with Recruitment and Retention in the scoring framework, see Exhibit 1), BPD’s compliance score is “4a” (implementation – not yet assessed), as BPD recently completed its comprehensive Staffing Plan but has not yet progressed far enough into the implementation phase to warrant an “on track” or “off track” score. On both Employee Performance Evaluations and Promotions, BPD’s compliance score is “2” (policy phase). BPD has responsibly complied with Monitoring Plan deadlines but has not yet finalized policies in either compliance category.

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COMPLIANCE SCORE:

STAFFING

4A

Implementation – Not Yet Assessed

EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

2

Policies/ Planning

PROMOTIONS

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

2

Policies/ Planning

|AREAS OF PROGRESS

Staffing Plan

After several delays discussed in prior reports, BPD completed its comprehensive Staffing Plan in February 2020. See ECF No. 292. The Plan details the staffing needed to meet BPD’s anticipated workload and to comply with the Consent Decree. Key elements from the Plan, available here, include the following;

 BPD needs 956 police officers, 133 sergeants and 27 lieutenants assigned to the Patrol Division in
order to satisfy BPD’s call-for-service demands and still reserve 40% of officers’ time on activities other than responding to calls-for-service, proactive community policing in particular.
 The Public Integrity Bureau needs an additional 39 investigators to address the current backlog in
complaint investigations and to meet the requirements of the Consent Decree.
 Sergeants should be assigned the same day-off group as their subordinates and an additional 34
sergeants should be assigned to Patrol. Presently, sergeants have limited contact and time with the officers they supervise because of the existing patrol work schedule. This prevents unity of command and makes effective supervision exceedingly difficult.
 Certain specialized units should be consolidated, while others should have fewer sworn personnel or
should be eliminated, and certain administrative functions should be performed by civilians, freeing up sworn personnel for other assignments.
 Civilianization of certain functions is required to increase the number of sworn officers on the street
and to bring needed specialized skills into the Department.
 BPD continues to lose officers through retirement and other forms of separation faster than it is
adding new officers. Increasing the size of recruit classes, increasing the number of recruit classes, and reducing the Academy attrition rate would increase the number of new sworn officers. So, too, would reducing the officer attrition rate, which BPD must figure out how to address.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 43 of 164 The City and BPD must now work toward meeting the requirements in the Plan. BPD’s budget, which was recently approved for Fiscal Year 2021, reflected some of the recommendations in the Plan around consolidating and eliminating certain specialized units. In particular, as of July 1, officers from the Aviation, Mounted, Marine and traffic-related units were transferred to Patrol, where the need for sworn personnel is most acute. The transferred officers will continue to perform their specialized functions, but on a limited basis, with the exception of the officers from the Mounted and Marine Units, which were eliminated in the FY 2021 Budget.
Further, by moving the Training Academy to the University of Baltimore, BPD is able to accommodate more recruits at once. If hiring improves—something BPD has not yet sustainably achieved—BPD will be able to bring on a greater number of new officers more quickly.
Performance Evaluations and Command Promotions
The Monitoring Team and DOJ are collaborating with BPD to revise its performance evaluation system for lieutenants, sergeants and officers. This includes assessing and upgrading the performance evaluation policy, manual and form. Due to delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the work recently began and is expected to continue until the end of the year. Once the work is completed, BPD will turn to revising its performance evaluation system for command ranks, Captain and above.
BPD has finalized the development of a command promotions policy, Policy 1738, which covers the ranks of captain and major. The Monitoring Team approved this policy in September 2020 See ECF No. 340. The adoption of this policy is an important development. It establishes that promotion into a command rank will be based exclusively on merit—not on who an officer knows, as has often been the case in the past—and thus conveys that transparency, fairness, impartiality, and procedural justice are just as important to BPD’s internal operations as they are to BPD’s interactions with community members. Policy 1738 formalizes the practice that Commissioner Harrison implemented on his arrival. Since then, no officer has been promoted to captain or major outside the competitive, merit-based process prescribed by the new policy.
Equally important, BPD must develop a promotions policy for ranks below captain. The work on that policy began in 2020, with a scheduled date of completion, following public feedback, in late October 2020.
|CHALLENGES AHEAD
The fiscal impact of COVID-19 on Baltimore’s revenues and the resulting impact on BPD’s budget present a major obstacle to full implementation of the Staffing Plan, at least in the short run. The Staffing Plan calls for a total of 675 civilian personnel. This requires an increase of 144 civilian employees. Civilianization of certain functions is essential in two ways. First, civilians free up sworn members for the Patrol Division, where BPD needs more officers. Second, professional civilian members will bring needed expertise to the Department. This is especially true in the critical function of training, where the Staffing Plan calls for additional instructors. Despite BPD’s need for additional civilian employees, the City recently imposed a civilian hiring freeze and cut 37 vacant civilian positions from BPD’s budget. These reductions will naturally affect BPD’s ability to achieve the civilian hiring goals established in the Staffing Plan. The Training Academy is likely to be one of the areas hardest hit. The Staffing Plan recommends increasing professional staff by 38 and decreasing sworn staff by 24. This effort is currently on hold.
Without being able to hire civilians to move certain officers to the street, and with only a limited number of officers who can be moved to the street through the elimination or consolidation of specialized units, retaining existing sworn personnel and hiring new sworn personnel will be the primary ways for BPD to

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 44 of 164 meet the sworn staffing targets identified in the Staffing Plan. The Plan establishes that BPD will need 2,785 sworn members. To handle 911 calls for service and engage in the community policing activities called for in the Community Policing Plan, the Patrol Division, as noted, will need a total of 956 officers, 133 sergeants, and 27 lieutenants across BPD’s nine districts, as noted above. As of July 8, 2020, there were 777 officers, 99 sergeants, and 27 lieutenants assigned to Patrol. Thus, as of July 8, 2020, to achieve the Staffing Plan’s goals, BPD had to place 179 additional officers and 34 additional sergeants in Patrol. Additional officers are also critically needed in the Public Integrity Bureau, where misconduct investigations remain inadequate and take far too long.
Hiring the additional officers recommended in the Staffing Plan will be a tall order. Recruitment and hiring have been improving but hiring has barely been able to keep pace with attrition thus far in 2020. Further, although the economic dislocation caused by COVID-19 could increase the number of applications and thus the number of officers hired, that remains uncertain, and recruiting and retention efforts could be adversely affected by recent anti-police protests. Achieving the staffing levels established in the Staffing Plan is among BPD’s most severe challenges.
|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
BPD will continue work on a promotions policy for ranks below Captain and will seek finalize its performance evaluation systems.

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STOPS, SEARCHES, ARRESTS AND VOLUNTARY POLICECOMMUNITY INTERACTIONS
In recognition of the importance of the Consent Decree’s requirements on stops, searches, arrests and voluntary police-community interactions (“SSA”), the Consent Decree’s provisions addressing those interactions are extensive. They compel BPD to revise its policies and training curricula; provide thorough prescriptions for communicating with individuals, performing field interviews, and conducting stops, weapons pat downs, searches and arrests; and establish detailed training, documentation, supervisory, and data collection and review obligations (CD 29-86).
Over the past 30 months, BPD has made reasonable progress toward satisfying the Consent Decree’s preliminary SSA requirements:
 BPD has revised two different sets of SSA policies, is working toward completion of a third and final
set covering lesser misdemeanor offenses, and has made adjustments to the already-revised sets to reflect both minor changes in the law and the philosophical orientation of BPD’s new leadership.
 BPD also has developed and is in the midst of delivering comprehensive e-learning and in-class SSA/
FIP II training; recently developed e-learning for supervisors on supervisory review requirements for stops, searches and arrest; and prepared lesson plans and provided training to both command staff and officers in response to the Monitoring Team’s findings regarding BPD’s stops, searches and patdowns of civilians in Harlem Park following the shooting death of Detective Sean Suiter.
 On data collection and analysis, BPD’s antiquated IT systems have severely hindered progress, but
BPD recently has developed and begun implementing a methodology for auditing and reporting on arrests that result in “release without charge” dispositions.
The deadlines for certain SSA deliverables under the Third-Year Monitoring Plan have been delayed because of resource redeployments necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as public safety and security demands arising from sustained, large-scale protest activity in May and June 2020. Nevertheless, BPD’s work on SSA requirements—including policy revisions, resumed classroom training, and the inaugural arrest data audit—has continued.
Because BPD has largely completed policy revisions and continues to provide core SSA training, its score in each of the SSA compliance categories is “3” (training phase). These categories include (i) Stops, Field Interviews and Voluntary Contacts, (ii) Searches, (iii) Arrests, and (iv) Review and Supervision.

STOPS, FIELD INTERVIEWS AND VOLUNTARY CONTACTS

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

3

Training

SEARCHES

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

3

Training

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COMPLIANCE SCORE:

ARRESTS

3

Training

REVIEW AND SUPERVISION

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

3

Training

|AREAS OF PROGRESS

Policies

In October 2018, after extensive collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ and receipt of public feedback, BPD finalized revisions to its core SSA policy, Policy 1112, titled “Field Interviews, Investigative Stops/Detentions, Weapons Pat-Downs and Searches,” as well as five additional policies: 1007 (Search and Seizure Warrants), 1013 (Strip Searches and Body Cavity Searches), 1106 (Warrantless Arrest Procedures and Probable Cause Standard), 1109 (Warrantless Searches) and 1505 (Foot Pursuits). Two months later, with additional feedback from the Monitoring Team, DOJ and community members, BPD finalized six additional SSA policies, including Policies 906 (Traffic Citations), 1002 (Securing & Interviewing Witnesses), 1104 (Arrest Warrants), 1105 (Custodial Interrogations), 1108 (DUI/DWI Arrest Procedure), and 1114 (Persons in Police Custody).

BPD spent the early part of 2020 focused on revisions to SSA policies that address low-level offenses, including “quality of life” offenses. These policies include: Criminal Citation Procedures (803), Civil Citation Procedures (808), Marijuana-- Uniform Civil Citation (809), Misdemeanor Theft Procedures (812), Video Surveillance Procedures (1014) and Lesser Offenses and Alternatives (1018). These policies are intended to properly prioritize enforcement actions that preserve public safety while simultaneously promoting fair, non-arbitrary practices that foster the community’s trust. The principles reflected in these policies are currently being reinforced through SSA/FIP II training, particularly in the lesson plan on “most effective, least intrusive response.” That lesson plan teaches officers to exercise their discretion to take the least intrusive law enforcement action consistent with preserving public safety when confronted with an individual who may be committing a lesser offense, such as loitering, open container, trespassing, failure to obey, disorderly conduct, and marijuana possession.
Because this final set of SSA policies is integral to advancing the Consent Decree’s objective of communityoriented policing, now reflected in BPD’s Community Policing Plan, the deadline for issuing drafts of these policies for public comment was extended from the second monitoring year until this year to accommodate the extension of the deadline for preparation of the Community Policing Plan. The initial public comment period on these policies ran from February – March 2020. BPD received both internal and community feedback. The COVID-19 pandemic then interrupted the process, requiring postponement of additional work. The Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ have been discussing resumption of the process in the near future and expect that BPD will solicit additional public feedback and finalize the revisions by the end of 2020.

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The central component of BPD’s SSA work over the past nine months has been the development and delivery of both e-learning and classroom training on the first two sets of BPD’s revised SSA policies. The training covers policies on voluntary contacts, field interviews, stops, arrests, interviews/interrogations, weapons pat-downs, and searches, as well as policies on foot pursuits, most effective/least intrusive response, custody, transport, and booking. The training also incorporates instruction on previously approved policies on fair and impartial policing (“FIP”), including Policy 317 (Fair and Impartial Policing) and Policy 720 (Interactions with LGBTQ Individuals). With input from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, the approach BPD has taken to integrating instruction on FIP polices with instruction on SSA policies is similar to the approach BPD took to integrate FIP policies into the successfully concluded training on use of force.
BPD drafted and finalized an effective, six module e-learning curriculum relatively quickly. Officers must complete the e-learning and pass tests for each module before becoming eligible for in-class instruction.
BPD experienced some difficulty with the development of the in-class curriculum component of SSA/ FIP II training. That was not unexpected, as BPD continues to adapt to adult-oriented, scenario-based instructional methods. It is far more challenging to develop training curricula employing these methods than it is to develop lecture-based curricula. BPD went through several iterations of the SSA/FIP II classroom curriculum before getting it right. Following two public comment periods, input from the new Community Training Review Committee following a pilot session, several additional pilot sessions with officers, and additional input from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD finalized the curriculum in early February 2020. The curriculum successfully conveys the new SSA and FIP policies through interactive activities, scenarios and role plays that, as in the real world, layer in the requirements of multiple policies at once.
Classroom instruction began on February 10, 2020, shortly after the curriculum was approved. Unfortunately, after five weeks, the training had to be halted because of the pandemic. It restarted in July 2020. Originally scheduled for 36 officers in each of two classrooms for the two-day program, physical distancing restrictions have required BPD to reduce class sizes to 24 officers. As a result, BPD will not be able to complete the training for all officers until the end of 2020.
The hiatus between mid-March and mid-July did not go to waste. The first several weeks of instruction revealed that certain SSA policies were not as clear as they needed to be or had to be modestly adjusted for practical reasons. These included policies addressing securing/interviewing witnesses, strip searches, custodial interrogations, and warrantless searches. (The pilot sessions in January 2020 similarly exposed a handful of policy provisions in need of clarification.) After lengthy and intensive consultation with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD is making the necessary changes in policy and has adjusted the training curriculum accordingly.
Based on the Monitoring Team’s observations, the quality of instruction rapidly improved over the first two weeks of SSA/FIP II training and, even after the four-month break, has remained at a high level, even with new instructors brought on board after the break. The course has benefited considerably from the participation of law instructors (including some recently hired), who have ably complemented the police instructors. Generally, course content has been delivered effectively, including in the face of classroom pushback, and most officers appear engaged in the discussions of the course material. The results of the surveys that the Training Academy furnishes to officers at the end of the course corroborate this observation, as the vast majority—nearly 85%—have come away from the course either agreeing or strongly agreeing that they know how to apply BPD’s SSA policies and believe the course material

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is engaging, while only a small number, roughly 5%, either disagree or strongly disagree with those positions. Many officers also have provided positive narrative comments about the quality of the training (even if some officers have expressed skepticism about certain aspects of the revised policies).

As much as any of the reform measures implemented thus far, BPD’s revised SSA policies reflect the culture change that the Consent Decree is intended to achieve—that is, a change toward policing that is simultaneously pro-active, community-oriented and constitutional. Training on BPD’s revised SSA policies is thus a crucial feature of the reform process. The fact that the Training Academy appears to be hitting its stride with the classroom component of SSA/FIP II training bodes well not only for future Consent Decree-mandated training courses, but for the reform effort overall.

In addition to Department-wide SSA training, BPD supervisors will soon receive e-learning instruction on supervisory review of stops, searches and arrests. The e-learning will reinforce the fact that, because constitutional policing and restoring community trust are dependent on lawful SSAs and proper SSA reporting, constitutional policing and restoring community trust are dependent on sergeants and lieutenants embracing and enforcing BPD’s SSA policies.

|CHALLENGES AHEAD

Training

Although the Academy is successfully providing core SSA/FIP II training, despite the COVID-induced stoppages, there is a substantial amount of SSA-related training left to develop and deliver over the next six to nine months. As noted in the Training section above, the Academy must draft and provide e-learning and curricula for two days of classroom instruction for the third tranche of core Consent Decree training, which will be delivered later in 2021 and focus on the biases that can affect officers’ interactions with civilians, including their decisions regarding stops, searches and arrests. In addition, the Academy must develop and deliver training curricula on lesser offenses to reinforce BPD’s policy on “most effective, least intrusive response.” That training, whose development is underway, is slated for spring-summer 2021 and will be part of Department-wide instruction on community policing. Even in the absence of a pandemic, preparing this curricula and providing this classroom instruction would tax BPD resources. In the midst of a pandemic, it will be even more difficult, especially given all of the other training courses the Academy is expected to develop.

Reporting on Stops, Searches and Arrests

In each semiannual report, the Monitoring Team has identified the serious deficiencies in BPD’s reporting, collection and maintenance of data on stops, searches and arrests. Although a new record management system featuring electronic field-based reporting is scheduled to come online within the next year, the absence of complete, reliable SSA data has made it impossible for BPD to satisfy Consent Decree requirements regarding the collection and analysis of such data. Moreover, it has rendered the Monitoring Team unable to begin thoroughly examining BPD’s compliance with Consent Decree requirements for stops, searches and arrests. The likely result of the enduring deficiencies in BPD’s IT systems will be the extension of the life of the Consent Decree, as it will likely take longer for BPD to demonstrate sustained compliance with the Consent Decree’s SSA requirements than if BPD had the capacity to adequately collect and analyze SSA data from the beginning.

Paragraph 86 requires BPD to provide quarterly reports on the percentage of investigatory stops that produce evidence of a crime, the percentage of weapons pat-downs the result in the seizure of unlawful weapons, and the percentage of searches that result in the seizure of contraband. Data on these “hit

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 49 of 164 rates” can often indicate whether a police agency, a particular district, a particular unit or a particular officer is conducting stops, pat-downs and searches with proper legal justification. BPD produced a draft of its first Paragraph 86 report in 2019, consistent with the Second-Year Monitoring Plan. Because of the dearth of reliable, meaningful SSA data, BPD had to scrap that draft, which did not contain any of the required information. What BPD ultimately published was a report that did not include the required information, but instead identified all of the gaps in SSA data that BPD needs to address in order to be able to generate that information. At the suggestion of the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD requested that the Court approve amendments to the Second-Year Monitoring Plan that relieved BPD of its obligation to produce quarterly SSA reports until such time as BPD can properly report the information required by Paragraph 86. The Court granted the request. Until BPD implements its new records management system, and until officers are trained on and reliably utilize the system’s electronic field-based reporting capacity, BPD will not be able to produce Paragraph 86 reports.
As the Monitoring Team has previously reported, the deficiencies in the reporting, collection and maintenance of SSA data are most evident in BPD’s data on investigative stops. In short, stops are dramatically underreported and, even when reported, they are recorded in BPD’s antiquated record management system either extremely late or not at all. The Consent Decree obligates BPD to accurately record and maintain data on stops, and requires not only BPD, but the Monitoring Team, to evaluate that data on a regular basis. Accurate data on stops is arguably among the most important data for BPD to maintain under the Consent Decree. DOJ’s findings emphasized that BPD was engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional stops, and that alleged pattern or practice is a primary reason for community mistrust.
In 2019, BPD explored the feasibility of revising and possibly consolidating its paper report forms to facilitate accurate reporting of stops in the short-term, prior to implementation of the new record management system. The Monitoring Team and DOJ collaborated with BPD in this effort, providing BPD with sample paper forms from other departments and offering edits to a revised form that BPD prepared. Ultimately, however, BPD determined that developing a new form that would be used for only a short period was impracticable.
Although the dearth of reliable, available SSA data has hamstrung the development of BPD’s capability for self-evaluation and self-correction, as well as the Monitoring Team’s ability to evaluate BPD’s SSA performance, there is one potential bright spot. In recent months, consistent with Paragraphs 75-79 of the Consent Decree, BPD’s Performance Standards Section has reviewed available arrest data from the State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO) and Central Booking, and with input from the Monitoring Tam and DOJ, has developed a methodology for identifying and analyzing arrests that, according to the SAO, result in “release without charge” (RWOC) dispositions. BPD is currently preparing its first quarterly report on RWOC arrests and will publish it before the end of this year. Reports on RWOC arrests will follow every three months. The purpose of the RWOC analysis is to determine which RWOC arrests were made without probable cause or inadequate documentation of probable cause, and then to use that information to determine the need for additional training, non-disciplinary corrective action, or referral for disciplinary or criminal investigation.
|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
In the next reporting period, as noted, BPD will complete SSA/FIP II training for all officers, draft training on community policing and lesser misdemeanor offenses, and complete SSA Policy Set III.
In addition, BPD will continue to work with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to determine whether, in advance of the development of the new records management system, it can utilize any of the soon-to-

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be-activated capabilities of the E-tix system to begin to collect and aggregate at least some of the SSA data that the Consent Decree requires BPD and the Monitoring Team to evaluate—e.g., data on the percentage of vehicle searches that result in the seizure of contraband. E-tix is a State-run system used to record information from traffic stops. With the approval of the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD also will begin to use it to record information from field interviews, as well as information on searches conducted during traffic stops.

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IMPARTIAL POLICING
Paragraph 87 of the Consent Decree asserts that “policing fairly and without bias is central to promoting broad community engagement and building partnerships between law enforcement and community members that are an important part of effective policing.” To that end, the Consent Decree requires BPD to: document the demographic category of all individuals who are stopped, frisked, searched, arrested or make a complaint (CD 88); adopt policies that require fair, impartial, nondiscriminatory policing (CD 89); establish an impartial policing training curriculum and properly train officers, with community input, to perform their duties in a nondiscriminatory manner (CD 90-94); and consider whether officers engage in nondiscriminatory policing in evaluating performance and making hiring and promotion decisions (CD 95). Paragraphs 90-94 specify requirements for training members to carry out impartial policing properly.
In the first two and a half years of the reform process, consistent with what the first three Monitoring Plans have required, BPD has satisfied the policy revision provisions of the Consent Decree for impartial policing and is nearing fulfillment of the training provisions. Because BPD remains in the training phase of reform, its compliance score is “3” (training phase).

IMPARTIAL POLICING

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

3

Training

|AREAS OF PROGRESS

Policies

BPD worked with the Monitoring Team, DOJ and Baltimore residents to overhaul two policies that require fair and impartial policing. The first is the core policy, Policy 317 (Fair and Impartial Policing). The second is the policy addressed to interactions with LGBTQ individuals, Policy 720 (Interactions with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer/Questioning Individuals). Revisions to both policies were completed in August 2018.

Revised Policy 317 provides clear directives to officers to ensure fair, respectful, nondiscriminatory treatment of community members, and expressly notes its close connection with policies addressing specific law enforcement actions, such as stops, weapons pat downs, searches and arrests. Similarly, revised Policy 720 provides key guidance on adherence to the requirements of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. In so doing, it seeks to ensure that officers stop, pat down, search and arrest individuals, including LGBTQ individuals, only with proper justification and that officers refrain from taking law enforcement action against individuals based on perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Policies 317 and 720 are referenced and incorporated in other, more specific policies governing law enforcement actions, including BPD’s revised policies on stops, searches and arrests.

Training

In 2018, after attempting to craft a one-day standalone training on fair and impartial policing, BPD, with prompting from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, made a key decision: it would weave training on fair and

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 52 of 164 impartial policing (“FIP”) into training on both use of force and stops, searches and arrests. The idea was that encounters involving stops, searches, arrests and uses of force are when otherwise abstract FIP concepts need to be applied on the street. Based on that decision, BPD is now conducting FIP training in three different tranches—one integrated with use of force training (UOF/FIP I), another integrated with training on stops, searches and arrests (UOF/FIP II), and a third that focuses squarely on FIP concepts but will also include refresher training on use of force and SSA (FIP III). It is also worth noting that training concerning active bystandership (called “Ethical Policing Is Courageous,” or “EPIC,” training), which is currently in development, will similarly incorporate FIP principles.
As explained in the Training section above, BPD has now successfully integrated FIP concepts into its Consent Decree-mandated training on use of force and stops, searches and arrests. BPD completed training all officers on use of force/FIP in October 2019. BPD’s Department-wide training on stops, searches and arrests/FIP (SSA/FIP II) is ongoing, having been interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. BPD has now resumed in-person training, but with smaller class sizes to ensure proper physical distancing, it will not finish training all officers until late this year or early next year. Notably, based on officer feedback, the pilot sessions of SSA/FIP training exposed ambiguities in several policies, and the first two weeks of live SSA/FIP training exposed several additional policy shortcomings. As a result, with the approval of the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD revised the pertinent policy provisions. The revisions have made the associated training clearer. That will benefit BPD officers, who must comply with the policies on the street, and will in turn benefit community members who encounter BPD officers in stop, search and arrest situations.
In the next several months, BPD will begin the process of designing the curriculum for the third tranche of Department-wide FIP training, FIP III, which will be delivered later in 2021, following training on community policing and lesser misdemeanor offenses.
All FIP in-service training has incorporated the new, adult-oriented modes of learning that the Academy is utilizing—i.e., facilitated problem-solving exercises based on videos, written scenarios, and live simulation. The effective delivery of FIP training using a new method of instruction, while at the same time fully integrating it with training on the primary types of encounters requiring application of FIP principles, has been one of BPD’s most noteworthy accomplishments so far.
|CHALLENGES AHEAD
BPD’s long-term challenge is the same as it was when the Monitoring Team published its first semiannual report in July 2018. As we said then:
One of the central findings of DOJ’s investigation was that BPD was engaged in a patternor-practice of stopping, patting down, searching and arresting African Americans based on their race. Revamping policies and implementing revised training curricula on both impartial policing and stops, searches and arrests are important first steps in ensuring that BPD officers treat people fairly and equitably, without regard to personal traits like race, national origin, gender expression, and disability. But these are only first steps. As with so many aspects of policing covered by the Consent Decree, the question is whether, in practice, BPD officers interact with community members respectfully and refrain from discrimination in the performance of their duties. The answer to that question will not come quickly. It will depend on the adoption of revamped data collection systems that permit easier, more comprehensive analysis of officer conduct; routine quantitative review and analysis, over time, of the data gathered through those systems, once they are established; routine qualitative review of field reports and body worn camera footage; and a proven

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 53 of 164 change in culture that values and rewards the quality of police work, rather than the number of arrests. This will be the central task of the Monitoring Team—and more importantly, of BPD itself, especially supervisory officers—in subsequent years.
ECF No. 126-1 at 70-71.
|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
In the next six months, BPD will complete SSA/FIP II training for all members and begin to develop a curriculum for FIP III training.

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USE OF FORCE
The Consent Decree obligates BPD to ensure that its officers resolve incidents without using force when possible, employ de-escalation techniques to minimize the need to use force, avoid unnecessary injury or risk of injury to officers and civilians when force is necessary, stop other officers from using excessive force, report all uses of force, and be held accountable for using unreasonable force (CD 124). To accomplish these objectives, the Consent Decree’s section on Use of Force contains requirements regarding policies on use of force (including weapons-specific policies) (CD 125-65), training on use of force (CD 166-68), reporting, reviewing and investigating use of force incidents (CD 169-210), and collecting, analyzing and reporting data on use of force incidents (CD 211-17).
In the first two years of the monitoring plan, BPD successfully completed revisions to its use of force policies and completed both e-learning and classroom training on the revised policies. BPD filed a certification of completion with the Court in November 2019. See ECF No. 260.
Because of these developments, BPD has made marked progress toward satisfying the Consent Decree’s requirements on use of force. It has fulfilled the threshold requirements—policy revisions and training—and has moved into the implementation phase of compliance. Inasmuch as assessments have not yet begun, its compliance score is “4a” (implementation – not assessed).

USE OF FORCE

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

4A

Implementation – Not Yet Assessed

However, the Monitoring Team should obtain at least a preliminary understanding of BPD’s performance in the near future. As explained below, our initial comprehensive use of force compliance review will begin in the next few weeks.

|AREAS OF PROGRESS

Policies

In 2018, BPD successfully completed revisions to its use of force policies. The policies include the core policy on use of force, Policy 1115, as well as 13 other policies, which cover, among other things: deescalation; reporting, reviewing and investigating uses of force; and proper use of different weapons. The policies BPD revised are as follows:
 Policy 409 (Firearms Regulations)  Policy 412 (Patrol Rifle Program)  Policy 414 (Less Lethal Munitions and Chemical Agents)  Policy 710 710 (Level 3 Use of Force Investigations – SIRT)  Policy 719 (Conducted Electrical Weapons—CEW)  724 (Performance Review Board)

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 725 (Use of Force Reporting, Review and Assessment)  1005 (Non-Uniform Policing Standards)  Policy 1111 (Batons/Impact Weapons)  Policy 1107 (De-escalation)  Policy 1115 (Use of Force)  Policy 1118 (Oleoresin Capsicum Spray).  1503 (Emergency Vehicle Operation and Pursuit Policy)  1602 (Canine Procedure)
BPD continues to examine and update the policies as needed to provide clarity to officers and ensure best practices. For instance, in late 2019, as explained in the Youth Interactions section of this report, BPD adjusted certain policies to account for circumstances involving youth.

Training

As previously reported, BPD successfully completed Department-wide training on its revised use of force policies (UOF/FIP I) in October 2019. This was the first tranche of Consent Decree training. It included several e-learning modules requiring test scores of 100% for completion, followed by two full days of in-service learning that incorporated facilitated discussion and problem-solving with scenarios (video and written), role plays, and animated simulation. All of the in-service lessons—whether in class, on the simulator, or in the gym—demonstrated the tactical benefits of de-escalation and provided handson guidance on using only force that is necessary, reasonable and proportional to the threat presented. According to surveys completed at the end of the course, officers rated the training favorably, with most indicating that it was a vast improvement over prior use of force training.

The training has proven extremely valuable to the reform process—not only for providing vital instruction on use of force, which is obviously a key area of the Consent Decree, but also for enhancing the capacity of the Training Academy. The use of force training program required BPD to hire more instructors; introduced BPD to the process of creating a training program that incorporates both e-learning and an intensive, scenario-based in-class curriculum; and allowed Academy instructors to hone their teaching skills and gain more confidence in the classroom, particularly in addressing difficult, pointed questions from their peers. The experience the Training Academy gained from developing and delivering high quality training on use of force is informing training on other Consent Decree subjects.

Performance Review Board

The PRB reviews serious use of force incidents with the objective of improving policies, tactics, training, and supervision where performance deficiencies are observed. In recent years, the PRB has not served its intended purpose. It often has not reviewed events until many months (sometimes a year) after they take place, and PRB members have been inappropriately reluctant to conduct meticulous, meaningful reviews out of concern that their findings could result in disciplinary action against the involved officers.

BPD has initiated a pilot program with revisions, which require a more rapid review of serious events, usually within 30 days of occurrence. The model being piloted includes a panel consisting exclusively of Deputy Commissioners, reviews of events that are much more recent, ideally no more than 30 days old, and an emphasis on the ameliorative purposes of the PRB—i.e., identifying needed improvements in policies, tactics, training and supervision.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 56 of 164 The first pilot took place in early December 2019. In the following months, the PRB reviewed additional events, including officer involved shootings. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, PRB meetings had to be canceled for several months. They are now resuming. Based on what it observed at PRB reviews prior to the pandemic, the Monitoring Team has been encouraged by the pilot program and expects to see it continues to progress.
BPD is also in the process of revising its PRB policy, Policy 724, to incorporate the reforms being tested in the pilot.
Monitoring Team Use of Force Assessment
The Monitoring Team will soon begin its first comprehensive review of use of force. We are examining a randomly drawn sample of use of force incidents from 2018-2019. In the lead-up to our review, we collaborated with BPD and DOJ to develop an assessment tool designed to capture the requirements of the use of force provisions of the Consent Decree, including the provisions addressing de-escalation and appropriate force, reporting on uses of force, and supervisory review and analysis of uses of force. The Monitoring Team expects to conclude its review by the end of the year or early 2021.
|CHALLENGES AHEAD
BPD must now hold officers and supervisors accountable to the revised use of force policies on which they have been trained. Department-wide, that will require diligent collection and analysis of information on both use of force incidents and the adequacy of use of force reporting. BPD does not have a track record, much less an impressive track record, of self-evaluation on these subjects, and its data collection capabilities remain deficient, as explained elsewhere. BPD thus has a steep hill to climb to satisfy the Consent Decree’s requirements on use of force data collection and analysis.
More than anything, however, holding officers accountable to the new policies will require acceptance, supervision and enforcement by sergeants and lieutenants. The new policies will not take hold until these supervisors diligently review force incidents and force reporting, praise officers for upholding policy, counsel officers whose performance is inadequate, and discipline officers for misconduct. Upper management will need to do their part by making sure that first-line supervisors properly review use of force incidents and reporting and by adjusting policy and training when needed.
|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
In the next reporting period, the PRB pilot program will continue. In addition, BPD will be developing the third tranche of its core Consent Decree training on use of force, stops, searches, arrests, and fair and impartial policing (FIP III). As explained elsewhere, this tranche will focus on fair and impartial policing concepts but will incorporate refresher training on use of force. Finally, the Monitoring Team will continue with its first compliance review on use of force.

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TRANSPORTATION OF PERSONS IN CUSTODY
Ensuring the safety of individuals in custody is among the most important obligations of any law enforcement agency. The Consent Decree requires BPD to: (1) equip all transport vans with seatbelts, holding straps located along the rear area of each seat that individuals being transported may grip for security during transport, and transport vehicle cameras (TVCs), and also equip all transport cruisers with seatbelts (CD 223-24); (2) inspect transport vehicles monthly and create logs to memorialize the inspections (CD 225); (3) establish and adhere to appropriate procedures for transporting prisoners (including using seatbelts, straps, and TVCs) (CD 226-33), (4) establish and adhere to protocols for documenting and comprehensively auditing prisoner transport events (CD 234-37), and (5) revise policies and training curricula to ensure safe, effective prisoner transport (CD 238).
BPD has made reasonable progress on each of these requirements. It has revised policies, is presently conducting training, has properly equipped its transport vehicles, is conducting required equipment audits, recently began auditing the required number of transport events, is generally determining during its audits whether vehicles are properly equipped and transport officer are complying with policy, and is taking remedial action when there is non-compliance.
Because the coronavirus pandemic has prevented BPD from completing Department-wide training on transport procedures on time, BPD remains in the training phase of compliance in the Transportation of Persons in Custody category and thus has a compliance score of “3” (training phase). That score may understate BPD’s progress because, with the equipment and transport audits it is regularly conducting, BPD has begun implementation of operational requirements.

TRANSPORTATION OF PERSONS IN CUSTODY

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

3

Training

|AREAS OF PROGRESS

Transportation Equipment

During the first year of monitoring, BPD installed in its transport vehicles all equipment required by the Consent Decree. All transport vans have been equipped with seatbelts for each seat, holding straps located along the rear area of each seat that individuals may grip for security, and TVCs to allow live monitoring of every transported occupant. In addition, all transport cruisers have been equipped with seatbelts. Accordingly, BPD is satisfying the requirements of Paragraphs 223 and 224.

Transportation Equipment Audits

As required by Paragraph 225, BPD continues to perform monthly inspections of all transport vehicles and creates logs to memorialize those inspections. The logs, which are used to verify the continued presence and functionality of all required equipment, are available for inspection by the Monitoring Team and DOJ. The Monitoring Team has routinely reviewed the logs. They appear complete and show that BPD is working hard to ensure that its transport vehicles remain properly equipped. However, BPD needs to take more care to ensure the accuracy of all documentation—specifically, the correlation between the

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 58 of 164 cover memo for the weekly inspection sheet and the inspection sheet itself. At times, while the cover memo has identified no vehicles requiring preventative maintenance, or one or two, the accompanying inspection the check sheet has identified more. To avoid confusion, the cover memo should accurately reflect the inspection sheets.
Transport Event Audits
Beginning in 2019, to move toward satisfying the transport procedures provisions of the Consent Decree (CD 226-37), BPD’s Inspection Unit began a pilot program for auditing transport events. The pilot consisted of a smaller number of audits than the Consent Decree requires. The pilot helped BPD identify effective workarounds for technological deficiencies that initially hampered BPD’s ability to gather all of the information required for complete audits (described in prior reports) and otherwise helped BPD determine its capacity to perform the total number of audits required.
Over the past year, the Inspection Unit has adjusted the scoresheet used to conduct the audits. Adjustments have continued with the adoption of a weighted scoring system designed to give accurate evaluations of compliance with BPD policy.
Beginning in January 2020, the Inspection Unit has been able to perform 20 event audits per month— two from each of the nine patrol districts and two from the Warrant Apprehension Task Force—for a total of 60 event audits per quarter. This is 15 more than the Consent Decree requires. In addition, the Inspection Unit has been performing the required 27 random field audits, or spot checks, per quarter. All of the audits are documented, and the reports are available for review by the Monitoring Team and DOJ.
For the most part, according to the audit reports, transport officers are doing what they are supposed to do under Paragraphs 226-233 of the Consent Decree and BPD policy, though auditors have observed certain deficiencies. The most common deficiency identified has been the failure to properly search prisoners before and after they are placed into transport vehicles and before and after custody is exchanged. This topic is covered in the curriculum for the Department-wide training on stops, searches and arrests that is underway. The Monitoring Team will be watching closely to see if, as a result of the audits and training, BPD’s audit scores in this area improve. The most recent audit showed some improvement.
Although the Monitoring Team has not yet begun its periodic random reviews of audited transport events to determine the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the audits, the audits themselves, on their face, generally seem thorough. Auditors appear to be properly reviewing transport events for compliance with the requirements of Paragraphs 226-233 of the Consent Decree and BPD policy. However, the Monitoring Team has observed some inconsistency in scoring methodology among audit reports. In at least some of the reports, it seems different auditors have given different ratings for the same thing. For example, cruisers (unlike vans) do not have transport vehicle cameras (TVCs), so for cruiser transport audit form questions asking whether the transporting officer marked on the TVC when the prisoner exited/entered the transport area and whether the prisoner made any evidentiary statements captured on the TVC, the answer should be “N/A” for not applicable. While most auditors are recording the proper answer, at least a few are instead scoring those questions as “1” for “compliant.” To maintain uniformity in audit scoring methodology, BPD must ensure that all auditors fully understand and apply the audit rating system.
Policies
Consistent with Paragraph 238, BPD completed revisions to its transport policies in August 2018. These include the core transport policy, Policy 1114 (Persons in Police Custody), as well as Policy 825 (Transport Vehicle Camera) and Policy 1511 (Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance).

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Also consistent with Paragraph 238, BPD developed and delivered Department-wide e-learning on transport procedures and additionally developed a module on transportation of persons in custody as part of SSA/FIP II training. As explained elsewhere, this in-service training was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic but has resumed.
|CHALLENGES AHEAD
As with many areas of compliance, COVID-19 has modestly affected progress in the area of transport. In addition to interrupting Department-wide classroom training, which would have been completed by now, the pandemic has made transport more cumbersome. For the protection of prisoners and officers alike, masking precautions have been implemented, and for transport vans, social distancing measures are being taken, meaning that vans cannot hold as many prisoners and must make more runs.
BPD must finalize the weighted audit scorecard it created and now uses to gauge Consent Decree and policy compliance for every audited transport event. The weighting system is designed to accurately capture transport performance.
Otherwise, BPD must continue to address any compliance and compliance assessment issues that the audits expose. For instance, based on the audits, BPD has found that it must develop a method for auditors to verify that transport officers frequently check on prisoner welfare (e.g., by having officers “mark” the TVC when they visually check subjects or by having them audibly record their inquiries into subjects’ welfare on their body worn cameras).
|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
In the next reporting period, BPD will complete the interrupted transport training for all officers. In addition, BPD will continue to work with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to finalize the transport event audit scorecard. Finally, as explained in the Technology section above, BPD will upgrade its TVC system. The current system requires footage to be downloaded directly into a database from a hard drive in the transport vehicle. This process is time-consuming and cumbersome, and it has delayed auditors’ review of the footage. In the coming months, BPD will begin to upload footage remotely in Evidence.com, the same system that stores BWC footage.

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INTERACTIONS WITH INDIVIDUALS WITH BEHAVIORAL HEALTH DISABILITIES AND IN CRISIS
The Consent Decree reinforces BPD’s “commit[ment] to responding to individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis in a manner that respects individuals’ civil rights and contributes to their overall health and welfare.” Paragraph 96 envisions that BPD will accomplish this goal by using appropriate crisis response techniques. Such techniques will help prevent situations that could lead to the unreasonable use of force, promote the utilization of the health system for individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, and diminish the inappropriate utilization of the criminal justice system for such individuals. Paragraph 96 thus challenges BPD not only to provide effective law enforcement responses to events involving individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, but to participate in the development of an effective community strategy for improving the City’s support system for such individuals.
The Consent Decree identifies a series of requirements to accomplish these objectives. They include the expansion of the Collaborative Planning and Implementation Committee (“CPIC”), which works with BPD to improve crisis response (CD 104-05); an annual work plan to accomplish the requirements of the Consent Decree (CD 96, 105); an assessment of the gaps in the City’s behavioral health system coupled with recommendations for solutions (“Gap Analysis”) (CD 97); maintenance of a Crisis Intervention Team (“CIT”) whose officers have primary responsibility for responding to incidents involving individuals in crisis (CD 101-03, 110, 119); development of a Crisis Intervention Plan and CIT Officer Selection Process to ensure the efficacy of the CIT (CD 120); appointment and training of a Crisis Intervention Team leader (CD 115-18); training for all officers on responding to individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis, and specialized training for CIT officers and dispatch personnel (CD 106-13); revision of policies, including a police emergency dispatch policy, for responding to incidents involving individuals in crisis (CD 98, 114); and identification of quantitative and qualitative performance measures for the CIT program and collection of data needed to make those assessments (CD 121-22). Over the long-term, BPD will analyze this data and issue quarterly public reports gauging its performance in responding to individuals in crisis.
As previously reported, BPD and the City have satisfied a number of the Consent Decree’s preliminary requirements, including expanding CPIC membership, appointing a CIT Coordinator, completing (with CPIC) a crisis intervention plan and a plan for selecting CIT officers, creating a form to track data on responses to individuals in crisis, revising policies addressing crisis intervention for both officers and dispatchers, completing and publishing the Gap Analysis, and finalizing training curricula on behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention for both recruits and officers that exceeds the Consent Decree’s hours requirements. Within the past eight months, BPD also has completed specialized training curricula on behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention for dispatchers and is nearing completion of specialized in-class training curricula for CIT officers.
Because BPD has completed core policy revisions but has yet to deliver training on behavioral health and crisis intervention to officers and dispatchers or specialized training to CIT officers, its compliance score in both the Behavioral Health-General and Behavioral HealthCIT Officers categories is “3” (training phase). For the Behavioral Health-System Coordination & Improvement category, its compliance score is “4a” (implementation phase – not assessed), because it has completed the Gap Analysis but has not yet begun meaningful implementation of the recommendations in the report.

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BEHAVIORAL HEALTH GENERAL

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

3

Training

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH CIT OFFICERS

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

3

Training

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SYSTEM COORDINATION &
IMPROVEMENT

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

4A

Implementation – Not Yet Assessed

|AREAS OF PROGRESS
BPD and the City have shown a serious commitment to working with community members to determine how to strengthen behavioral health support systems and improve officers’ capacity to respond to individuals experiencing behavioral health crises. Over the past two and a half years, work in this area has required a significant amount of time not only from City and BPD personnel, but from community stakeholders, advocates, individuals with lived experience, and behavioral health professionals, all of whom are volunteering with CPIC. Because of the diligence and commitment of CPIC members, the City and BPD have taken crucial first steps (though only first steps) toward improving the City’s behavioral health system and providing BPD with the tools to respond more appropriately to individuals in crisis. Progress has been slowed to a degree because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, as in other areas, certain deadlines under the Third-Year Monitoring Plan have had to be extended. But productive work has continued nonetheless.
CPIC
The City and BPD satisfied their initial obligation under Paragraph 104 by expanding the composition of CPIC to include relevant City and State officials, individuals with lived experience, community mental health providers, substance use services providers, local hospitals, advocates representing a wide range of individuals with disabilities, and committed philanthropists. A review of membership and community representation has continued each year.
CPIC has become a vital advisory body to the City and BPD. The progress made to date—on policies, training, data collection, identifying systemic flaws, and recommending systemic improvements—is the result of CPIC’s diligent, collaborative efforts. The efforts of CPIC are all the more impressive because the participation of community members is voluntary.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 62 of 164 Work Plans
Under each Monitoring Plan to date, BPD and CPIC have completed a Work Plan. The Work Plan establishes a detailed schedule for satisfying specific Consent Decree requirements in a particular monitoring year. Each year, the process of developing the Work Plan has become more sophisticated. In the first two years of monitoring, the City, BPD and CPIC consistently met established deadlines.
For the current monitoring year, the Work Plan was developed in face-to-face meetings throughout during the first part of the year. As the challenges posed by the pandemic grew, CPIC transitioned to meeting by phone and video, ultimately completing the Work Plan that way. Through their contributions to CPIC’s four subcommittees, Behavioral Health Services of Baltimore (“BHSB”), BPD’s Training and Compliance Divisions, local advocacy groups such as the Baltimore National Alliance on Mental Illness (“NAMI”) and Disability Rights of Maryland (“DRM”), and representatives of non-profit organizations, behavioral health providers, hospital systems, the public school system, and City and State government helped complete the Work Plan.
Consistent with the Third -Year Monitoring Plan, the Work Plan prescribes:
 A series of measures intended to prioritize and eventually implement the recommendations set forth
in the previously approved Gap Analysis report, which identifies and proposes solutions to remedy deficiencies in the City’s behavioral health systems and BPD’s practice concerning individuals with behavioral health disabilities;
 An on-going review of behavioral health-related policies previously developed by BPD with CPIC
assistance;
 An analysis of a sample of police interactions with people with behavioral health disabilities, designed
to identify systemic barriers and solutions to the delivery of care, including, for each interaction, what precipitated the crisis, what services could have prevented the crisis, how police became involved, how the response to the crisis could be improved, and what can be done to prevent the crisis in the future;
 A review of the sources and types of data needed to provide a quarterly report on behavioral health
crisis events, intended to achieve the goals of paragraph 96 of the Consent Decree Paragraph 96, which requires BPD to use appropriate crisis response techniques and reduce inappropriate use of the criminal justice system for individuals with behavioral health disabilities;
 Commencing annual in-service behavioral health training for all officers for the current year and
developing an initial plan for continuing education for next year;
 Completion of training curriculum for police dispatchers and delivery of the training; and
 Development of training curriculum for Crisis Intervention Team officers.

CIT Program
BPD has established a solid foundation for a Crisis Intervention Team. A CIT Coordinator was appointed to head the team in 2018. The first Coordinator accepted another assignment, and BPD was quick to seek community input and appoint a replacement. Under the Coordinator’s leadership, BPD prepared a Crisis Intervention Plan to address staffing needs, as well as a CIT Officer Selection Plan. Both were approved by the Monitoring Team. The Crisis Intervention Plan used police dispatch data to estimate the overall number of crisis calls in each BPD district and then projected the number of CIT required for the Patrol Division. The CIT Officer Selection Plan used the CIT Officer requirements in the Consent Decree to create a set of qualifications and outlined a systematic selection process for CIT officers.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 63 of 164 Crisis Intervention Policies
In July 2019, with active input from CPIC, BPD finalized revisions to three policies addressing crisis intervention for both officers and dispatchers: Policy 712 (Crisis Intervention Program), Policy 713 (Petitions for Emergency Evaluation and Voluntary Admission), and Policy 715 (Behavioral Health Crisis Dispatch). The revisions were drafted by CPIC’s Policy Subcommittee and finalized following coordination with City agencies (e.g., the Fire Department, which has responsibility for 911 dispatchers), collaboration with the Monitoring Team and DOJ, and input from community members.
Behavioral Health Data
Consistent with Paragraph 122, CPIC’s Data Subcommittee revised and expanded the form BPD uses to record interactions with individuals in crisis. The revised form is comprehensive. CPIC received input on it from experts at local universities, local advocacy organizations, and individuals with lived experience. The Monitoring Team approved the new form in December 2018. Since then, BPD has been working with CPIC’s Data Subcommittee to pilot the form in the field and shepherd the form’s data requirements into new IT systems BPD is presently developing.
CPIC’s Data Subcommittee has been evaluating available data on BPD officer encounters with individuals in crisis in order determine which performance measures it can reliably analyze and include in the reports required by Paragraph 122. In particular, the subcommittee has been systematically reviewing available reports and outcome studies on BPD’s behavioral health intervention programs, including BPD’s Crisis Response Team (CRT), Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, and nowdefunct Homeless Outreach Team (HOT).
In addition to performing this review, CPIC’s Data subcommittee is examining data on behavioral health calls in each police district and attempting to extrapolate the call volume to the district’s population. The results are intended to determine the number of CIT officers needed in each district.
The subcommittee is also attempting to understand BPD’s current hospital referral practices involving individuals in crisis by examining hospital emergency room data. The goal is to determine whether there are opportunities for diversion to community-based alternatives. Initial examination of the data suggests a great deal of variability in emergency room referrals. The variability, however, might not be related to the number of behavioral crisis events in surrounding neighborhoods. Speculatively, the utilization data could suggest the importance of clarifying admissions criteria for each hospital so that patrol officers have adequate guidance on making emergency room referrals.
When BPD conducted new behavioral health training in FY2018 and FY2019, it added a module on behavioral health resources that highlighted the Baltimore Crisis Response Inc.’s crisis information and referral (CIR) line and also directed officers to a resource app on their phones. The new training was delivered not only to recruit classes, but to officers during in-service classes. CPIC’s Data subcommittee reported that, as compared to the four years prior to the training, officer calls to the CIR hotline in the period since the training began have increased significantly. This strongly suggests that BPD officers are open to and interested in the availability of community resources.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 64 of 164 Behavioral Health Awareness (“BHA”) Training Curricula
Recruit Training | The BHA recruit training curriculum, approved in September 2019, is currently being delivered to recruit classes. It consists of thirteen modules taught over 24 hours. Topics include: an introduction to BPD’s crisis strategies, an exercise in understanding auditory hallucinations, an overview of mental illness, an introduction to BPD new behavioral health policies, an introduction to working with individuals in suicidal crisis, understanding working with youth, understanding neurocognitive impairments (dementia), a personal story of mental illness from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an introduction to neurodevelopmental disorders (intellectual and developmental disabilities), substance use disorders, de-escalation strategies, emergency evaluations/ voluntary admissions, and incident-based scenarios. See ECF No. 247 for a complete description of the curriculum.
By requiring 24 hours of instruction for recruits, CPIC and BPD chose to include instruction that exceeds the 16 hours required in the Consent Decree. See ECF No. 2-2, ¶ 112.b. Increasing the hours of BHA instruction required of new recruits reflects BPD’s commitment to ensuring that its officers have a solid understanding of behavioral health and are more adequately equipped to interact with individuals with behavioral health disabilities.
In-service BHA Training for Officers | The Monitoring Team approved in-service BHA training curriculum for all officers in November 2019. See ECF No. 262. To accommodate the virtual training necessitated by the pandemic, the curriculum had to be modified. The revised curriculum is presently being delivered remotely Department-wide, with scheduled completion in March 2021. The curriculum consists of six modules. These modules cover a range of topics, including understanding mental health, an overview of substance abuse, working with individuals in suicidal crisis, voluntary admissions and emergency petitions, an in-depth examination and discussion of BPD behavioral crisis events based on body-worn camera footage, and a comprehensive overview of BPD’s revised policies relating to interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis. In modifying and adapting the approved curriculum to a remote learning environment, BPD worked closely with BHSB, community experts, the Monitoring Team and DOJ to create an experience that mirrored the success of earlier training.
The training began several weeks ago. Initial participant feedback has been very encouraging.
911 and Dispatch Training | The training curriculum for 911 call-takers and dispatchers was approved in May 2020. See ECF No. 314. Training will take place in the fourth quarter of 2020. Developed in coordination with the Fire Department, it will require approximately six weeks to provide classroom instruction to all 911 call-takers and dispatchers. The training consists of nine sections taught over eight hours. The training includes a history of mental health treatment; a review of BPD’s Crisis Intervention Team Program; an exercise in understanding stigma in behavioral health, a review of trauma-informed practice; an overview of behavioral health based on realistic scenarios; a panel discussion of the peer and family perspective on behavioral health; engaging and de-escalation over the phone; self-care for 911 specialists and dispatchers; and a comprehensive discussion of BPD’s behavioral health crisis dispatch policy.
As with other new training programs, the 911 call-taker and dispatcher training employs adult learning techniques, such as group discussion, realistic videos, applied learning exercises, and role-playing scenarios. The instruction is being delivered by teams of behavioral health professionals, experienced police instructors, advocates, and individuals with lived experience.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 65 of 164 CIT Officer Training | CPIC and BPD are presently working to develop specialized training for CIT officers, with input from the Monitoring Team and DOJ. Barring delays caused by the pandemic, the Training Academy plans to conduct this training in the first part of 2021.
Gap Analysis and Recommendations
The Gap Analysis, approved in December 2019, provides an essential guide to achieving the Consent Decree’s complementary goals of bolstering Baltimore’s behavioral health system, diminishing reliance on BPD officers to handle calls for service involving individuals in crisis, and ameliorating the interactions that BPD officers continue to have with individuals in crisis. The Gap Analysis is available here.
The City, BPD, BHSB and CPIC worked with a nationally respected research firm, Health Services Research Institute (“HSRI”) to conduct the Gap Analysis. The report identifies unmet needs in the City’s behavioral health system and makes over 40 specific recommendations to address those needs. Those recommendations focus on the establishment of a fully integrated, systemic approach to behavioral health care. Among the features of the system are:
 24/7, around-the-clock crisis centers
 a vastly increased number of mobile crisis teams
 a centralized mechanism for managing crisis response
 an oversight committee (including CPIC) to promote a “No Wrong Door” approach to behavioral health
support that integrates mental health and substance abuse services (including outpatient services in primary health care settings) and workforce programs
 fortified workforce recruitment, retention and competency for behavioral health specialists, especially
in community-based settings
 financial support for peer-run organizations
 a wide-range of improved housing programs, including subsidized housing and permanent supportive
housing programs
 collection and analysis of BPD data to determine why trained crisis intervention officers are not
responding to a greater number of behavioral health calls and
 improved training for BPD officers, including training on the availability of community-based
alternatives to law enforcement action (which is currently underway).
The Gap Analysis observes that among the many benefits of a more complete, more integrated behavioral health system will be a reduction in the need for BPD to serve as the primary—often the only—first responder available for individuals in crisis.
|CHALLENGES AHEAD
System Coordination and Improvement
The Consent Decree’s requirement for a Gap Analysis (CD 97) is not yet fully satisfied. To meet the requirement, BPD must evaluate a meaningful sample of officer encounters with individuals in crisis. With an eye toward identifying solutions to the deficiencies observed in the Gap Analysis, the evaluation

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 66 of 164 of each encounter should include what precipitated the crisis, what services could have prevented the crisis, how police became involved, and what could be done to prevent a similar crisis in the future. Because of BPD’s data collection deficiencies, BPD was not able to include such an evaluation in the Gap Analysis report. In the coming year, BPD and CPIC will develop a process for gathering the required data and performing the evaluation.
The Gap Analysis calls for far-reaching change. Implementing its recommendations will be a long-term, intensive enterprise. Establishing an integrated system of community-based care will require cooperative planning across multiple City and state agencies and non-profit institutions. The funding required to develop this system will be significant and will need to draw on multiple sources. Additionally, because of Baltimore’s history of “siloing” programs within the behavioral health system, there remains the risk that new programs will continue to be “siloed” and will not be incorporated into an integrated, cohesive system. As Judge Bredar explained at a public hearing in July 2020, and as the Monitoring Team explained earlier on Facebook (see Summary of Monitoring Team Activities section below), the early July 2020 police-involved shooting of an armed man experiencing a behavioral health crisis in Northeast Baltimore concretely exposed the flaws the Gap Analysis identified, as well as the urgent need to implement its recommendations.
In the short run, to capitalize on the momentum the Gap Analysis has created, the City and BPD must move expeditiously to shore up the resources they devote to behavioral health issues:
 The City’s primary behavioral health care partner, BHSB, has limited funding, cannot always capably
implement new programs or strong mechanisms for quality control, and although possessing highly qualified personnel in some areas, suffers from a lack of capacity and technical skill in other areas. The pandemic has strained its resources further. BHSB needs greater support from the City to carry out its mission and, at the same time, the City must demand greater accountability from BHSB.
 Like BPD, which only recently has established consistent leadership on CPIC, the City must provide
leadership on CPIC. The City’s Law Department has provided strong support for the behavioral health requirements of the Consent Decree, especially as to BPD, but leadership from other City agencies is also required to address the comprehensive needs identified in the Gap Analysis. These include City agencies responsible for health, housing, homeless outreach, youth support, criminal justice, and innovation.
 BPD needs to get its revised CIT program off the ground. Newly appointed CIT leadership must
stabilize CIT, continue to actively support CPIC and other community stakeholders, and select enough qualified CIT officers to meet Departmental needs.
Despite these major challenges, Baltimore has a track record of innovative programming and a wealth of professional talent. The City also enjoys a reputation for conducting incisive studies involving behavioral health and developing service models that appear to hold promise, even if they have not endured. The fact that HSRI reviewed 38 different analytical reports regarding behavioral health care delivery in the City is a testament to the work that already has been done here. The challenge will be to make the response to the Gap Analysis more effective and more sustainable than the responses to the other studies. The lack of success of previous efforts to reform the City’s behavioral health system underscores the critical need for leadership and accountability in implementing the recommendations in the Gap Analysis.
Training
BPD and the City continue to face challenges under the Consent Decree that are more immediate than implementing the long-term recommendations in the Gap Analysis. Most prominently, BPD is scheduled

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 67 of 164 to deliver four different behavioral health training programs in the coming year—for recruits, officers, 911 call-takers/dispatchers, and CIT officer candidates. This would have taxed the Training Academy’s resources even if there were no pandemic. With the pandemic, BPD’s capacity for conducting the required training is stretched even further.
Much of the behavioral health curriculum relies on interpersonal skill development and connecting the officers to treatment providers and those with lived experiences. It is difficult to establish meaningful relationships remotely. Nevertheless, BPD’s Training Academy leadership, CPIC’s Training Subcommittee and BPD’s Compliance Division have worked hard to create a productive remote learning environment. They are experimenting with remote learning for recruits and are revising other BHA curriculum to adapt to the realities of the pandemic. This has not been easy. BPD was informed that it would not be permitted to adapt the previously approved “Mental Health First Aid for Public Safety” (MHFA) curriculum to remote learning and also may not use certified community instructors remotely. As a result, BPD has drawn from other approved curricula to develop the BHA training necessary for all officers to meet the State of Maryland’s annual education requirements. If necessary, BPD will also consider adapting approved curricula for other trainings being held in abeyance.
Data collection
As previously reported, BPD has not historically collected and maintained all the data that the Consent Decree requires to analyze officer interactions with individuals in crisis. While BPD has developed a new crisis intervention data form that should capture the required information, the Monitoring Team and BPD itself will not be able to comprehensively assess compliance with Consent Decree requirements until BPD officers routinely use the forms and BPD is technologically capable of maintaining and analyzing data from the forms in a modernized record management system.
|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
In the next reporting period, as noted, BPD will continue conducting BHA training for recruits and initiate training for veteran officers, 911 call specialists, and dispatchers. CPIC and BPD will finalize the training curriculum for CIT officers. BPD and CPIC will also conduct their on-going review of policies affecting individuals with behavioral health disabilities; an analysis of a sample of police interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities, required to complete the Gap Analysis; and an assessment of the sources and types of data needed for quarterly reports on crisis events, which are required by the Consent Decree.
The City, BPD, BHSB and CPIC members also will continue their work to implement the recommendations in the Gap Analysis. Last fall, Disability Rights Maryland (a CPIC member) worked with BHSB to conduct a two-day workshop to begin the work. Presenters from other cities spoke about their own successful efforts to establish integrated behavioral health systems, while local advocates and individuals with lived experienced shared their ideas and voiced their concerns about the City’s ability to carry through on the promises of the Gap Analysis. Other advocacy groups such as NAMI, the Bazelon Center, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and over 20 additional agencies and organizations also participated in the workshop and have joined with DRM to support the recommendations in the Gap Analysis. Adding to the momentum for reform created by the workshop and the Gap Analysis, the State is working on providing additional reimbursements to the hospital system to strengthen crisis intervention supports state-wide, including in Baltimore. The time is thus ripe for decisive action to fortify Baltimore’s behavioral health system, lest the Gap Analysis become just another report on the shelf.

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FIRST AMENDMENT-PROTECTED ACTIVITIES
As the Consent Decree and BPD’s revised policy on First Amendment Protected Activity explain, the exercise of First Amendment rights is fundamental to democratic governance because it promotes the free exchange of ideas. The preservation and protection of First Amendment rights is also vital to maintaining public trust in the rule of law because it fosters transparency and accountability in government functions, including policing (CD 239).
For these reasons, the Consent Decree requires BPD to protect several different First Amendment rights: the right to free speech and expression, which includes the right to criticize law enforcement and engage in speech in the presence of law enforcement without being subject to retaliation (CD 240-44); the right to freely organize and participate in lawful public assemblies (CD 245); and the right to observe and record the actions of BPD officers in the public discharge of their duties (CD 247). The Consent Decree also protects First Amendment rights by prohibiting the warrantless search and seizure of recorded video and images, except in limited circumstances (CD 249-50). The Consent Decree prescribes protection for all of these constitutional rights by obligating BPD to revise its policies and training programs (CD 239, 244, 246, 251); require supervisory approval for dispersing assemblies, seizing recording devices and recordings, and arresting individuals engaged in expressive activity (CD 252-54); and conduct annual assessments of its practices relating to First Amendment-protected activity (CD 255).
BPD fully and effectively revised its core First Amendment policies in 2018. However, its compliance score remains at “2” (policy/planning phase) because, due in part to coronavirusinduced delays, it has not completed revisions to standard operating procedures for its Mobile Field Force, which responds to public assemblies when required. BPD is also still in the process of finalizing e-learning curriculum for training on its core First Amendment policies, so it has only begun the training phase of compliance. Nonetheless, BPD has initiated self-assessments of its responses to First Amendment-protected activities, having published its inaugural assessment this year.

FIRST AMENDMENTPROTECTED ACTIVITIES

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

2

Policies/ Planning

|AREAS OF PROGRESS

Policy Revisions

In 2018, BPD completed comprehensive revisions to its two policies addressing First Amendmentprotected activities—the core policy, Policy 804 (First Amendment Protected Activity) and the policy regarding recording of police activity, Policy 1016 (Public Observation and Recording of Officers). See ECF No. 140.

Revised Policy 804 is now much more tightly organized, comprehensible, and directive than earlier versions. It expressly delineates what officers are required to do to protect First Amendment rights and what they are prohibited from doing. It also clearly sets forth Departmental obligations for training and data collection and analysis on First Amendment events. Moreover, rather than focusing

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 69 of 164 exclusively on policing public assemblies, as the prior version did, Policy 804 now provides directives on respecting individuals’ right to criticize police officers and police activity outside the context of a protest or assembly. This is vital, as DOJ’s pattern-or-practice findings principally criticized how BPD officers detained, arrested and used unreasonable force against individuals who criticized or insulted officers— not how BPD officers handled public demonstrations. Finally, revised Policy 804 provides clearer and more comprehensive direction on preserving the right to public assembly, including express protocols for preparing for planned assemblies.
Policy 1016, which addresses the right to observe and record officers in the line of duty, is similarly improved. Although Policy 1016 did not require as many substantive changes as Policy 804, the revised policy provides more comprehensive guidance to officers and is better organized. The revised policy includes detailed procedures for obtaining recorded material thought to be relevant to criminal investigations, clearly delineating what officers and supervisors may and may not do to secure such evidence.
In the past year, BPD has begun revising standard operating procedures (“SOP”) for its Mobile Field Force. The Mobile Field Force consists of over 200 specially trained officers from across the Department. The Mobile Field Force is called upon when needed to monitor, maintain order, and protect the right to assemble and speak at both planned and spontaneous public demonstrations. If demonstrations turn violent, the Mobile Field Force intervenes to preserve public safety while respecting First Amendment rights.
BPD currently has a policy (Policy 413) that generally addresses its Mobile Field Force. However, during the first monitoring year, when BPD was revising its First Amendment-related policies, BPD, DOJ and the Monitoring Team agreed that it would be more fitting for Policy 804 to incorporate the general provisions of Policy 413, and for a comprehensive set of SOPs to replace Policy 413 and provide detailed tactical guidance to Mobile Field Force officers about how to carry out their responsibilities while preserving First Amendment rights. BPD, the Monitoring Team, and DOJ determined that rescission of Policy 413 and replacement with SOPs made sense because the policy is not so much a policy as it is an outline for a tactical procedural manual. Policy 413 will not be rescinded until the SOPs are finalized and implemented.
In 2019, BPD began work on the SOPs. BPD produced an initial draft modeled after SOPs for wellfunctioning civil disturbance units in other jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia. After receiving feedback from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD agreed to revise the draft so that it more closely tracks the Mobile Field Force SOPs for the Maryland State Police, which has adopted a more progressive, European model of mobile field force deployment. Neighboring jurisdictions with which BPD often partners to monitor large crowds are undertaking a similar review of their mobile field force operations.
Under the original Third-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD was scheduled to have nearly completed the SOP revisions by now. The coronavirus pandemic interrupted those plans. As a critical part of the revision process, BPD officials were supposed to observe and take part in State Police Mobile Field Force training this spring. The training had to be cancelled and rescheduled because of the pandemic. Additionally, because of the pandemic, officers tasked with revising the SOPs have had to spend increased time deployed to operations. BPD officials will attend the next scheduled State Police training. Once that occurs, BPD will be fully prepared to revise the SOPs and, accordingly, satisfy the remaining policy requirement for First Amendment protected activities.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 70 of 164 Self-Evaluation

In February 2020, BPD submitted its first annual audit of the Department’s responses to First Amendment-protected activities (CD 255). The purpose of these audits is to implement “corrective action or improvement measures” where deficiencies are identified (CD 256). BPD’s report is available here.
The challenge in devising a means to audit BPD responses to First Amendment conduct is to ensure that the instrument evaluates not only BPD’s responses to larger, planned assemblies and internal affairs complaints based on alleged First Amendment violations, but also the responses of officers to individuals who exercise their First Amendment rights in the course of routine police encounters by criticizing police conduct, including the officer’s actions. Evaluating BPD’s responses to such routine exercises of First Amendment rights is critical because those encounters are far more frequent than either larger assemblies or encounters that spawn internal affairs complaints. Further, as mentioned above, DOJ’s investigation found a pattern or practice of First Amendment violations based in large part on improper retaliatory action, including bringing unwarranted criminal charges or using unreasonable force.
To capture BPD’s responses to these more routine exercises of First Amendment rights, BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ agreed that BPD would use its Performance Standards Section to review body-worn camera footage of events that involve allegations of disorderly conduct. While disorderly conduct cases obviously do not encompass all situations in which officers might be confronted with First Amendment conduct, and not all disorderly conduct cases implicate First Amendment rights, the parties concluded that, at least initially, such cases might prove useful for exploring whether officers are retaliating against individuals for exercising their rights.
Based on this agreement, BPD’s first annual audit report (see ECF No. 287-1) evaluates (1) cases involving internal affairs complaints based on alleged First Amendment violations for 2019, (2) BPD’s response to two larger First Amendment events in 2019—one involving a protest of the establishment of a university police force at Johns Hopkins, and another involving a speech given in Baltimore by Donald Trump, and (3) 2018 cases involving disorderly conduct arrests that were determined to have implicated First Amendment conduct (a number of disorderly conduct cases, of course, did not). The audit determined that:
 Under the Public Integrity Bureau’s revised complaint classification system, adopted in December
2018, there was one First Amendment-related complaint lodged in 2018 and five in 2019. Because the Public Integrity Bureau had not fully resolved any of the complaints by the time the audit was completed, and because prior complaints alleging First Amendment violations were not reliably classified as such under the old system, the audit did not include any evaluation of recent BPD actions that prompted complaints of First Amendment violations.
 Based on review of a statistically representative sample of body-worn camera footage, BPD officers
respected protestors’ First Amendment rights to peaceably assemble, speak, and record law enforcement activity and fully complied with Departmental policy in responding to the large-scale protests at Johns Hopkins and President Trump’s speech.
 BPD arrest rates for disorderly conduct complaints in 2018 were extremely low (.08%), which
potentially suggests general compliance with the First Amendment (even though it is hard to know without reviewing a sample of those non-arrest cases, which BPD will do in future audits, and even though not all disorderly conduct events implicate First Amendment rights, as noted above). But of the 30 disorderly conduct arrests reviewed, three (10%) involved First Amendment violations and were thus referred for disciplinary investigation. Two of those cases appeared to involve arrests in response to criticism of police actions, and one appeared to involve an arrest in response to video recording of police actions.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 71 of 164 Additionally, although not reflective of First Amendment compliance, a substantial number of the other 27 reviewed cases appeared to involve other policy violations, including arrests likely made without probable cause, statements of probable cause missing critical factual information, including information supporting probable cause, and arrests that unnecessarily drained Departmental resources (e.g., an arrest for spitting on a sidewalk) because the incidents should have been resolved short of arrest with a citation or a warning, consistent with BPD’s policy on the “most effective, least intrusive response.” One key observation was that, in a number of probable cause statements, the arresting officer supported the disorderly conduct charge by describing the gathering of people, but failed to explain how the defendant’s behavior (as opposed to, e.g., the presence of police or pre-incident socializing in the location) caused the gathering, which is a key element of disturbing the peace.
Of the 28 reviewed cases resulting in adult charges for disorderly conduct, only two resulted in convictions. One resulted in release without charges for failure to satisfy the probable cause standard, 21 were dismissed for unexplained reasons, and four were placed on the stet docket.
The Monitoring Team is encouraged by the work BPD did in its fledgling audit. The audit presents a fair, if necessarily incomplete, picture of BPD’s response to First Amendment conduct. It identifies the additional information required to present a more complete picture. It isolates certain cases that warrant disciplinary or supervisory review. It reinforces the need to address previously-known shortcomings in First Amendment compliance—e.g., incomplete understanding of the law of disorderly conduct (at least among some officers) and inadequate documentation of facts supporting probable cause that an individual has committed a crime and has not simply engaged in constitutionally protected activity. It highlights previously-known shortcomings in other areas—e.g., unacceptable delays in resolving internal affairs complaints, low-level offenses that should be addressed with warnings or citations rather than arrests, and either the absence of probable cause or shoddy documentation of probable cause for arrests for lowlevel offenses.
Based on these observed shortcomings, the audit specifies areas of emphasis for training. Further, the review of large-scale protest activity reveals how a solid Incident Command Structure and detailed, properly executed operational plans can simultaneously safeguard First Amendment rights, promote constitutional policing, and ensure public safety.
In short, the audit is a promising start. It demonstrates that BPD is capable of engaging in internal analysis and self-correcting behavior, both of which are essential to becoming a high-functioning, Constitutionabiding police agency. That said, with assistance from the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD must continue to try to find a more accurate way to identify police encounters implicating First Amendment protections, if possible. While disorderly conduct cases provide a useful set of such encounters, they are an incomplete set.
Response to Recent Widespread Protests against Police Brutality
In Baltimore, as in many other cities, there have been widespread protests against police misconduct in the wake of the brutal killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. The Monitoring Team has observed first-hand BPD’s response to the protests. On eight different days and nights between May 29 and June 13—all the days and nights that featured significant protest activity in that period—Monitoring Team members stationed themselves in both BPD’s command center and on the ground. Those in the command center were able to review BPD’s incident actions plans and observe how BPD commanders, using an established Incident Command System, directed officers on the street to respond to the protests. From live video feeds broadcast throughout the command center, Monitoring Team members also were able to observe how BPD officers responded to the directives they received and otherwise carried out their

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 72 of 164 duties. At the same time, members of the Monitoring Team’s community engagement arm were on the street, interacting with protestors and obtaining a ground-level view of BPD’s response.
Thus far, based on its dozens of hours of observation, the Monitoring Team believes BPD’s response to the protests has complied with both the Constitution and the Consent Decree. BPD has allowed community members to assemble in public spaces and march on public streets and sidewalks without intervention; deliver speeches denouncing law enforcement and criticize officers face-to-face without restriction or retaliation; and make video and audio recordings of police activity without impediment. BPD’s actions demonstrate that it has learned important lessons from certain failures in performance in 2015, when it reacted to the unrest that gripped the City in the wake of Freddie Gray’s death. The Monitoring Team attributes BPD’s accomplishments to date to several developments.
First, the community members who have led the protests have been well-organized and committed to nonviolence, and they have shared information needed for BPD to simultaneously protect First Amendment rights and preserve public safety. Violence interrupters have appeared at demonstrations to prevent violence before it occurs and to intervene when it does. For example, during early demonstrations, on two occasions when protest participants hurled items (including small exploding fireworks) at police officers, Monitoring Team members observed peaceful protestors identify the participants, detain them, and take them to the police. Protest organizers’ devotion to non-violence undoubtedly has made BPD’s management of the protests less fraught.
Second, through the visible accommodations it has made on the street, BPD has clearly conveyed to community members that it intends to honor protestors’ First Amendment rights. BPD generally has avoided engaging in provocative conduct. It has not made unnecessary (even if technically lawful) arrests. Further, with limited exceptions for certain officers ringing City Hall and a small line of officers ordered to block off a street on which County Police were effectuating a murder arrest the night of May 31, BPD officers have policed the demonstrations in their regular uniforms. They have generally eschewed riot gear, which is often unnecessarily provocative, as shown in other cities with mass protests. Outfitted Mobile Field Force units have remained ready to respond if violence erupts, but they have kept away from the demonstrations, attracting no attention, in order to minimize the potential for conflict. Similarly, some officers deployed around City buildings where demonstrators have gathered, including BPD headquarters and City Hall, have kept helmets and shields nearby if the need to use them arises, but have assiduously sought to avoid using them.
To further defuse tensions, BPD officers have often calmly engaged in discussion with protestors, occasionally marched with them, and sometimes taken a knee alongside them. Such disarming conduct has contributed to the peacefulness of the demonstrations. Ideally, it will bolster BPD’s ongoing efforts to rebuild community trust.
Third, on each day of protest, BPD has utilized a sound Incident Command System, typically headed by the Chief of Patrol, and has meticulously prepared incident action plans to address different contingencies and assign dozens of officers to specific duties. Especially because BPD has coordinated with and led other agencies in managing the protests, a strictly observed and executed ICS has eliminated confusion on the street and produced measured, proportionate and effective police action. Commanders have emphasized the prudence of allowing protestors to peacefully occupy public spaces and march through the streets without interference, even when assembling and marching has caused temporary traffic disruptions. Commanders have similarly emphasized the need for restraint in the face of direct verbal provocation and have deftly handled potentially volatile events. For instance, prior to the main protest activities on May 31, officers checked locations along anticipated march routes and identified and removed palates of bricks and plastic bottles containing accelerant, which individuals with plans for property destruction

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 73 of 164 appeared to have placed strategically near storefronts. To take another example, with the help of violence interrupters and under the ICS, officers located an individual standing in the middle of the street with a long gun slung over his back and capably ushered him away from the crowd to an isolated location where his detention, which was lawful, would not risk a disturbance.
It bears noting that BPD has proven capable of monitoring the protests without compromising police functions in other parts of the City. Each week, through their participation in BPD Comstat meetings, Monitoring Team members have observed how BPD has simultaneously managed the protests while continue to deploy necessary personnel and resources to each police district.
The overall propriety and effectiveness of BPD’s response to recent, large-scale protest activities does not mean that BPD has reached compliance with the Consent Decree’s provisions for responding to mass demonstrations. The conclusion here is “so far, so good.” There is still a way to go—sustained appropriate responses to demonstrations, Department-wide training on First Amendment conduct, completion of the Mobile Field Force SOPs, new Mobile Field Force training, and more. Nevertheless, the Monitoring Team is cautiously optimistic that BPD’s recent performance does mean that the Department is turning a corner. Many of BPD’s big-city peers have not managed demonstrations and contained violence and property destruction as effectively, and some of them have resorted to disproportionate, sometimes injuryinflicting force and mass arrests. BPD has not only performed well when measured against these other agencies; it has performed well when measured against the pertinent standards for measurement—the Constitution and the Consent Decree.
|CHALLENGES AHEAD
As previously reported, the biggest challenge facing BPD remains ensuring that its officers respect First Amendment rights not during mass demonstrations, but in their daily interactions with City residents. In its investigation, DOJ found that BPD officers were engaged in a pattern or practice of violating the First Amendment by responding to oral criticisms, insults and non-violent provocations with unreasonable force. Similar conduct, at least in isolated pockets, has continued into the Consent Decree period.
Within the past two years, two different officers, Officer Arthur Williams and Sergeant Ethan Newberg, have been charged with crimes for using unreasonable force and bringing criminal charges in retaliation for the exercise of basic free speech rights. The Monitoring Team has reviewed BWC footage and incident reports from these cases, and it appears that these officers in fact responded to non-violent, constitutionally protected provocations with force, criminal charges, or both. Officer Williams was convicted of the charges against him in 2019. Sergeant Newberg has not yet been tried. But the case against him, which alleges nine different instances of unlawful retaliatory conduct over the span of just ten months (July 2018 – May 2019), is particularly troubling, because as an experienced first-line supervisor with 24 years on the job, he has been setting an example for potentially dozens of patrol officers.
BPD’s commendable response to the recent protests suggests that systemic improvement may be afoot. The protests include speakers who condemn the police and demonstrators who directly, and sometimes aggressively, criticize officers face-to-face. To the Monitoring Team’s knowledge, none of these scores of encounters have provoked unlawful retaliation by way of either force or arrest. By repeatedly exercising restraint in the face of oral provocations, and by receiving consistent reinforcement from commanders about the need for such restraint, hundreds of officers should be developing a reflexive habit of accommodating free speech rights. If that is in fact what is happening, officers’ experiences with the recent demonstrations, together with lessons learned from the Williams and Newberg prosecutions, could set BPD on a path to sustained compliance with the Consent Decree’s core First Amendment requirements.

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|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
BPD must develop and deliver a training curriculum to ensure that officers respect First Amendment protections. Policies 804 and 1016 were revised nearly two years ago, but because of the immense burdens placed on BPD’s training academy, recently exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, officers have not yet received training on them. As a result, they are not yet formally active. To enable them to become effective as soon as possible, BPD is finalizing an e-learning curriculum that will cover all essential policy provisions. All officers will be required to complete the e-learning within the next two months. The e-learning will be supplemented with in-class instruction next year.
In addition to delivering e-learning, BPD will finalize revisions to its Standard Operating Procedures for the Mobile Field Force.

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INTERACTIONS WITH YOUTH AND COORDINATION WITH BALTIMORE SCHOOL POLICE

The Consent Decree requires BPD to alter its approach to how it interacts with youth. The Consent Decree obligates BPD officers to account for the personal characteristics (age, size, developmental/mental status, disability status and maturity) of youth they encounter and, where practical, use alternatives to arrest (e.g. warn and release, counseling, referral to community services and resources, warnings, civil citations) in order to divert youth from criminal justice system (CD218). To accomplish this goal, the Consent Decree requires the City to conduct a comprehensive assessment of its effort to reduce youth involvement in the juvenile and criminal justice systems (“Youth Assessment”) (CD219). It requires BPD to revise its policies and training as needed, and conduct training in order to properly guide officers in their interactions with youth (CD220-21). The Consent Decree envisions that, in preparing the Youth Assessment, the City will obtain input from a collaborative consisting of City Officials, BPD representatives and community stakeholders, including community organizations with experts in the field, academic and youth advocates (CD 219).
The Consent Decree also contains several provisions addressing BPD’s relationship with the Baltimore School Police (“BSP”). In particular, Paragraph 417 of the Consent Decree requires BPD to conduct an initial assessment of its memorandum of understanding (“MOU”) with BSP and evaluate how BSP has used BPD’s authorization to exercise law enforcement powers throughout the City. The assessment should include an analysis of data reflecting the frequency with which BSP officers respond to calls, make stops, searches, and arrests, and use force under the MOU. BPD will use the assessment to identify deficiencies and opportunities for improvement, amend the MOU as needed, implement other appropriate corrective action, and document the changes it makes. Following the initial assessment and amendment of the MOU, BPD will conduct a biennial evaluation of its coordination with BSP, and make any modification needed to ensure effective coordination with BSP.
Thus far, consistent with Monitoring Plan requirements, BPD has completed the Youth Assessment and finished revising some youth-related policies while continuing to work on others. Because BPD remains in the policy revision phase of reform, its compliance score in the Youth Interactions compliance category is “2” (policy/planning phase).

YOUTH INTERACTIONS

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

2

Policies/ Planning

In the School Police compliance category, BPD has completed the required assessment of its MOU with BSP and executed a new MOU that attempts to fix the shortcomings in the prior MOU. What remains in this category are biennial assessments of BPD’s coordination with BSP, the first of which is approximately 18 months from now. BPD’s compliance score is “4a” (implementation – not yet assessed).

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COMPLIANCE SCORE:

SCHOOL POLICE

4A

Implementation – Not Yet Assessed

|AREAS OF PROGRESS

Youth Diversion Assessment

In April 2019, with input from the City’s Youth Assessment Advisory Board, other community stakeholders, the Monitoring Team and DOJ, BPD published the Youth Diversion Assessment. The assessment, prepared by the Center for Children’s Law and Policy, presents a comprehensive evaluation of diversion opportunities for Baltimore youth. Relying on meticulous data analysis and interviews with law enforcement personnel, community advocates, and a number of youth, the Assessment included data on arrests and juvenile court processing of youth, barriers to diversion at different stages in the juvenile justice process, and thoughtful, achievable recommendations for reducing the number of youth entering each stage of the juvenile justice system while at the same time preserving public safety. The assessment is available here.

Policies Affecting Youth

Under the Third-Year Monitoring Plan, BPD began implementing a three-phase process to revise policies affecting interactions with youth. The first phase, now completed, entailed developing Policy 1207 on youth interrogations and revising previously approved use of force policies to account for youth interactions. The second phase, currently near completion, involves revising Policy 1202, the core policy on youth interactions. The revisions include BPD’s process for pre-arrest diversion. The third phase will require BPD to work with the Mayor’s Office and City agencies to develop a broader diversion program that will provide officers with meaningful options for diversion to community-based providers.

As previously reported, BPD finalized Policy 1207, the new youth interrogations policy. This was a significant accomplishment, as the policy, for the first time, places formal limitations on interrogating individuals under age 18. Under Policy 1207: all youth must have a parent/legal guardian and/or an attorney present during an interrogation, with a preference for having both a parent/legal guardian and an attorney present; all youth 15 and under must consult with an attorney prior being advised of their Miranda rights; officers may not use deception when questioning youth; and BPD’s advice and waiver of rights form has been modified for youth suspects so that it informs youth of their rights in more comprehensible language.

In addition to issuing Policy 1207, BPD completed revisions to Policy 1115, its previously approved core policy on use of force, to account for youth interactions. The revisions prohibit using pain compliance and control techniques on youth unless deadly force is threatened. They further prohibit using force against youth who are restrained. BPD’s review also resulted in changes to Policy 719 (Conducted Electrical Weapon), Policy 1111, (Batons), and Policy 1118 (Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) Spray). BPD officers are now restricted from using these instruments on youth who are “preteen or younger.”

This year, BPD has been working in close collaboration with youth advocacy organizations, the Monitoring Team and DOJ on phase two of its youth policy reforms, Policy 1202, titled “Youth Interactions.” This policy will provide BPD officers general guidance on interactions with youth, including a reshaped process

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 77 of 164 for pre-arrest diversion, and will establish the framework for completing the third phase of youth policy reforms, which will establish a broader diversion program to prevent youth from unnecessarily entering the criminal or juvenile justice systems. A draft of Policy 1202 will be issued for public comment in the fourth quarter of 2020. The policy should be finalized in the first quarter of 2021.
Evaluating and Revising BPD’s MOU with Baltimore School Police
In April 2019, BPD published its assessment of its MOU with BSP. The assessment examine how BSP was exercising law enforcement powers off of school property under the MOU (CD 417). The report on the assessment can be found here.
The assessment reaffirmed that BSP was not adequately recording and maintaining the data required for evaluation purposes, including data on the frequency with which BSP officers exercised law enforcement powers under the MOU, as well as data on calls for service, incidents, stops, arrests and uses of force involving BSP officers acting under the MOU. The assessment recommended addressing these gaps in data collection in a new MOU. The assessment also recommended that the new MOU contain clear guidance to BSP officers on reporting uses of force off school property, as well as clear guidance to BPD officers on taking and investigating complaints involving actions of BSP officers off of school property.
BPD and BSP finalized a new MOU on March 31, 2020. The new MOU incorporates the recommendations from the Youth Assessment for improved data collection and use of force reporting and satisfies the Consent Decree requirement to incorporate “policies and protocols governing the proper investigation of civilian complaints involving BSP officers exercising law enforcement powers pursuant to the MOU.” (CD 418).
|CHALLENGES AHEAD
BPD must complete phases two and three of the youth policy reform process. Because of the coronavirus, work on Policy 1202 has been delayed and the deadlines in the Third-Year Monitoring Plan have been extended. Nonetheless, BPD, the Monitoring Team, DOJ and community stakeholders continue to refine the draft policy.
Once Policy 1202 is completed, BPD and the City will need to work diligently to establish a comprehensive youth diversion program, which should incorporate the recommendations from the Youth Assessment. Coupled with Policy 1202, which will establish criteria for mandatory or presumptive diversion for certain offenses, the youth diversion program will advance the Consent Decree’s principal goal of providing youth with community-based alternatives to arrest when appropriate.
BPD also must train officers on its new youth policies when they are completed. Certain aspects of these policies are already being trained. For instance, BPD has incorporated key provisions of Policy 1207 (Youth Interrogations) into the “Interrogations and Interviews” module of its ongoing Department-wide training on stops, searches and arrests, and also has included limitations on on-scene interviews of youth in the “Crime Scenes and Witnesses” module. Nevertheless, comprehensive training on youth policies will be required. The Third-Year Monitoring Plan calls for BPD to begin to develop such training in the coming months, with delivery in 2021. Given the recent, extended closure of the Training Academy, the temporary redeployment of certain Academy personnel to address staffing shortages, and the temporary delay in finalizing Policy 1202, it is unlikely that BPD will be able to comply with this timeline. It is nonetheless anticipated that BPD will be able to deliver the training in 2021.

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|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
In the next reporting period, BPD will finalize Policy 1202 on youth interactions, begin drafting training curriculum on youth interactions and, together with the City, start in on the development the youth diversion program.

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COMMUNITY POLICING AND ENGAGEMENT

COMMUNITY POLICING
Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies that support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime. (Community Policing Defined, (Washington, DC Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2014.)
Effective community policing depends on the trust and cooperation of community members. In many of Baltimore’s most challenged neighborhoods, mistrust in the police runs high and cooperation with the police is infrequent. BPD thus faces considerable challenges in engaging in effective community policing in some of the City’s most underserved communities.
One of the overarching goals of the Consent Decree is to meet those challenges. The Consent Decree contains specific requirements intended that will affect the way BPD officers interact with community members when taking law enforcement action. These requirements—regarding, e.g., use of force; stops, searches and arrests; fair and impartial policing; First Amendment protected activities; and interactions with youth and individuals with behavioral health disabilities or in crisis—are addressed in the preceding sections of this report. The Consent Decree begins, however, with certain broad requirements intended to promote both community policing and community engagement.
Preliminarily, the Consent Decree requires issuance of a new mission statement that integrates community-oriented principles into BPD “management, policies and procedures, recruitment, training, personnel evaluations resource deployment, tactics and accountability systems” (CD15). BPD finalized a new mission statement in July 2018. See ECF No. 119, and then revised that statement after Commissioner Harrison was appointed. See ECF No. 239.
In addition to a new mission statement, the Consent Decree outlines the kind of community policing training BPD officers must receive (CD16-17), as well as the data BPD should collect (CD18). The Consent Decree also requires the City and BPD to develop community engagement plans (CD19), to obtain input from community groups on policies, practices, training, engagement programs and enforcement strategies (CD20), to develop a community outreach program to educate and communicate with City residents about the Consent Decree (CD21), to publish annual reports on BPD’s community policing efforts (CD22), and to use the results of community surveys to inform policies, training and practices (CD25).
To date, beyond revising its mission statement, BPD has developed a Community Policing Plan. It has begun drafting a community policing training curriculum but has not yet conducted training. Accordingly, its compliance score in the Community Policing category is “3” (training phase).

COMMUNITY POLICING

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

3

Training

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|AREAS OF PROGRESS
Community Policing Plan
A concrete, comprehensive Community Policing Plan is critical to BPD’s reform efforts, as defines how BPD provides police services to Baltimore’s diverse communities. Frequent changes in leadership during the first year of monitoring delayed development of the Community Policing Plan. There were further delays after the appointment of Commissioner Harrison, who needed time to ensure that the Plan reflected his vision for satisfying the community policing requirements of the Consent Decree. After receiving Monitoring Team, DOJ and community feedback on several drafts, BPD finalized and published the Community Policing Plan in April 2020. See ECF No. 304. The Plan, available here, describes BPD’s strategy for addressing crime while proactively engaging the community in a manner that builds trust and legitimacy. It prescribes organizational redesign, building community partnerships, problem-solving, building analytical capacity, and district crime plans. Among other things, the Plan establishes a goal for all patrol officers to devote 40% of their time on activity other than calls for service, including pro-active community policing. The International Association of the Chiefs of Police asked BPD to write an article on the Plan as a model for community policing. See the article here.

|CHALLENGES AHEAD
Training
The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed development and delivery of training on community policing. Under the revised training schedule, the curriculum will be developed in the coming months with community input, and finalized by the end of the year, with classroom instruction set to begin in spring 2021. As explained in other sections of this report, this training, on top of the other courses being developed, is going to test the Training Academy’s capacity.
Staffing
The Staffing section above describes the difficulty of adopting the community policing strategies prescribed in the Community Policing Plan. To reach the goal of having patrol officers spend 40% of their time on proactive problem-solving and community policing activity, BPD will need to add over 170 patrol officers and over 30 sergeants. Given these estimates, staffing shortages will hamper and delay the full implementation of the community policing plan. It will also affect the ability of District Commanders to establish continuity of assignment by having the same officers work in the same area every day.
Earning the Community’s Trust
One of the keys to establishing an effective community policing model is building community trust. The Consent Decree explicitly recognizes this imperative, as earning the community’s trust is one of its central, overarching goals. The results of the initial round of surveys the Monitoring Team conducted in 2019—a community survey and a custodial arrestee survey—demonstrate just how much BPD must do to meet that goal. The surveys were designed to measure community attitudes toward BPD. The surveys will be replicated in future years to determine whether those attitudes are changing.
Community Survey | The Monitoring Team partnered with the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University (“IUR”) to devise, conduct, analyze the results of, and prepare a report on the community survey. IUR completed data collection for the community survey at the end of June 2019. IUR interviewed 645 individuals from across Baltimore. It used several different methods for recruiting

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 81 of 164 participants. The results reflect, through narrative reporting, what a large and diverse sample of people in Baltimore think about BPD and policing generally. Among IUR’s findings:
 A majority of participants based their opinions on perceptions, not personal experience, as a majority
rarely or never encounter BPD officers.
 Satisfaction with and trust in BPD are low, although participants want to improve relationships with
BPD, expressed a willingness to engage with BPD, and feel comfortable communicating with BPD when necessary.
 A majority of participants do not believe that BPD effectively reduces crime and keeps people safe.
 A majority of participants do not believe BPD has a good working relationship with the community, do
not observe BPD taking the time to meet members of the community/neighborhood, do not personally know the names or faces of BPD officers, and get nervous when they see a BPD officer.
 A majority of participants do not believe the respect between BPD officers and community members
is reciprocal, maintaining that BPD officers do not show respect toward community members, while community members treat BPD officers respectfully.
 A majority of participants have observed BPD officers engage in racial profiling, use excessive force,
or use verbally abusive language.
 A majority of participants do not believe BPD officers are held accountable for misconduct.
The full report, titled “The Community’s Experiences and Perceptions of the Baltimore City Police Department,” can be found here. It was published earlier this year.
Custodial Arrestee Survey | Researchers from the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and Rose Street Community Center, a local organization that assists returning citizens, conducted the custodial arrestee survey and published a report of its findings at the beginning of September 2019. Based on the researchers’ interviews of 70 individuals in Baltimore’s central booking facility shortly after their arrests, the report found that “most detainees we interviewed judge policing on the basis of their experiences before arrest [rather] than during it.” Consistent with the findings of the community survey, the researchers determined that over half of the interviewees thought BPD was doing either a “bad” or “terrible” job, while fewer than 20% thought BPD was doing a “good” or “excellent” job, and roughly 25% said BPD’s work was neither good nor bad. Importantly, according to the researchers, this largely negative appraisal was not the result of prejudice against police officers or bias against policing in general. Rather, “much of [the interviewees’] dismay about policing in Baltimore today stems from a sense that the police ‘don’t care’ about their community, despite the persistence of social problems they believe the police can help fix.” The full report, titled “Experiences and Perceptions of the Police in Baltimore,” can be found here.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Consistent with Paragraphs 19-21, BPD has sought to engage community members in the reform process. BPD’s Consent Decree Implementation Unit has organized or attended numerous community events, often with sworn BPD personnel in attendance; has disseminated draft policies, training curricula and reform plans for community input, which BPD has incorporated; and has published annual reports describing BPD’s community engagement efforts. But re-establishing community trust in BPD will be a years-long process, one that is currently being hindered by a global pandemic. Whether BPD’s community engagement work helps to build bridges to City residents, particularly those most distrustful of BPD, remains to be seen.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 82 of 164 Over the past 30 months, among other things, BPD’s Consent Decree Implementation Unit and other BPD personnel have:
 Complied with the requirement to conduct two community briefings on the Consent Decree in each
police district each year, and held City-wide workshops about the Consent Decree
 Established a Community Training Review Committee to participate in training curriculum piloting
and provide feedback
 Visited dozens of community fairs, community association meetings, and community partner
collaborations
 Conducted officer focus groups, one at MICA and one at Morgan State, and 12 officer/civilian focus
groups with Police Foundation assistance
 Attended and made presentations at roll calls in each District
 Completed a community engagement inventory with Police Foundation assistance through interviews
of District command staff and other personnel who engage in community outreach
 Participated in meetings with Civilian Oversight Task Force membership
 Canvassed neighborhoods to distribute information on reforms and upcoming Consent Decree
meetings,
 Utilized social media, email, online surveys, and media outlets to share and collect information about
reform efforts.

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SEXUAL ASSAULT INVESTIGATIONS
The Consent Decree requires BPD to enhance the trust of victims of sexual assault, to strengthen its response to and investigations of reports of sexual assault, and to combat gender bias (CD 257). To achieve these goals, the Consent Decree requires BPD to revise the policies and procedures for responding to and investigating reports of sexual assault (CD 258); provide initial and on-going annual training to support the revised policies and procedures (CD 259); ensure through proper supervision and internal oversight that reports of sexual assaults are thoroughly investigated (CD 260, 262, 263); ensure that officers transport victims to a medical facility for a forensic exam in all instances in which a forensic exam is warranted and the victim consents (CD 261); enhance its collection, analysis and reporting of data regarding the nature and extent of sexual assault crimes (CD 264); and share information about its sexual assault investigations with other law enforcement agencies, the public, and the Sex Offense Unit (CD 265). The City and BPD will ensure that their policies and protocols with the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) enable them to engage in periodic reviews of services provided by BPD and to review samples of open cases and those classified as unfounded (CD 266).
As previously reported, BPD satisfied the threshold requirement to revise both its policy on sexual assault investigations (Policy 708) and its standard operating procedure on such investigations. See ECF No. 152. Since then, BPD made minor, technical revisions to the policy to ensure consistency with other policies. See ECF No. 266. BPD also successfully created and finalized a new policy on member-involved sexual misconduct. See ECF No. 269. Additionally, BPD developed and completed e-learning training for all officers on responding to reports of sexual assault, see ECF Nos. 242 & 267, and has devoted considerable time and effort to preparing a draft training curriculum for Sex Offense Unit (“SOU”) investigators, as well as a draft virtual classroom curriculum for all officers to complement the completed e-learning. Finally, BPD has produced two annual self-reports on sexual assault investigations, which summarize investigations data from 2018 and 2019, respectively. See ECF No. 235 & 317. As explained below, the 2019 report shows some progress.
However, much work is left to be done. Once training for SOU investigators and virtual classroom training for all other officers is completed, which should occur by early 2021, BPD will need to demonstrate adherence to Policy 708 and its requirements for victim-centered, trauma-informed responses to reports of sexual assault. Tracking compliance with Policy 708 will require reviews and assessments of officer responses based on reports, body worn camera footage, and investigator case files. Tracking compliance with Policy 708’s provisions on data collection and analysis will be dependent on the effective utilization of a new record management system, which is still in development.
In view of the work done to date and the work that remains, BPD has made reasonable progress toward satisfying the Consent Decree’s requirements. At this point, BPD’s compliance score in the sexual assault investigations category is “3,” as it has completed policy revisions and remains in the training phase of reform.

SEXUAL ASSAULT INVESTIGATIONS

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

3

Training

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|AREAS OF PROGRESS
Officer Training on Policy 708 and Related SOPs
As of November 25, 2019, 2,085 sworn personnel had completed e-learning training on responding to reports of sexual assault. The training presented officers not only with changes in procedure for responding to such reports, but also with changes in BPD’s philosophy regarding how police officers should view and address alleged sexual offenses, offenders and victims.
Follow-up classroom training on victim-centered, trauma-informed approaches to reports of sexual assault is planned to begin later this calendar year and conclude in March 2021. Originally, the training was scheduled to in-person. However, due to the limitations on in-class instruction caused by the coronavirus, BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ agree that BPD may conduct the classroom training virtually. It will be paired with virtual classroom training on responding to individuals experiencing behavioral health crises. These subjects are sufficiently important that, given the completion of policy revisions in both areas, BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ believe classroom training, even if virtual, should be delivered as soon as practicable.
Policy on Member-Involved Sexual Misconduct
BPD’s Policy 322 (Member-Involved Sexual Misconduct) was approved and filed with the Court in December 2019. See ECF No. 269. This policy memorializes BPD’s zero tolerance policy regarding member-involved sexual misconduct and establishes responsibilities and guidelines for conducting both criminal investigations of allegations of such misconduct under Policy 708 and internal administrative investigations of such misconduct by BPD’s Public Integrity Bureau. The policy will not become effective until personnel in the Sexual Offense Unit and Public Integrity Unit are trained on it. BPD’s intent is to produce and deliver e-training this calendar year.
Training Curriculum on Investigations for Sexual Assault Investigators
In recent months, BPD and the Baltimore City Sexual Assault Response Team (which includes both public officials and community advocates) have worked closely with the Monitoring Team, DOJ and experts in sexual assault investigations to develop training curriculum for SOU Unit investigators. That curriculum is now finalized. Consistent with Consent Decree requirements, it stresses a victim-centered, traumainformed approach to sexual assault investigations, with a focus on the alleged offender’s behavior. The draft curriculum is based on the new, previously approved standard operating procedure for BPD’s Sex Offense Unit. Training is scheduled for the week of October 12, 2020.
Reports on Sexual Assault Investigations
Paragraph 264 of the Consent Decree requires BPD to collect and analyze data regarding its sexual assault investigations every year. The data should include: the number and nature of sex offenses reported; the number and demographics of the alleged offenders; the number and demographics of the alleged victims; the resolution of sex offense cases; and the processing of forensic medical exams.
In its second annual report, completed in June 2020, BPD demonstrated improvements in the amount and type of data reported, though BPD still did not satisfy all of Paragraph 264’s requirements and the data reported has not been independently verified. See ECF No. 317. The report, available here, contains 2019 data on Child Abuse Unit’s (CAU) sexual assault investigations, 2019 data regarding multiple victims and multiple alleged offenders, and 2019 data on the reporting of Sexual Assault Forensic Exam (SAFE)

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 85 of 164 kit requests and processing times. BPD promises to continue to improve the accuracy, comprehensiveness and clarity of this data. In the report, BPD states that it will begin tracking co-occurring crimes, work with the State’s Attorney’s Office to obtain data on case outcomes, and explore developing technology to track data on LGBTQ victims when available based on self- reporting.
Among the highlights from the 2019 report are:
 The median processing time of SAFE kits puts BPD in-line with proposed State legislation to process
SAFE kits in under 150 days from the date of request.
 In 2019, BPD sent 54% of the cases to the State’s Attorney’s Office for review as compared to 44% in
2018.
 In 2019, BPD had two unfounded Uniform Crime Reporting cases as compared to 15 in 2018.
|CHALLENGES AHEAD
COVID-19 restrictions pose the greatest challenge to ensuring that BPD officers, including SOU investigators, are fully trained on new policies and that their actions comply with Consent Decree requirements. While patrol officers will undergo virtual, web-based training on victim-centered, traumainformed approaches to reports of sexual assault, these concepts can be difficult to grasp and even more difficult to put into action. The Monitoring Team fully understands the need to complete training as soon as practicable in the face of the pandemic but has concerns that e-learning and web-based training will not be sufficient to accomplish the behavioral changes in responses to reports of sexual assault that the Consent Decree envisions.
As noted, SOU investigators will receive their training in October. At that point, the Monitoring Team must begin to assess the adequacy of BPD’s sexual assault investigations. Together with BPD and DOJ, the Monitoring Team must develop and agree to an assessment instrument and methodology that not only captures what an SOU investigator does, but how—and how well—they do it. There are unique challenges to assessing whether an investigator used a victim-centered, trauma-informed, offenderfocused approach by reviewing a case file.
BPD also must confront staffing shortages in the SOU. The Staffing Plan calls for 24 SOU detectives. Currently, there are only ten. Detectives’ caseloads will partly determine how effective they are in investigating sexual assaults and meeting the requirements of the Consent Decree.
Data collection and analysis challenges also persist. Until now, BPD has never sought to collect the data necessary for the analyses required by the Consent Decree. Although BPD showed some improvement in its June 2020 report, its current technology limitations, including its inadequate case management system, continue to prevent it from gathering and analyzing a significant amount of the data required by the Consent Decree. The Monitoring Team and DOJ are conferring with BPD about how its reports can more fully address Consent Decree requirements until the deficiencies in its case management system are remedied.
Finally, the Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ agree that a victim survey measuring satisfaction with BPD’s responses to and investigations of sexual assaults would be helpful. Developing a valid and reliable survey instrument and conducting a survey without adding to victims’ trauma could prove difficult.

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|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
Training for SOU investigators is tentatively scheduled for the week of October 12, 2020. Virtual webbased training for other officers should be completed by March 2021.

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RECRUITMENT, HIRING AND RETENTION
The Consent Decree recognizes that BPD’s recruitment and hiring program, as well as its efforts to retain officers, are in need of significant improvement. BPD’s Staffing Plan, discussed above, reinforces the importance of these improvements—i.e., the importance of increasing the number of officers, particularly in Patrol and PIB—to the success of the reform effort. The Consent Decree obligates BPD to: (1) develop and implement a Recruitment Plan with “clear goals, objectives and action steps for attracting and retaining a quality work force that reflects the diversity of the Baltimore Community” (CD 420-22); (2) review and reform its hiring processes (CD 423-25); (3) develop and implement a Retention Plan to “identify challenges and recommend solutions to improve BPD’s retention of employees” (CD 426); and (4) routinely assess its recruitment, hiring, and retention practices (CD 427).
BPD has satisfied the threshold requirements of the Consent Decree—a hiring report, a Recruitment Plan, and a Retention Plan. It is now in the implementation phase, e.g., refining standard operating procedures for its Recruitment Section, adopting a new interview process that includes community members on interview panels, and adopting the National Testing Network’s “FrontLine National” exam as the first stage in BPD’s officer selection process. BPD’s compliance score in the Staffing, Recruitment & Retention category is “4a” (implementation – not yet assessed).

STAFFING, RECRUITMENT & RETENTION

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

4A

Implementation – Not Yet Assessed

|AREAS OF PROGRESS
On-Going Evaluation of Hiring SOP
In November 2018, after an in-depth review of its hiring processes, BPD finalized an initial hiring report, as required by Paragraph 423. See ECF No. 169. At the same time, BPD adopted new standard operating procedures for its Recruitment Section. Since then, BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have continued to engage in regularly scheduled meetings to review, assess, and discuss modification to the SOP. Discussions and resulting modifications have addressed, but have not been limited to, background investigation procedures. For instance, in 2019, BPD discovered that a number of potential hires who were otherwise well qualified for employment were being prevented from advancing in the hiring process because of their failure to register for the Selective Service by age 26. Although failure to register is a violation of federal law, the Department of Justice and Selective Service agreed to suspend prosecutions of non-registrants in 1988, more than 30 years ago. BPD determined that barring candidates from employment based on a failure to register would both deprive the Department of otherwise qualified candidates and retain a hiring requirement with potentially disparate effect. BPD has now modified the SOP to allow candidates that have not registered previously to obtain a waiver through the selective service “information letter” exception process, rather than automatically disqualifying them.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 88 of 164 Background Checks
Historically, delays in background checks have been a primary reason for delays in hiring. To prevent these delays and expedite the hiring process, BPD retained an outside vendor, Kentech Consulting, to assist with the administration of background checks. Thus far, BPD’s partnership with Kentech has proven successful in reducing delays in the hiring process.
RecruitStat
In 2019, BPD fully implemented RecruitStat, the procedure for reviewing the Department’s progress on recruiting, hiring and retention on a weekly basis. In the first quarter of 2020, due to changes in Recruitment Section leadership and the redeployment of resources required by the COVID-19 pandemic, RecruitStat was put on hold. Because RecruitStat is an effective accountability mechanism for BPD’s staffing needs, the Monitoring Team expects the Recruitment Section to restart RecruitStat meetings shortly.
Recruitment and Retention Plans
In 2018, indicative of its priority of improving recruitment, BPD exceeded the requirements of the FirstYear Monitoring Plan by issuing a Recruitment Plan, which was not due in Year One. Over the past two years, as discussed above and detailed in our prior reports, BPD has been implementing the Plan by adopting certain measures to bolster recruitment. BPD’s progress on recruitment has been aided by its partnership with the Mayor’s Office on Innovation, which has helped to identify the root causes of inadequate staffing and to establish strategies for addressing the shortage.
In the last part of 2019, BPD completed the Retention Plan required by Paragraph 426. See ECF No. 274. The process of developing the Plan included opportunities for input from both rank and file officers and community members. The plan is available here. Among other things, it calls for the adoption of a process that identifies reasons for officer resignations prior to pension eligibility. It also advocates a number of incentives for experienced officers.
|CHALLENGES AHEAD
Achieving a Positive Hiring-to-Attrition Ratio
In 2019, despite its efforts to recruit, hire and retain more officers, BPD lost more officers to attrition than it hired: 187 vs. 156. Thus far in 2020, due primarily to a large number of retirements in January, the statistics have improved, but not as much as hoped. Attrition still outpaces hiring, though the gap has narrowed. As of the end of August, BPD had hired 134 officers and lost 147 to attrition, for a net loss of 13 officers. See ECF No. 338-2.
The persistence of a negative hiring-to-attrition ratio this year may be attributable to interruptions in operations caused by a combination of two events: the pandemic, which has affected operations Department-wide, and the protests following the killing of George Floyd, which required the weekslong redeployment of Recruitment Section officers to Patrol. Because of both the temporary reduction in Recruitment Section personnel and pandemic-induced safety precautions, interviewing and processing of applicants (who often must travel to complete parts of the background investigation process) had to be postponed. This created a ripple effect, delaying processing of additional applicants. Further, during the delays, BPD may have lost candidates, who may have selected another police agency, grown disinterested, or found non-police employment.   

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 89 of 164 The Recruitment Section is again fully staffed, but officers will periodically work Patrol to make up for budget cuts in overtime. There is also great concern that another surge in coronavirus infections within BPD will severely hamper recruitment due not only to another possible reduction in Recruitment Section personnel, but also to the reduced capacity of external partners, such as the National Testing Network, which administers the hiring exam.
The Recruitment Section also has identified a structural obstacle to recruitment: a funding shortfall for recruiting out-of-state candidates. While BPD is properly focused on recruiting home-grown candidates, it must also recruit from other regions in order to meet hiring goals. The funding shortfall puts BPD at a competitive disadvantage. For instance, the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department offers to relocate new hires to temporary dormitory-style housing and provides a housing stipend afterward. The Recruitment Section often hears from applicants—particularly younger, college-educated applicants with student loans—that they require such assistance.
Despite these challenges, the Recruitment Section continues to work diligently to recruit and hire a diverse cross-section of candidates, representative of the community BPD serves. For instance:
 New Section leadership has focused on assembling the right team and better management practices.
 The Section has adopted a triage methodology, which prioritizes likely successful candidates:
applications from candidates without criminal records, compromised work histories, or other likely disqualifiers are segregated and closely monitored, resulting in expedited hiring times, while candidates with more challenging backgrounds are advised of ways to improve their chances so that, if qualified, they are provided equal opportunity.
 The Section has identified a need to evaluate the efficacy of its recruitment strategies—to determine
what exactly is working best so that it can allocate its resources appropriately. Such self-evaluation is crucial right now, given the imperative to hire new officers and BPD’s resource and budgetary constraints. BPD’s ability to perform such self-evaluation will be contingent on the hiring of a recruitment analyst, which is currently on hold due the civilian hiring freeze.
 A new Section strategy prioritizes outreach to other public safety partners, like fire departments. This
strategy has resulted in a recent hiring bump. Section leadership believes there is a significant benefit to focusing on this pool of potential applicants, as they tend to be civic-minded, have already been subjected to government background checks, and understand what it means to work in an organization similar to a police agency.
 The Section has adapted to the times by updating recruitment methods. Virtual job fairs, college
messaging boards, candidate “mentoring” through e-mail dialog, and simple improvements in customer service have become the order of the day.
These measures likely explain why the hiring-to-attrition ratio is improving this year, even in the face of the daunting challenges of the past six months. Obviously, the numbers must improve far more dramatically if BPD is to meet its staffing goals. Yet there is at least some evidence that a turnaround is underway. Before drawing even tentative conclusions, the Monitoring Team awaits the year-end totals.
Retention
The overarching goal of BPD’s Retention Plan is simple and direct: to retain an engaged, productive, and healthy workforce. To accomplish this goal, BPD must affirmatively support the desire of its members to complete their careers, or at least of majority of their careers, with BPD. Consistent with the main takeaways from recent officer focus groups, such affirmative support broadly requires the following:

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 Addressing, through planning and policy, the staffing and deployment issues that affect officer morale.
 Adhering to a fair, transparent promotional process and committing to the development of officer
leadership skills.
 Implementing burden-reducing practices, updating technology and equipment (especially patrol cars),
and improving the physical work environment.
 As described elsewhere in this report, BPD has begun implementing measures to achieve each of
these objectives, as required by the Consent Decree.
|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
BPD will continue to seek to make the hiring process more efficient, implement the Retention Plan, and use RecruitStat to track progress and identify ways to improve its recruitment, hiring and retention practices.

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OFFICER ASSISTANCE AND SUPPORT
Under the Consent Decree, BPD must adopt several important measures to support the health and wellness of its officers. The Consent Decree requires BPD to: provide, review and revise, as needed, an Employee Assistance Plan (“EAP”) that furnishes no- or low-cost counseling and mental health wellness services (CD 436-437); develop peer support services (CD 438); offer all officers a voluntary mental health evaluation before returning to duty after a traumatic incident (CD 439); develop well-being protocols to be utilized during officer deployments in periods of civil unrest (CD 440); and develop protocols for annually assessing the efficacy of all of BPD’s officer assistance programs (CD 441).
In the two and a half years of monitoring, BPD refined its EAP (CD 436-437), its traumatic and highstress incident protocols (CD 439-440)., and its peer support program policy (CD 438). Further, BPD’s Officer Safety and Wellness Section (“OSW”) has actively offered support services to BPD officers. BPD is in the process of developing a methodology for measuring the efficacy of its support programs as part of the Third-Year Monitoring Plan (CD 441).
Having completed the policy revisions required by the Consent Decree BPD’s compliance score in the Officer Assistance and Support category is “3” (training), because BPD is in the process of developing Ethical Policing Is Courageous Training, which is an officer wellness program. Apart from the development of EPIC, however, BPD has progressed into the implementation phase in this category, as its reinvigorated officer wellness services and programs are operational.

OFFICER ASSISTANCE AND SUPPORT

COMPLIANCE SCORE:

3

Training

|AREAS OF PROGRESS

Policies

In 2018, BPD completed required revisions to its EAP policy, Policy 1703. See ECF No. 151. Since then, OSW has conducted outreach to educate officers about the EAP, including by posting information in each district and on social media, sending materials to supervisors, and speaking at roll-call trainings and “pop up” health fairs.

In 2018, BPD also finalized revisions to its traumatic and high-stress incident protocols, Policy 1731. See ECF No. 144. These are wellness protocols for (1) “all officers returning to duty following a traumatic incident (e.g. serious injury, officer-involved shooting, officer-involved accident involving fatality, or all other uses of force resulting in death or serious injury)” (CD 439), and (2) “officer deployments during public demonstrations or civil unrest” (CD 440). BPD has trained responsible personnel on the protocols through e-learning.

In November 2019, BPD completed revisions to its peer support program. See ECF No. 258. BPD now has a number of officers trained by the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation to respond to critical and traumatic incidents as members of BPD’s Peer Support Team. The Peer Support Team provides emotional support to officers and their families and are on-call to respond to incidents as needed.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 92 of 164 Early Intervention, Support and Guidance
Over the course of 2019, OSW completed 56 early intervention sessions and 217 support and guidance sessions. For the first half of 2020, OSW completed 18 early intervention sessions and 507 support and guidance sessions.
BPD utilizes Behavioral Health Services Baltimore (BHSB) to assist in furnishing mental health services to BPD officers and their family members. BHSB is a central participant in the Collaborative Planning Implementation Committee, discussed in the Interactions with Individuals with Behavioral Health Disabilities section above. BHSB assists OSW in furnishing critical incident stress debriefings to officers involved in shootings and other critical incidents, consistent with Policy 1731. OSW, BHSB, or peer support program personnel provide follow up support. BHSB also assists OSW in providing field counseling to officers and in hosting health fair “pop-ups.” According to BHSB, 6.5% of BPD employees now utilize EAP services, which is 20% higher than the national average.
To reduce its reliance on BHSB in responding to critical incidents, OSW is now developing in-house capacity. OSW will certify several of its staff in Learning Exercise Design for critical incident response through the Federal Emergency Management Institute.
As the Monitoring team and DOJ collaborate with BPD to develop an assessment methodology for officer wellness initiatives, OSW has undertaken an online survey of BPD officers. The survey helps to identify the strengths of OSW programs, as well as any weaknesses. As of July 30, 2020, 1136 officers had responded. The results are encouraging. Over 95% of respondents indicate that they know BPD has an officer wellness program. Additionally, 18% of respondents report having utilized BPD’s officer wellness resources—a higher percentage than reported earlier by BHSB. A full discussion of these survey results will be available when the final assessment report is published in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Officer Wellness Programming
In 2019, OSW conducted weekly “Managing Stress in the Workplace” presentations reaching over 2,100 sworn members. Additionally, approximately 100 civilian employees were provided stress reduction training during several “lunch and learn” sessions. OSW has continued to make these presentations in 2020.
The OSW survey indicates that these presentations are needed, as the results indicate that officers experience stress from several sources, including supervision, and witnessing or experiencing physical altercations or injury in the line of duty.
OSW conducted 10 pop-up health fairs in 2019. It has conducted additional fairs in 2020. These workplace events present BPD members with resources related to physical fitness, mental health, and financial wellbeing. The resources made available during health fairs include nutritional services, meal preparation services, physical therapy, fitness training, acupuncture, meditation, yoga, sound therapy, and financial planning.
OSW is now adjusting certain wellness programming to accommodate the restrictions on in-person interaction necessitated by the pandemic. For starters, OSW plans to hold online video conferences (via Zoom) to answer officers’ questions about available resources. It also plans to develop videos that contain interviews with members who have had positive experiences with the health and wellness team. These videos will be distributed through BPD communications channels, including PowerDMS and district television.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 93 of 164 Continued in-person programming will include presentations at new employee orientations, which are intended to reinforce the idea that participation in officer wellness and safety initiatives should be a routine part of every officer’s career. OSW also intends to extend its services to BPD family members, recognizing that family members are the first line of support.
The Monitoring Team has been impressed with OSW’s accomplishments over the past two years. We are equally impressed that OSW continues to strive for improvement. It is likely that OSW’s efforts to provide wellness services to officers and to educate officers about the availability of those services explain why BPD members focus on self-care at higher rates than the national average for law enforcement personnel.2
|CHALLENGES AHEAD
Making Operational Changes to Improve Morale
On behalf of the Monitoring Team, the Crime and Justice Institute conducted a series of eight focus groups of BPD personnel from May 21 – 23, 2019. The focus groups were intended to gauge officer opinions on a range of topics, including how BPD is falling short in providing them the direction and support they need to do their jobs effectively and what BPD can do to improve. The eight groups consisted of (1) two patrol officer groups of mixed race and ethnicity, but gender specific—one male, one female—to allow for comparison by gender, (2) three patrol officer groups, separated by race/ethnicity—one African American, one White, one Latinx—in order to make comparisons across race/ethnicity, and (3) detective, sergeant, and lieutenant groups of mixed race/ethnicity and gender. Officers from every shift and every district were represented. In total, a total of 68 sworn personnel—40 patrol officers, nine detectives, ten sergeants, and nine lieutenants—participated.
The Monitoring Team published CJI’s final report on the officer focus groups at the end of July 2019. Among the report’s key findings:
 Officers believe a majority of residents supports and trusts them, though support varies significantly
by district, and individuals most likely to interact with the police—both offenders and victims—are less trustful and supportive.
 Officers are unclear about BPD’s expectations around community policing and, because they spend
so much time responding to calls for service, they have little or no time for pro-active policing. Officers favor a return to post assignments, which give them a chance to engage with and get to know the residents of one neighborhood.
 Command staff and supervisors have not adequately communicated Consent Decree objectives and
requirements to rank-and-file officers. More clarity and better communication are needed. A frequently cited example is the lack of clarity around the use of force reporting policy—specifically, which actions constitute a reportable “Level 1” (minor) use of force.

2

Kuhns, Joseph B., Edward R. Maguire, and Nancy R. Leach. 2015. Health, Safety, and Wellness Program Case

Studies in Law Enforcement. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. See https://cops.usdoj.gov/

RIC/Publications/cops-p332-pub.pdf

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 Morale is low due to deficiencies in leadership, supervision and staffing. Rank-and-file officers feel
disconnected from command staff, and the lack of a permanent Commissioner for a lengthy period resulted in the absence of clear and consistent direction. Officers believe that commanders are more concerned about BPD’s image than their welfare. Officers also maintain the Department is understaffed: they are often forced to work overtime (“drafted”), are generally overextended, and have no time for pro-active or community policing. According to focus group participants, BPD could improve morale by more consistently recognizing superior performance; effectively communicating changes and expectations down the chain of command; improving equipment (especially patrol cars), technology and facilities; improving the efficiency of the internal affairs process, which takes far too long; and addressing staffing issues by, e.g., eliminating certain specialized units and redeploying the assigned officers to Patrol, hiring civilians for administrative positions, and terminating certain deployment strategies that take officers off the street.
 Participants believe that, due to staffing problems, officers are often promoted too quickly. They also
believe that, historically, promotions and transfers have been based on “who you know,” rather than on “how well you do.”
The full report, titled “Feedback from the Field: A Summary of Focus Groups with Baltimore Police Officers,” can be found here.
Recently, BPD has taken measures to address some of the concerns expressed in the focus groups. It has developed an objective, uniform, transparent system for promotions for the ranks of Captain and Major; created and distributed a “pocket guide” and e-learning material with key Consent Decree requirements, including the requirements for reportable Level 1 uses of force; opened a new, modern training facility, upgraded facilities in certain districts, and developed a plan for upgrading its aging vehicle fleet; produced a staffing plan that envisions increasing the number of officers in the patrol division not only by bolstering recruitment, but by civilianizing certain functions currently performed by sworn members and reducing the number of specialized units; adopted a community policing plan that will call for officers to spend 40% of their time on pro-active, community-oriented policing and 60% responding to calls for service; and implemented a new policy for prompt negotiated resolution of minor rule violations, which promises to free up investigators to concentrate or more serious violations and thus expedite the disciplinary process in all cases.
EPIC
As explained elsewhere, BPD has initiated EPIC, a program to train officers to be “active bystanders,” to intervene with fellow officers to prevent and address misconduct. EPIC is, at root, an officer wellness program, designed to keep officers from getting into situations that could adversely affect their physical and mental health. The successful implementation of EPIC could reap substantial benefits for officer wellness.
Self-Assessments
As required by Paragraph 441, BPD must conduct regular assessments of the effectiveness of its officer wellness services. It is presently collaborating with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to develop an appropriate methodology. Meaningful self-assessments are needed to identify and correct deficiencies in OSW services and improve the quality of OSW performance.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 95 of 164 Expanding the Use of Wellness Services and Practices
To maximize its effectiveness, OSW would like to proactively identify officers who are in need of wellness services and either do not recognize it or are reluctant to acknowledge it. Historically, a high number of officers receive services only after their health problems become critical.
When BPD’s new record management system becomes operational, OSW hopes to utilize it to examine various data potentially indicative of health problems and conduct affirmative outreach to officers identified in the data.
Additionally, OSW is seeking to develop ways to identify officers through peer referral, which would enable colleagues to alert OSW confidentially about potential issues. Referrals could be initiated as a result of anecdotal comments in the workplace or observations of an officer’s conduct. OSW hopes to identify officers via confidential referral through EPIC, which, by educating officers about the value of accountability, trains them to detect potential physical or behavioral health issues in their peers. OSW also hopes BPD will retain in-house mental health professionals to facilitate early detection. Offering confidentiality, in-house providers could attend roll calls to raise awareness, deploy in BPD’s health and wellness vehicle to make direct contacts, and field requests from a confidential referral app to provide treatment.
In addition to proactively identifying officers who would benefit from wellness services, OSW seeks to incorporate wellness practices into BPD’s standard operating procedures. Many of the OSW’s challenges persist not because it lacks resources, but because commanders and first-line supervisors do not perceive the services it provides as essential to fighting crime. As a result, OSW is often called in late, after a member is already experiencing the after-effects of a traumatic incident. BPD should integrate wellness practices, such as work breaks and nutrition, into the deployment procedures of various units, especially high stress units (e.g., shooting investigations).
|THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
BPD will continue to prepare a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of its officer support programs. The methodology should be finalized in the next six months.

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SUMMARY OF MONITORING TEAM ACTIVITIES

Since its appointment in October 2017, the Monitoring Team has sought to fulfill each of its prescribed roles under the Consent Decree—technical advisor, arbiter, and facilitator. The Monitoring Team’s work in each role is summarized below. The details of the Monitoring Team’s work, recorded on time sheets for each Monitoring Team member in 1/10 hour increments, are reflected in the Monitoring Team’s approved invoices, which are available on the Monitoring Team’s website at https://www.bpdmonitor.com/ monthly-statements.
The Consent Decree provides that the Monitoring Team will be paid $1,475,000 per year in fees and expenses. For the first 33 months of its work (October 2017 through June 2020), the City paid the Monitoring Team $4,189,363.00 in fees and $175,572.68 in expenses. In addition, from October 2017 through June 2020, the Monitoring Team contributed pro bono services for its work on the Consent Decree in an amount equal to $1,843,247.80, meaning that 29.7% of the Monitoring Team’s work during the 33 months was at no cost to the City.
ENGAGEMENT WITH STAKEHOLDERS
|COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
From the beginning, the Monitoring Team has engaged in active, affirmative community outreach. A core group of Team members are devoted to community engagement: lead monitor, Ken Thompson; deputy monitors Seth Rosenthal and Chuck Ramsey; lead community liaison Ray Kelly; community engagement coordinator Darnyle Wharton; and community engagement specialist Jessica Drake. This group meets once every week to debrief and plan community engagement activity.
As the Consent Decree requires, the Monitoring Team has held community forums once every three months, rotating from one part of the City to another. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Monitoring Team held its community forum virtually on Facebook Live.
In addition to holding the required community forums, the Monitoring Team and its community engagement team have been meeting with community members where they live. Monitoring Team members have attended or convened dozens of community meetings in different parts of the City, including meetings of neighborhood associations, faith-based organizations, civic leaders, advocacy organizations, and affinity groups. The meetings are intended to inform community members about the Consent Decree process, to obtain input on improving the process, and to listen to their views about BPD.

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 97 of 164 The Monitoring Team hosts bimonthly Facebook Live sessions. During these sessions, community members are given the opportunity to post questions online and obtain real-time answers from Monitoring Team leadership. One of the last Facebook Live session, held in June 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, received over 1,700 views. Additionally, in the first year of monitoring, community engagement team members participated in several “corner crawls,” canvassing neighborhoods and engaging in discussions with residents about the Consent Decree. Although temporarily halted during the pandemic, but restarted this past summer, lead community liaison Ray Kelly also issues a monthly newsletter called “The Monthly Monitor.” The newsletter is emailed to the Monitoring Team’s distribution list and linked from the Monitoring Team’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. The newsletter provides information about recent and upcoming developments under the Consent Decree, with a focus on opportunities for community members to engage in the reform process.
Perhaps the most essential aspect of the Monitoring Team’s community engagement effort is the utilization of a team of neighborhood liaisons. There is one liaison in each of the City’s nine police districts. Overseen by the team’s lead community liaison, Ray Kelly, and community engagement coordinator, Darnyle Wharton, the neighborhood liaisons educate their neighbors about the Consent Decree and the work of the Monitoring Team and serve as the Team’s initial points of contact for information and opinions about the performance and conduct of BPD officers, which the Team will need to fully assess BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree. The neighborhood liaisons hold regular “office hours” at local libraries and community centers, attend community meetings and events in their districts, and canvass their neighborhoods to educate community members about the Consent Decree. The neighborhood liaison team is one of a kind: no other consent decree monitoring team has one.
In addition to conducting affirmative, localized outreach to inform and hear from community members about BPD and the reform process, the Monitoring Team has pursued targeted engagement with community members around specific Consent Decree requirements, eliciting written community input on proposed BPD policies and training programs. Under each of the annual Monitoring Plans, the Monitoring Team built in a community feedback component. (BPD and DOJ also have their own feedback mechanisms). As the Monitoring Team’s Third-Year Monitoring Plan submission explains: “for each policy undergoing revision, and for each training curriculum being developed, the Third-Year Plan gives community members two separate opportunities for feedback—the first after BPD collaborates with the Monitoring Team and DOJ and produces an initial draft, the second after BPD addresses and incorporates feedback from that initial Comment Period and produces a final draft.” ECF No. 290 at 15.
Over the past thirty months, the Monitoring Team, BPD and DOJ sought and received meaningful public comment on dozens of policies covering every area of the Consent Decree, including use of force; stops, searches and arrests; First Amendment-protected activities; misconduct investigations; youth interactions; responding to reports of sexual assault; and interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities. Community members similarly provided input on draft curricula for training on use of force; stops, searches and arrests; fair and impartial policing; behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention; responses to reports of sexual assault; and body-worn camera use. Community members also have provided feedback on draft reports and plans for improving City services and BPD operations, including a Community Policing Plan; a “Gap Analysis” identifying the deficiencies in the City’s behavioral health systems; an assessment of BPD’s memorandum of understanding with Baltimore School Police; a Technology Resource Plan; and Staffing, Hiring and Retention Plans.
To elicit community feedback on these deliverables, the Monitoring Team posted and received comments in response to surveys on its website, received detailed letters and e-mails from community members and organizations, and welcomed more informal oral feedback from community members. The Monitoring

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 98 of 164 Team shared whatever feedback it received with BPD. In turn, BPD revised each deliverable in response to all feedback provided (that is, feedback provided to BPD, the Monitoring Team and DOJ), collaborated with the Monitoring Team and DOJ to ensure that the revised drafts properly reflected that feedback, and then published a final curriculum, report, plan or policy following approval by DOJ and the Monitoring Team.
In 2019, BPD formed and began utilizing a Community Training Review Committee consisting of community members who attend and provide feedback on in-service training programs while they are in development. Thus far, the CTRC has participated in and provided feedback on in-service training programs on use of force, stops, searches and arrests, and fair and impartial policing. Monitoring Team members and DOJ representatives attended and provided feedback at subsequent pilot sessions involving both Training Academy instructors and other officers.
|COMMUNICATION WITH THE PARTIES
Since its appointment, the Monitoring Team has communicated with BPD, the City and DOJ multiple times on a daily basis—in in-person meetings, in conference calls, and by email. Monitoring Team members have worked exhaustively with the parties to make sure BPD and the City produce all the deliverables the Monitoring Plans have required. By way of example, since January 2020, even with the limitations posed by the pandemic, the Monitoring Team and DOJ have collaborated with BPD and provided extensive oral and written comments and written line edits on the following deliverables, among others:
 Drafts of in-class curriculum for training on stops, searches and arrests, as well as pilot tests of that
training
 Drafts of e-learning and in-class curriculum for training on behavioral health awareness and crisis
intervention for recruits, officers, specialized CIT officers, and 911 call-takers and dispatchers
 Drafts of in-class curriculum for both Sex Offense Unit investigators and patrol officers on investigations
of reports of sexual assault
 Drafts of e-learning on First Amendment-protected activities
 Drafts of revised policies, including policies on misconduct investigations and discipline, youth
interactions, and stops, searches and arrests
 Draft BPD reports on responses to First Amendment-protected activities, sex crimes investigations,
and arrests resulting in releases without charge; and
 Draft community policing and staffing plans

|POLICE ENGAGEMENT
In addition to conferring daily with members of BPD’s Consent Decree Implementation Unit, City Law Department attorneys representing BPD, and BPD command staff, the Monitoring Team engages directly with BPD members. Monitoring Team members have established relationships with union leaders and spent substantial time at BPD’s Training Academy (where recruit, in-service, and field training officer training are conducted) and Public Integrity Bureau (which investigates allegations of officer misconduct).
The Monitoring Team also has established and meets periodically with an informal group of rank-andfile officers to obtain their candid feedback on the Consent Decree, the positive attributes of BPD, and the

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 99 of 164 challenges facing BPD. Although temporarily halted because of the coronavirus pandemic, Monitoring Team members—and Judge Bredar himself—also periodically go on ride-alongs with BPD officers who regularly furnish their views on the Consent Decree and policing in Baltimore. Moreover, in May 2019, as discussed below, the Monitoring Team conducted formal focus groups of BPD officers, detectives, and supervisors to listen to their thoughts and gather their ideas about effective reform.
Soon after our appointment, the Monitoring Team established a protocol for notification and potential response to critical incidents involving BPD officers, such as officer-involved shootings. The notification is immediate and allows for local Monitoring Team members or out-of-town members in Baltimore to go to the scene to observe BPD’s response. The notification protocol has been utilized every time there has been an officer-involved shooting over the past 30 months, and a Monitoring Team member, usually lead monitor Ken Thompson, always has responded to the scene.
|MEETINGS WITH THE COURT
The Monitoring Team’s leadership, including Ken Thompson, Seth Rosenthal, Chuck Ramsey, Hassan Aden and Theron Bowman, communicate regularly with Judge Bredar—in person, by telephone, and by email—to update him on developments, to advise him, and to take direction.
Early on in the reform process, Judge Bredar determined that each month he would hold a three-hour working session with the Monitoring Team and the parties to discuss developments and challenges in a specific area of the Consent Decree. In recent months, the meetings have covered not only BPD’s progress on specific topics (including, e.g., sexual assault investigations, crisis intervention, and stops, searches and arrests), but developments in what the Court and the Monitoring Team view as the indispensable structural elements of the reform process: misconduct investigations and discipline (i.e., integrity and accountability), training, technology, and staffing.
ASSESSMENTS AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
Since the inception of the First-Year Monitoring Plan in February 2018, the Monitoring Team has assessed BPD’s performance and assisted BPD in revising its policies in every area of the Consent Decree; developing and providing training on the revised policies; completing studies and plans involving technology, community policing, staffing, recruitment, retention, the City’s behavioral health system, and BPD’s memorandum of understanding with the Baltimore School Police; and conducting reviews of BPD’s performance in certain areas.
Because the early years of the Consent Decree have necessarily focused on implementing foundational reforms, the Monitoring Team has spent much of its time assisting with and evaluating policy revisions, training curriculum, and training delivery. As BPD moves toward completing training on its revised policies, and especially as BPD completes implementation of new technology enabling more comprehensive, more reliable data collection and analysis, the Monitoring Team will shift its focus to compliance reviews and outcome assessments.
|POLICY REVISIONS
Drawing on their expertise and knowledge of national best practices, the Monitoring Team has assessed and advised BPD on revisions to approximately fifty policies covering every area of the Consent Decree. As explained in more detail in the Findings section below, those policies address:

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 Use of force  Stops, searches and arrests  Fair and impartial policing  Misconduct investigations and discipline  First Amendment-protected activities  Transportation of arrestees  Youth interactions  Interactions with individuals with behavioral health disabilities and in crisis  Responses to reports of sexual assault  Disclosure of exculpatory evidence in criminal cases  Officer wellness  Officer peer support

|TRAINING

As BPD has finalized revisions to its policies, the Monitoring Team has spent an increasing amount of time observing and assessing BPD’s development and delivery of training curricula. The first tranche of Consent Decree-mandated classroom training, which covered use of force and related aspects of fair and impartial policing, was delivered to all sworn BPD personnel (with minor exceptions that have now been addressed) between June and October 2019. The second tranche, which covers stops, searches and arrests and related aspects of fair and impartial policing, began in February 2020, was interrupted for several months because of the coronavirus, and re-started (with smaller class sizes due to physical distancing restrictions) in mid-July 2020, with an expected completion date of December 2020. Throughout these in-service training courses, Monitoring Team members and DOJ attorneys have provided extensive feedback to Academy supervisors and instructors. Each observed training day is typically followed with a debrief among Academy supervisors and instructors, Monitoring Team members, and DOJ members.

The Monitoring Team worked closely with BPD and DOJ to develop both e-learning and in-class training curricula on use of force, stops, searches, arrests and related aspects of fair and impartial policing. Officers had to complete e-learning and pass on-line tests on these topics before they could participate in the inclass components. The Monitoring Team pored over drafts of the curricula, participated in extensive working sessions to revise them, and observed and critiqued pilot testing of the in-class curricula.

The Monitoring Team also has collaborated with BPD and DOJ to develop e-learning and classroom curricula for training on behavioral health awareness and crisis intervention and responses to sexual assault, as well as e-learning curricula on First Amendment-protected activities and body worn camera use.

|FOUNDATIONAL ASSESSMENTS AND REFORM PLANS
Some of the foundational work required by the Consent Decree entails assessing BPD’s present capacity to implement reforms and, where BPD falls short, developing a plan for ensuring that those reforms are achievable. Over the past 30 months, the Monitoring Team has reviewed, worked with BPD, the City and DOJ to develop, and evaluated the following:

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 A technology plan, which serves as the blueprint for modernizing BPD’s IT systems so that report-
writing is less time-consuming and cumbersome for officers, supervision is more efficient and datadriven, and rigorous analysis of Departmental trends is finally feasible.
 A comprehensive staffing plan, which seeks to address BPD’s personnel shortcomings and needs.
 Plans for improving BPD’s efforts to hire and retain officers
 A community policing plan designed to ensure that BPD officers do not spend all of their time
responding to calls for service and instead spend adequate time on pro-active policing, engaging with community members and earning their trust.
 A detailed critical assessment, or “Gap Analysis,” of City programs devoted to assisting individuals
with behavioral health disabilities and histories of substance abuse.
 An assessment of BPD’s memorandum of understanding with Baltimore School Police. The objective
of the assessment is to improve BPD’s coordination with BSP and to modify the MOU accordingly.
|SURVEYS
As described in detail in the Findings section, the Monitoring Team thus far has conducted an initial community survey, an initial custodial arrestee survey, and an initial set of officer focus groups.
The Monitoring Team and the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University are currently planning a second community survey. The methodology is being refined to include a true random sample intended to replicate the demographics of Baltimore. It will continue to include a purposive component designed to reach marginalized populations. The second survey has had to be delayed because of the pandemic, which potentially limits in-person interviewing. The Monitoring Team, the City, BPD and DOJ are in the process of making adjustments to the methodology to account for these limitations.
|COMPLIANCE REVIEWS AND OUTCOME ASSESSMENTS
The Consent Decree requires the Monitoring Team to conduct both compliance reviews and outcome assessments. Compliance reviews are qualitative evaluations of BPD performance in different areas of the Consent Decree. They are conducted with an eye toward determining how far BPD has come, and how far it still needs to go, to achieve compliance with Consent Decree requirements (CD 454). For instance, over time, are the quality of internal investigations improving, are uses of force increasingly well-justified and well-reported, and are investigative stops more routinely supported by well-articulated reasonable suspicion and arrests more routinely supported by well-articulated probable cause?
Outcome assessments, by contrast, are quantitative assessments designed to determine whether the reforms required by the Consent Decree in each area are having a tangible, measurable impact—whether, independent and apart from BPD’s progress toward compliance with Consent Decree requirements, policing is changing in the real world (CD 456). For instance, are the policy revisions and training in the area of stops, searches and arrests producing a greater percentage of investigative stops that turn up evidence of prosecutable criminal activity and a lesser percentage of weapons pat downs and searches that turn up no guns or contraband? Or are the policy revisions and training on use of force, which emphasize de-escalation, leading to fewer encounters requiring more serious Level 2 and Level 3 uses of force?

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 102 of 164 While providing technical assistance and evaluating policy revisions, training and plans for organizational change (e.g., in staffing, supervision, and technology) make up much of the Monitoring Team’s work in the early years of the Consent Decree, compliance reviews and outcome assessments will make up most of the work in later years, once the foundational reforms are in place.
The Consent Decree process is now at the point when the Monitoring Team will begin focusing increasingly on measuring progress through compliance reviews and outcome assessments. Presently, however, measuring progress is effectively limited to qualitative evaluations of BPD performance. That is because the manifest deficiencies in BPD’s IT systems and data collection practices substantially restrict evaluations that rely on quantitative data. Thus, while the Monitoring Team has begun to conduct qualitative compliance reviews in certain areas, it will be hampered in its ability to conduct many of the outcome assessments required by paragraph 459 of the Consent Decree, as well as compliance reviews that entail reliance on quantitative data. At this stage, due to the unreliability, incompleteness or total absence of relevant data, most such evaluations would be of limited value and extremely difficult to perform. The unfortunate result is that, in many areas, the Monitoring Team will not be able to establish meaningful baselines against which to measure BPD’s progress for approximately another 12 to 18 months, after BPD finishes upgrading its Record Management System and officers begin reliably using electronic field-based reporting. That delay will inevitably prolong the life of the Consent Decree, as BPD must be able to show sustained improvement in each area in order to achieve substantial and effective compliance.
Over the past year, the Monitoring Team conducted its first comprehensive compliance review of internal investigations by the Public Integrity Bureau. The review covered a randomly drawn sample of the investigations PIB conducted in 2018. A summary of the Monitoring Team’s conclusions from this compliance review are included in the Misconduct Investigations and Discipline section below, and the full report is included in Exhibit 2.
The Monitoring Team will soon begin comprehensive compliance reviews of use of force incidents. The use of force review will include a randomly drawn sample of force cases from 2018-19. For each case, the Monitoring Team will evaluate the appropriateness of the force used, the accuracy and completeness of the reporting, and the quality of supervisory review.
Due to the above-mentioned deficiencies in BPD’s IT systems and data collection practices, the Monitoring Team’s work on outcome assessments has been preparatory thus far. In the first year of monitoring, the Monitoring Team and statistical expert Dr. Ralph Taylor invested significant time in understanding which relevant data BPD has available and which, if any, of the required outcome assessments would be worthwhile or even possible. In December 2018, due to competing professional commitments, Dr. Taylor had to resign from the Monitoring Team. After an extensive search, the Monitoring Team contracted with the Crime and Justice Institute at Community Resources for Justice (“CJI”) to help design and perform its outcome assessments. The Monitoring Team and CJI are partnering with Dr. Gabriela Wasileski of the University of Baltimore, a statistical and social science expert. The Monitoring Team has worked extensively with its new experts to chart a course for completing the outcome assessments required by the Consent Decree.
One area of note is stops, searches and arrests. DOJ’s investigation found a pattern or practice of race-based and otherwise unlawful stops, searches and arrests. It is not an overstatement to say that reforming BPD’s stop, search and arrest practices is at the heart of the Consent Decree. Indeed, the fractured relationship between BPD and many communities is thought to be largely attributable to BPD’s past practice of making stops, searches and arrests without adequate legal justification. Accordingly, the availability and integrity of BPD’s data on stops, searches and arrests has been, and continues to be, of special interest to

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the Monitoring Team. As the Monitoring Team has previously reported, this data, particularly on stops and searches, is both notoriously hard to access (requiring manual review of scanned paper reports) and incomplete (due to underreporting by BPD officers). Given the data’s inadequacy, the Monitoring Team and the parties have frequently discussed, and will continue to discuss, the feasibility and the utility of evaluating stop, searches and arrests prior to the introduction of a new records management system.

Unfortunately, however, the quantitative review of the data that the Consent Decree requires—to determine aggregate performance and investigate disparate impact—is probably impracticable at this point. A qualitative compliance review of some subset of reports on stops, searches or arrests—to determine officer compliance with policy on conduct and reporting, plus adherence to Consent Decree requirements on supervision—may be feasible, but to make it so, the Monitoring Team will first have to find a way to eliminate or reduce the cumbersomeness of the exercise. To take one example, to determine the frequency with which investigative stops turn up evidence of a crime and the adequacy of the documented justifications for such stops, the Monitoring Team would have to read through thousands of incident reports in hard copy simply to determine which ones feature investigative stops, because BPD’s current record management system does not currently have a way of segregating encounters initiated by investigative stops.

|DIAGNOSTIC PERFORMANCE REVIEWS
As part of the work it must do to assess BPD’s compliance, the Monitoring Team also has been conducting diagnostic analyses of BPD’s performance in discrete matters. The purpose of these analyses is not to formally gauge BPD’s compliance with the Consent Decree, but rather to get a sense of how certain core functions are currently being performed and, if they are not being performed effectively or in compliance with the Consent Decree, to provide BPD guidance on how to improve performance. The ultimate objective is for BPD to meaningfully engage in its own after-action assessments so that when it finds problems, it will self-correct and take remedial action on its own, without prompting from the Monitoring Team or DOJ.
The Monitoring Team conducted one such diagnostic analysis by evaluating the propriety of BPD’s interactions with civilians in the Harlem Park neighborhood following the shooting death of BPD Detective Sean Suiter. See ECF No. 126-1 at 56-67 (explaining concerns about how BPD officers performed and documented stops, searches and arrests). In December 2018, as a result of the Monitoring Team’s findings, as well as the findings of an Internal Review Board that conducted a separate assessment of BPD’s investigation of Detective Suiter’s death, BPD prepared and delivered a full-day training for all command staff on both constitutional requirements for conducting stops, searches and arrests and proper use of an Incident Command System for responding to significant events. In addition, BPD prepared and delivered to all officers a mandatory e-learning training program on BPD policies and constitutional requirements on stops, searches and arrests through its PowerDMS system. The Monitoring Team and DOJ provided input on the lesson plan for the command staff training, attended that training (as did Judge Bredar), and gave BPD feedback following the training. The Monitoring Team and DOJ also provided input on the e-learning lesson plan for the officer training on stops, searches and arrests.
Since its assessment of the Harlem Park lockdown, the Monitoring Team has routinely performed similar assessments. For instance, we show up at the scene, participate in briefings, and scrupulously review reports and body-worn camera footage of police-involved shootings. A recent example is the July 2020 police-involved shooting of a man experiencing a behavioral health crisis in the basement of a home in Northeast Baltimore, which occurred in the context of both the recent, Consent Decree-mandated “Gap Analysis” identifying shortcomings in the City’s behavioral health system and nationwide protests calling for allocating adequate resources to behavioral health care. As the Monitoring Team reported on its Facebook page:

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Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 104 of 164 From the beginning, the Monitoring Team has been closely following last week’s shooting of a Baltimore man experiencing a behavioral health crisis. Lead monitor, Ken Thompson, was on the scene immediately following the shooting. Several team members, including the team’s behavioral health expert Dr. Randy Dupont, watched the body worn camera footage, listened to the 911 call and dispatch recordings, and reviewed the police reports in the immediate aftermath of the incident. We also have been conferring regularly with Judge Bredar. And we paid close attention to today’s public release of body-worn camera footage.
While Dr. Dupont and Monitoring Team leadership continue our 360 degree assessment of the incident [which the Monitoring Team plans to include a future report], one major question it raises is whether it resulted from gaps or deficiencies in the City’s behavioral health system that were identified in a comprehensive, Consent Decree-mandated analysis published late last year. According to The Sun, ten days before the incident, the man who was shot was hospitalized during another behavioral health crisis. The Monitoring Team has yet to see evidence that there was adequate behavioral health follow-up after the man’s discharge or adequate followup investigation to determine whether the man had additional weapons. That kind of follow up is critical, as it can reduce the risk that incidents like this will occur.
One of the goals of the Consent Decree is for the City to do the hard work of plugging the gaps in its behavioral health system so that these events became less frequent. As the Monitoring Team has reported, the City recently has started down this road in earnest, but it still has a long distance to travel.
In addition to this and other police-involved shootings, the Monitoring Team actively reviews non-lethal incidents involving BPD officers. In the past year, such incidents have included an arrest on Pennsylvania Avenue that was originally believed to involve an assault by bystanders on the BPD sergeant who made the arrest but recently resulted in criminal charges against the sergeant for making false statements regarding the incident; an officer’s alleged use of a chokehold during a drug arrest; and several incidents that led to the indictment of a BPD sergeant for allegedly abusing his authority by using excessing force and making false arrests. With these incidents, the Monitoring Team evaluates how BPD handles them just as closely as whether the involved officers engaged in misconduct. In even the most well-run law enforcement agencies, individual officers will periodically engage in misconduct. The health of an agency is determined by how effectively the agency responds.
In May and June 2020, as reported in the Executive Summary and First Amendment-Protected Activity Section above, the Monitoring Team conducted an intensive diagnostic evaluation of BPD’s response to sustained demonstrations against police brutality in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. We spent dozens of hours live-monitoring BPD’s performance from BPD’s command center and in the street. Our conclusions are included in the First Amendment-Protected Activities section below.
Finally, the Monitoring Team actively monitors approximately twenty specific PIB investigations at a time, receiving regular monthly updates from PIB supervisors. Once the investigations are concluded, the Monitoring Team and DOJ assess whether they were conducted and resolved properly, with an eye toward providing remedial guidance if they were not. In one case from 2018, which involved allegations that an officer exaggerated certain facts in his trial testimony in a drug case, the Monitoring Team and DOJ found shortcomings in PIB’s investigation and conclusions and recommended certain remedial training for PIB investigators as a result. If the Monitoring Team observes similar shortcomings in other investigations, it will include its observations and recommended actions in future reports.

BALTIMORE CONSENT DECREE MONITORING TEAM | FIRST COMPREHENSIVE RE-ASSESSMENT | SEPT. 30, 2020

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BALTIMORE CONSENT DECREE MONITORING TEAM | FIRST COMPREHENSIVE RE-ASSESSMENT | SEPT. 30, 2020

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EXHIBIT 1

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Section Community Oversight Task Force Community Policing Stops, Field Interviews & Voluntary Contacts Searches Arrests Stops, Searches & Arrests: Review & Supervision Impartial Policing Behavioral Health: General Behavioral Health: CIT Officers Behavioral Health: System Coordination & Improvement Use of Force: General Use of Force: Reporting & Supervision Interactions with Youth Transportation First Amendment Sexual Assault Investigations Technology Modernization Policies Generally Training Generally Supervision: Field Training Supervision: Duties & Training Supervision: Early Intervention System Misconduct: Intake Misconduct: Investigations Misconduct: Discipline Misconduct: Transparency School Police Staffing, Recruitment & Retention Employee Performance Evaluations Promotions Officer Assistance
Legend

Policy/Planning

Training

Not Applicable

Not Started

Not Yet Assessed

Implementation

Off Track

On Track

Initial Compliance

Sustained Compliance

In Progress

Complete

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EXHIBIT 2

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Summary of Aggregate Results: Monitoring Team Preliminary Baseline Assessment
of 2018 OPR Investigations September 30, 2020
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report summarizes the results of the Monitoring Team’s review of the Baltimore Police Department’s (“BPD” or “the Department”) 2018 misconduct investigations, conducted at the time by the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (“OPR”), which is now called the Public Integrity Bureau (“PIB”). The report is intended to establish a preliminary baseline for assessing the quality of misconduct investigations over the life of the Consent Decree.
This report is technical and details various statistical analyses throughout. As we are writing for several different audiences – the Court, the public, the City of Baltimore, BPD, the Department of Justice, and even academics – the report attempts to present the required information as simply, but as thoroughly, as possible.
This assessment is referred to as a “preliminary baseline assessment” for a few reasons. First, the methodology that the Monitoring Team deployed, with the agreement of the Parties, was designed to get a working overview of where BPD stood on misconduct investigations as of 2018 – a point at which BPD had tried to make some important changes but was still contemplating implementing many other, core reforms. Consequently, many case files were reviewed by just one Monitoring Team reviewer. In the future, when there is reason to believe that BPD’s performance may be closer to the level of compliance, a more rigorous methodology is likely to be appropriate.
Second, this assessment is not an assessment of the current quality of the Department’s internal affairs investigations. It does not capture many systemic changes that have already been made. Instead, this report captures where the Department was in 2018 with regard to the requirements of the Consent Decree for misconduct investigations. Considered in this light, the findings of this assessment are wholly unsurprising – and, perhaps to some extent, underwhelming.
The main findings of this report include the following:
 The overall quality of BPD’s process for investigating and making findings in misconduct investigations remains in need of significant improvement. Some 40 percent of OPR investigations in 2018 were determined by Monitoring Team experts to be of poor or fair quality (on a five-point scale from poor to excellent, defined in detail below). Although a majority (61 percent) of cases were rated as “good” or above, more cases were rated as “poor” or “fair” in quality (40 percent) than “very good” or “excellent” (23 percent), indicating a weighting towards the lower half.
Even among the cases that were “good,” “very good,” or “excellent,” systemic deficiencies indicate that BPD will need to travel a significant distance to reach compliance with the Consent Decree’s many provisions relating to misconduct investigations. For instance,
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almost 42 percent of the cases we reviewed were “administratively closed” without a disposition (a determination on the merits). Of the cases that made it to disposition, a full 81 percent did not have narratives that “include a precise description of evidence that either justifies or fails to justify officer’s conduct based on investigator’s independent review of facts/circumstances of the incident.” Material inconsistencies in the evidence were resolved adequately in only 34 percent of cases, and determinations about the credibility of witness statements were properly made in only 35 percent of cases.
 The condition of misconduct case files was poor. The documentation of investigative materials was chaotic and inconsistent. As a result, reviewers had great difficulty in making their assessments and, unfortunately, frequently had to use a score of “unable to determine” when auditing the many specific requirements of the Decree.
 The quality of classification and intake of complaints was poor. The Classification and Intake Manual developed through the Consent Decree process has not yet been implemented. However, using that as a measure for this report, the classification and intake deadlines, although often difficult to discern from the files, were not met in half of cases we reviewed. In addition, the most serious alleged rule violation was used to determine classification and OPR jurisdiction in only two-thirds of cases.
 Allegations of excessive force, unlawful search and seizure, First Amendment violations, and criminal acts were rare and typically well-investigated.
 Communication with complainants was poor overall. Reviewers could certify that complainants were sent written notice of OPR’s receipt of their complaints in only a quarter of cases and were sent status updates only a third of the time. However, in contrast to the DOJ Findings, which emphasized that OPR investigators discouraged complainant participation in the investigation, reviewers did not identify any such cases. This is encouraging.
 Communication with employees was likewise poor. BPD provided timely notification to personnel who were the subjects of complaints in less than a quarter of cases. Reviewers did not identify any cases where the notification jeopardized the investigation.
 Cases were inefficiently managed, which resulted in consistently missed timelines and wasted efforts on minor cases. Despite the poor condition of case files, reviewers were able to determinate that 60 percent of investigations were not completed within the 90 day deadline. Extensions of time were never requested.
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 Other performance issues surfacing during the investigation, such as repetitive problematic behavior, training issues, or the need to explore policy revisions, were rarely considered.
 Investigators frequently failed to interview complainants and other necessary witnesses. Complainants were interviewed only 41 percent of the time; subject employees were interviewed in 44 percent of cases. On the positive side, reviewers found bias, leading questions, and concerns about investigator behavior very rarely in both complainant and subject employee interviews. BPD employee witnesses were identified in about a third of cases, but of those, only 61 percent were actually interviewed. Civilian witness interviews were very rare, as were interviews of non-BPD law enforcement witnesses. Only 22 percent of cases had complete audio or video records of all witness interviews.
 Across misconduct investigations, complainant injuries were uncommon. Injuries occurred in only 6.4 percent of cases; officer injuries occurred less than one percent of the time and never due to subject actions. Complainant injuries were documented, and photographs taken, in a majority of cases.
Overall, there is much that needs to improve before misconduct investigations at BPD will reach compliance with the terms of the Consent Decree. As noted repeatedly in this report, the quality of BPD’s misconduct investigations in 2018 is not unexpected. Although there may be some improvement when comparing investigations in 2018 and investigations from 2010 through 2015, the period of DOJ’s investigation of BPD, BPD is still in the process of making major changes in its practices for addressing and investigating allegations of misconduct. Since 2018, the Department has been working hard on implementing these changes, including producing new, high quality Intake, Classification and Investigations Manuals for the Public Integrity Bureau (“PIB,” which is what OPR is now called).
The findings in this report confirm the need for BPD to overhaul the way that it addresses officer misconduct and sets the level for gauging future improvements.
I. INTRODUCTION
This report summarizes the results of the Monitoring Team’s assessment of the Baltimore Police Department’s misconduct investigations in 2018, conducted by the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility(“OPR”), which at the time was the primary internal affairs unit for the Department. The purpose of the evaluation was to assess the Department’s baseline level of performance, during an era prior to implementation of the significant reforms required by the Consent Decree between the City of Baltimore, BPD and the United States (the “Consent Decree”). From these baseline results, progress over time can be measured.
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The Consent Decree expressly recognizes that “[a] robust and well-functioning accountability system in which officers are held to the highest standards of integrity is critical to BPD’s legitimacy, and a priority of the Department.” Dkt. No. 2 ¶ 329. Accordingly, it sets forth procedural and substantive requirements for BPD’s internal investigations function, with specific emphasis on complaints implicating constitutional issues, such as False Arrest, Excessive Force, and infringement on First Amendment-protected activities. See Dkt. No. 2 at 112 et seq. The Decree clearly defines what a well-functioning accountability system looks like:
[O]ne in which BPD: openly and readily receives complaints reported by civilians and officers and fully, fairly, and efficiently investigates them; supports all investigative findings by the appropriate standard of proof and documents them in writing; holds accountable all officers who commit misconduct pursuant to a disciplinary system that is fair, consistent, and provides due process; and treats all individuals who participate in BPD’s internal disciplinary process—including complainants, officers, and witnesses—with respect and dignity. Id.
DOJ identified systemic failures in BPD’s investigation and adjudication of officer misconduct, including: “discouraging individuals from filing complaints; poor investigative techniques; unnecessary delays; minimal review and supervision; and a persistent failure to discipline officers for misconduct, even in cases of repeated or egregious violations.” Findings Letter at 139. Specific issues included discouraging members of the public from filing complaints, misclassifying complaints to minimize them, administratively closing complaints prematurely, and failure to investigate complaints in a timely manner. Id., 140 et seq. These deficiencies, combined with the failure to properly supervise investigations and inadequate civilian oversight, resulted in systemic failures in accountability at the BPD.
At the time of the Consent Decree, the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility conducted investigations of officer misconduct. Consequently, the Decree’s specific requirements attach to OPR. BPD Police Commissioner Michael Harrison has since restructured the department to create the Public Integrity Bureau (“PIB”), which investigates allegations of misconduct for BPD. At the time of this review, OPR1 had primary responsibility for investigating allegations of misconduct.
1 Currently, PIB investigates allegations of misconduct and its efficacy will be assessed in subsequent reports. For purposes of this report, the Monitoring Team uses “OPR” to refer to the investigative arm of BPD, as that was the structure at the time the reviewed cases were completed and to make clear that this is not a review of the current structure. Again, this whole report is a baseline.
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Separately, Baltimore’s Civilian Review Board (“CRB”) reviews allegations of misconduct that fall within its statutory purview: complaints lodged by members of the public regarding police officers’ (1) abusive language, (2) false arrest, (3) false imprisonment, (4) harassment, and (5) excessive force. Those allegations are defined in the Code of Public Local Laws of Baltimore City (P.L.L.), §§ 16-41(b)–(f).
Deputy Commissioner Brian Nadeau assumed leadership of PIB and the OPR function in September 2019 and has been working toward overhauling PIB.
On November 18, 2019, the Monitoring Team approved a new Investigations Manual for PIB and filed it with the Court. Dkt No. 263. That manual addresses the processes, standards, and benchmarks to which PIB investigators must adhere as they conduct an investigation. A separate manual on the intake and classification of civilian complaints, the PIB Intake and Classification Manual, has also been filed with the Court.
While a part of the Third-Year Monitoring Plan, this assessment comes at a very early point in the process of overhauling the accountability systems at BPD, especially as the bulk of cases that the Monitoring Team reviewed were completed in 2018 – before BPD began making any meaningful changes to its accountability systems. Therefore, it is important to recognize that this assessment is not designed to test whether BPD has successfully implemented reforms to their accountability systems. Instead, this assessment establishes a general baseline to measure whether the changes that are currently underway actually result in improvements.
BPD will have successfully adopted of a robust accountability system not simply when it achieves compliance with the many specific, technical requirements of the Decree, but when officers and community members alike develop confidence in its ability to fairly identify, investigate, and address conduct that violates Departmental rules.
II. METHODOLOGY
The Monitoring Team has done its best to set clear guidelines for reviewers, to train reviewers, and to hold itself accountable for its results. Accordingly, this report, including its qualitative findings, is heavily data-driven and technical. In this section, we explain the methodological decisions we made that generated the data on which our conclusions rely.
The methodology outlined here was developed for the purposes of conducting a preliminary baseline assessment. The Parties and Monitoring Team agreed to the following methodology in order to identify a clearer understanding of where BPD stood with respect to the quality of misconduct investigations in 2018 – before many Consent Decree reforms were implemented – in the most effective and efficient manner. An expanded methodology is anticipated as the
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Monitoring Team charts progress over time and begins to assess whether BPD’s various reforms have been implemented sufficiently to constitute eventual compliance with the provisions of the Decree.
A. Development of the Methodology
The methodology for this assessment was developed in collaboration with the City of Baltimore, BPD, the Department of Justice and the Monitoring Team. The sample size and the survey instrument were subject to discussion and agreed on by the parties, with full opportunity to consult with external statistical experts and provide feedback during the development process. The reviewers were provided with the data collection instrument and the coding instructions. As discussed in more detail below, because the case files were chaotic and inconsistent, there was no uniform way for reviewers to obtain the required information from the case files. Instead, reviewers had to carefully examine each case file to obtain whatever information they could in order to complete the survey instrument.
B. Sample Size and Composition of Cases
As of June 2019, the Department reported a total of 1,372 completed OPR investigations initiated in 2018, in addition to 112 cases with a separate status of “suspended” and 5 cases with a status of “initial.” Since these 117 cases were not really “completed,” they were eliminated from the initial sample.
BPD sorted the completed cases into several “incident types,” purportedly based on their origin (internal or external), the nature of the alleged violation (failure to appear in court, ethics, firearm discharges, serious incidents), and the particular unit responsible for the investigation (Command, Ethics, SIRT (Special Investigation Response Team Investigations (“SIRT”), or Internal Affairs).
Specifically, the incident types BPD used2 were:
 Command Investigations (“CIU”) – minor investigations that were handled by command staff (not OPR) because BPD determined they did not warrant a full internal affairs investigation
 Court Failure to Appear (“FTA”) – officer failed to appear in court as scheduled  Ethics – complaint alleges misconduct by OPR personnel, corruption, or on-going
misconduct, or requires proactive investigation
2 BPD has modified the classification process in its recently completed PIB Intake & Classifications manual. PIB now includes three investigative entities – Internal Affairs, Ethics, and SIRT – and uses three complaint designations – Serious Misconduct, Other Misconduct, and Service Complaint.
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 External Complaints – a complaint of misconduct made by a member of the public  Firearm Discharges – an investigation into the discharge of a firearm  Internal Complaints – a complaint made by a BPD employee  SIRT – investigations of serious use of force incidents

To the extent that the explanations or definitions of these incident types are unclear, it should be noted that these were previously developed by the Department – and are distinct from categories that BPD will use under the Consent Decree in the future.

In their evaluations, Monitoring Team reviewers found that these classifications were inconsistently applied and subject to overlap, and the distinctions were often unhelpful. For example, “External Complaints” could include ethics or firearms complaints – and could potentially be handled as a Command Investigation. CIU complaints entailed the least discernibly consistent investigation process, while FTA cases were the most consistent and thorough, as they only addressed a simple, discrete issue – whether the officer appeared in court. Given these conceptual shortcomings in incident type classifications, the value of sampling according to incident type was simply to ensure that a comprehensive cross-section of cases was evaluated. The table below provides the total breakdown of 1,372 “completed” cases based on BPD-designated incident type:

1,122 64 18 105 4 55 4

Command Investigations Court Failure to Appear Ethics External Complaints Firearms Discharge Internal Complaints SIRT Investigations

To secure the appropriate representation for each case category, the final sample was randomly selected as follows:

N

Margin of Category

Error

89

±10%

CIU

39

±10%

FTA

18

±0%

Ethics

51

±10%

External Complaints

4

±0%

Firearms Discharge

36

±10%

Internal Complaints

4

±0%

SIRT Investigations

241

±8%

TOTAL

C. Cases Reviewed by Multiple Reviewers to Examine Inter-Rater Reliability

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A basic question for any assessment with multiple reviewers is whether the reviewers are interpreting the questions consistently and providing consistent responses. To test this, a subsample of the 241 total cases (N=40) was randomly selected for review by two independent reviewers. For these 40 cases, the two reviewers separately reviewed and gathered data from this sub-sample of logged and completed misconduct investigation files. Note that the 18 “Internal Investigations” cases contained a cross-section of Ethics, External Complaints, Firearm Discharges, Internal Complaints, and SIRT investigations.
18 Internal Investigations 9 Court FTA
13 CIU
These 40 cases were integrated into the overall sample size, but as they were double-reviewed, the value of each case was weighted at .5, which gave proportionate effect to each individual case and avoided double counting these cases.
The purpose of establishing a sub-set of cases to be reviewed by two, rather than just one, reviewer was to be able to evaluate whether anything about the nature of the assessment instrument or about specific reviewer biases may have affected the results. In more formal terms, the double-review of some cases allow for the computation of inter-rater reliability.
D. Measuring Inter-Rater Reliability
The inter-rater reliability of the double-reviewed cases was measured as a percent agreement. Proportion or percentage of agreement is the most straight-forward and widely used way to assess consistency/reliability of scores on categorical variables even though levels of agreement can arise purely by chance. In other words, some agreement is expected because two raters could come to the same conclusion accidentally rather than because they actually agreed on the established code. Thus, throughout this report, where possible, an “agree” column in tables shows the percent of cases in which reviewers came to the same conclusion on any given question. The proportion of agreement – the “agree” column in the various tables presented in this report – demonstrates the consistency of responses provided by two independent reviewers. It should be noted the “agree” column is not reported for questions with a small sample size – less than eight – or questions related to demographic information because the small size makes the statistical test less valid.
The Consent Decree places the burden on the City and BPD to demonstrate that it is affirmatively complying with the various requirements of the Consent Decree. With respect to misconduct investigations, the Decree requires BPD to “support all investigative findings by the appropriate standard of proof and document them in writing.” Dkt. No. 2 at ¶¶ 329, 343. Therefore, where Monitoring Team reviewers said they were “Unable to Determine” whether an assessment
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criterion had been met, those responses are combined with “No” responses to show BPD’s overall noncompliance with a criterion. For purposes of assessment, then, the question is whether the City can demonstrate a sufficient number of “Yes” responses, making the relative percentage of “Yes” and “Not Yes” (i.e. “No” or “Unable to Determine”) the central inquiry.3
The Monitoring Team is reporting the percentage agreement as a way of understanding the results, and the relative weight to assign to any one finding. Low agreement on questions for cases that were reviewed by multiple reviewers can indicate a problem with the question being asked, a problem with reviewer understanding of the question, a problem in readily determining an appropriate answer based on the thing being reviewed, or that the question simply cannot be readily answered.
For the purposes of gauging progress and certify compliance going forward, any disagreement between raters will be addressed and reconciled, including with the assistance of a third reviewer. For purposes of this preliminary baseline assessment, the parties and the Monitoring Team agreed that devoting the resources to resolving disagreement was unnecessary for the purposes of this report. Again, this assessment was geared toward establish a baseline in an area where the Parties expected, for a variety of reasons, that BPD would will need to make much additional progress going forward. Where low rates of agreement were found on a given sub-question, the Monitoring Team, in collaboration with the parties, will reassess the survey instrument and the instructions provided to reviewers to ensure that future reviews yield more robust results.
As discussed throughout this report, the state of the case files varied greatly – some were complete and easy to navigate; some were chaotic and even internally inconsistent. Different case types, e.g., CIU, FTA, or internal complaint cases, all had different formats and were not always alike within each category. As one reviewer noted:
 Again, I note that the case summaries can be confusing. For example, dates don't always align with the cover sheets and reports. This seems to be strictly an administrative issue. It would be more efficient to eliminate the written checklist and sign-off sheet and go with a clearer integrated, automated solution.
Another reported:
 It continues to be difficult to make accurate assessments on timelines as reports are often not dated and summaries are inconsistent and confusing.
As OPR investigators did not investigate cases or document their investigations in a uniform manner, it was not possible to train Monitoring Team reviewers “how it is done.” Reviewers were
3 On cases where “no” was the desired answer, this was reverse-coded as “no” and “not no.”
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required to approach each case, figure out how it was structured, and investigate the materials to score the required evaluation criteria. Once PIB establishes a consistent intake, classification and investigation process, and especially once all PIB actions are electronically stored, future reviewers will be able to be trained specifically where in an investigation file to locate the information needed to score each evaluation requirement in the assessment instrument. This will lead to faster reviews and a higher percentage of reviewer agreement across the board.
Much of the disagreement between reviewers was found in sub-questions. The workflow of the survey instrument offered different options based on responses to questions. For example, if a reviewer indicated there were problems with an interview, the instrument provided options for exactly what the concern was. While there was good agreement between reviewers about whether an interview was problematic, the reasons for the concern varied between reviewers.
Sub-questions also exposed a complication in the methodology for determining percentage of reviewer agreement. Because the double-reviewed cases are compared against each other, if reviewers disagreed on a core question, that disagreement was necessarily carried over into the sub-questions. For example, in Q40, reviewers were asked whether the involved employee was interviewed. There was 67.5% percent agreement between reviewers on that question. Q42 (“Did the employee decline to be interviewed”) only appeared as an option for reviewers who answered “no” to Q40; otherwise the instrument skipped the question. This appropriately controlled relevant follow-up questions for the single-reviewed cases. However, for double-reviewed cases, this resulted in missing values for reviewers that answered “yes” to the threshold question because that reviewer was not presented with the sub-question. The software read the comparison of a missing value with any other answer as disagreement. To fix this, we removed cases in sub-questions with missing values. Although this methodology lowered the sample size for the double-reviewed cases, it allows us to more accurately present the level of agreement and to overcome the limits of the logic in the software.
All of this leads to the conclusion that although the Monitoring Team includes percent agreement for transparency, readers should not over-focus on this metric and lose the forest for the trees. Throughout the report, the percent agreement was typically above 60 percent, with some outliers.
E. Testing the Survey Instrument
In addition to the level of agreement between reviewers, the Monitoring Team explored the quality of the data collection instrument, seeking to determine whether the survey instrument was effective at answering the questions it was designed to answer. Thus, we computed a measure of internal consistency reliability, called the Kuder-Richardson (“KR-20”). The KR-20 measures the consistency of the score(s) of individual items on the data collection instrument. It can be interpreted similarly to Cronbach’s alpha. For each section computed, the “alpha” is presented and
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interpreted as a proportion of variance. The value of alpha tells us how closely related a set of items are as a group (do they measure the same phenomenon). Ideally, the alpha values should range between .70 and .90. An alpha of 0.6 and below would be considered poor reliability in most research situations; above .90 suggests redundancy in the questions. Generally, the alpha was good for the Monitoring Team’s survey instrument. Areas where a low alpha is found will be reconsidered for the next iteration of the misconduct assessment.
Examining the results for this assessment, the Monitoring Team identified some questions that were either duplicative or in conflict with other questions. For example, Q33 was linked to Q31, but should have been linked to Q32 and limited to cases where there was an actual refusal to be interviewed. Similarly, Q50, Q57, and Q63, which also asked about documenting refusals to be interviewed, lacked the necessary precursor question of “Did the Complainant Grant Permission to Audio Record?” As such, the results have no value and are not reported, as they will only add confusion. Questions 33, 50, 57, and 63 are therefore excluded. The Monitoring Team will correct this survey error in the next review.
III. RESULTS
This report is logically divided into sections based on issue area. Some questions have been rearranged from their original order in the data collection instrument for reader clarity (although the charts include the question numbers for reference). The answers to the questions, both numerical and percentage of the sample size (N), are presented, and where appropriate, followed by the percent agreement (Agree) between reviewers for the double-reviewed cases and by the alpha value.
Sub-questions are indented in the tables to show their dependency on prior answers. The number of cases (N) within the sub-questions are also presented.
Again, the purpose of this report is to test the waters, not draw significant conclusions about the quality of OPR (now PIB) investigations. The results are not unexpected, as new polices and training have not yet been implemented.
The Monitoring Team notes generally here that, across some areas of evaluation and auditing, the reported “inter-rater agreement” rates for those cases that were evaluated by two reviewers are lower than the Team would typically want to see. Overall, we believe that this is related, first, to the often chaotic and incomplete nature of the files – with documents seemingly randomly included or omitted – and similar pieces of information being reported differently on different forms or different reports. Second, and especially within this context of unstructured and incomplete case files, reviewers used different, good-faith approaches to gauge the misconduct investigation in light of various requirements that BPD was, in many instances, not yet trying to satisfy in its
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process – which led to diverging conclusions on some particular elements of the evaluation. The Team is optimistic that better, more complete case files structured with eye at compliance with Consent Decree requirements will allow reviewers, using an expanded methodology, to better operationalize areas of inquiry – yielding higher levels of agreement on some of the dimensions where there is less agreement than desired in this initial evaluation.
OVERALL CASE EVALUATION
We begin with a discussion of the Monitoring Team’s overall case evaluations. Although these evaluations are, to some extent, the least precise and the most subjective, an understanding of the overall quality of the investigations helps to guide an understanding of the more specific evaluations presented in the remainder of the report.
The Consent Decree requires that misconduct investigations be objective, comprehensive, and timely. Dkt. No. 2 ¶ 329. Accordingly, reviewers were asked to rate the overall quality of the investigations on a five-point scale, using the following definitions:
5 – Excellent – The investigation complied with all Consent Decree requirements and BPD protocols, and investigators made reasonable attempts to follow all leads and answer all material questions. The investigation was fair, thorough, objective, and timely. 4 – Very Good – The investigation complied with most Consent Decree requirements and BPD protocols and investigators made reasonable attempts to follow all leads and answer all material questions. 3 – Good – Although some aspects of the investigation could be improved, the identified flaws did not appear to materially or unduly impact the quality of the overall investigation. The resulting investigation provided sufficient information to evaluate the incident but could be improved. 2 – Fair – Several aspects of the investigation could be improved. Identified flaws materially impacted the quality of the overall investigation, and the resulting file provided insufficient information to evaluate the incident. 1 – Poor – All or nearly all aspects of the investigation could be improved. The investigation failed to establish sufficient information to support an evidence-based evaluation of the incident due to investigative deficiencies, material omissions, or other issues.
Reviewers rated 40 percent of investigations as Poor or Fair. Slightly more than one-third (37 percent) of cases were rated Good, indicating that although the identified flaws tended not to materially or unduly affect the quality of the overall investigation, the investigative quality could still be improved. Less than one-quarter of investigations (23 percent) were rated either Very Good or Excellent.
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(Q92) Based on your overall review of the investigation, what was the overall quality of

the investigation?

5 – Excellent

6.5 (2.70%)

4 – Very Good

49 (20.33%)

3 – Good

88.5 (36.72%)

2 – Fair

51 (21.16%)

1 – Poor

46 (19.09%)

CIU cases, which were essentially ad hoc investigations conducted by BPD’s chain of command, were rated “poor” and “fair” more often than other case types. This is likely because these chain of command investigations were not being conducted in a manner that even attempted to comply with Consent Decree requirements or the requirements of a full-blown investigation.

A plurality, some 41 percent, of investigations that were not FTA or CIU cases were “good,” and another nearly 35 percent were “excellent” or “very good.” It must be noted at the outset, however, that even among cases that were “excellent” or “very good” per the standards and definitions articulated above, many investigations did not satisfy all of the specific requirements of the Consent Decree that have been memorialized in policies and manuals for investigators since the time of the investigation.

At the same time about one-quarter (25 percent) of these cases were of “poor or “fair” quality.” The fact that approximately one out of every four non-FTA, non-CIU investigations was deficient in fundamental ways indicates to the Monitoring Team – in conjunction with the many specific findings presented throughout this report – that BPD has a distance to travel toward compliance in the area of misconduct investigations.

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Scaled Review by Case Type (% of cases)

60

50 50

40

35.96

30

29.78

40.54 25.84

31.08

20 9.769.01
10
0 Poor

17.0175.77 Fair

Good

19.5 7.3
Very good

3.663.6 1.12
Excellent

FTA

Internal Investigations

CIU

All cases

Across case types, investigations that were rated very good or excellent stood out, and reviewers had little difficulty making these determinations. Reviewer summaries of these cases were generally clear and unambiguous. Some examples include:
 The investigation was thorough and complete. Investigator effectively reviewed the actions of the officers starting at his initial contact with the suspect, subsequent foot pursuit and use of force to take the suspect into custody. A copy of the Conducted Electrical Device policy was provided in the investigative packet. The evidence provided within the report demonstrated the officer was in compliance of the policy and supported the investigative findings of unfounded.
 The Investigators conducted a thorough and very complete investigation. The Investigators did not limit the scope of the investigation to solely the use of force but investigated all the actions (police contact/pursuit) leading up to the suspect’s arrest. The file is comprehensive and well done.
The inadequacies in cases rated fair or poor were similarly clear. Reviewers found deficiencies both in the quality of the case files and the overall diligence of the investigators:
 The case file includes a number of related documents, including an incident report, juvenile custody report, and an Axon report that suggests that there may be BWC video of the interactions in question. However, there is no real investigative report here— simply an IAPro summary that logs some very cursory investigative efforts. In short,
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there is no evidence that an investigator meaningfully considered the complainant's claims, or the basis for "closing" the case without taking action. Although the nature of the complaint may well be outside the purview of OPR (essentially a claim that charges should not have been filed/pressed in a given case), there is insufficient justification provided in any materials for closing the case with minimal investigative action/effort.
 I would not categorize this as an investigation. It is a confusing data entry. It is impossible to ascertain the nature of the complaint or whether the complaint is directed at a BPD employee. I'd like to discuss the BPD data entry systems. This was an automated entry, but a useless one. If they were required to enter something, it should have included more information; for example, the nature of the complaint and whether or not caller identified the subject as a BPD employee.
 The summary and packet were included in the file, but the investigator's report was not present. However, there was a BWC violation and the conclusion was Unfounded. I suspect this was because the officer had requested re-training on BWC prior to the audit that revealed the violation. As there was no investigation in the file, I am unable to conclude one way or another whether the investigation was adequate. Based on the packet, there was enough evidence to conclude that a violation occurred, however, so I am unclear how they got to unfounded.
 The case was closed with little to no investigation. There is no evidence they tried to locate the complainant to call them on the phone. The summary shows a notice was mailed to the complainant, but the case shows closed two days after it was opened. Also the investigator identified on the BWC footage that the officer refused to provide his partner's name so the complainant could lodge a complaint with all the officer's name. Nothing was done related to this issue and the complaint was closed.
 The Consent Decree requires that investigators will conduct objective, comprehensive, and timely administrative investigations. This investigation failed to meet these thresholds. Specific allegations clearly outlined in the complainant’s letter are ignored and not addressed. The investigators reliance on the Body Camera as singular determining factor when the complainant outlines several allegations is not an effective investigative process and can limit the objectivity. There is no evidence provided that demonstrated the 911 recorded call was reviewed. The Officer called the Complainant via his phone, no evidence was gathered to address his conduct during the call. The complainant was not formally interviewed. The Complainant called a supervisor who did not respond but called the complainant after she left the location, this was never
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addressed. The investigation failed to identify the policy cited and recognize that the confusion by the Complainant started with inconsistent information by BPD personnel.
Reviewers found that investigators had a strong tendency to rely on BWC footage or documentary evidence and forgo witness interviews. Often investigators would simply gather information until they believed they had enough information to conclude the investigation, rather than fully following the investigation to its conclusion. Complainant interviews were frequently neglected. Even when witness interviews occurred, frequently they were not included in the case file, either as recordings or transcripts, so it was difficult to assess quality. For example, in certain cases where the failure to conduct witness interviews compromised the investigation, the reviewers reported:
 This was a generally solid investigation of a PO trainee caught cheating by several of his peers. However, this was only a "good" investigation because officers who saw the cheating were not interviewed; instead, written statements were used.
 As this case involved the conflicting testimony of two parties, additional interviews should have been conducted to resolve if possible. No attempts were made to interview the officers, the responding supervisor, the involved parties, except for the father of the involved female, who was not present during the dispute. While the video confirmed there was likely no false arrest or false statement, this investigation could have been much stronger.
 The investigation was missing interviews of the subject officer, the CO that assaulted the suspect, and the responding Sgt. Instead it relied on BWC evidence and written statements. The officer on scene did exactly what he should have - called for a supervisor and professionally interacted with the suspect who had been assaulted by the CO, but failed to raise the issue of criminal assault. The responding Sgt did not do a good job of investigating the CO, for which there was already PC for assault; the officer on scene did not discuss this with the Sgt either. The OPR investigator attributed statements to the CO that I cannot find in the file.
BWC evidence was especially persuasive to investigators and frequently supported the employees’ version of events. Reviewers frequently noted that evidence lost when an officer did not turn on the BWC would have been helpful to the resolution of the case. Some examples include:
 The core of this investigation was sound. The complainant's claims are definitively refuted by the BWC evidence. The primary deficiency was the failure to identify, and interview, the many other responding officers/law enforcement who are seen on BWC. It appears that only the primary officer was interviewed. Although interviews with hospital staff were audio-recorded, no recording of the primary involved officer
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interview appears in the reviewed case file. The investigator's questioning was not bad, though some reliance on leading questions in a few instances was unnecessary.
 Investigation was through and complete. Investigator effectively used BWC footage combined with several witness statements and medical records to support findings.
In the few cases that alleged rudeness and unprofessional behavior, there was a tendency for the investigators to minimize the officer’s behavior. As such, opportunities to address procedural justice issues in call handling were missed. For example:
 The investigator and the Field Supervisor improperly characterized the officer's conduct as professional when in the reviewer’s opinion it was not professional. He insulted the complainant, commented on her parenting skills and lack of discipline within the home. He also became angry after a minor use of force and was yelling at the mother when he left the apartment. None of this was noted in the report. Moreover, the report fails to discuss the allegation of conduct unbecoming and how the officer's conduct did not violate this rule.
 The IA investigation was fine and the investigators very professional. It's just unfortunate that a mother who was warming her car to bring her children to school was ultimately arrested for refusing to sign a citation. I acknowledge that she was agitated and behaved poorly, but I'm not certain an arrest would have been necessary if the officers handled the situation a bit differently.
Reviewers noticed significant deviations between case cover sheets and the rest of the case file concerning dates of investigative activities, including the start date.
Reviewers often noted the seeming lack of interest in exploring issues the cases presented beyond the particular rule violations alleged, including tactical issues. In one case, which involved an officer chasing a suspected armed suspect into a building alone, the investigation did not explore the pursuit or the tactical issue of following a suspect into a closed space without backup. In another case, where a corrections officer punched a BPD prisoner, there was no discussion by the officer on scene, the responding sergeant, or the investigators about the possibility of criminal charges, even though clear probable cause existed for assault. In contrast, there were cases where reviewers were impressed that investigators took the time to explore issues not directly implicated by the complaint.
Reviewers found several cases where minor infractions escalated into serious uses of force (one was an officer-involved shooting), where although the actual use of force was reasonable, necessary, and proportional, investigators should have given some consideration to whether
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tactics, training, or policy should be adjusted. In one case, a mother waiting for her child was arrested for failing to sign an infraction – all technically legal – but the incident could undoubtedly have been handled in a way to reduce conflict and avoid that unfortunate result. In fairness, the complainant was abusive and argumentative, but that is exactly the type of encounter that police officers must handle daily. Another example:
 [I]t was clear to me that this was a thorough investigation and the officer was justified in using deadly force when confronted with deadly force. Some may question, however, whether the appropriate laws and/or policies are in place in terms of pursuit (in this case air and foot) of suspects eluding police following minor infractions.4
There were a few cases where the inconsistencies in statements likely crossed the line to dishonesty, which was not investigated further. For example:
 Based on the investigative report and the evidence provided it seems to be evident that the involved officer lied to the investigator and on her interrogatory. She stated she was on vacation but the records show her working and there was no slip for vacation time on the said date.
Finally, turning to inter-rater reliability for this section, as there was a range of five possible ranked responses, and as discussed above, there is a useful demarcation line to divide the responses into poor/fair and good/very good/excellent, it is more helpful to look at the distribution of responses rather than just the percent agreement.
Overall, there was complete agreement between reviewers in a third of cases (32.5%). More than a third of cases were within one rank of another (35.5%). As such, there was close or perfect reviewer agreement in 68 percent of all cases.
Similarly, dividing the cases into poor/fair and good/very good/excellent, there was reviewer agreement in 70 percent of cases. An additional 7.5 percent of cases were split between fair/good, which shows reviewer consistency even if the results were on opposite sides of the split. Generally, because this means that, 32 percent of the time, reviewers disagreed by two ranks or more. the
4 BPD Policy 1505, Foot Pursuits, was drafted and approved by the Court in late 2018, and provides guidance on balancing the interest of public safety with the risks of foot pursuits. Specifically, the policy directs members: “Members may engage in Foot Pursuits with suspects only when there is [reasonable articulable suspicion] to believe that the suspect has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime (with the exception of those instances identified below under prohibited actions) and when members reasonably believe that there is a valid law enforcement need to detain the suspect that outweighs the threat to safety posed by pursuit. The decision to initiate or continue such a Foot Pursuit, however, must be continuously re-evaluated in light of the circumstances presented at the time.”
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Monitoring Team would like to see higher agreement in this dimension in the future. If this were a compliance assessment, the Monitoring Team would devote the resources to examining what caused the disagreement between reviewers and would resolve that disagreement by using a third reviewer.

However, at least for purposes of this preliminary baseline assessment, the Monitoring Team is satisfied that the level of agreement sufficiently captures the general, past state of the OPR investigations and provides guidance on where BPD should focus its efforts going forward.

COMPLAINT SOURCE/TYPE INFORMATION

We first consider where, how, and by whom complaints were received. Anonymous complaints were rare – less than two percent of the sampled cases. While many police departments have some concerns around accepting anonymous complaints due to worries about the possibility of false allegations from community members or even other officers, the rarity of such complaints in Baltimore should be reassuring. The rarity of anonymous complaints may suggest that community members are not uniformly reluctant to identify themselves to the accountability system because of fears of retaliation. It could also mean that individuals who would otherwise be afraid of the consequences of making a complaint are staying away from BPD entirely, not even giving an anonymous complaint. Other data points and further study will be necessary to understand what the low number of anonymous complaints might mean.

Over 55 percent of the cases reviewed originated with complaints coming from outside the Department. Almost 43 percent were internally generated. Many of the internally-generated cases came from semi-automatic reporting systems, such as failure to appear in court (FTA) cases, which accounted for slightly less than half of the internal referrals.

Most complaints (71 percent) were received by mail, phone, or email. Only 13 percent of complaints were made in-person. This finding supports the on-going need to develop PIB’s technological systems for complaint intake and tracking, as most cases are not walk-ins.

Complainant type (Q6)

Internal 103.55 (42.95%)

External 133.5 (55.39%)

Anonymous 4 (1.66%)

Who received the complaint (Q7)

OPR Employee

Non-OPR Employee

146 (60.58%)

95 (39.42%)

5 We assigned a weighted value of .5 to double-reviewed cases in order to include them in the overall sample, which explains the 103.5 cases meeting this category.
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Who was the Non-OPR Employee who received the complaint? (Q8)

Other BPD Employee 32.5 (35.33%)

Other BPD Supervisor 51(55.43%)

CRB

Other

1.5 (1.60%) 8.5 (9.24%)

How was the complaint received? (Q9)

In person 18.5 (13.45%)

Not in-person (post mail, phone, web etc.
97.5 (70.91%)

Other 21.5 (15.64%)

Monitoring Team reviewers were asked to generally characterize the facts of the complaint, independent of how the case was categorized by BPD. Their free-text summaries of complaints revealed a wide variety of allegations. Some of the most frequently identified complaints were:

 Dereliction of duty (not taking necessary action) was the most common complaint, occurring in approximately 1/5 of all cases. Complainants said that officers were lazy, came too quickly to conclusions, disregarded evidence, and were not just. This category captured general dissatisfaction with service.

 Failure to appear in court was also very common, especially as the Monitoring Team sampled “FTA” cases. These cases were typically automatically generated by the court liaison and quickly adjudicated, with officers frequently admitting to the violation.

 Harassment complaints were relatively common. Complainants felt targeted by police, either because they had multiple contacts, because they believed the interaction was unjust, or because they believed they were profiled. Two cases alleged racial discrimination.

 Internal administrative complaints were common. This category included issues such as leaving a post, losing identification or other equipment, exceeding permitted overtime, reporting late, or questionable use of leave. It did not include integrity issues or direct insubordination, which were alleged rarely.

 Use of force was the next most frequent, which is discussed in more detail below.

 Abuse of authority included claims such as running criminal or juvenile records for personal reasons, possession of case materials for personal reasons, attempting to change departmental systems to show an accident was non-preventable, or using status as an officer for other benefits.

 Allegations of rudeness were common, ranging from a bad attitude to overt hostility.

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 Body worn camera (BWC) violations were also common and typically surfaced as a secondary complaint revealed during an investigation, although there were several standalone cases where officers failed to record.

 Other, less frequent allegations included loss of property and retaliation.

COMPLAINANT DEMOGRAPHICS

Demographic information about individuals making misconduct complaints was not reliably captured by OPR. Given that many of the Consent Decree requirements for the collection of such information were not yet incorporated in policy or training at the time the complaints were made and investigations were conducted, the lack of consistency and completeness is unsurprising.

Nevertheless, in some instances where information about a complainant’s gender, race, or ethnicity were not captured, Monitoring Team reviewers could discern this information from available evidence (e.g., by reviewing body-worn camera footage showing the complainant).

Most cases (91 percent) involved a single complainant. Distribution of complainant sex was almost equal (48 percent female) and (41 percent male), with 11 percent unknown. The frequent inability of reviewers to determine race (74 percent) or ethnicity (92 percent) from the files renders any conclusions about demographics impossible. Moving forward, under new policies, new manuals, and new training, PIB will need to consistently and clearly record demographic information to allow for analysis.

(Q21) Whether at the outset of the complaint or during the course of the investigation, was more than one complainant identified?

Yes 10 (8.5%)

No 106 (91.38%)

(Q22) Complainant’s Sex

Female 60 (47.81%)

Male 51.5 (41.04%)

Unknown 14 (11.16%)

(Q23)

White/Caucasian

Complainant’s

Race

8 (6.51%)

Black/AfricanAmerican 23 (18.69%)

Hispanic/Latino 1 (0.82%)

Unknown 91 (73.98%)

(Q24) Complainant’s Ethnicity

Hispanic/Latino 0

Not Hispanic or Latino
8 (6.53%)

Other 0

Unknown 97 (92.38%)

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Few internal investigations involved associated criminal investigations: only three cases involved any type of criminal investigation. Of those, one was an officer-involved shooting, for which the State’s Attorney declined criminal charges; one involved officers indicted on federal charges unrelated to the misconduct under administrative investigation; and one was an un-sustained domestic violence referral from an outside jurisdiction. In all of these cases, the Monitoring Team reviews gave the investigations an overall investigative quality rating of Very Good6, which may imply that proper internal resources were directed at these potentially more serious cases.

(Q10) Was a criminal investigation of one of more BPD members conducted that addressed the complaint?

Yes 3 (1.24%)

No 238 (98.76%)

The Consent Decree requires the Monitoring Team to focus not just on misconduct investigations generally but on some specific types of complaints – including “the frequency of civilian complaints to OPR and CRB alleging unlawful arrests,” (Paragraph 459(c)(ii)); use of force complaints, (Paragraph 459(d)(ii)); and complaints relating to First Amendment protected activities, (Paragraph 459(j)(ii)). Overall, cases involving such complaints were relatively infrequent among the cases that were reviewed: excessive force (7.47 percent, or 18 cases), false arrest (2.28 percent or 5.5 cases), and First Amendment activities (1.24 percent or 3 cases).

(Q19) Did the complaint involve allegations, whether made originally by the complainant or uncovered during the investigation, relating to: Use of Force (e.g., excessive force or failure to report force)? First-Amendment-protected activity? Unlawful/False Arrest?

Yes
18 (7.47%) 3 (1.24%) 5.5 (2.28%)

No

UTD

Agree

219 (90.87%)

4 (1.66%) 38/40 (95.00%)

235 (97.51%) 3 (1.24%) N/A7

231.5 (96.06%) 4 (1.66%) 39/40 (97.5%)

Of the use of force cases, only one had overlap with false arrest; none overlapped with First Amendment allegations. None of the use of force allegations were sustained by the Department.
6 Question 92 asked reviewers to rate the overall investigation on a scale of Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, and Excellent. 7 There were no double-reviewed cases with First Amendment allegations.
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The Monitoring Team assigned overall investigative quality ratings of Good, Very Good, or Excellent to the investigations involving use of force.

The Consent Decree requires that every case result in a particular disposition that is accompanied by a standard of proof. Dkt. No. 2 at ¶344(k):

i.

“Unfounded,” where the investigation determines, by clear and

convincing evidence, that the alleged misconduct did not occur or did

not involve the accused officer;

ii.

“Sustained,” where the investigation determines, by a preponderance of

the evidence, that the alleged misconduct did occur;

iii. “Not Sustained,” where the investigation is unable to determine, by a

preponderance of the evidence, whether the alleged misconduct

occurred;

iv. “Exonerated,” where the investigation determines, by a preponderance

of the evidence, that the alleged conduct did occur but did not violate

BPD policies, procedures, or training;

v.

BPD shall discontinue use of the disposition “administratively closed.”

The Monitoring Team found that the evidence in all but one of the use of force cases met the required standard of proof to support the conclusion – and the evidence in the one case that failed to meet that standard was solely due to the investigator not addressing officer rudeness; in other words, it was not related directly to the force allegation. Given that the Monitoring Team found that the conclusions in only 61 percent of all cases were supported by evidence that met the pertinent standard of proof, the use of force cases ranked comparatively well.

The demographic breakdown of complainants in use of force cases does not allow for the ready understanding of either who brings force complaints or whether there are sharp discrepancies in how force complaints are addressed based on race. The race of only two complainants (both African-American) could be identified; the race of complainants in the remaining cases was unknown.

Of the three First Amendment cases, none of the cases involved direct action against any person participating in First Amendment activities. For example, one was an internal complaint that officers had wrongfully accused a Major of not lowering the American flag in memoriam of President George Bush. Allegations were not sustained in one case and were determined to be unfounded in two other cases. The Monitoring Team rated two investigations as Very Good overall. One was rated Fair, primarily due to a poor intake focused on technical issues rather than the spirit of the complaint (complainant wasn’t the owner of the car that was towed).

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Of the five false arrest cases, one was judged exonerated, three were unfounded, and one was not sustained by the Department. The Monitoring Team found that the evidence in all five cases met the requisite standard of proof. In terms of overall investigative quality, two were ranked Very Good, two were Good, and one was Fair. With respect to the case ranked Fair, the investigative issues giving rise to the ranking were unrelated to the determination of whether a false arrest had occurred. In that instance, a complainant’s daughter had admitted to kicking out the windows of a car, which was sufficient to establish probable cause for the involved arrest.
REVIEW/CLASSIFICATION/TIMELINES
Intake and classification of complaints is critically important to ensure proper, consistent Departmental responses to complaints and proper recognition of the severity/complexity of complaints. Appropriate intake and classification help guarantee that similar complaints will be handled in a similar manner, which supports the internal and external legitimacy of the process – again, the goal is that the accountability systems are perceived by all as fair.
The Department of Justice identified systemic problems with intake and classification in their findings letter:
BPD lacks meaningful accountability systems to deter misconduct. BPD does not consistently classify, investigate, adjudicate, and document complaints of misconduct according to its own policies and accepted law enforcement standards.
Findings Letter at 128.
The Consent Decree has significant requirements governing Intake, Classification, and Communication with Complainants, including revising the relevant policy and manual and ensuring that the complaint process is open and accessible, that complaints may be made anonymously and through any common means of communication, that all complaints are accepted and properly classified according to the allegations, and that all classifications and changes to classification are tracked in a database. See Dkt. No. 2 at ¶¶ 335–42.
The PIB Intake and Classification Manual has been updated to ensure that PIB will accept anonymous complaints, that complaints will be accepted by email, phone, mail, or walk-in, and that allegations will be timely classified in IA Pro (the designated computer software program used for internal affairs investigations) and based on the options in that system. From the moment a complaint is received, there is now clarity about how it will be categorized and managed. Strict adherence to these new policies will help with consistency and accuracy of classification.
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However, the investigations reviewed in this assessment occurred prior to the finalization of the new manual. Consequently, this baseline review essentially grades the Department against standards, expectations, and requirements that they were not yet trying to meet in 2018. For that reason, the Monitoring Team identified a number of core problems with the classification of new complaints and adherence to Consent Decree-required investigative timelines.

In some instances, then, the Monitoring Team was able to definitively conclude that BPD had not, in fact, adhered to the Consent Decree’s requirements for intake and classification. In an even greater number of instances, however, because the investigative files were often chaotic – lacking uniform format or structure or missing important information – Monitoring Team reviewers could not determine, one way or another, whether various requirements had been met.

(Q25) Review & Classification Initial classification determination made within 72 hours of OPR being notified of allegation of misconduct? Complaint assigned to OPR investigator within 72 hours of OPR being notified of allegation of misconduct? All appropriate allegations identified and listed, including those that, if true, would violate BPD policy but are not affirmatively identified by the complaint or complainant? All relevant policy/manual sections accurately identified and listed? Most serious policy violation appropriately used for purposes of classification? Most serious policy violation appropriately used

Yes 119 (49.38%) 101.5 (42.12%) 166.5(69.09%)
144 (59.75%) 162 (67.22%) 160 (66.39%)

No

UTD

65.5 (27.18%) 56.5 (23.44%)

98.5(40.87%) 41 (17.01%) 46.5 (19.29%) 28 (11.62%)

66.5 (27.59%) 30.5 (12.66%) 39 (16.18%) 40 (16.60%) 36.5 (15.15%) 44.5 (18.46)

Agree
20/40 (50.0%)
21/40 (52.5%)
21/40 (52.5%)
32/40 (80.0%) 34/40 (85.0%)
35/40 (87.5%)

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to determine whether OPR will investigate? Alpha (α ) 0.855
Only about half (49 percent) of cases were timely classified within 72 hours, as required by the Consent Decree. Somewhat less than half (42 percent) were assigned to an investigator within 72 hours of an investigator being notified of misconduct. At the intake stage, more than two-thirds (69 percent) of cases had all allegations properly identified. Sixty percent of cases properly identified the specific BPD policies that were implicated by the complaint. In more than two-thirds (67 percent) of cases, the most significant violation was appropriately used to classify the investigation.
The relatively low agreement between reviewers for the questions about timeliness suggests that the number of cases that complied with Decree requirements may actually have been lower. Because the case files were in such disarray, it appears that reviewers used different dates, found in different parts of the file, as plausible “start dates” from which to chart timelines. As such, the Monitoring Team does not have strong confidence in the specific results presented in the first three rows above, but the overall concept – that BPD was not clearly recording timelines, investigators, or capturing all appropriate allegations – is wholly consistent with the reviewers’ experiences grappling with the case files. Going forward, PIB will need to ensure that the dates of core administrative actions are reliably captured and uniformly documented in a standard format.
In contrast, there was solid agreement between reviewers about whether all relevant policy violations were identified and whether the most serious allegation was used for classification purposes.
The items that measured intake and classification have a reasonably good alpha reliability coefficient (0.855). Thus, we can comfortably conclude that, for intake and classification, the evaluation instrument is measuring what we are trying to measure.
Communication with Complainants
To ensure transparency, the Consent Decree contains requirements that complainants receive periodic updates from the Department. These requirements are not directed at internal complaints, but at external complaints from members of the public in order to provide good customer service and improve legitimacy. As such, the sample of cases examining communication with complainants is limited to those cases identified by the Monitoring Team as “external.”8 Within
8 This should not be confused with BPD’s use of “external” as an incident type. As previously discussed, other incident types, such as CIU, could start with a complaint by a member of the public. External cases here were identified by the Monitoring Team.
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these cases, communication was poor overall. OPR provided complainants with written notice that it had received their complaints in only a quarter (27 percent) of cases. Likewise, reviewers were able to find evidence that OPR provided complainants with periodic updates about the status of their cases in only 36 percent of cases. Because of the low number of overall cases in which complainants received communications from BPD, the Monitoring Team found that communications were professional and respectful in just 38 percent of cases.

Inter-rater reliability was approximately 60% agreement across this question set. Although the alpha was lower (0.64) than other sections, this is likely because the sequence of questions about complainant communication combined pure auditing questions (“was there notice within 7 days?”) with more qualitative ones (“were communications with complainant professional and respectful?”) The Monitoring Team will consider the workflow of the data gathering instrument in future compliance reviews.

(Q26) Notification/Communication with Complainant(s) Written notice of receipt within 7 days of OPR’s receipt of a complaint? OPR mail or email periodic updates to complainant on status of complaint/investigation? Communications with complainant professional and respectful?
α = 0.641

Yes 36 (26.97%) 48 (35.96%) 50.5 (37.97%)

No

UTD

76.5 (57.30%) 21 (15.73%)

68 (50.94%)

17.5 (13.11%)

17.5 (13.16%) 65 (48.87%)

Agree
12/18 (66.67%)
12/18 (66.67%)
11/18 (61.11%)

Of the relatively few cases that included communications with the complainant, only slightly more than half (53 percent) of the communications included basic information like the tracking number, the case number, and the allegations being investigated. Fifty-four percent of communications informed complainants how they could follow up to find out case status. As with most of the review results around technical or timing questions, the state of the case files led to some disagreement among reviewers, albeit with a sample size below the reporting threshold. As such, the below results are better interpreted as thematic than as precise quantifications of the files. The Monitoring Team will expect to see improvement in this area as BPD adopts new policies and procedures.

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For this set of questions, there was a moderate level of disagreement between reviewers in the double-reviewed cases, which again is likely due to confusion over where in the files this information could be found and/or internal inconsistency within the files.

The questions that measured communication with the complainant have an acceptable alpha value of 0.782. Thus, we can conclude that these questions adequately measure the communication with the complainant.

The overall conclusion here is that communications with complainants need to be greatly improved for consistency and content, but investigators are not discouraging complainants from making or pursuing complaints.

(Q27) Details re: Written Notice to Complainant Did receipt include tracking number, other relevant case numbers, and allegations being investigated? Did notice inform complainant how he/she may inquire about complaint status? Did notice contain any language that could reasonably be construed as discouraging participation in the investigation (such as warning against providing false statements or a deadline by which complainant must contact the investigator)?
α = 0.782

Yes 18.5 (52.86%) 19 (54.29%)
0

No 3.5 (10.00%)

UTD 13 (37.14%)

2.5 (7.14%) 13.5 (38.57%)

22 (62.86%) 13 (37.14%)

Communication with Involved Officers & Employees

Timely notification to the subject officer only occurred in a quarter (24 percent) of cases, though interrater reliability scores were low for this question. Notice to supervisors of involved officers or employees occurred only one out of ten times (12 percent of cases). The Decree’s requirement that an officer’s supervisor facilitate an officer’s appearance before investigators and document such facilitation appeared to be followed in only 12 cases – or about 5 percent of the time overall.

(Q28) Communication

Yes

No

UTD

Agree

with Involved

Officer(s)/Employee(s)

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Timely notification to all 57.5 (23.86%) involved employee(s)?

Timely notification to supervisor of officer(s) under investigation?

29.5 (12.24%)

Officer’s supervisor(s) facilitating officer’s appearance documented in writing?

12 (4.98%)

α = 0.762

114.5 (47.51%) 92 (38.17%) 101.5 (42.12%)

69 (28.63%)

23/40 (57.5%)

119.5 (49.59%) 32/40 (80.00%)

127.5 (52.90%) 36/40 (90.0%)

Where there was a notification to an employee, regardless of whether it was provided on the Decree-required timeline, it was not found to jeopardize the investigation (such as by including too many facts prior to an interview). Notices comported with due process and the law. Only one case involved a notice containing information that might have unnecessarily jeopardized the investigation.

Reviewers determined that fewer than 8 percent of notices prohibited officers from speaking to witnesses, reviewing reports, or taking other actions that could jeopardize the investigation.

(Q29) Details re: Initial Notification to Officer/Employee(s) (N=57.5 from Q28) Did notice jeopardize the investigation? Did officer only receive notice prior to being formally interviewed by OPR, and not earlier? Did notice comport with due process and the law? Did the notice contain the nature of the investigation? Did the notice contain any information that might have unnecessarily jeopardized the investigation? Did notice prohibit officers from speaking to

Yes

No

UTD

Agree

0

51.5 (89.57%) 6 (10.43%)

3/3

(100.00%)

17.5 (30.70%) 26 (45.61%) 13.5 (23.68%)

1/3

(33.33%)

44 (76.52%) 43.5 (75.65%)

2 (3.48%) 4.5 (7.83%)

11.5 (20.00%) 9 (15.65%)

3/3 (100.00%)
2/3 (66.66%)

1 (1.77%) 47.5 (84.07%) 8 (14.16%)

2/3 (66.66%)

4.5 (7.83%) 38 (66.09%) 15 (26.09%)

3/3

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witnesses/complainants, reviewing police reports, reviewing body camera footage, or taking other actions that could jeopardize the investigation. α = 0.762
Investigative Timeliness

(100.00%)

The Consent Decree requires that internal investigations be completed within 90 days of the initiation of the investigation unless an extension is specifically requested and approved, in writing, by the OPR Director. Dkt. No. 2-2 at 122.

The state of BPD investigative files, which often featured various and sometimes conflicting dates, made determining the date on which investigations started difficult. Fewer than two out of five (39 percent) investigations were completed within the Decree-required 90-day timeframe, with extensions virtually never sought.

(Q70) Regarding investigative timeliness Investigation completed within 90 days of initiation of the investigation? Extension requested at any point during the investigation?

Yes 95 (39.42%)
0.5 (0.21%)

No 142.5 (59.13%)
181.5 (75.31%)

UTD 3.5 (1.45%)
59 (24.48%)

Agree
38/40 (95.00%)
25/40 (62.50%)

INVESTIGATION: COMPLAINANT INTERVIEW & INJURIES

The Consent Decree requires that reasonable efforts be made to identify and interview any “civilian complainant or witnesses in person at a time and place that is convenient and accessible for the complainant or witness.” Dkt. No. 2-2 at ¶ 343. Additionally, audio or video recording shall occur. Id. at ¶344(d).

Here, unlike the previous section, the Monitoring Team did not restrict the analysis of complainant interviews to external cases because the complainant in internal cases generally should be interviewed as part of a quality investigation unless there are reasons not to do so. FTA cases could be considered as an exception. Such cases are essentially auto-generated when an officer fails to appear in court, and the record is completed with computer tracking – such that there is not

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necessarily a designated individual who is the source of the complaint. Consequently, there is no reason to interview the supervisor who administratively referred the complaint. In contrast, if an employee makes a misconduct referral on another employee, the complainant employee will need to be interviewed even though the referral is internal. Nevertheless, because the terms of the Consent Decree generally address only instances where there is an individual – either a member of the public or member of the Department – identified as the “complainant,” this report includes FTA cases within the results regarding complainant interviews. The Monitoring Team expects that the specific protocols that the Department is adopting via misconduct investigation policies and manuals will help to clarify the appropriate mechanisms for addressing the issue surrounding the nature of complainants and the utility of interviewing them in FTA cases going forward.

Complainant interviews occurred in only 41 percent of cases. Of cases where no interviews were conducted, some involved the failure of a complainant – sometimes repeatedly – to appear for scheduled interviews or to respond to investigator inquiries. For many others, however, there simply was no evidence that investigators attempted to conduct an interview. At first glance, it is counterintuitive that reviewers only agreed about whether there was a complainant interview in 26 of 40 cases. On a straightforward and critical question like “was the complainant interviewed,” generally the Monitoring Team would want to see higher agreement between reviewers. However, again, the state of the files was wholly inconsistent. There were many cases in which the investigator referred to a complainant interview, but there was no evidence (transcript, recording, or even analysis) that the interview actually occurred or was incorporated into the findings. This sort of inconsistency in the case files led to somewhat inconsistent results by reviewers. The overall takeaway, that BPD needs to interview all complainants when possible and clearly document the information gathered from the interview, remains clear.

Where interviews were conducted, only about half of them were confirmed to be audio recorded. The consistent failure to put either a transcript or audio recording into the case record, even when an interview was said to have been conducted, compromised the ability of reviewers to make thorough assessments of the quality of the interviews. Video recording was only used in three cases. No case suggested a need for translation or accommodations.

(Q31) Complainant

Yes

Interview9

No

UTD

Agree

9 Question 31, sub-question 7 asked whether there was a reported injury in the complainant’s interview and Q35 asked whether photographs of the injury were taken, or a medical release requested. As these questions were duplicative of Q66 and Q67, which more appropriately explored injuries in the context of the entire case, rather than in the specific context of the interview, the Monitoring Team removed these questions. Sub-question 7 was also misaligned
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Complainant interviewed? Interviews occurred at time/place convenient and accessible for witness? Permission requested to record interview? Interview videorecorded? Interview audiorecorded? Was there a request or apparent need for translation or accommodation? Were reasonable steps taken to gather evidence, documents in a timely manner? Was there appropriate focus on retrieving perishable items? Were all contacts logged?

99 (41.08%) 88.5 (36.72%) 36 (14.98%)
3 (1.24%) 43.5 (18.05%)
0
136.5 (56.64%)
63.5 (26.35%) 148 (61.41%)

Was complainant interview thorough and unbiased?
α = 0.780

51 (21.16%)

136 (56.43%) 99 (41.08%) 140.5 (58.30%) 201 (83.40%) 154.5 (64.11%) 223.5 (92.74%)
75.5 (31.33%)
69 (28.63%) 45 (18.67%) 77.5 (32.16%)

6 (2.49%) 53.5 (22.20%) 64.5 (26.76%) 37 (15.35%) 43 (17.84%) 17.5 (7.26%)
29 (12.03%)
108.5 (45.02%) 48 (19.92%)
112.5 (46.68%)

26/40 (65.00%)
6/8 (75.00%)
6/8 (75.00%)
8/8 (100.00%)
6/8 (75.00%)
5/8 (62.50%)
5/8 (62.50%)
26/40 (65.00%)
6/8 (75.00%)
6/8 (75.00%)

Although reviewers were unable to determine whether permission to record an interview was requested in 27 percent of cases, and confirmed that no permission was requested in 58 percent of cases, when permission was in fact requested, complainants consented in 97 percent of cases—all but one. It is not clear from the record why the one complainant refused to grant permission, as the

with the other sub-questions in Question 31, as it asked about content, not process. The alpha was significantly improved by removing the sub-question.
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refusal was not documented or a summary generated, but it does not generally appear that complainants object to having their interviews recorded.

(Q32) Did complainant grant permission to record the interview? (N=36 from Q31) (Q34) Re: the request or apparent need for translation or accommodation, was such translation/accommodation provided?

Yes 35 (97.14%)
0

No 1 (2.86%)
0

When complainant interviews were conducted and appropriate documentation included in the case file, Monitoring Team reviewers found those interviews generally adequate. When identifying specific deficiencies in investigations, reviewers could select one or more possible choices. Overall, in 90 percent of cases where an interview was conducted and there was sufficient documentation to reach conclusions, reviewers identified no significant deficiencies. Nine cases (9 percent of cases with complainant interviews) had one deficiency; and two cases (2 percent of cases with complainant interviews) had three deficiencies listed.

Reviewers consistently flagged the cases that were deficient, even if they gave slightly different reasons for the inadequacies. For example, the only case that identified “Leading Questions” also included “Appearance of Bias” and “Relevant questions left unanswered.” That case was doublereviewed and the second reviewer chose “Leading Questions” only. Nevertheless, both reviewers flagged deficiencies. In that case, the second reviewer was left with the impression that the investigator was attempting to discourage the complainant from continuing with her complaint (she was undeterred). Discouraging a complainant – which was identified as a serious issue in the Department of Justice Findings Letter – could be described in many different ways. However, the Monitoring Team is confident that deficiencies were flagged, even if the basis differed.

Monitoring Team reviewers found that questioning reflected bias in three cases. In one case, the complainant raised a concern about the assigned investigator having a conflict of interest with the complainant. The complainant and the investigator were interviewed about that allegation and then the case was administratively closed the same day with little explanation.

(Q37) Indicate any deficiencies or issues identified during each complainant interview

Leading questions noted

1

Inadequate questioning

5

Appearance of bias

3

Inconsistencies not addressed

0

Relevant questions left unanswered

5

Concerns about investigator demeanor

1

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INVESTIGATION: WITNESSES: SUBJECT/EMPLOYEE INTERVIEW

The subject employee was identified by the complainant in 66 percent of cases. Where the employee was not specifically identified in the complaint, investigators made all reasonable efforts to identify the subject employee about 62 percent of the time.

When subject employees were identified by the complainant, they were interviewed in only 44 percent of investigations. As officers rarely declined to be interviewed – that occurred only once across reviewed cases – the Monitoring Team’s hypothesis is that the failure to interview was the investigator’s decision.

(Q38) Did the complainant specifically identify the subject officer’s name(s)? (Q39) Did investigator(s) make all reasonable efforts to identify the officer(s)? (N=83 from Q38) (Q40) Involved employee(s) interviewed?

Yes 158 (65.56%)
51.5 (62.05%)
106.5 (44.19%)

No 83 (34.44%)
31.5 (37.95%)
134.5 (55.81%)

Agree 33/40 (82.50%)
5/7 (71.43%)
27/40 (67.50%)

(Q42) Regarding the employee not being interviewed (N=134.5 from Q40) Did employee(s) decline to be interviewed?

Yes 1 (0.75%)

Could employee(s) be identified/located?

78.5 (59.25%)

No

UTD

104 (78.49%) 27.5 (20.75%)
33.5 (25.28%) 20.5 (15.47%)

Agree
14/14 (100.00%
) 9/14 (64.29%)

Where interviews of officers occurred, reviewers found that more than half (59 percent) were adequate in that investigators reasonably pursued all relevant lines of investigative inquiry.

Bias (less than two percent of interviews), leading questions (four percent), actual contamination (less than one percent), and evidence of pre-interview questioning (less than two percent) were not common. OPR interviewers infrequently inquired into the possibility of witness contamination (only 10 percent of interviews). In nine of the ten interviews where investigators inquired about contamination, they also were found to have properly controlled for attorney interference –

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suggesting that some interviewers, in some cases, were able to take the type of appropriate investigative precautions necessary under the Consent Decree.

(Q41) Details of Subject/Employee Interviews (N=106.5) All relevant lines of investigative inquiry reasonably and adequately pursued? Possible bias noted (e.g., automatic preference for officer, disregard of complainant based on criminal history or guilty plea)? Leading questions used in the interview(s)? Evidence of potential contamination of employee accounts? Interviewer inquiry as to potential contamination of employee accounts? Evidence suggesting that preinterview questioning/discussion occurred prior to the interview? Interviewer prevent union representation from disrupting interview(s)?
α = 0.951

Yes 63 (59.43%) 2 (1.90%)
4.5 (4.27%) 1 (0.94%) 10.5 (10.00%) 2 (1.90%)
17.5 (16.51%)

No

UTD

15 (14.15%) 28 (26.42%)

70.5 (67.14%) 32.5 (30.95%)

63 (59.72%) 38 (36.02%) 73 (68.87%) 32 (30.19%) 55 (52.38%) 39.5 (37.62%) 75.5 (71.90%) 27.5 (26.19%)

51 (48.11%) 37.5 (35.38%)

Agree
8/13 (61.54%)
12/13 (92.31%)
11/13 (84.62%)
12/13 (92.31%)
10/13 (76.92%)
12/13 (92.31%)
9/26 (69.23%)

(Q43) Indicate any deficiencies or issues identified during each subject/employee

interview

Leading questions noted

2

Inadequate questioning

7

Appearance of bias

1

Inconsistencies not addressed

1

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Relevant questions left unanswered

9

Concerns about investigator demeanor

0

INVESTIGATION: CIVILIAN WITNESSES

The Consent Decree requires that reasonable efforts be made to identify and interview all witnesses and interview any “civilian complainant or witnesses in person at a time and place that is convenient and accessible for the complainant or witness.” Dkt. No. 2-2 at ¶343. Additionally, audio or video recording shall occur. Id. at ¶344(d).

Efforts to identify, locate, and interview civilian witnesses were not uniform in those cases where civilian witnesses were implicated, occurring in less than half (48 percent) of cases where experts determined that the efforts would have been applicable. Of those cases where civilian witnesses were identified, the civilians were interviewed only 38 percent of the time.

When civilians were interviewed, interviews were generally conducted at a time and place convenient for the civilian witness (78 percent), typically audio-recorded (65 percent), and generally adequate (78 percent). Remarkably, reviewers found no instances of bias, potential contamination, or evidence of any pre-interview questioning. Leading questions only surfaced in two cases. The main takeaway is that civilian interviews need to be pursued in all cases where such witnesses are identified, and that the record keeping of those interviews needs to be improved significantly.

(Q45) Effort to Contact Civilian Witnesses Sustained and reasonable efforts made to contact and interview witnesses All witness contact efforts logged?

Yes 62 (25.73%)
70 (19.05%)

No 58 (24.07%)
41.5 (17.22%)

UTD 10 (4.15%)
21.5 (8.92%)

N/A 111 (46.06%)
108 (44.81%)

(Q47) Were any civilian witnesses identified or reasonably implicated by the complaint, canvass, or investigation? (Q48) All identified civilian witnesses interviewed?

Yes 43.5 (18.05%)
16 (37.65%)

No
197.5 (81.95%)
26.5 (62.35%)

Agree
27/40 (67.50%)
1/ 2 (50.00%)

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(Q49) Details re: Civilian Witness Interviews (N=16 from Q48) Interviews occurred at time/place convenience and accessible for witness? Interviews video-recorded?

Yes

No

UTD

12.5 (78.13%)

0

3.5 (21.88%)

0.5 (3.13%) 11.5 (71.88%) 4 (25.00%)

Interviews audio-recorded? All relevant lines of investigative inquiry reasonably and adequately pursued? Possible bias noted?

10.5 (67.74%) 2 (12.90%) 3 (19.35%)

12.50 (78.13%)

0

3.5 (21.88%)

0

11.5 (74.19%) 4.5 (25.81%)

Leading questions used in the interview? Evidence of potential contamination of civilian witness accounts? Interviewer inquiry as to potential contamination of employee accounts? Evidence suggesting that pre-interview questioning/discussion took place prior to the interview? All witness interviews sufficiently memorialized for purposes of a full and complete investigative file?
α = 0.851

1.5 (9.38%) 0 0 0
12.5 (78.13%)

10.5 (65.63%) 14 (87.50%) 10.5 (65.63%) 13 (81.25%)
1.5 (9.38%)

4 (25.00%) 2 (12.50%) 5.5 (34.38%) 3 (18.75%)
2 (12.50%)

Agree
1/2 (50.00%)
1/2 (50.00%)
0/2
0/2 (0%)
1/2 (50.00%)
1/2 (50.00%)
1/2 (50.00%)
1/2 (50.00%)
1/2 (50.00%)
0/2 (0%)

(Q51) Indicate any deficiencies or issues identified during each civilian witness interview

(N=16 from Q48)

Leading questions noted

2

Inadequate questioning

0

Appearance of bias

0

Inconsistencies not addressed

0

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Relevant questions left unanswered

0

Concerns about investigator demeanor

0

INVESTIGATION: BPD OFFICER/EMPLOYEE WITNESS INTERVIEWS

The Consent Decree requires that:

BPD shall require its employees to cooperate with administrative investigations, including appearing for an administrative interview when requested by a BPD investigator, and providing all relevant documents and evidence under the person’s custody and control.

Id. at ¶ 347(d). Additionally, the Decree prohibits interviews of BPD employees from using leading questions and from discouraging the provision of a full account, and requires that BPD employee interviews be thorough and un-biased. Id. at ¶ 349.

BPD employees were implicated as possible witnesses in about one-third (35 percent) of cases. Of those, the employees were interviewed 61 percent of the time. As most of the employees identified could be located (62 percent) and none refused to testify, it again is concerning that investigators decided not to regularly interview such witnesses.

Audio recording was the most common means of capture at 74 percent of cases; about 4 percent were video recorded. However, as many of the audio recordings or transcripts were not included in the case files, reviewers frequently were unable to make determinations about the quality of interviews.

Most interviews of BPD employee witnesses were generally sound. No significant deficiencies were noted in 94 percent of cases where civilians were interviewed.

(Q53) Were any BPD officer/employee witnesses identified or reasonably implicated by the complaint or investigation? (Q54) Were the employee(s) interviewed?

Yes

No

84 (34.85%) 157 (65.15%)

51.5 (61.31%) 32.5 (38.69%)

UTD 0
0

Agree
32/40 (80.00)
8/9 (88.89%)

(Q55) Regarding the employee(s) not

Yes

being interviewed (N=32.5 from Q54)

No

UTD

Agree

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Employee(s) decline to be interviewed?
Employee(s) able to be identified/located?

0 20 (61.54%)

21.5 (66.15%) 11(33.85%)

6.5 (20.00%)

5.5

(16.92%)

3/3 (100.00%)
3/3 (100.00%)

(Q56) Regarding Interview(s) of

Yes

No

UTD

Agree

Involved Officer(s)/Employee(s)

(N=51.5 from Q54)

Interviews video-recorded?
Interviews audio-recorded?
All relevant lines of investigative inquiry reasonably and adequately pursued? Possible bias noted (e.g., automatic preference for officer, disregard of complainant based on criminal history or guilty plea) Leading questions used in the interview? Evidence of potential contamination of employee accounts? Interviewer inquiry as to potential contamination of employee accounts? Evidence suggesting that pre-interview questioning/discussion took place prior to the interview? Interviewer prevent union representation from disrupting interview α = 0.933

2 (3.96%) 39.5 (78.22%) 9 (17.82%) 37 74.00%) 5 (10.00%) 8 (16.00%)

32.5 (63.11%) 4.5 (8.74%)

14.5 (28.16%)

1 (1.94%) 36.5 (70.87%) 14 (27.18%)

1 (1.94%) 34.5 (66.99%) 16 (31.07%) 1 (1.94%) 36.5 (70.87%) 14 (27.18%)

4.5 (8.82%)

30 (58.82%)

16.5 (32.35%)

0

36 (70.59%) 15 (29.41%)

8 (16.16%)

24 (48.49%)

17.5 (35.35%)

5/5 (100.00%)
4/5 (80.00%)
3/5 (60.00%)
5/5 (100.00%)
5/5 (100.00%)
5/5 (100.00%)
3/5 (60.00%)
4/5 (80.00%)
3/5 (60.00%)

(Q58) Indicate any deficiencies or issues identified during the interview of

Officer(s)/Employee(s) (N=51.5 from Q54)

Leading questions noted

1

Inadequate questioning

2

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Appearance of bias

0

Inconsistencies not addressed

0

Relevant questions left unanswered

1

Concerns about investigator demeanor

0

INVESTIGATION: WITNESSES: LAW ENFORCEMENT (NON-BPD) WITNESS INTERVIEWS

Non-BPD law enforcement witnesses were identified as potential witnesses in fewer than 10 percent of cases. Those witnesses were interviewed about one-third of the time. This meant that only eight cases had non-BPD law enforcement witness interviews.

Most (81 percent) of non-BPD law enforcement witness interviews reasonably pursued all relevant lines of investigative inquiry, and there was no evidence of bias, leading questions, or contamination. One case showed evidence that there was pre-interview questioning. No non-BPD law enforcement witness refused to be interviewed.

(Q60) Were any non-BPD law enforcement witnesses identified or reasonably implicated by the complaint or investigation? (Q61) All identified non-BPD law enforcement witnesses interviewed? (N=23.5 from Q60)

Yes 23.5 (9.75%)
8 (34.04%)

No 217.5 (90.25%)
15.5 (65.96%)

Agree
35/40 (87.50%)

(Q62) Non-BPD Law Enforcement

Yes

Interview Details (N=8 from Q61)

No

UTD

Interviews video-recorded? Interviews audio-recorded? All relevant lines of investigative inquiry reasonably and adequately pursued? Possible bias noted Leading questions used in the interview? Evidence of potential contamination of witness accounts? Interviewer inquiry as to potential contamination of employee accounts?

0 7 (87.50%)
6.5 (81.25%) 0 0
0
0

7 (87.50%) 0.5 (6.25%)

1 (12.50%) 0.5 (6.25%)

0 6.5 (81.25%) 6.5 (81.25%)

1.5 (18.75%) 1.5 (18.75%) 1.5 (18.75%)

6.5 (81.25%) 1.5 (18.75%)

5.5 (68.75%) 2.5 (31.25%)

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Evidence suggesting that pre-interview questioning/discussion took place prior to the interview?

1(13.33%)

5 (66.67%) 1.5 (20.00%)

(Q64) Indicate any deficiencies or issues identified during the interview of law enforcement

(non-BPD) Witness (N=8 from Q61)

Leading questions noted

0

Inadequate questioning

0

Appearance of bias

0

Inconsistencies not addressed

0

Relevant questions left unanswered

0

Concerns about investigator demeanor

0

Other (write in)

1

INVESTIGATION: PHYSICAL EVIDENCE, DOCUMENTATION OF INJURIES

Complaints of injury or apparent injuries occurred in 6.4 percent of cases. The Monitoring Team confirmed that there were no injuries reported in 92 percent of cases—the vast majority. This includes cases where use of force by a BPD officer was at the core of the complaint, as well as cases where the complaint was about something else but an injury nonetheless occurred during the interaction at issue. Of the cases involving use of force-related allegations, more than half (56 percent) involved some complaint of injury by the complainant.

In the few cases that involved a complainant injury, the injuries were documented in about threequarters of cases, photographs were taken about two-thirds of the time, and medical records requested about half of the time. It is unclear why this information was not included, but moving forward, PIB will need to document subject injuries more consistently and/or clearly indicate why investigators were unable to do so.

Officer injuries were involved in only two cases, both of which were documented. Importantly, neither case involved injury inflicted by a suspect.

 A supervisor was attempting to cut a suspect out of a locked patrol car – the officer locked the keys inside – and was injured in the process.

 An officer was attacked by a dog responding to a call. The dog was shot.

Yes

No

UTD

15.5 (6.43%) 222.5 (92.32%) 3 (1.24%)

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(Q66) Was there a complaint of injury, or a readily apparent injury? (Q68) Were officers injured? (Q69) Were officer’s injuries documented?

2 (0.83%) 2 (100%)

236 (97.93%) 3 (1.24%)

0

0

(Q67) Regarding the complainant of injury Complainant injuries documented Photographs taken? Medical records release requested?

Yes

No

UTD

12 (77.42%) 9.5 (61.29%) 8 (51.61%)

2.5 (16.13%) 5 (32.26%) 4.5 (26.03)

1 (6.45%) 1 (6.45%) 3 (19.35%)

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

The Consent Decree, paragraph 351, clearly lays out the requirements for investigative reports for misconduct investigations:

At the conclusion of each investigation, misconduct investigators will prepare an investigation report. The report will include:

a. A narrative description of the incident, including a precise description of the evidence that either justifies or fails to justify the officer’s conduct based on the misconduct investigator’s independent review of the facts and circumstances of the incident;
b. Documentation of all evidence that was gathered, including names, phone numbers, and addresses of witnesses to the incident. In situations in which there are no known witnesses, the report will specifically state this fact. In situations in which witnesses were present but circumstances prevented the misconduct investigator from determining the identification, phone number, or address of those witnesses, the report will state the reasons why. The report also will include all available identifying information for anyone who refuses to provide a statement;
c. Documentation of whether officers or other BPD employees were interviewed, including audio and video and a transcript of those interviews, if available;
d. The names of all other BPD employees who witnessed the incident; e. The misconduct investigator’s evaluation of the incident, based on his
or her review of the evidence gathered, including a determination of whether the officer’s actions appear to be within BPD policy, procedure,

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regulations, orders, or other standards of conduct required of BPD officers; f. In cases where credibility determinations must be made, explicit credibility findings, including a precise description of the evidence that supports or detracts from the person’s credibility; g. In cases where material inconsistencies must be resolved between complainant, officer, and witness statements, explicit resolution of the inconsistencies, including a precise description of the evidence relied upon to resolve the inconsistencies; h. If a weapon was used, documentation that the officer’s certification and training for the weapon were current; and i. Documentation of recommendations for non-punitive corrective action or misconduct charges.

Reviewers found that, in 72 percent of cases, the investigative report narrative included a “description of incident that includes precise description of evidence that either justifies or fails to justify the officer’s conduct based on investigator’s independent review of facts/circumstances of the incident.” This requirement requires a comprehensive assessment of a report’s analysis of the evidence bearing on an investigator’s findings, and the Monitoring Team does not have confidence in these results, which seem very high given the generally low quality of the investigations reviewed.

(Q72) Narrative with description of incident that includes precise description of evidence that either justifies or fails to justify officer’s conduct based on investigator’s independent review of facts/circumstances of the incident?

Yes 173.5 (71.99%)

No 67.5 (28.01%)

Agree
31/40 (77.5%)

To probe these topline findings further, the Monitoring Team excluded cases which were administratively closed (which, by definition should not have included such a specific narrative). Of the cases that were definitively found not administratively closed, a full 81% did not have narratives meeting the standard. The Monitoring Team also found that FTA cases (which reviewers anecdotally indicated were more often complete) had the highest percentage of narratives; the CIU cases (which often had the most chaotic files) had the lowest.

Q82e Allegation closed or administrative closed
Yes

Narrative with description (Q72)

Yes

No

40 (39.6%)

61 (60.4%)

44

Total (N= (241) N=101

Case 1:17-cv-00099-JKB Document 342-1 Filed 09/30/20 Page 154 of 164

No UTD

25.5 (19.0%) 1.5 (25%)

108.5 (81.0%) 4.5 (75%)

N=134 N=6

(Q75) Did the investigative report include documentation that officer’s certification and training for the weapon were current?

3.5 (43.75%) 4.5 (56.25%)

70 percent of cases included sufficient documentation of evidence gathered, which is remarkably high given how incomplete many of the case files were. In 15% of cases where there were no known witnesses, there was not sufficient documentation to support the case resolution.

Only 22% of cases contained complete records of audio, video, or transcript evidence for all witnesses. The paucity of complete interview records greatly limited the reviewers’ ability to review cases and make determinations of adequacy based on a comprehensive, complete investigative record. Additionally, while reviewers were able to agree on whether there was sufficient documentation to support the case overall, agreement was poor on the more nuanced questions about sufficiency of evidence. Reviewers agreed on whether there was sufficient documentation of the evidence gathered 78% of the time, but agreement dropped into the 50% range for the more detailed questions. The alpha of 0.964 for this section suggests redundancy in the questions as well, so the Monitoring Team attributes these inconsistencies to repetitive questions and the confused state of the files reviewed. The Monitoring Team will consider revising this work flow in the next compliance review.

(Q73) Did the investigative report provide: Sufficient documentation of all evidence gathered (including names, phone numbers, addresses of witnesses, etc.)? Sufficient documentation if no known witnesses? Sufficient documentation of reason(s) why witnesses were unable to be identified or have

Yes 169 (70.12%)
43.5 (18.05%) 33.5 (13.90%)

No 54 (22.41%)
36 (14.94%) 18 (7.47%)

UTD 2.5 (1.04%)
3.5 (1.45%) 5.5 (2.28%)

N/A

Agree

15.5 (6.43%)

31/40

(77.50%)

158 (65.56%) 23/40 (57.50%)
144 (59.75%) 23/40 (57.50%)

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contact information collected? Sufficient documentation of identification of anyone who refused to provide a statement? Sufficient documentation of whether officers/other BPD employees were interviewed? Sufficient documentation of names of all other BPD employees who witnessed interviews? Audio, video, and/or transcripts of all witness interviews included?
α = 0.964

32.5 (13.49%) 123 (51.04%) 69.5 (28.84%) 53.5 (22.20%)

27 (11.20%) 49 (20.33%) 35.5 (14.73%) 109 (45.23%)

12.5 (5.19%) 3.5 (1.45%) 7.5 (3.11%) 7.5 (3.11%)

169 (70.12%) 65.5 (27.18%) 128.5 (53.32%) 71 (29.46%)

28/40 (70.00%)
23/40 (57.50%)
20/40 (50.00%)
22/40 (55.00%)

61 percent of cases provided sufficient evaluation of the incident based on the evidence; similarly, evidence was adequately examined in 62 percent of cases. Perhaps more significant, reviewers concluded that a full quarter of cases did not have a sufficient evaluation of the incident.

Overall, material inconsistencies were resolved adequately in only 34 percent of cases and credibility determinations about witness statements were properly made in only 35 percent of cases. Similarly, officer statements were critically evaluated in slightly more than 37 percent of cases and were not well evaluated in almost a quarter of cases. There was prior deception or untruthful statements by witnesses in 134 cases, but investigators in only six of those cases (4%) actually took this information into account. Overall, this shows a lack of rigorous analysis of evidence, even though a majority of evaluations (61%) were passable.

Additionally, throughout this section, very low agree rates appear that cast doubt on the reliability of the results. Overall, it appears that reviewers were simply throwing up their hands in frustration with their ability to tease information out of the files. Any section below with an interrater reliability below 60 percent should be taken as a general comment, not any kind of specific quantitative finding. The Monitoring Team believes that questions with lower agreement rates
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suffered from a problematic interplay of unorganized, highly chaotic case files and uncertainty among reviewers about how various elements of the presented file may, or may not, have satisfied Consent Decree requirements.

(Q76) Evaluation of the Incident in the Investigative report Sufficient evaluation of incident, based on review of gathered evidence, as to whether within policy, procedures, regulations, orders, or other standards of required conduct? Explicit credibility findings, including precise description of evidence supporting/detractin g from a person’s credibility? Explicit resolution or discussion of material inconsistencies, including precise description of evidence relied upon to resolve the inconsistencies? Evidence adequately examined and described?

Yes 147 (61.00%)
76.5 (31.74%) 82 (34.02%)
149.5 (62.03%)

No 60 (24.90%)
76 (31.54%) 55 (22.82%)
51 (21.16%)

UTD

N/A

17 (7.05%) 17 (7.05%)

10 (4.15%)

78.5 (32.57%)

7 (2.90%)

97 (40.25%)

17.5 (7.26%) 23 (9.54%)

Agree 26/40 (65.00%)
24/40 (60.00%)
10/26 (38.46%)
29/36 (80.55%)

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Credibility determinations about statements based on independent, unbiased, and credible evidence?

85.5 (35.48%)

47 (19.50%)

27.5 (11.41%) 81 (33.61%)

9/31 (29.03%)

Officer statements critically evaluated? 89.5 (37.14%)

Past deception/untruthful statements by witnesses, complainants, officers taken into account? Importance of evidence reasonably weighed? Testimonial evidence reasonably weighed? All relevant BPD officer activity in the incident and any evidence of potential misconduct

6 (2.49%)
141 (58.51%) 74 (30.71%) 120 (49.79%)

54 (22.41%) 23.5 (9.75%) 74 (30.71%)
89 (36.93%) 39 (16.18%) 107 (44.40%)

47.5 (19.71%) 17 (7.05%) 41.5 (17.22%) 11 (4.56%)

35.5 (14.73%)
114.5 (47.51%)

46.5 (19.29%) 31 (12.86%) 43.5 (18.05%)

14/34 (41.18%)
7/26 (26.92%)
22/37 (59.46%)
6/26 (23.08%)
20/36 (55.56%)

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uncovered, whether or not part of the original allegation, fully investigated and evaluated?

Sufficient documentation of recommendations for non-punitive action or misconduct charges?

64.5 (26.76%)

Sufficient documentation of whether additional training, counseling, or intervention was recommended?

30 (12.45%)

α = 0.963

51 (21.16%) 53 (21.99%)

9 (3.73%) 11 (4.56%)

116.5 (48.34%)
147 (61.00%)

9/29 (31.03%)
1/21 (4.76%)

Inconsistencies in the evidence were encountered in almost a quarter (23 percent) of cases. Where there were such inconsistencies, they were not resolved some 59 percent of the time. Moving forward, BPD will need to ensure that investigative reports expressly address and resolve material inconsistencies.

(Q77) Were there material inconsistencies between complainant, officers, witnesses, statements and/or amongst the evidence? (Q80) Were the inconsistencies appropriately resolved?

Yes 55 (22.82%)

No 186 (77.18%)

Agree 32/40 (80.00%)

22.5 (40.91%) 32.5 (59.09%)

4/6

(66.67%)

(Q78) What was the nature of the inconsistencies

Inconsistencies among statements

29.5

Video inconsistent with statement(s)

11

Inconsistent evidence

6.5

Other

8

(Q79) Did the investigator make and the investigative report state all reasonable efforts

to resolve material inconsistencies?

All inconsistencies reasonably addressed

17

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Inconsistencies not reasonably addressed

38

Finally, weapons were seldom used during incidents (3.32%, or eight cases), but in that small sample, the current state of the officer’s certification for use of that weapon was included in only three cases. The rarity of use of weapons makes it difficult to draw conclusions for this assessment measure, but clearly certification should be included in all cases moving forward.

(Q74) Was a weapon used or involved during the incident?

8 (3.32%)

233 (96.68%)

INVESTIGATIVE FINDINGS
Of the cases that resulted in disposition, the evidence met the standard of proof required to justify the disposition10 in 61 percent of cases; the evidence in more than one-quarter (27 percent) did not meet the standard. Also, as expected because these requirements were not implemented at the time of review, very few investigations considered patterns in officer behavior (16.4%), prior unsustained complaints (6%), or officer training records (less than 5%). Agreement and alpha for these questions were very good. Moving forward, PIB will need to significantly improve the quality of both investigations and investigator analysis to ensure that, in every investigation, the evidence meets the standard of proof required to justify the disposition. Further, PIB must adhere to Consent Decree requirements by examining patterns and past behaviors.
In approximately seven out of ten cases (72 percent), investigators expressly identified and recommended a specific disposition. In 33 percent of cases, however, the finding that investigators was “closed” or administratively closed.” This is remarkably consistent with the findings in the original investigation by the Department of Justice, which found that “BPD supervisors administratively closed 33 percent of all allegations received from 2010 through 2015—ensuring that the allegations would result in no further investigation or officer discipline.” Findings Report
10 As previously discussed, the relevant findings and standards of proof are: “Unfounded,” where the investigation determines, by clear and convincing evidence, that the alleged misconduct did not occur or did not involve the accused officer; “Sustained,” where the investigation determines, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the alleged misconduct did occur; “Not Sustained,” where the investigation is unable to determine, by a preponderance of the evidence, whether the alleged misconduct occurred; “Exonerated,” where the investigation determines, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the alleged conduct did occur but did not violate BPD policies, procedures, or training.
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at 142. Administratively closing cases without adequate investigation or without reaching disposition undermines the legitimacy the BPD’s system of accountability.

Reviewers said that 68 percent of allegations closed without disposition had documented supervisory approval for closure. The Monitoring Team does not have confidence in this figure. We believe that it is the result of (1) the chaotic nature of the reviewed files and (2) a lack of uniform operationalization among reviewers with respect to how the Consent Decree’s requirements for documentation will look like in practice. The Team suspects that some reviewers inferred approval from the fact that a case was documented as closed within the IAPro database. This is not necessarily the case.

(Q82) Investigative Findings For each misconduct allegation, did the investigator expressly identify and recommend a disposition of “unfounded,” “sustained,” “not sustained,” or “exonerated” explicitly identified and recommended by the investigator? Did findings consider patterns in officer behavior based on disciplinary history? Did findings consider prior complaints in which allegations were not sustained? Did findings consider officer training records? For any allegation, was the disposition "closed" or “administratively closed” used?

Yes 172.5 (71.58 %)
39.5 (16.39%) 14.5 (6.02%) 11.5 (4.77%) 78.5 (32.57%)

No

UTD

60.5 (25.10%) 8 (3.32%)

151.5 (62.86) 50 (20.75%) 168.5 (69.92%) 58 (24.07%) 173 (71.78%) 56.5 (23.44%) 156.5 (64.94%) 6 (2.49%)

Agree 35/40 (87.50%)
36/40 (90.00%)
33/40 (82.50%)
39/40 (97.50%)
29/40 (72.50%)

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Based on your review of the investigation, did the investigator’s recommended disposition of each allegation and/or finding meet the required level of proof? ("Preponderance of the evidence" for all dispositions other than "unfounded," for which required level of proof is "clear and convincing evidence").
α = 0.752

147 (61.00%)

64 (26.56%)

30 (12.45%)

30/40

(75.00%)

(Q83) Was the approval for the use of the "closed" or "administratively closed" disposition documented in writing? (N=78.5 from Q82e)

Yes

No

54 (68.79%) 24.5 (31.21%)

Agree
6/7 (85.71%)

ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW OF COMPLETED INVESTIGATION
The Consent Decree requires administrative review of completed misconduct investigations. Cases that are managed by supervisors at Districts must be forwarded through the chain of command to the District Commander to determine whether the evidence satisfies the standard of proof that justifies the recommended disposition, whether there are investigative deficiencies, and whether the investigation is complete and accurate. Dkt. 2-2 at ¶354(a).
All investigations are ultimately referred to the Director of OPR, to:
[R]eview the report to ensure that the report is complete, that it meets the requirements of BPD policy and this Agreement, and that the findings are supported by the appropriate standard of proof;

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[O]rder additional investigation when it appears that there is additional relevant evidence that may assist in resolving inconsistencies or improving the reliability or credibility of the findings . . . .
Dkt. 2-2 at ¶354(b).
Only about 44 percent of cases were timely forwarded through the chain of command for review. At the chain of command review, patterns in officer behavior based on disciplinary history were considered in only 14 percent of cases. Prior complaints that did not result in discipline and training records were almost never considered (5.6%).

(Q85) Was completed investigation timely forwarded through investigator’s chain of command to Director of OPR? Did review/findings consider patterns in officer behavior based on disciplinary history? Did review/findings consider prior complaints in which allegations were not sustained? Did review/findings consider officer training records? Was the disposition "closed" or "administratively closed" used?
α = 0.801

Yes 105 (43.57%)
33 (13.69%)
13.5 (5.60%)
13.5 (5.60%) 80 (33.20%)

No 98 (40.66%)
148.5 61.41%)
162 (67.22%)
160 (66.39%) 150.5 (62.45%)

UTD

Agree

38 (15.77%) 30/40 (75.00%)

59.5 (24.69%) 38/40 (95.00%)

65.5 (27.18%) 35/40 (87.50%)

67.5 (28.01%) 10.5 (4.36%)

40/40 (100.00%)
27/40 (67.50%)

(Q86) Was approval for "closed" or "administratively closed" disposition documented in writing? (N=80 from Q85e)

Yes

No

43.5 (55.06%) 35.5 (44.94%)

Agree 3/6
(50.00%)

In addition to all the specific investigation requirements, the Consent Decree requires BPD to “develop a process to ensure that completed misconduct investigations are evaluated for policy,

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training, tactical or equipment concerns, including any recommendations for how those concerns will be addressed.” CD at ¶352. Specifically, BPD should evaluate whether:

a. An assessment of whether the law enforcement action was in compliance with training and legal standards;
b. Other tactics were more appropriate under the circumstances; c. The incident indicates a need for additional training, counseling, or other
non- disciplinary corrective actions; and d. The incident suggests that BPD should revise its policies, strategies, tactics
or training.

Reviewers found that these assessments were rarely evident in the investigation files, with only 35 percent of cases clearly indicating that the conduct under investigation was in compliance with training and legal standards. Consideration of tactics (5.8%), training or counseling (11.4%), and changes to policy (7.8%) was infrequent.

POLICY, TRAINING, & TACTICAL CONCERNS

(Q88)

Yes

No

UTD

Law enforcement action was in compliance with training and legal standards?

84.5 (35.06%) 76 (31.54%) 80.5 (30.40%)

Other tactics were more appropriate under the circumstances?

14 (5.81%) 159.5 (66.18%) 67.5 (28.01%)

Incident indicates need for additional training, counseling, or other nondisciplinary corrective actions?

27.5 (11.41%)

154.5 (64.11%)

59 (24.48%)

Incident suggests that BPD should revise its policies, strategies, tactics, or training?

19 (7.88%)

169.5 (70.33%) 52.5 (21.78%)

Α = 0.912

Agree 31/40 (77.50%)
38/40 (95.00%)
35/40 (87.50%)
36/40 (90.00%)

The Consent Decree also imposes supervisory requirements for misconduct investigations. In addition, it imposes restrictions intended to protect against conflicts of interests for investigators, disqualifying as investigators and supervisors PIB staff who either witnessed the incident that is

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the subject of the investigation or had a business or personal relationship with the subject, the complainant. or a witness.

Meetings between OPR supervisors and investigators on investigative progress were only documented in about 4 percent of cases. Cases were only reassigned in 5.6 percent of cases, though the vast majority of those reassignments were documented.

Conflicts either with involved personnel or personnel with a personal or financial conflict of interest were identified in less than 1 percent of cases.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

(Q89)

Yes

No

Meetings documented between OPR

10.5 (4.36%) 174 (72.20%)

supervisors and investigators to

evaluate progress of an investigation

documented?

Was an employee who was involved in 2 (0.83%)

192 (79.67%)

or a witness to the incident conduct or

review the

investigation arising from the incident?

Did an employee with (1) an external

1 (0.41%)

185 (76.76%)

business relationship, or (2) a personal

relationship with a principal or witness

in the investigation conduct or review

the misconduct investigation?

Was the investigation reassigned to

13.5 (5.60%) 223.5 (92.74%)

another investigator at any point?

UTD 56.5 (23.44%) 47 (19.50%) 55 (22.82%)
4 (1.66%)

(90) Was the re-assignment documented?

Yes 11 (81.48%)

No 2.5 (18.52%)

55

 
 Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, May 8, 2015
Justice Department Opens Pattern or Practice Investigation into the Baltimore Police Department
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced today that the Justice Department has opened a civil pattern or practice investigation into Baltimore Police Department (BPD), pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The department’s investigation of BPD will seek to determine whether there are systemic violations of the Constitution or federal law by officers of BPD. The investigation will focus on BPD’s use of force, including deadly force, and its stops, searches and arrests, as well as whether there is a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing.
While the pattern or practice investigation is ongoing, the department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing will continue to work with BPD and the collaborative reform process that was started in October 2014 will convert to the provision of technical assistance to the BPD allowing for changes and improvements even as the pattern or practice investigation is underway.
“Our goal is to work with the community, public officials and law enforcement alike to create a stronger, better Baltimore,” said Attorney General Loretta Lynch. “The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has conducted dozens of these pattern or practice investigations, and we have seen from our work in jurisdictions across the country that communities that have gone through this process are experiencing improved policing practices and increased trust between the police and the community. In fact, I encourage other cities to study our past recommendations and see whether they can be applied in their own communities. Ultimately, this process is meant to ensure that officers are being provided with the tools they need – including training, policy guidance and equipment – to be more effective, to partner with civilians and to strengthen public safety.”
During the course of the investigation, the Justice Department will consider all relevant information, particularly the efforts that BPD has undertaken to ensure compliance with federal law, and the experiences and views of the community. The Justice Department has taken similar steps involving a variety of state and local law enforcement agencies, both large and small, in jurisdictions throughout the United States. These investigations have in many instances resulted in comprehensive, court-overseen agreements to fundamentally change the law enforcement agency’s police practices.
In addition to gathering information directly from community members, pattern or practice investigations involve interviewing police officers and local officials; gathering information from other criminal justice stake holders, such as public defenders and prosecutors; observing officer activities through ride-alongs and other means; and reviewing documents and specific incidents that are relevant to our investigation.
Pattern or practice investigations of police departments do not assess individual cases for potential criminal violations. The investigation into BPD is separate from the department’s concurrent criminal civil rights investigation related to the death of Freddie Gray.

This matter is being investigated by attorneys and staff from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. They will be assisted by experienced law enforcement experts. The department welcomes the views of anyone wishing to provide relevant information. Individuals who wish to share information related to the investigation are encouraged to contact the department at 1-844-401-3733 or via email at Community.Baltimore@usdoj.gov

 
 Home » Office of Public Affairs
JUSTICE NEWS
Head of the Civil Rights Division Vanita Gupta Delivers Remarks at Press Conference Announcing Findings of Investigation into Baltimore Police Department
Baltimore, MD, United States ~ Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Good morning. I’d like to start by thanking Mayor [Stephanie] Rawlings-Blake and Commissioner [Kevin] Davis – for their cooperation and leadership throughout the Justice Department’s investigation. I want to also thank my outstanding team from the Civil Rights Division for their tireless and focused efforts. Fifteen months ago – in the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s tragic death – we talked to community members, police officers, police union leaders, and city officials about the challenges related to policing in Baltimore. The Mayor, members of the City Council, members of Congress, and residents asked us to open a pattern-or-practice investigation into the Baltimore Police Department, which we launched in May 2015.
Since then, we talked to residents in every corner of Baltimore – from Roland Park to Sandtown. We interviewed command staff and rank-and-file officers. We participated in ride-alongs in each police district. We met with leaders of the police unions, religious organizations, advocacy groups, and neighborhood associations and reviewed their reports and publications. With law enforcement and statistical experts, we reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents – covering 2010 to 2016 – including policies and training materials; internal affairs files; data on stops, searches, and arrests; and use-of-force reports. Nearly everyone who spoke to us – from the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police, who showed us their 2012 report, “Blueprint for Improved Policing,” to the residents who shared serious concerns – agreed that the Baltimore Police Department needs sustainable reform. Indeed, the mayor and the commissioner have been aware of many of the problems that our findings report details, and have not stood still during our investigation, and I want to commend them for that.
We recognize the challenges faced by police officers in Baltimore and other communities around the country. Every day, police officers risk their lives to uphold the law and keep our communities safe. Investigatory stops, arrests – and, at times, force – are all necessary tools used by BPD officers to do their jobs and protect the safety of themselves and others. Providing policing services in many parts of Baltimore is particularly challenging, where residents and officers regularly confront complex social and economic challenges rooted in poverty; racial segregation; and deficient educational, employment, and housing opportunities. Baltimore residents, just like Baltimore police officers, want to address these challenges, to fight crime, and to ensure public safety. And our guide to policing amidst these realities must be the Constitution and federal anti-discrimination law.
Today, the Department of Justice announces the outcome of our investigation and issues a 163-page report detailing our findings. We conclude that there is reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution and federal anti-discrimination law. BPD engages in a pattern or practice of:
making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests; using enforcement strategies that produce severe and unjustified disparities in the rates of stops, searches, and arrests of African Americans; using excessive force; and retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally-protected expression.
These violations have deeply eroded the mutual trust between BPD and the community it serves, trust that is essential to effective policing, as well as officer and public safety. The problems in Baltimore didn’t happen overnight or appear in a day. The pattern or practice we found results from long-standing, systemic deficiencies at BPD. The agency fails to provide officers with sufficient policy guidance and training; fails to collect and analyze data regarding officers’ activities; and fails to hold officers accountable for misconduct. BPD also fails to provide officers with the necessary equipment and resources they need to police safely, constitutionally, and effectively.
But these systemic failures alone did not cause the problem. The police department’s “zero tolerance” street enforcement strategy became a quest to produce large numbers of enforcement actions – pedestrian stops in particular – often without enough consideration of their limited impact on solving crime and their caustic damage to community relationships. While today’s city leaders have recognized these issues, many in the BPD still continue to follow this strategy. Only 3.7 percent of the police department’s more than 300,000 pedestrian stops – from January 2010 to May 2015 – resulted in officers issuing a citation or making an arrest. Many of those stops and the resulting frisks lacked constitutional justification. And many of the discretionary arrests were simply streetclearing activities. Supervisors at BPD’s Central Booking and local prosecutors rejected over 11,000 charges made by BPD officers because they lacked probable cause or otherwise did not merit prosecution.
The city’s African-American residents and African-American neighborhoods bore the brunt of this activity. Out of the data we surveyed, the police department made roughly 44 percent of its stops in two small, predominantly African-American districts that contain only 11 percent of the city’s population. African Americans accounted for 95 percent of the 410 individuals the police department stopped at least 10 times. Indeed, one African-American man was stopped 30 times in less than four years – with none of the stops resulting in a citation or criminal charge.
We also found a pattern or practice of excessive force. For example, officers frequently resort to physical force when a person does not immediately respond to verbal commands, even where the person poses no imminent threat to the officer or others. Officers also end up in unnecessarily violent confrontations with people with mental health disabilities. We have seen in communities throughout the country that improved policies and enhanced training on de-escalation and dealing with people in crisis can enhance officer safety and reduce the need for force.
BPD also violates the First Amendment by retaliating against individuals engaged in constitutionally-protected activities. Officers frequently detain and arrest members of the public for engaging in speech the officers perceive to be critical or disrespectful. And BPD officers use force against members of the public who are engaging in protected speech.
Finally, although this pattern-or-practice investigation did not review the specific circumstances surrounding Freddie Gray’s death, we did investigate BPD’s transport practices. Our report identifies continuing concerns about the safety risks and lack of data in BPD’s transport practices.

We also identified deficiencies in the way BPD investigates sexual assaults.
Policing that violates the Constitution or federal law severely undermines community trust. Blanket assumptions and stereotypes about certain neighborhoods can lead to resentment of the police. And resentment can prevent the type of effective policing needed to keep communities and officers safe. We found incident reports that documented how witnesses wouldn’t share basic information with officers. We read several reports where the person who originally called the police or needed assistance refused to cooperate after becoming upset by the police response. When residents don’t trust the police, that distrust makes it harder for officers to prevent and solve crimes.
Proactive policing does not have to lead to these consequences. When the community trusts the police, residents work with law enforcement to ensure public safety. Effective proactive policing is community policing. It requires a different set of tactics than those employed by Baltimore for many years. Proactive policing requires officers and residents solving problems to build trust and to reduce crime.
I’d like to take this opportunity now to speak directly to the men and women of the Baltimore Police Department. We know that most officers in the Baltimore Police Department work hard to provide vital services to the community and to abide by the Constitution and federal law. We have seen you run toward danger to protect the community you serve, and we are grateful. We also know that to do your job well, to meet the highest standards of the profession, you need clear policies and state-of-the-art training. You need to be supported with today’s technology. In the 21st century, that means computers in your cars and other modern equipment to do your job well. You need to have adequate staffing and material resources to get the job done. And you need to know you will be recognized for the work you do – and treated fairly when your work is challenged.
In Baltimore, we see a city filled with vibrant, strong communities invested in their future. A city determined to engage in the tough but vital work needed to build real reform. Already, Baltimore has begun to build the foundation for reform. The police department has initiated changes to its policies, training, data management, and accountability systems. These are positive developments and a testament to the Mayor’s and Commissioner Davis’ leadership. To help support these changes, during our investigation, the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and Office of Justice Programs provided federal resources, including technical assistance, to the Baltimore Police Department, city officials, and community leaders.
I want to applaud and commend city officials for their collaborative, cooperative partnership. The Justice Department and the city have entered into an agreement in principle that identifies the types of reforms we plan to address as we prepare to negotiate a court-enforceable, independently-monitored consent decree. By entering into this agreement in principle, the city and the police department have shown their commitment to moving forward expeditiously.
The agreement in principle only represents a framework. In the coming months, we will use this framework to negotiate a comprehensive consent decree with the city. In the coming days, the Justice Department will be meeting with, and reaching out to, community members and law enforcement to hear your ideas about the kind of police department you want to see in your community. We need this entire community – and the energy of this entire community – to help us craft the details of our consent decree and drive real, lasting change in this city. So we urge all of you to stay engaged.
Whether here in Baltimore or around the country – police reform won’t happen overnight or by chance. It will take time, along with focused effort and sustained commitment. In communities across America, even in communities where trust has been broken, we’ve seen transformative reform rebuild relationships and advance public safety. And in the days ahead – because of the proactive leadership in this city; because of the energy and vibrancy of this community; and because of this police department’s desire for reform – together, we can shape that same progress right here in Baltimore. Together, we can build a stronger Baltimore: a Baltimore that protects the rights, safety, and dignity of all – residents and officers alike. Thank you very much. At this time, I will turn things over to Mayor Rawlings-Blake.

Topic: Civil Rights

Civil Rights Division Updated August 10, 2016

Report a Crime Get a Job Locate a Prison, Inmate, or Sex Offender Apply for a Grant

 
 Justice Department Announces Findings of Investigation into Baltimore Police Department
Justice Department Finds a Pattern of Civil Rights Violations by the Baltimore Police Department
The Justice Department announced today that it found reasonable cause to believe that the Baltimore City Police Department (BPD) engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution as well as federal anti-discrimination laws. BPD makes stops, searches and arrests without the required justification; uses enforcement strategies that unlawfully subject African Americans to disproportionate rates of stops, searches and arrests; uses excessive force; and retaliates against individuals for their constitutionally-protected expression. The pattern or practice results from systemic deficiencies that have persisted within BPD for many years and has exacerbated community distrust of the police, particularly in the African-American community. The city and the department have also entered into an agreement in principle to work together, with community input, to create a federal court-enforceable consent decree addressing the deficiencies found during the investigation.
“Public trust is critical to effective policing and public safety,” said Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch. “Our investigation found that Baltimore is a city where the bonds of trust have been broken, and that the Baltimore Police Department engaged in a pattern or practice of unlawful and unconstitutional conduct, ranging from the use of excessive force to unjustified stops, seizures and arrests. The results of our investigation raise serious concerns, and in the days ahead, the Department of Justice will continue working tirelessly to ensure that all Baltimoreans enjoy the safety, security and dignity they expect and deserve. I am grateful to all of the community members, local officials, faith leaders and current and former police officers who spoke with us during the course of our inquiry, and whose input will remain critical to our efforts as we move forward. Additionally, I commend the city and BPD for its proactive and collaborative approach to our inquiry and for demonstrating a strong commitment to restoring public confidence by already taking steps to make needed changes. I look forward to continuing our work together to implement urgent and necessary reforms.”
“We found that BPD has engaged in a pattern or practice of serious violations of the U.S. Constitution and federal law that has disproportionately harmed Baltimore’s African-American community and eroded the public’s trust in the police,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division. “The agency also fails to provide officers with the guidance, oversight and resources they need to police safely, constitutionally and effectively. In communities across America, even in communities where trust has been broken, we’ve seen transformative reform rebuild relationships and advance public safety. In the weeks ahead, as we negotiate our consent decree with the city, we will seek input from law enforcement and community members. With the city and commissioner’s commitment to reform, I am optimistic that we will work to drive that same progress in Baltimore.”
In May 2015, Attorney General Lynch announced the comprehensive investigation into the BPD after considering requests from city officials and hearing directly from community members about a potential pattern or practice of constitutional violations. The investigation focused on BPD’s use of force, including deadly force; stops, searches and arrests; and discriminatory policing.
In the course of its pattern or practice investigation, the department interviewed and met with city leaders and police officials, including BPD Commissioner Kevin Davis, former commissioners and numerous officers throughout all ranks of the police department; accompanied line officers on dozens of ride-alongs

in every police district; conducted hundreds of interviews and participated in meetings with community members, activists, and other stakeholders; reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of police documents, including all relevant policies and training materials; and analyzed BPD’s data on internal affairs, use of force, sexual assault cases and pedestrian stops, searches and arrests.
During the course of its investigation, the department found that the legacy of “zero tolerance” street enforcement, along with deficient policies, training and accountability systems, resulted in conduct that routinely violates the Constitution and federal anti-discrimination law. Throughout the investigation, the department heard consistently from both the community and law enforcement that BPD requires significant reforms to address problems that undermine its efforts to police constitutionally and effectively.
The department found reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of:
•! Conducting stops, searches and arrests without meeting the requirements of the Fourth Amendment;
•! Focusing enforcement strategies on African Americans, leading to severe and unjustified racial disparities in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Safe Streets Act;
•! Using unreasonable force in violation of the Fourth Amendment; •! Interacting with individuals with mental health disabilities in a manner that violates the
Americans with Disabilities Act; and •! Interfering with the right to free expression in violation of the First Amendment.
The department also identified serious concerns about other BPD practices, including an inadequate response to reports of sexual assault, which may result, at least in part, from underlying gender bias. Another significant concern identified by the department was transport practices that place detainees at significant risk of harm.
In the agreement in principle, both parties agreed that compliance with the consent decree will be reviewed by an independent monitor. The agreement in principle highlights specific areas of reform to be included in the consent decree, including:
•! Policies, training, data collection and analysis to allow for the assessment of officer activity and to ensure that officers’ actions conform to legal and constitutional requirements;
•! Technology and infrastructure to ensure capability to effectively monitor officer activity; •! Officer support to ensure that officers are equipped to perform their jobs effectively and
constitutionally; and •! Community policing strategies to guide all aspects of BPD’s operations and help rebuild the
relationship between BPD and the various communities it serves.
The agreement in principle provides a framework for change, but the department will be doing community outreach to solicit input in developing comprehensive reforms. Comments may be provided by email atCommunity.Baltimore@usdoj.gov.
Throughout the department’s investigation, BPD leadership remained receptive to preliminary feedback and technical assistance, and started the process of implementing reforms. BPD leadership has proactively taken steps to address some of the findings, including updating its policies, instituting new

trainings and responding to other issues identified by the department. While these measures are an important start to cooperative reform, a comprehensive agreement is still needed to remedy all of the department’s findings.
In October 2014, city and BPD leadership requested to enter a collaborative reform process with the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS office). While the Civil Rights Division opened the pattern or practice investigation in May 2015, the COPS office, the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs and others have maintained their ongoing efforts to offer federal resources, such as technical assistance, to the BPD, city officials and community leaders.
This investigation was conducted by the Civil Rights Division’s Special Litigation Section with the assistance of law enforcement professionals pursuant to the pattern or practice provision of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Over the last seven years, the Special Litigation Section has opened 23 investigations into law enforcement agencies. The section is enforcing 18 agreements with law enforcement agencies, including 14 consent decrees and one post-judgment order. For more information on the Civil Rights Division and the Special Litigation Section, please visitwww.justice.gov/crt.
!

 
 INVESTIGATION OF THE
 BALTIMORE CITY POLICE 

DEPARTMENT

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
 CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION
 August 10, 2016


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………3 I. Background............................................................................................................................................................... 12

A. Baltimore, Maryland............................................................................................................................................ 12
 B. The Baltimore Police Department ................................................................................................................... 15
 C. BPD’s Enforcement Priorities and Relationship with the Baltimore Community................................... 16
 D. Federal Involvement........................................................................................................................................... 19
 II. BPD Engages in a Pattern or Practice of Conduct that Violates the United States Constitution and Laws,
 and Conduct that Raises Serious Concerns .................................................................................................................. 21
 A. BPD Makes Unconstitutional Stops, Searches, and Arrests ........................................................................ 24

1. BPD’s Unconstitutional Stops, Searches, and Arrests Result in Part from Its “Zero Tolerance”
 Enforcement Strategy ............................................................................................................................................. 24
 2. BPD Unconstitutionally Stops and Searches Pedestrians........................................................................ 27
 3. BPD Makes Unconstitutional Arrests......................................................................................................... 34
 4. BPD’s Unconstitutional Stops, Searches, and Arrests Result from a Longstanding Practice of
 Overly Aggressive Street Enforcement with Deficient Oversight and Policy Guidance............................. 40
 B. BPD Discriminates Against African Americans in its Enforcement Activities........................................ 47
 1. BPD’s Enforcement Activities Disproportionately Impact African Americans.................................. 48
 2. Racial Disparities in BPD’s Enforcement, Along with Evidence Suggesting Intentional
 Discrimination Against African Americans, Exacerbates Community Distrust ........................................... 62
 C. BPD Uses Unreasonable Force ........................................................................................................................ 74
 1. BPD’s Overly Aggressive Tactics Unnecessarily Escalate Encounters and Result in Excessive
 Force .......................................................................................................................................................................... 76
 2. BPD Uses Unreasonable Force Against Individuals with a Mental Health Disability and Those in 
 Crisis and Fails to Make Reasonable Modifications When Interacting with Individuals with Mental 
 Health Disabilities.................................................................................................................................................... 80
 3. BPD Uses Unreasonable Force Against Juveniles And Ignores Widely Accepted Strategies For
 Police Interactions With Youth............................................................................................................................. 85

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4. BPD Uses Unreasonable Force Against People Who Are Not a Threat to Officers or the Public . 88 5. BPD’s Deficient Policies, Training, Crisis Intervention Program, and Lack of Oversight Underlie
 The Pattern Or Practice Of Excessive Force and Violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act..... 98
 6. BPD’s Transport Practices Create a Significant Risk of Harm.............................................................112
 D. BPD Unlawfully Restricts Protected Speech................................................................................................116
 1. BPD Unlawfully Detains and Arrests Members of the Public for Protected Speech .......................116
 2. BPD Retaliates by Using Force Against Individuals Who Engage in Protected Speech..................118
 3. Concerns that BPD Interferes with the Right to Record Public Police Activity ...............................119
 E. BPD’s Handling of Sexual Assault Investigations Raises Serious Concerns of Gender-Biased
 Policing......................................................................................................................................................................... 122
 1. Evidence of Gender Bias in BPD’s Response to Sexual Assault..........................................................122
 2. BPD Fails to Adequately Investigate Reports of Sexual Assault..........................................................123
 III. Systemic Deficiencies in BPD’s Practices Contribute to Constitutional Violations, Erode Community
 Trust, and Inhibit Effective Policing ...........................................................................................................................128
 A. BPD Fails to Adequately Supervise Its Officers’ Enforcement Activities ..............................................129
 1. BPD Does Not Provide Adequate Policy Guidance and Training to its Officers ............................129
 2. BPD Does Not Adequately Supervise Officers or Collect and Analyze Data on their Activities ..134
 B. BPD Fails to Adequately Support its Officers .............................................................................................137
 C. BPD Fails to Hold Officers Accountable for Misconduct.........................................................................139
 1. BPD Lacks Adequate Systems to Investigate Complaints and Impose Discipline ...........................140
 2. BPD’s Internal Culture is Resistant to Effective Discipline..................................................................149
 D. BPD Does Not Coordinate with Other Agencies Appropriately .............................................................154
 E. BPD Fails to Engage in Effective Community Policing.............................................................................156
 1. The Relationship Between the Police and the Community in Baltimore Is Broken .........................157
 2. BPD Has Failed to Implement Community Policing Principles ..........................................................158
 3. BPD Recognizes that It Must Improve Its Relationship with the Communities It Serves, But Much Work Remains........................................................................................................................................................159
 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………163

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Today, we announce the outcome of the Department of Justice’s investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department (BPD).1 After engaging in a thorough investigation, initiated at the request of the City of Baltimore and BPD, the Department of Justice concludes that there is reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution or federal law. BPD engages in a pattern or practice of:
(1) making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests;
(2) using enforcement strategies that produce severe and unjustified disparities in the rates of stops, searches and arrests of African Americans;
(3) using excessive force; and
(4) retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally-protected expression.
This pattern or practice is driven by systemic deficiencies in BPD’s policies, training, supervision, and accountability structures that fail to equip officers with the tools they need to police effectively and within the bounds of the federal law.
We recognize the challenges faced by police officers in Baltimore and other communities around the country. Every day, police officers risk their lives to uphold the law and keep our communities safe. Investigatory stops, arrests, and force—including, at times, deadly force—are all necessary tools used by BPD officers to do their jobs and protect the safety of themselves and others. Providing policing services in many parts of Baltimore is particularly challenging, where officers regularly confront complex social problems rooted in poverty, racial segregation and deficient educational, employment and housing opportunities. Still, most BPD officers work hard to provide vital services to the community.
The pattern or practice occurs as a result of systemic deficiencies at BPD. The agency fails to provide officers with sufficient policy guidance and training; fails to collect and analyze data regarding officers’ activities; and fails to hold officers accountable for misconduct. BPD also fails to equip officers with the necessary equipment and resources they need to police safely, constitutionally, and effectively. Each of these systemic deficiencies contributes to the constitutional and statutory violations we observed.
1 The Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division conducted the investigation pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141 (“Section 14141”), Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d (“Safe Streets Act”); and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131–12134. The investigation did not examine the actions of officers involved in Freddie Gray’s arrest on April 12, 2015, or the merits of any criminal or civil proceedings connected to that incident.
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Throughout our investigation, we received the full cooperation and assistance of BPD and the City of Baltimore. We interviewed current and former City leaders, including current BPD Commissioner Kevin Davis and former commissioners. We also interviewed current and former officers throughout the BPD command structure. We participated in ride-alongs in each district, interviewed numerous current and former officers individually, and met with the leadership of the Baltimore City Lodge No. 3 of the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents all sworn BPD officers. We also heard from hundreds of people in the broader Baltimore community who shared information with our investigation. We met with religious organizations, advocacy groups, community support organizations, neighborhood associations, and countless individuals who provided valuable information about their experiences with BPD. We thank everyone for sharing their experiences and insights with us.
In addition to these interviews, we reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, including all relevant policies and training materials used by the Department since 2010; BPD’s database of internal affairs files from January 2010 through March 2016; BPD’s data on pedestrian stops, vehicle stops, and arrests from January 2010 to May 2015; incident reports describing stops, searches, arrests, and officers’ use of non-deadly force from 2010 to 2015; all files on deadly force incidents since 2010 that BPD was able to produce to us through May 1, 2016; and investigative files on sexual assault cases from 2013 to 2015. We were assisted by a dozen current and former law enforcement leaders and experts with experience on the issues we investigated, and we retained statistical experts to analyze BPD’s data on its enforcement activities.2
In the course of our investigation, we learned there is widespread agreement that BPD needs reform. Almost everyone who spoke to us—from current and former City leaders, BPD officers and command staff during ride-alongs and interviews, community members throughout the many neighborhoods of Baltimore, union representatives of all levels of officers in BPD, advocacy groups, and civic and religious leaders—agrees that BPD has significant problems that have undermined its efforts to police constitutionally and effectively. As we note in this report, many of these people and groups have documented those problems in the past, and although they may disagree about the nature, scope, and solutions to the challenges, many have also made efforts to address them. Nevertheless, work remains, in part because of the profound lack of trust among these groups, and in particular, between BPD and certain communities in Baltimore. The road to meaningful and lasting reform is a long one, but it can be taken. This investigation is intended to help Baltimore take a large step down this path.
Recent events highlight the critical importance of mutual trust and cooperation between law enforcement officers and the people they serve. A commitment to constitutional policing builds trust that enhances crime fighting efforts and officer safety. Conversely, frayed community relationships inhibit effective policing by denying officers important sources of information and placing them more frequently in dangerous, adversarial encounters. We found these principles in stark relief in Baltimore, where law enforcement officers confront a long history of social and economic challenges that impact much of the City, including the perception that there are “two
2 In addition, the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) has been engaged in a collaborative reform process with the City and BPD. The COPS office has continued to provide technical assistance to BPD during our investigation, along with other components of the Department of Justice.
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Baltimores:” one wealthy and largely white, the second impoverished and predominantly black. Community members living in the City’s wealthier and largely white neighborhoods told us that officers tend to be respectful and responsive to their needs, while many individuals living in the City’s largely African-American communities informed us that officers tend to be disrespectful and do not respond promptly to their calls for service. Members of these largely African-American communities often felt they were subjected to unjustified stops, searches, and arrests, as well as excessive force. These challenges amplify the importance of using policing methods that build community partnerships and ensure fair and effective enforcement without regard for affluence or race through robust training, close supervision, data collection and analysis, and accountability for misconduct.
Starting in at least the late 1990s, however, City and BPD leadership responded to the City’s challenges by encouraging “zero tolerance” street enforcement that prioritized officers making large numbers of stops, searches, and arrests—and often resorting to force—with minimal training and insufficient oversight from supervisors or through other accountability structures. These practices led to repeated violations of the constitutional and statutory rights, further eroding the community’s trust in the police.
Proactive policing does not have to lead to these consequences. On the contrary, constitutional, community-oriented policing is proactive policing, but it is fundamentally different from the tactics employed in Baltimore for many years. Community policing depends on building relationships with all of the communities that a police department serves, and then jointly solving problems to ensure public safety. We encourage BPD to be proactive, to get to know Baltimore’s communities more deeply, build trust, and reduce crime together with the communities it serves.
Fortunately, the current leadership of the City and the BPD already have taken laudable steps to reverse this course, including by revising BPD’s use of force policies, taking steps toward enhancing accountability and transparency throughout the Department by, for example, beginning to equip officers with body worn cameras, and taking steps toward improving and expanding its community outreach to better engage its officers with the community they serve. Still, significant challenges remain.
Unconstitutional Stops, Searches, and Arrests
BPD’s legacy of zero tolerance enforcement continues to drive its policing in certain Baltimore neighborhoods and leads to unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests. Many BPD supervisors instruct officers to make frequent stops and arrests—even for minor offenses and with minimal or no suspicion—without sufficient consideration of whether this enforcement strategy promotes public safety and community trust or conforms to constitutional standards. These instructions, coupled with minimal supervision and accountability for misconduct, lead to constitutional violations.
• Stops. BPD officers recorded over 300,000 pedestrian stops from January 2010–May 2015, and the true number of BPD’s stops during this period is likely far higher due to under-reporting. These stops are concentrated in predominantly African-American neighborhoods and often lack reasonable suspicion.
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o BPD’s pedestrian stops are concentrated on a small portion of Baltimore residents. BPD made roughly 44 percent of its stops in two small, predominantly African-American districts that contain only 11 percent of the City’s population. Consequently, hundreds of individuals—nearly all of them African American—were stopped on at least 10 separate occasions from 2010– 2015. Indeed, seven African-American men were stopped more than 30 times during this period.
o BPD’s stops often lack reasonable suspicion. Our review of incident reports and interviews with officers and community members found that officers regularly approach individuals standing or walking on City sidewalks to detain and question them and check for outstanding warrants, despite lacking reasonable suspicion to do so. Only 3.7 percent of pedestrian stops resulted in officers issuing a citation or making an arrest. And, as noted below, many of those arrested based upon pedestrian stops had their charges dismissed upon initial review by either supervisors at BPD’s Central Booking or local prosecutors.
• Searches. During stops, BPD officers frequently pat-down or frisk individuals as a matter of course, without identifying necessary grounds to believe that the person is armed and dangerous. And even where an initial frisk is justified, we found that officers often violate the Constitution by exceeding the frisk’s permissible scope. We likewise found many instances in which officers strip search individuals without legal justification. In some cases, officers performed degrading strip searches in public, prior to making an arrest, and without grounds to believe that the searched individuals were concealing contraband on their bodies.
• Arrests. We identified two categories of common unconstitutional arrests by BPD officers: (1) officers make warrantless arrests without probable cause; and (2) officers make arrests for misdemeanor offenses, such as loitering and trespassing, without providing the constitutionally-required notice that the arrested person was engaged in unlawful activity.
o Arrests without probable cause: from 2010–2015, supervisors at Baltimore’s Central Booking and local prosecutors rejected over 11,000 charges made by BPD officers because they lacked probable cause or otherwise did not merit prosecution. Our review of incident reports describing warrantless arrests likewise found many examples of officers making unjustified arrests. In addition, officers extend stops without justification to search for evidence that would justify an arrest. These detentions—many of which last more than an hour— constitute unconstitutional arrests.
o Misdemeanor arrests without notice: BPD officers arrest individuals standing lawfully on public sidewalks for “loitering,” “trespassing,” or other misdemeanor offenses without providing adequate notice that the individuals were engaged in unlawful activity. Indeed, officers frequently invert the constitutional notice
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requirement. While the Constitution requires individuals to receive pre-arrest notice of the specific conduct prohibited as loitering or trespassing, BPD officers approach individuals standing lawfully on sidewalks in front of public housing complexes or private businesses and arrest them unless the individuals are able to “justify” their presence to the officers’ satisfaction.
Discrimination against African Americans
BPD’s targeted policing of certain Baltimore neighborhoods with minimal oversight or accountability disproportionately harms African-American residents. Racially disparate impact is present at every stage of BPD’s enforcement actions, from the initial decision to stop individuals on Baltimore streets to searches, arrests, and uses of force. These racial disparities, along with evidence suggesting intentional discrimination, erode the community trust that is critical to effective policing.
• BPD disproportionately stops African-American pedestrians. Citywide, BPD stopped African-American residents three times as often as white residents after controlling for the population of the area in which the stops occurred. In each of BPD’s nine police districts, African Americans accounted for a greater share of BPD’s stops than the population living in the district. And BPD is far more likely to subject individual African Americans to multiple stops in short periods of time. In the five and a half years of data we examined, African Americans accounted for 95 percent of the 410 individuals BPD stopped at least 10 times. One African American man in his mid-fifties was stopped 30 times in less than 4 years. Despite these repeated intrusions, none of the 30 stops resulted in a citation or criminal charge.
• BPD also stops African American drivers at disproportionate rates. African Americans accounted for 82 percent of all BPD vehicle stops, compared to only 60 percent of the driving age population in the City and 27 percent of the driving age population in the greater metropolitan area.
• BPD disproportionately searches African Americans during stops. BPD searched African Americans more frequently during pedestrian and vehicle stops, even though searches of African Americans were less likely to discover contraband. Indeed, BPD officers found contraband twice as often when searching white individuals compared to African Americans during vehicle stops and 50 percent more often during pedestrian stops.
• African Americans similarly accounted for 86 percent of all criminal offenses charged by BPD officers despite making up only 63 percent of Baltimore residents.
o Racial disparities in BPD’s arrests are most pronounced for highly discretionary offenses: African Americans accounted for 91 percent of the 1,800 people charged solely with “failure to obey” or “trespassing”; 89 percent of the 1,350 charges for making a false statement to an officer; and 84 percent of the 6,500 people arrested for “disorderly conduct.” Moreover, booking officials and prosecutors decline charges brought against African Americans at significantly
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higher rates than charges against people of other races, indicating that officers’ standards for making arrests differ by the race of the person arrested.
o We also found large racial disparities in BPD’s arrests for drug possession. While survey data shows that African Americans use drugs at rates similar to or slightly exceeding other population groups, BPD arrested African Americans for drug possession at five times the rate of others.
BPD deployed a policing strategy that, by its design, led to differential enforcement in African-American communities. But BPD failed to use adequate policy, training and accountability mechanisms to prevent discrimination, despite longstanding notice of concerns about how it polices African-American communities in the City. BPD has conducted virtually no analysis of its own data to ensure that its enforcement activities are non-discriminatory, and the Department misclassifies or otherwise fails to investigate specific complaints of racial bias. Nor has the Department held officers accountable for using racial slurs or making other statements exhibiting racial bias. In some cases, BPD supervisors have ordered officers to specifically target African Americans for stops and arrests. These failures contribute to the large racial disparities in BPD’s enforcement that undermine the community’s trust in the fairness of the police. BPD leadership has acknowledged that this lack of trust inhibits their ability to forge important community partnerships.
Use of Constitutionally Excessive Force
Our review of investigative files for all deadly force cases from 2010 until May 1, 2016, and a random sample of over eight hundred non-deadly force cases reveals that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of excessive force. Deficiencies in BPD’s policies, training, and oversight of officers’ force incidents have led to the pattern or practice of excessive force that we observed. We identified several recurring issues with BPD’s use of force:
• First, BPD uses overly aggressive tactics that unnecessarily escalate encounters, increase tensions, and lead to unnecessary force, and fails to de-escalate encounters when it would be reasonable to do so. Officers frequently resort to physical force when a subject does not immediately respond to verbal commands, even where the subject poses no imminent threat to the officer or others. These tactics result from BPD’s training and guidance.
• Second, BPD uses excessive force against individuals with mental health disabilities or in crisis. Due to a lack of training and improper tactics, BPD officers end up in unnecessarily violent confrontations with these vulnerable individuals. BPD provides less effective services to people with mental illness and intellectual disabilities by failing to account for these disabilities in officers’ law enforcement actions, leading to unnecessary and excessive force being used against them. BPD has failed to make reasonable modifications in its policies, practices, and procedures to avoid discriminating against people with mental illness and intellectual disabilities.
• Third, BPD uses unreasonable force against juveniles. These incidents arise from BPD’s failure to use widely-accepted tactics for communicating and interacting with
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youth. Instead, officers interacting with youth rely on the same aggressive tactics they use with adults, leading to unnecessary conflict.
• Fourth, BPD uses unreasonable force against people who present little or no threat to officers or others. Specifically, BPD uses excessive force against (1) individuals who are already restrained and under officers’ control and (2) individuals who are fleeing from officers and are not suspected of serious criminal offenses.
o Force used on restrained individuals: we found many examples of BPD officers using unreasonable force on individuals who were restrained and no longer posed a threat to officers or the public.
o Force used on fleeing suspects: BPD officers frequently engage in foot pursuits of individuals, even where the fleeing individuals are not suspected of violent crimes. BPD’s foot pursuit tactics endanger officers and the community, and frequently lead to officers using excessive force on fleeing suspects who pose minimal threat. BPD’s aggressive approach to foot pursuits extends to flight in vehicles.
We also examined BPD’s transportation of detainees, but were unable to make a finding due to a lack of available data. We were unable to secure reliable records from either BPD or the jail regarding injuries sustained during transport or any recordings. Nonetheless, we found evidence that BPD: (1) routinely fails to properly secure arrestees in transport vehicles; (2) needs to continue to update its transport equipment to protect arrestees during transport; (3) fails to keep necessary records; and (4) must implement more robust auditing and monitoring systems to ensure that its transport policies and training are followed.
• Our concerns about BPD’s use of excessive force are compounded by BPD’s ineffective oversight of its use of force. Of the 2,818 force incidents that BPD recorded in the nearly six-year period we reviewed, BPD investigated only ten incidents based on concerns identified through its internal review. Of these ten cases, BPD found only one use of force to be excessive.
Retaliation for Activities Protected by the First Amendment
BPD violates the First Amendment by retaliating against individuals engaged in constitutionally protected activities. Officers frequently detain and arrest members of the public for engaging in speech the officers perceive to be critical or disrespectful. And BPD officers use force against members of the public who are engaging in protected speech. BPD has failed to provide officers with sufficient guidance and oversight regarding their interactions with individuals that implicate First Amendment protections, leading to the violations we observed.
Indications of Gender Bias in Sexual Assault Investigations
Although we do not, at this time, find reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in
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gender-biased policing in violation of federal law, the allegations we received during the investigation, along with our review of BPD files, suggests that gender bias may be affecting BPD’s handling of sexual assault cases. We found indications that officers fail to meaningfully investigate reports of sexual assault, particularly for assaults involving women with additional vulnerabilities, such as those who are involved in the sex trade. Detectives fail to develop and resolve preliminary investigations; fail to identify and collect evidence to corroborate victims’ accounts; inadequately document their investigative steps; fail to collect and assess data, and report and classify reports of sexual assault; and lack supervisory review. We also have concerns that officers’ interactions with women victims of sexual assault and with transgender individuals display unlawful gender bias.
Deficient Policies, Training, Supervision, and Accountability
BPD’s systemic constitutional and statutory violations are rooted in structural failures. BPD fails to use adequate policies, training, supervision, data collection, analysis, and accountability systems, has not engaged adequately with the community it polices, and does not provide its officers with the tools needed to police effectively.
• BPD lacks meaningful accountability systems to deter misconduct. The Department does not consistently classify, investigate, adjudicate, and document complaints of misconduct according to its own policies and accepted law enforcement standards. Instead, we found that BPD personnel discourage complaints from being filed, misclassify complaints to minimize their apparent severity, and conduct little or no investigation. As a result, a resistance to accountability persists throughout much of BPD, and many officers are reluctant to report misconduct for fear that doing so is fruitless and may provoke retaliation. The Department also lacks adequate civilian oversight—its Civilian Review Board is hampered by inadequate resources, and the agency’s internal affairs and disciplinary process lacks transparency.
• Nor does BPD employ effective community policing strategies. The Department’s current relationship with certain Baltimore communities is broken. As noted above, some community members believe that the Department operates as if there are “two Baltimores” in which the affluent sections of the City receive better services than its impoverished and minority neighborhoods. This fractured relationship exists in part because of the Department’s legacy of zero tolerance enforcement, the failure of many BPD officers to implement community policing principles, and the Department’s lack of vision for engaging with the community.
• BPD fails to adequately supervise officers through policy guidance and training. Until recently, BPD lacked sufficient policy guidance in critical areas, such as bias-free policing and officers’ use of batons and tasers. In other areas, such as its policy governing “stop and frisk,” BPD policy conflicts with constitutional requirements. The Department likewise lacks effective training on important areas, such as scenario-based training for use of force, an adequate Field Training program; and supervisory or leadership training.
• BPD also fails to collect data on a range of law enforcement actions, and even when it collects data, fails to store it in systems that are capable of effective tracking and analysis.
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Partly as a result, the BPD does not use an effective early intervention system to detect officers who may benefit from additional training or guidance to ensure that they do not commit constitutional and statutory violations.
• In addition, BPD fails to adequately support its officers with adequate staffing and material resources. The Department lacks effective strategies for staffing, recruitment and retention, forcing officers to work overtime after long shifts, lowering morale, and leading to officers working with deteriorated decision-making skills. Moreover, BPD lacks adequate technology infrastructure and tools that are common in many similarsized law enforcement agencies, such as in-car computers. These technology deficits create inefficiencies for officers and inhibit effective data collection and supervision. The City must invest in its police department to ensure that officers have the tools they need to properly serve the people of Baltimore.
***
Notwithstanding our findings, we are heartened by the support for police reform throughout BPD the City, and the broader Baltimore community. Based on the cooperation and spirit of engagement we witnessed throughout our investigation, we are optimistic that we will be able to work with the City, BPD, and the diverse communities of Baltimore to address the issues described in our findings and forge a court-enforceable agreement to develop enduring remedies to the constitutional and statutory violations we found. Indeed, although much work remains, BPD has already begun laying the foundation for reform by self-initiating changes to its policies, training, data management, and accountability systems.
To that end, the Department of Justice and the City have entered into an Agreement in Principle that identifies categories of reforms the parties agree must be taken to remedy the violations of the Constitution and federal law described in this report. Both the Justice Department and the City seek input from all communities in Baltimore on the reforms that should be included in a comprehensive, court-enforceable consent decree to be negotiated by the Justice Department and the City in the coming months, and then entered as a federal court order.
As we have seen in jurisdictions across America, it is possible for law enforcement agencies to enhance their effectiveness by promoting constitutional policing and restoring community partnerships. Strengthening community trust in BPD will not only increase the effectiveness of BPD’s law enforcement efforts, it will advance officer and public safety in a manner that serves the entire Baltimore community. Together with City officials and the people of Baltimore, we will work to make this a reality.
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I. BACKGROUND

A. BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Baltimore is the largest city in the state of Maryland with a population of approximately 621,000. The Baltimore metropolitan area’s 2.7 million residents make it the nation’s 21st largest urban center. The City’s population is approximately 63 percent African American, 30 percent white, and 4 percent Hispanic or Latino.3 While the City hosts a number of successful institutions and businesses,4 most economic measures show that large portions of Baltimore’s population struggle economically. Compared to national averages, Baltimore exhibits: lower incomes, with a median household income nearly 20 percent lower than the national average; higher poverty rates, with 24.2 percent of individuals living below the federal poverty level;5 elevated unemployment, with a rate hovering around 7 percent, and average unemployment rates per month that were 50 percent higher than the national average from 2014 to 2015.6 Baltimore also scores below national averages in education: 80.9 percent of the population has graduated from high school, while 27 percent has a bachelor’s degree or higher.7 In most grades and subjects, the percentage of students below basic proficiency in Baltimore was twice the rate seen in Maryland as a whole.8
These socioeconomic challenges are pronounced among Baltimore’s African-American population, owing in part to the City’s history of government-sponsored discrimination. Schools and many other public institutions in the City remained formally segregated until the 1950s, and stark residential segregation has marked the City’s history. In 1910, Baltimore became the first city in America to pass an ordinance establishing block-by-block segregation, a policy that was followed by other discriminatory practices, including restrictive covenants, aggressive redlining, a contract system for housing loans, and racially targeted subprime loans.9 This legacy continues to impact current home ownership patterns, as Baltimore remains among the most segregated cities in the country.10 In 2008, the City of Baltimore sued Wells Fargo under the Fair Housing Act, alleging that the company steered minority homebuyers into subprime loans. To settle this litigation, Wells Fargo agreed to provide $4.5 million in lending assistance to Baltimore residents and $3 million to address
3 U. S. Census Bureau, “American FactFinder - Results,” accessed April 11, 2016,
 http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF.
 4 For example, Baltimore is the headquarters for Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Under Armour, Inc., and Legg
 Mason, Inc., among many others.
 5 U. S. Census Bureau, “American FactFinder - Results,” accessed April 11, 2016,
 http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF.
 6 Department of Labor, Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) - Workforce Information & Performance,
 https://www.dllr.state.md.us/lmi/laus/.
 7 Bureau, “American FactFinder - Results.” Nationally, over 88 percent of adult Americans have high school diplomas 
 and 32 percent hold a bachelor’s degree or higher.
 8 National Center for Education Statistics Institute of Education Sciences, 2009 National Assessment of Educational 
 Proficiency data explorer, http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/dataset.aspx.
 9 See generally Antero Pietila, NOT IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD (2010). 
 10 Frey W.H., New Racial Segregation Measures for States and Large Metropolitan Areas: Analysis of the 2005–2009 American
 Community Survey, http://censusscope.org/ACS/Segregation.html

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issues connected to foreclosures.11 Certain neighborhoods, such as all of the census tracts in South Baltimore, have been at least 90 percent white since the 1970s. Other areas, including all of the tracts in Cherry Hill, Sandtown-Winchester, and Upton/Druid Hill, have been at least 90 percent black for the past five census periods and are currently more than 95 percent black.12
11 Similarly, Wells Fargo paid $234 million to settle a Fair Housing Act and Equal Credit Opportunity Act suit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice that alleged discriminatory lending practices against minorities, including payments to the City of Baltimore and many Baltimore residents that were alleged victims of the discriminatory practices. Wells Fargo agreed to provide $5.7 million in down payment assistance and pay an additional $1.6 million directly to victims with homes in the City. 12 Place Matters for Health in Baltimore: Ensuring Opportunities for Good Health for all, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, November 2012, 19-20; 9. http://jointcenter.org/docs/40925_JCBaltimoreReport.pdf
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This history of racial discrimination has created persistent racial disparities in economic opportunity and education. Roughly 100,000 African American Baltimore residents live in poverty, accounting for more than three-fourths of Baltimoreans who do so. Many communities, particularly low-income communities, confront grave challenges with respect to upward mobility. Indeed, a recent Harvard University study found that Baltimore has the least upward mobility in America. In the nation’s 100 largest jurisdictions, Baltimore’s children face the worst odds of escaping poverty.13 Consequently, the unemployment rate among African Americans is roughly double that of white individuals. In addition, white adults are 3.5 times more likely than black adults to have earned a bachelor’s degree. African Americans are also significantly less likely to hold a high school diploma.14 Moreover, white children make up one percent or less of the student body in numerous schools that serve disproportionately low-income children, perpetuating segregation by race and class.15
The impacts of segregation and economic inequality are further evident in lead poisoning patterns across Baltimore. The City has nearly three times the national rate of lead poisoning among children. This burden weighs heaviest on poor, African-American communities. The areas with the highest percentage of children with elevated blood lead levels are the heavily African-American neighborhoods of Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park (7.4 percent), Midway/Coldstream (6.1 percent), and Edmondson Village (5.3 percent).16 According to the Center for Disease Control, even low levels of lead are associated with learning and behavioral problems, including decreased cognitive performance.17
While crime rate in urban America has declined significantly since the 1990s, Baltimore has experienced violent crime rates relatively higher than many other large cities. According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in 2014 Baltimore had the sixth highest rate of violent crimes out of the country’s 76 cities with at least 250,000 residents. Baltimore’s violent crime rate is roughly equal to that of Cleveland, albeit lower than the rate of violent crime in Detroit, Memphis, and Milwaukee.18 This past year reflected a notable surge in violence. On a per-capita basis, 2015 was the deadliest year in Baltimore’s history with 344 homicides. The City’s overall gun violence increased more than 75 percent compared to the previous year, with more than 900 people shot. As
13 Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren, The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility, Harvard University, April 2015. http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/images/nbhds_exec_summary.pdf 14 Place Matters for Health in Baltimore: Ensuring Opportunities for Good Health for all, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, November 2012, 11. http://jointcenter.org/docs/40925_JCBaltimoreReport.pdf 15 Ayscue, J. B., & Orfield, G. (2015). School district lines stratify educational opportunity by race and poverty. Race and Social Problems, 7(1), 5–20. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.princeton.edu/10.1007/s12552-014-9135-0 16 Vital Signs, Baltimore Neighborhoods Indicator Alliances, http://bniajfi.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/04/VS12_Children_and_Health.pdf. 17 Center for Disease Control, “Childhood Lead Poisoning Data, Statistics, and Surveillance,” accessed June 14, 2016, http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/data/index.htm.; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Toxicology Program Monograph: Health Effects of Low-Level Lead, June 2012, http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/ohat/lead/final/monographhealtheffectslowlevellead_newissn_508.pdf; Aimin Chen et al., “Lead Exposure, IQ, and Behavior in Urban 5- to 7-Year-Olds: Does Lead Affect Behavior Only by Lowering IQ?,” Pediatrics 119, No. 3 (March 1, 2007): e650–58, doi:10.1542/peds.2006-1973. 18 In Section II.B, infra, we compare law enforcement activity in these cities with enforcement actions taken by BPD.
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in other major cities, gang activity and a drug economy are also prominent features of Baltimore’s crime landscape, although Baltimore residents use drugs at similar rates to the national average.19
Despite such challenges, Baltimore remains a vibrant cultural center in the region. It has a significant concentration of educational, medical, cultural, and sports institutions, and a rich collection of neighborhoods. As we heard throughout our investigation, residents take great pride in their neighborhoods and their City as a whole, and have invested deeply in them. These residents are supported by a vast array of community leaders, grassroots organizations, and service providers, and together they comprise a resilient and diverse collection of communities.
B. THE BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT
The Baltimore Police Department, or BPD, is the eighth largest municipal police department in the nation. BPD employs nearly 3,000 personnel, including approximately 2,600 sworn officers, although this number has declined over the last year. The Department is led by a police commissioner appointed by the mayor of Baltimore and approved by the Baltimore City Council. The current commissioner is Kevin Davis, who was appointed interim commissioner by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake on July 8, 2015, and sworn into the position permanently on October 19, 2015.
Most BPD officers work in either the Patrol Division or the Criminal Investigations Division, each of which is overseen by a chief.20 Patrol officers are divided geographically among nine police districts that include local police stationhouses, referred to as district headquarters. Each district has a captain and is led by a major whose primary responsibility is directing enforcement activities and supervising officers. BPD currently employs approximately 1,300 patrol officers who have primary responsibility for responding to calls for service and patrolling Baltimore streets.
The Criminal Investigation Division and Operational Investigation Division house BPD’s specialized units, such as the Homicide Section, and the Special Investigation Section, which focus on investigating violent offenders, gangs, and gun crimes across Baltimore. The Division includes units that perform tactical operations, use special weapons, and serve warrants. The names of these specialized enforcement units have changed several times over the past decade. Special enforcement units have previously been called the Violent Crime Impact Division (VCID), Violent Crime Impact Section (VCIS), and the Violent Repeat Offender Unit (VRO). BPD also assigns a small number of officers to its Community Collaboration Division, which focuses on building police-community relations throughout the City.
The Department has a complex process for accountability that is detailed in Section III(C), infra. BPD allows district supervisors to resolve complaints of officer misconduct that are deemed less serious offenses, carrying punishment of no more than a three-day suspension. Complaints deemed to allege more serious misconduct are assigned to the Internal Investigation Division. In
19 According to data collected by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 42.9 percent of
 Baltimore residents over age 12 have used marijuana, compared to 40.7 percent nationally. For drugs other than 
 marijuana, SAMHSA reports that 3.28 percent of Baltimore adults have used these drugs within the past 30 days,
 compared to 3.35 percent nationally.
 20 BPD also has an Administrative Bureau that consists of booking, human resources, information services, inspections,
 and other management functions.

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addition, Baltimore established a Civilian Review Board to provide a public voice in BPD’s accountability process. Members of the public can lodge complaints with the Board directly, and BPD is required by statute to share with the Board all complaints it receives that fit within certain categories, including excessive force and discourtesy. The Board is authorized to conduct parallel investigations and make disciplinary recommendations. In practice, however, the Board’s role has been diminished by severely limited investigative resources, inconsistent complaint referrals from BPD, and the City’s failure to fill the Board’s seats.
BPD officers are represented by the Fraternal Order of the Police Lodge No. 3 (FOP), which has a collective-bargaining contract with the City and serves as the sole collective-bargaining agent for officers below the rank of lieutenant, making membership inclusive of both line officers and their direct supervisors. In addition to the FOP, the Vanguard Justice Society, Inc., is a membership organization that advocates on behalf of minority officers. BPD did not hire its first African-American officer until 1937 and did not allow minority officers to drive patrol cars until 1966. Prior to 1966, the Department’s small number of African-American officers were required to work foot patrol and were not permitted to work in predominantly white neighborhoods. In recent years, the Department has made efforts to attract and promote minority candidates. As of 2015, African Americans accounted for approximately 42 percent of BPD officers. About one-fifth of BPD officers are women. Most BPD officers are neither originally from Baltimore nor live in the City, and many commute long distances to work at the Department. Indeed, BPD leadership informed us that roughly three-fourths of BPD officers live outside the Baltimore City limits.
BPD coordinates with several auxiliary law enforcement agencies, and has done so increasingly in recent years to compensate when districts do not have sufficient officers to staff shifts. These agencies include the Baltimore School Police, the police force of the Baltimore City Public School System. Baltimore School Police officers have all the powers of law enforcement officers in the state, including arrest powers.21 A memorandum of understanding between the Public School System and BPD authorizes the school police to “exercise full police power anywhere within the jurisdiction of the City of Baltimore,” and to assist in investigations and follow-up in criminal cases.22 The deployment plan for the school police indicates that these officers are assigned to foot patrol, bike units, and mobile response units outside of schools.23 These officers also respond to calls for service in the City when BPD patrol shifts are understaffed.
C. BPD’S ENFORCEMENT PRIORITIES AND RELATIONSHIP WITH THE BALTIMORE COMMUNITY
Baltimore’s legacy of government-sanctioned discrimination, serious health hazards, and high rates of violent crime have persisted and compounded for years—making Baltimore a challenging city to police fairly and effectively. Indeed, officers convey that working in Baltimore affords a uniquely intense and demanding experience. One member of BPD recently asserted, “a
21 Md. Code Ann., Educ. §§4–318 (c) and (d)(1) (2015).
 22 Memorandum of Understanding between the Baltimore City Public School System and Baltimore Police Department
 at 1–2 (June 27, 2007).
 23 Marshall T. Goddwin, Chief, Baltimore School Police Force, Deployment For SY 2015/2016, July 2, 2015.

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five-year cop in the city has the equivalent experience of a ten-year cop anywhere else.”24 These challenges are amplified by long-simmering distrust of law enforcement from segments of the Baltimore community. Indeed, when asked when community distrust of Baltimore law enforcement began, a former top city official deadpanned to Justice Department officials, “1729”—the year of the City’s founding. These tensions hardened during the 1990s and 2000s as the City responded to increasing violent crime rates by emphasizing an aggressive, “zero tolerance” policing strategy that prioritized making large numbers of stops, searches, and arrests—often for misdemeanor street offenses like loitering and disorderly conduct. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, arresting large numbers of people for minor offenses was central to BPD’s enforcement paradigm; in 2005, BPD made more than 108,000 arrests, most for nonviolent offenses.
Arrest numbers declined starting in the late 2000s in response to falling crime rates and efforts to move towards a more holistic policing model focused on building community partnerships. Indeed, current BPD Commissioner Davis and his predecessor, Anthony W. Batts, have both acknowledged publicly that the zero tolerance approach to policing eroded community trust and impeded efforts to build partnerships that are central to effective policing. Despite these efforts, however, the legacy of zero tolerance persists in many aspects of the Department’s enforcement. Many supervisors who were inculcated in the era of zero tolerance continue to focus on the raw number of officers’ stops and arrests, rather than more nuanced measures of performance. As one example of this approach, supervisors frequently encourage officers to “clear corners”—an instruction many officers understand to stop, disperse, or arrest groups of individuals standing on public sidewalks. The continued emphasis on these types of “stats” drives BPD’s tendency to stop, search, and arrest significant numbers of individuals on Baltimore streets—often without requisite legal justification and in situations that put officers in adversarial encounters that have little connection to public safety. Although arrest numbers have declined from their peak in the mid-2000s, BPD officers made over 200,000 arrests and 300,000 pedestrian stops in the five years of data we examined.25
A diverse array of stakeholders has highlighted problems with BPD’s policing strategy. For example, the Fraternal Order of Police’s 2012 Blueprint for Improved Policing in Baltimore advocates discontinuing the practice of rewarding statistically driven arrests, noting:
[N]umbers drive everything in the BPD, which has led to misplaced priorities. As a result, officers in the BPD feel pressure to achieve numbers for perception’s sake… The focus on assigning blame for less-than-satisfactory numbers… rather than problem-solving, is completely unproductive and weakens the collective morale of the BPD.26
City officials also admit that the Department’s approach has been problematic. Mayor RawlingsBlake has long recognized the need for reform and repeatedly criticized the aggressive policing
24 Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, Blueprint for Improved Policing, 5, http://www.fop3.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/05/blueprint.pdf. 25 As explained further in Section II.A, the true number of pedestrian stops is likely several times higher than the recorded figure due to BPD’s under-reporting. 26 Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, Blueprint for Improved Policing, 8–9, http://www.fop3.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/05/blueprint.pdf
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strategies championed in the years before her term. In September 2013, she told residents, “As this conversation is going on, there is an anxiety that is building in some of our communities that we're going back to a time when communities felt like their kids were under siege . . . I want to allay any concerns out there that that is the tactic we're going to return to. That's not going to happen.”27 And in the fall of 2014, her administration noted that the zero tolerance strategy “ignited a rift between the citizens and the police, which still exists today” and that there is a “broken relationship” between law enforcement officials and community members.28
The larger Baltimore community has voiced similar concerns. News outlets, community advocates, and grassroots organizations have frequently criticized Baltimore’s approach to policing. In 2006, the ACLU of Maryland sued BPD over its alleged pattern of making high numbers of unlawful stops and arrests. In addition, the police department has long faced allegations of unreasonable force. In some of these allegations, the police interactions were fatal. In others, Baltimore residents were left severely and permanently injured. In September 2014, the Baltimore Sun published “Undue Force,” an article documenting cases of alleged police brutality and the millions of dollars the city has paid to settle lawsuits alleging that officers used excessive force. The article notes that more than 100 people have won court judgments or settlements related to allegations of brutality and civil rights violations since 2010.29 More recently, No Boundaries Coalition, a resident-led advocacy organization operating in West Baltimore, released a report in March 2016 detailing stories of police misconduct told by witnesses and victims in the SandtownWinchester neighborhood. The community recollections reveal a belief that there is racism in law enforcement, unnecessary force and verbal abuse, an “us-versus-them” attitude among police officers, a lack of positive interactions with the police, and strong feelings of recrimination, resentment, fear, and mistrust among residents.30
In 2012, Mayor Rawlings-Blake hired Commissioner Batts to initiate reforms throughout the police department. The following year, Commissioner Batts issued Public Safety in the City of Baltimore, a five-year plan intended to “reduce crime, improve service, increase efficiency, redouble community engagement, and provide for the highest standards of accountability and ethical integrity.”31 The report discussed numerous challenges facing BPD, including: equipment, accountability, training, and communication failures; strained police-community relations, and low community engagement; and decreased morale and motivation among officers.32 The report included an internal survey that revealed that only 14 percent of BPD employees believed the Baltimore community supports the police department. The report also laid out a plan for improving BPD’s work in these areas. During a similar time period, the City substantially increased the resources of the police department. While
27 Luke Broadwater and Eric Cox, “Governor’s Push for More Arrests Causing ‘Anxiety’ in Baltimore, Mayor Says,”
 Baltimore Sun, September 25, 2013, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/blog/bs-md-ci-srb-arrests20130925-story.html.
 28 John Fritze, “Rawlings-Blake Criticism Highlights Debate over Police Strategy under O’Malley,” Baltimore Sun, 
 October 13, 2014, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-police-omalley-politics-20141007story.html.
 29 Mark Puente, “Undue Force,” Baltimore Sun, September 28, 2014, http://data.baltimoresun.com/news/policesettlements/.
 30 No Boundaries Coalition, Over-Policed, Yet Underserved, March 2016, http://www.noboundariescoalition.com/wpcontent/uploads/2016/03/No-Boundaries-Layout-Web-1.pdf.
 31 Anthony Batts, Public Safety in the City of Baltimore: A Strategic Plan for Improvement, 2013, 5. 32 Id. at 45–48.
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the city faces serious budget constraints, the fiscal year 2016 police budget was approved at $476 million, representing a dramatic increase from the 2010 police budget of $340 million.
As the reform plans Commissioner Batts initiated were in their early stages, the unrest following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody in April 2015 demonstrated the deep and enduring divide between police officers and parts of the Baltimore community. Commissioner Davis acknowledged that BPD’s legacy of zero tolerance enforcement contributed to these tensions: “Some of things that we did in the past, like zero tolerance policing, didn't work and arguably led in part to the unrest that we experienced in 2015.”33 He has also acknowledged that improved relations with City residents require BPD to change its culture.34 The desire for such reform is apparent. Commissioner Davis began a “History of Baltimore” speakers-series in early 2016 to provide officers with an understanding of the City’s historical background. The topics, which range from housing and segregation to the development of Baltimore’s port, were selected to provide a deeper appreciation of the diverse communities that the police serve. The release of a new Core Operating Procedures Manual during the summer of 2016 also represents an attempt to improve standards and guidelines with respect to officers’ use of force.
We commend these efforts, but find that significant obstacles remain to achieving the change necessary to ensure that BPD’s policing is both effective and constitutional. As described below, we find that BPD has engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the constitutional and federal statutory rights of City residents, and that the Department lacks sufficient systems to minimize these violations.
D. FEDERAL INVOLVEMENT
Numerous federal components have assisted BPD’s reform efforts in recent years. In October 2014, Mayor Rawlings-Blake and Commissioner Batts requested to enter a collaborative reform process with the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). This federal review involved an assessment of BPD’s policies, training, and operations as they related to the use of force and interactions with the members of the community. Through this process, subject matter experts identified by the COPS office began to examine BPD’s community policing and engagement efforts and provided additional resources and trainings, such as peer-topeer exchanges to facilitate sharing best practices from other police departments. Over the past several years, the Office of Justice Programs also awarded Byrne Justice Assistance grants to BPD, to support certain initiatives, including: a comprehensive review of BPD’s technology systems and capabilities; an analysis of BPD’s grant development efforts and strategy; and a customized workshop for BPD command staff to effectively develop and manage crime analysis capabilities. In response to another request from City leadership, the Justice Department provided federal law enforcement resources to help the City combat its crime and public safety challenges in August 2015. Following this initial assistance, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Marshals
33 Mary Rose Madden, “Baltimore Police Chief Wants To Reform Department,” NPR: All Things Considered, April 24, 
 2016, http://www.npr.org/2016/04/24/475511963/baltimore-police-chief-wants-to-reform-department.
 34 Kevin Rector, Justin George, and Mark Puente, “Baltimore’s New Police Commissioner Has a Full Plate — and an 
 Opportunity,” Baltimore Sun, July 12, 2015, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-davis-challenges20150711-story.html.

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Service all agreed to make a longer term commitment of resources to law enforcement efforts in Baltimore.35
The death of Freddie Gray and ensuing unrest occurred during the early stages of the collaborative reform efforts between BPD and COPS. These events underscored the critical lack of trust between BPD and a significant portion of the City’s residents, especially African Americans. After reviewing information it had received about BPD’s police practices and receiving requests from Mayor Rawlings-Blake, members of Congress, and numerous other members of the Baltimore community, the Justice Department determined BPD warranted a comprehensive civil rights investigation to determine whether the Department engaged in a pattern or practice of constitutional and statutory violations. The Civil Rights Division thus opened a formal investigation into BPD on May 8, 2015. Since the civil rights investigation opened, the COPS office has continued to provide technical assistance to BPD.
Our investigation recognizes that, as Commissioner Davis aptly noted, Baltimore officers “have the burden to address racism and poverty and education and homelessness.” These problems, which confront officers every day on the street and are not their responsibility alone to fix, are nevertheless intertwined with crime conditions across the City. But this burden on officers does not excuse BPD’s violations of the constitutional and statutory rights of the people living in these challenging conditions. We find that BPD’s practices perpetuate and fuel a multitude of issues rooted in poverty and race, focusing law enforcement actions on low-income, minority communities in a manner that is often unnecessary and unproductive. In other words, BPD’s law enforcement practices at times exacerbate the longstanding structural inequalities in the City by encouraging officers to have unnecessary, adversarial interactions with community members that increase exposure to the criminal justice system and fail to improve public safety.
35 During this same time period, the Office of Justice Programs Office for Civil Rights initiated a language access compliance review of BPD, and that review is still ongoing.
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II. BPD ENGAGES IN A PATTERN OR PRACTICE OF CONDUCT THAT VIOLATES THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION AND LAWS, AND CONDUCT THAT RAISES SERIOUS CONCERNS
The Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice opened this investigation pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141 (“Section 14141”), Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d (“Title VI”), and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d (“Safe Streets Act” or “SSA”), and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131– 12134. Section 14141 prohibits law enforcement agencies from engaging in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution or laws of the United States. Where such a pattern or practice exists, Section 14141 grants the Attorney General authority to bring suit for equitable and declaratory relief to remedy it. A pattern or practice exists where violations are repeated rather than isolated. Int’l Bd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 336 n.l6 (1977) (noting that the phrase “pattern or practice” “was not intended as a term of art,” but should be interpreted according to its usual meaning “consistent with the understanding of the identical words” used in other federal civil rights statutes). An unlawful pattern or practice does not require any specific number of incidents. United States v. W. Peachtree Tenth Corp., 437 F.2d 221, 227 (5th Cir. 1971) (“The number of [violations] . . . is not determinative. . . . In any event, no mathematical formula is workable, nor was any intended. Each case must turn on its own facts.”); see also Stastny v. S. Bell Tel. & Tel. Co., 628 F.2d 267, 278 (4th Cir. 1980) (holding in the context of employment discrimination that a plaintiff may show a pattern or practice through statistical evidence or a “sufficient number of instances of similar discriminatory treatment”). Title VI and its implementing regulations prohibit recipients of federal financial assistance, such as BPD, from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. Title VI provides that no person shall “be excluded from participating in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving [f]ederal financial assistance” based on race. 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. The Title VI implementing regulations ban recipients of federal funds from using “criteria or methods of administration” that have an unnecessary disparate impact based on race. 28 C.F.R. § 42.104(b)(2). The Safe Streets Act likewise prohibits law enforcement practices that cause disparate impact based on race except where such impact is necessary to achieve nondiscriminatory objectives. See 28 C.F.R. § 42.203. The ADA, which applies to BPD’s services, programs, and activities, including on-the-street encounters, arrests, and transportation to a hospital for mental health evaluation, See 42 U.S.C. § 12132; 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(a); requires BPD to “make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures when the modifications are necessary to avoid discrimination on the basis of disability.” 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(b)(7); Title II Technical Assistance Manual § II-3.6100, at 14.
Our investigation finds that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that implicates our statutory authority. This pattern or practice is rooted in BPD’s deficient supervision and oversight of officer activity, leading directly to a broad spectrum of constitutional and statutory violations. This lack of supervision and oversight includes BPD’s failure to use effective and widelyaccepted methods to supervise officers, collect and analyze data on officer activity, and classify, investigate, and resolve complaints of misconduct. This pattern or practice is also manifested in several ways that violate specific constitutional and statutory provisions: (1) BPD stops, searches,
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and arrests individuals on Baltimore streets without the reasonable suspicion or probable cause required by the Fourth Amendment; (2) BPD disproportionately stops, searches, and arrests African Americans in violation of Title VI and the Safe Streets Act, and this disparate impact, along with evidence suggesting intentional discrimination against African Americans, exacerbates community distrust of the police; (3) BPD uses unreasonable force in violation of the Fourth Amendment; (4) BPD violates the First Amendment rights of Baltimore residents by using force or otherwise retaliating against individuals exercising constitutionally protected activity, such as public speech and filming police activity; and (5) BPD’s use of force against individuals with mental health disabilities or experiencing crisis violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. To illustrate these violations, throughout this letter we provide several examples of each type of violation that we found during our investigation. In some sections we provide more examples to illustrate the variety of circumstances in which the violation occurs, while in others we focus on one or two examples that demonstrate the nature of the violations we found. The number of examples included in a particular section is not indicative of the number of violations we found. These examples comprise a small subset of the total number of incidents upon which we base our conclusions.
We make these findings after a comprehensive 14-month investigation into BPD’s practices. To gain the broadest possible perspective on the challenges facing BPD, our investigation involved reviewing an exhaustive set of documents and meeting with hundreds of officers, community members, city leaders, and other stakeholders. In total, we reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, including all relevant policies and training materials used by the Department since 2010; BPD’s database of internal affairs files; a random sample of about 800 case files on nondeadly force incidents; files on all deadly force incidents since 2010 that BPD was able to produce to us through May 1, 2016; a sample of several hundred incident reports describing stops, searches, and arrests; investigative files on sexual assault cases; databases maintained by BPD and the State of Maryland containing information on hundreds of thousands of pedestrian stops, vehicle stops, and arrests; and many others. Throughout our review, we were assisted by a dozen law enforcement experts from across the country with expertise on the issues we investigated.
Our investigation also relied on numerous interviews with current and former BPD officers and city officials. At all times, BPD leadership took a cooperative and professional approach to our investigation and provided important insights into the challenges facing the Department. We met at length with current Commissioner Kevin Davis, former Commissioner Anthony Batts, and leaders throughout the BPD command structure. We visited each of BPD’s nine police districts, where we met district leadership and spoke with line officers. We also accompanied line officers on dozens of ride-alongs that took place in every district. Line officers shared many key insights during these ride-alongs and other interviews. We are grateful for their candor in discussing the serious challenges they face and their genuine interest in preventing the types of issues discussed in our findings. We are likewise grateful to the leadership of the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police, which met with us on multiple occasions and invited us to speak to union members at a lodge dinner. The Vanguard Justice Society similarly invited us to speak with their members and provided highly relevant information. To gain the broadest possible perspective on the challenges facing BPD, we also met with current and former officials in City government, including current and former elected officials and prosecutors from the State’s Attorney’s Office.
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As in all of our investigations, we also met with large numbers of people in the broader Baltimore community. Our community outreach included meetings at churches and with religious leaders; meeting with advocacy and community support organizations; attending a variety of neighborhood gatherings, from formal meetings of neighborhood associations to summer barbecues; and canvassing neighborhoods on foot to collect stories about interactions with the police. We also met individually with numerous individuals who contacted us to share information. In sum, we met with more than 500 individuals during our investigation. We are extremely thankful for the many members of the Baltimore community who came forward to share information with us, even when doing so involved reliving difficult personal experiences. We are left with the firm impression that, despite the significant obstacles to restoring community trust in BPD, there is a deep desire across diverse elements of the City for a police force that is responsive, effective, and fair.
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A. BPD MAKES UNCONSTITUTIONAL STOPS, SEARCHES, AND ARRESTS
We find that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of making stops, searches, and arrests in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and Section 14141. BPD frequently makes investigative stops without reasonable suspicion of people who are lawfully present on Baltimore streets. During stops, officers commonly conduct weapons frisks—or more invasive searches— despite lacking reasonable suspicion that the subject of the search is armed. These practices escalate street encounters and contribute to officers making arrests without probable cause,36 often for discretionary misdemeanor offenses like disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, loitering, trespassing, and failure to obey. Indeed, BPD’s own supervisors at Central Booking and prosecutors in the State’s Attorney’s Office declined to charge more than 11,000 arrests made by BPD officers since 2010.
1. BPD’s Unconstitutional Stops, Searches, and Arrests Result in Part from Its “Zero Tolerance” Enforcement Strategy
The pattern of constitutional violations described below result in part from BPD’s “zero tolerance” enforcement strategy, dating to the early 2000s. That strategy prioritized attempts to suppress crime by regularly stopping and searching pedestrians and arresting them on any available charges, including discretionary misdemeanor offenses. Recent BPD leadership, including the two most recent police commissioners, has acknowledged some of the problems created by this zero tolerance approach to enforcement and has attempted to shift BPD’s focus to a more holistic policing model with greater emphasis on building community partnerships. For example, in April 2015 BPD enacted a new policy on misdemeanor “quality of life” offenses that instructed officers that “a verbal warning and counseling is preferable to a criminal/civil citation, and a criminal/civil citation is preferable to an arrest.” Despite these laudable efforts, however, the legacy of the zero tolerance era continues to influence officer activity and contribute to constitutional violations.
Indeed, many BPD supervisors who were trained under the prior enforcement paradigm continue to encourage officers to prioritize short-term suppression, including aggressive use of stops, frisks, and misdemeanor arrests. A current BPD sergeant recently endorsed this approach to policing, posting on Facebook that the “solution to the murder rate is easy. Flex cuffs and a line at [Central Booking]. CJIS code 2-0055.” CJIS 2-0055 is the offense code entered for loitering arrests. Similarly, a flyer celebrating loitering arrests was posted in several BPD districts. The flyer depicted three officers from one of BPD’s specialized units known as Violent Crime Impact Division, or VCID, leading a handcuffed man wearing a hoodie along a city sidewalk towards a police transport van, with the text “VCID: Striking fear into loiters [sic] City-wide.” And a deployment memo posted in one of BPD’s districts in the summer of 2015 likewise encouraged officers to suppress crime through “proactive enforcement,” including “stop and frisk,” “street level drug enforcement,” “warrant checks,” “foot patrol,” “car stops,” and “quality of life” arrests.
36 As detailed in Section II(C) below, these street encounters also contribute to officers’ pattern or practice of using excessive force.
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These influences have contributed to BPD officers making large numbers of stops, searches, and arrests, often with dubious justification. From January 2010–May 2014, BPD officers recorded over 301,000 pedestrian stops. And the true number of stops is likely far higher because BPD officers do not document stops consistently. BPD’s data suggests that stops are significantly underreported. In 2014 alone, BPD officers recorded approximately 124,000 stops, but an internal audit found that officers completed reports for only 37 out of a sample of 123 investigative stops captured on the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system. If this audit accurately captures BPD’s overall rate of reporting stops in 2014, it indicates that officers made roughly 412,000 stops that year alone, which is more than seven times the average number of stops that BPD reported per year from 2010 to 2015. Other measures suggest that even this estimate may be conservative. BPD’s 2014 audit of handgun charges that arose from stops found that officers did not complete a stop form in a single one of the 335 cases. These data are consistent with interviews and observations during the Justice Department’s investigation, which revealed that many officers fill out stop reports rarely, if at all. In short, our investigation suggests that BPD officers likely make several hundred thousand pedestrian stops per year37 in a city with only 620,000 residents.
37 During this period, BPD policy required officers to record all stops on a form titled “Stop and Frisk.” Some of the activity recorded by officers on this form may reflect encounters that do not require reasonable suspicion, such as
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Moreover, BPD’s data show that these stops are concentrated on a small segment of the City’s population. From 2010–2014, BPD officers in the Western and Central Districts recorded more than 111,500 stops—roughly 44 percent of the total stops for which officers recorded a district location.38 Yet these are the two least populated police districts in Baltimore, with a combined population of only 75,000, or 12 percent of City residents.39 These districts include the City’s central business district and several poor, urban neighborhoods with mostly African-American residents.40 In these districts, police recorded nearly 1.5 stops per resident over a four-year period. This data reveals that certain Baltimore residents have repeated encounters with the police on public streets and sidewalks. Indeed, the data show that one African-American man was stopped 34 times during this period in the Central and Western Districts alone, and several hundred residents were stopped at least 10 times. Countless individuals—including Freddie Gray—were stopped multiple times in the same week without being charged with a crime.41
The data likewise indicate that these encounters produce large numbers of arrests. While a significant portion of these arrests reflect BPD’s efforts to combat violent crime in Baltimore City, more than 25,000 arrests were for non-violent misdemeanor offenses for which officers have significant discretion about whether to make an arrest. BPD arrested approximately 6,500 people for disorderly conduct, 4,000 for failing to obey a police officer, 6,500 for trespassing, 1,000 for “hindering” or impeding, 3,200 for “interference,” 760 for being “rogue and vagabond,” and 650 for playing cards or dice. These highly discretionary offenses often are not an effective way to promote public safety and are subject to abuse. Indeed, supervisors at Central Booking and local prosecutors dismissed a significant percentage of these charges upon their initial review of arrest documents. This initial review resulted in dismissal of 1 in 6 of these highly discretionary charges. Over 20 percent of all disorderly conduct charges and 25 percent of failure to obey charges were dismissed.
Careful oversight is necessary to ensure that these frequent street encounters and arrests do not result in constitutional violations. Our investigation finds, however, that BPD has amplified the risk of constitutional violations in its street enforcement efforts by relying on inadequate policies, training, supervision, and accountability mechanisms. The Department does not collect reliable data on stops and searches, has no mechanism for identifying patterns or trends in its officers’ stops,
voluntary social contacts and witness interviews. The large majority of stops recorded, however, appear to reflect situations in which the subject is not free to leave and reasonable suspicion is required. This conclusion stems from interviews with officers who explained that they completed a “Stop and Frisk” form only when making an investigative stop, and analysis of a sample of over 7,000 stops examined by Justice Department investigators, which revealed that 73 percent of stops involved officers detaining subjects at least long enough to complete a warrant check. The stop data discussed here thus overwhelmingly reflect stops that require reasonable suspicion. In 2015, BPD addressed this issue by changing its documentation protocols so that officers complete “citizen/police contact” forms for voluntary field interviews and a “Form 309” for investigative detentions, weapons frisks, and searches. 38 Officers recorded district information in approximately 254,000 out of 301,000 total recorded stops. 39 Population data on BPD’s police districts was provided by the Department and was compiled from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey 5-year data. 40 According to 2014 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, African Americans account for 83 percent of the population in the Central District and 96 percent in the Western District. 41 The data show that BPD recorded stops of Freddie Gray on February 16th and 20th, 2014. The data nonetheless record only three total stops of Freddie Gray between 2010 and 2015. These records further indicate that BPD officers under-report pedestrian stops. Although BPD arrested Mr. Gray at least four times from 2010–2014 on charges stemming from street encounters, none of these arrests have a corresponding stop report in BPD’s data.
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searches, and arrests, and conducts little substantive review of officers’ reasons for taking particular enforcement actions. Indeed, BPD has failed to take corrective action even where third parties— including local prosecutors—have identified officers who may be making stops, searches, or arrests in violation of the Constitution. As a result, the pattern or practice of constitutional violations described below has persisted for many years, undermining trust in law enforcement and impeding BPD’s ability to form community partnerships that are essential to effective policing.
2. BPD Unconstitutionally Stops and Searches Pedestrians
The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable seizures “when they step from their homes onto the public sidewalks.” Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 663 (1979). Contrary to this principle, we find reasonable cause to believe that BPD officers regularly stop and search individuals who are lawfully present on Baltimore’s streets, despite lacking the constitutionallyrequired indicia that criminal activity is afoot.
Our findings are based on statistical analysis of stop outcomes, interviews with officers and community members, complaints filed against BPD, and our review of a random sample of several hundred incident reports that officers completed for arrests that stemmed from pedestrian stops. Officers’ descriptions of the underlying stops in these incident reports revealed frequent constitutional deficiencies. We were unable to systematically analyze the sufficiency of reasonable suspicion in all stops made by BPD officers—as opposed to the subset of stops leading to arrest— because most BPD stop reports do not describe the facts establishing reasonable suspicion for a stop.42 By limiting our review to stops that resulted in arrest, we focused on cases where officers presumably had stronger indicia of criminality to justify a stop compared to stops in which the investigation proved fruitless. It is troubling that this review nonetheless found repeated constitutional violations during stops and searches by BPD officers.
a. BPD Stops Pedestrians Without Reasonable Suspicion
Our investigation reveals a widespread pattern of BPD officers stopping and detaining people on Baltimore streets without reasonable suspicion that they are involved in criminal activity. This conduct violates the Fourth Amendment, which allows police officers to briefly detain an individual for investigation where the officers possess reasonable suspicion that the person is involved in criminal activity, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21 (1968). To satisfy this standard, officers “must be able to point to specific and articulable facts” supporting an inference of criminal activity; an “inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch” is insufficient. Id. at 27.
Terry’s particularity requirement is not satisfied where an officer deems a person to be acting suspiciously but fails to explain the specific basis of that suspicion. The police “must do more than simply label a behavior as suspicious to make it so”; rather, the police must also be able to . . . articulate why a particular behavior is suspicious” United States v. Massenburg, 654 F.3d 480, 491 (4th Cir. 2011) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Standing alone, an individual’s unexplained presence in a high crime area is not sufficient to establish reasonable suspicion. Illinois
42 As explained further below, the failure to capture the facts supporting reasonable suspicion on stop forms also precludes BPD supervisors from substantively reviewing the basis for stops and correcting officer behavior, where necessary.
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v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 124 (2000) (citation omitted); United States v. Slocumb, 804 F.3d 677, 682–83 (4th Cir. 2015) (finding that officers lacked reasonable suspicion to stop a man who was present in a high crime area late at night, acting nervously, and conducting himself in a way that seemed “inconsistent” with his stated reasons for being at the location). Nor is an individual’s decision to move away from police “in a normal, unhurried manner.” United States v. Sprinkle, 106 F.3d 613, 617–18 (4th Cir. 1997) (officers lacked reasonable suspicion to stop individual who covered his face with his hand to conceal his identity and drove away from police at normal speed); cf. United States v. Bumpers, 705 F.3d 168, 175–76 (4th Cir. 2013) (finding reasonable suspicion where an apparent trespasser in high crime area “dodge[d] the police” by “walking away ‘at a fast pace’”). Notwithstanding these requirements, officers may always approach individuals to make social contact and ask them to answer questions voluntarily. The cases discussed in this section involve situations in which BPD officers’ descriptions of an encounter indicate that the person stopped was not free to leave and reasonable suspicion was therefore required.
BPD officers routinely violate these standards by detaining and questioning individuals who are sitting, standing, or walking in public areas, even where officers have no basis to suspect them of wrongdoing. The lack of sufficient justification for many of BPD’s pedestrian stops is underscored by the extremely low rate at which stops uncover evidence of criminal activity. In a sample of over 7,200 pedestrian stops reviewed by the Justice Department, only 271—or 3.7 percent—resulted in officers issuing a criminal citation or arrest. Expressed a different way, BPD officers did not find and charge criminal activity in 26 out of every 27 pedestrian stops. Such low “hit rates” are a strong indication that officers make stops based on a threshold of suspicion that falls below constitutional requirements. See Floyd v. City of New York, 959 F. Supp. 2d 540, 575 (S.D.N.Y. 2013) (finding that a hit rate of 12 percent in pedestrian stops indicated that the stops were not supported by reasonable suspicion).
Despite the low rate of stops uncovering evidence of crimes, BPD supervisors often direct officers to make frequent stops as a crime suppression technique. Many of the unlawful stops we identified appear motivated at least in part by officers’ desire to check whether the stopped individuals have outstanding warrants that would allow officers to make an arrest or search individuals in hopes of finding illegal firearms or narcotics. Cf. Utah v. Strieff, 579 U.S. __, slip op. at 8 (June 20, 2016) (holding that search incident to arrest was valid based on the discovery of an arrest warrant, even when the initial stop was unconstitutional, because “the stop was an isolated instance of negligence” and there was “no indication that this unlawful stop was part of any systemic or recurrent police misconduct”); see also 579 U.S. __, slip op. at 10–11 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (warning that police may make unlawful stops in hopes of uncovering outstanding warrants, subjecting individuals to “humiliations” and “indignity”).43 Indeed, where individuals lack identification allowing officers to check for warrants, officers sometimes detain and transport them to booking facilities to check their identification via fingerprinting—an unconstitutional detention even where officers have reasonable suspicion to make the initial investigative stop. See, e.g., United States v. Zavala, 541 F.3d 562, 579–80 (5th Cir. 2008) (90-minute detention in which subject was handcuffed, placed in a police car, and transported to different location “morphed from a Terry detention into a de facto arrest”).
43 Consistent with this concern, BPD officers indicated that they conducted a warrant check in 73 percent of all pedestrian stops the Justice Department analyzed—including many stops that lacked reasonable suspicion.
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Officers’ own reports describe this facially unconstitutional conduct. For example, an officer in the Northeast District noted in an incident report that he observed a 22-year-old African American male walking through an area “known to have a high rate of crime and [drug] activity.” After watching the subject turn into an alley, the officer—despite possessing no specific information indicating that the man was involved in criminal activity—stopped and questioned him. The officer’s report does not identify any evidence of wrongdoing uncovered during the Terry stop. Nonetheless, the report explains that the officer transported the man to BPD’s Northeast District headquarters to “properly identif[y]” him because the subject “was reluctant to give any information about himself or his actions.” After this custodial detention likewise uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing, the subject was finally released. This stop lacked reasonable suspicion at the outset, far exceeded the temporal limits even for valid Terry stops, see infra at 39, and violates BPD’s policy requiring officers to contact supervisors when a Terry stop lasts for more than 20 minutes. But a BPD supervisor nonetheless signed off on the incident report describing this unlawful stop and detention.
In some cases, unconstitutional stops result from supervisory officers’ explicit instructions. During a ride-along with Justice Department officials, a BPD sergeant instructed a patrol officer to stop a group of young African-American males on a street corner, question them, and order them to disperse. When the patrol officer protested that he had no valid reason to stop the group, the sergeant replied “Then make something up.” This incident is far from anomalous. A different BPD sergeant posted on Facebook that when he supervises officers in the Northeast District, he encourages them to “clear corners,” a term many officers understand to mean stopping pedestrians who are standing on city sidewalks to question and then disperse them by threatening arrest for minor offenses like loitering and trespassing. The sergeant wrote, “I used to say at roll call in NE when I ran the shift: Do not treat criminals like citizens. Citizens want that corner cleared.” Indeed, countless interviews with community members and officers describe “corner clearing” scenarios, in which BPD officers stop, question, disperse, or arrest individuals in public areas based on minimal or no suspicion of highly discretionary offenses.
Such unlawful stops erode public confidence in law enforcement and escalate street encounters, sometimes resulting in officers deploying unnecessary force or committing additional constitutional violations. For example, on a cold January evening in 2013, an officer approached and questioned an African-American man crossing the street in a “high crime area” while wearing a hooded sweatshirt. The officer lacked any specific reason to believe the man was engaged in criminal activity, but, according to the incident report prepared by the supervisory officer on the scene, the officer “thought it could be possible that the individual could be out seeking a victim of opportunity.”44 This unsupported speculation furnishes no basis to conduct a stop. Nonetheless, multiple officers questioned the man and seized a kitchen knife that the man acknowledged carrying.
44 To justify the stop, officers also noted that the man put his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt as they approached. However, given that the encounter occurred on a cold January evening and officers observed the man “shivering,” placing hands inside a sweatshirt adds minimally, if at all, to any objective suspicion the officers possessed. See United States v. Burton, 228 F.3d 524, 529 (4th Cir. 2000) (holding that where suspect refused to speak with police or remove his hand from his pocket, “something more is required to establish reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot”); United States v. Patterson, 340 F.3d 368, 370–72 (6th Cir. 2003) (holding that officers lacked reasonable suspicion where suspect placed hands in his pockets and walked away from police); United States v. Davis, 94 F.3d 1465, 1468–649 (10th Cir. 1996) (holding that officers lacked reasonable suspicion to stop a known gang member who ignored officers’ orders to take his hands out of his pockets).
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When the man asked the officers to return his knife, the officers ordered the man to sit down and then forced him to the ground when the man “persisted to ask for his knife.” The man yelled “you can’t arrest me” and resisted his detention. Although there was no basis to detain the man, two officers attempted to handcuff and shackle him, while one officer struck him “in the face, ribs, and back” with fists. The man continued to resist being shackled as additional officers arrived, one of whom tased the man twice to prevent him from “escap[ing] the scene.” After officers handcuffed the man, they transported him to Union Memorial Hospital for medical care. The man was not charged with any offense. The sergeant who responded to the scene confirmed that the involved officers tased the man twice and hit him in the face with their fists, yet the sergeant’s report of the incident concluded that the “officers showed great restraint and professionalism.”
In sum, we find that BPD officers frequently stop pedestrians on Baltimore streets without reasonable suspicion that they are engaged in criminal activity. This pattern is evidenced by the extremely low rate at which BPD’s investigative stops yield evidence of criminality and officers’ own descriptions of their conduct. The frequency of these unlawful stops subjects certain Baltimore communities to repeated constitutional harms.
b. BPD Searches Individuals During Stops Without Legal Justification
During pedestrian and vehicle stops, BPD officers regularly escalate encounters by conducting unlawful searches. This practice includes two types of conduct: (1) officers conducting weapons pat downs or “frisks” where they lack reasonable suspicion that a subject is armed and dangerous; and (2) pre-arrest strip searches in public areas. Both types of conduct result from systemic deficiencies in policy, training, and oversight.
i. Unconstitutional Frisks
BPD officers commonly frisk people during stops without reasonable suspicion that the subject of the frisk is armed and dangerous. This practice contravenes the principle that “before an officer places a hand on the person of a citizen in search of anything, he must have constitutionally adequate, reasonable grounds for doing so.” United States v. Powell, 666 F.3d 180, 185 (4th Cir. 2011) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Before frisking a person stopped on the street or in a vehicle, officers must have reasonable suspicion—based on specific, particularized information— that a person is armed and dangerous. See, e.g., Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 326–27 (2009). This requirement is distinct from the justification needed to make the underlying stop. See Powell, 666 F.3d at 186 n.5 (noting that the justification for making a stop “differs from . . . whether a lawfully detained person may be armed and dangerous and thus subject to a Terry frisk”). The assessment of reasonable suspicion to frisk is based on the totality of the circumstances; it is insufficient, standing alone, that a subject has a prior record of arrests for violent charges, id. at 184–86, was stopped in a high crime area, Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 335 (1990), or was stopped late at night, Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 163 (1972). Where reasonable suspicion to conduct a frisk exists, officers must limit the scope of the search to a pat down of “the outer layers of the suspect’s clothing.” United States v. Holmes, 376 F.3d 270, 275 (4th Cir. 2004). Once an officer establishes that a person is not armed, “that officer exceeds the permissible scope of a Terry frisk if he continues to search the suspect.” United States v. Swann, 149 F.3d 271, 274–75 (4th Cir. 1998); Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 378 (1993) (an officer exceeds the scope of a permissible frisk by
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“squeezing, sliding and otherwise manipulating the contents of defendant’s pocket” after determining that the pocket did not contain a weapon) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
Yet for many years, suspicionless frisks have been a common feature of BPD’s street enforcement efforts. Officers and community members told Justice Department investigators that frisks—often made under the guise of “officer safety” but without identifying any specific basis for believing that a person is armed—are a common feature of BPD’s stops. Officers’ own descriptions of frisks in their incident reports support this conclusion. For example, on a spring evening in 2010 officers responded to a call complaining that drug sales were occurring at a particular location. Officers arrived at the scene and observed several African-American individuals “standing and sitting at the location.” Absent information that these individuals were armed or otherwise dangerous, the officers nonetheless approached and immediately frisked them. Officers disclosed the frisk in an incident report, explaining that they performed the frisk “for officer safety.” Although the officers provided no information that suggested the individuals were armed or dangerous, BPD supervisors signed off on the report. Our review of incident reports and interviews with several hundred community members indicate that the unconstitutional frisk practice is widespread. We were unable to precisely quantify the scope of these unconstitutional frisks, however, because BPD does not reliably record when officers conduct a frisk.
BPD’s misapplication of the Terry frisk standard subjects Baltimore residents to embarrassing invasions of privacy and needlessly escalates encounters with law enforcement. In one typical case, a BPD officer unlawfully frisked an African-American man after a traffic stop for driving with headlights off. Because the driver “looked nervous” as the officer approached, the officer ordered the driver and his passenger to exit the vehicle and stand on the side of the road. The officer then frisked the passenger, which included a public pat down of the passenger’s groin. The officer identified no basis for frisking the passenger other than the driver’s “nervous” appearance—far short of the required showing of particularized facts pointing to the presence of a weapon. See Powell, 666 F.3d at 183, 185, 187 (no reasonable suspicion to frisk man during a vehicle stop for a burned out light even where officers had information that the man had prior arrests for armed robbery). In another incident, an officer approached an African-American man walking on a sidewalk in November 2010 in an area the officer stated was “known for violent crime and narcotics distribution.” When the officer “attempted to interview him about his activities,” the man fled. According to the report the officer filed the day of the incident, he chased the man and deployed his taser because the man “refused to comply with my orders to stop.” The taser prongs hit the man on the back but failed to stop him. As the chase continued, the officer reloaded his taser cartridge and again fired probes into the fleeing man’s back. After catching up with the man, the officer used his taser yet again—this time in drive stun mode—detained the man for investigation, and conducted a weapons frisk. The report provides no reason to believe the man was armed.45 The frisk and investigation found no weapon or other evidence of wrongdoing. The man—after being tased multiple times, taken to the ground, and frisked—was released without charges.
45 More than a month later, the officer filed a supplemental report claiming that he “decided to frisk [the man] based on my suspicion that he was armed,” citing the man’s presence in a high crime area, his loose clothing, the fact that he “looked back over his shoulder,” and that the man ran past a dumpster where he could have theoretically discarded a weapon or narcotics.
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Even where BPD officers properly initiate a frisk based on reasonable suspicion that a person is armed or dangerous, we found instances in which the scope of those frisks exceeded the brief pat down of the “outer layers of the suspect’s clothing” that Terry prescribes. See, e.g., Holmes, 376 F.3d at 275. While “[a]n officer is not justified in conducting a general exploratory search for evidence under the guise of a stop-and-frisk,” United States v. Brown, 188 F.3d 860, 866 (7th Cir. 1999) (citing Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 378), BPD officers commonly frisk individuals in a way that seems intended to find small packages of narcotics rather than weapons. In cases reviewed by the Justice Department, officers reached inside of subjects’ clothing, asked subjects to remove articles of clothing, and squeezed pockets to detect small bags that may contain illegal drugs.
ii. BPD Conducts Unconstitutional Strip Searches
In addition to impermissible Terry frisks, our investigation found many instances in which BPD officers strip-searched individuals without justification—often in public areas— subjecting them to humiliation and violating the Constitution. Strip searches are “fairly understood” as “degrading” and, under the Fourth Amendment, are reasonable only in narrow circumstances. Safford Unified Sch. Dist. #1 v. Redding, 557 U.S. 364, 375 (2009). Strip searches are never permissible as part of a pre-arrest weapons frisk. See Holmes, 376 F.3d at 275 (weapons frisks must be limited to the outer layers of a suspect’s clothing). Following a lawful arrest, the reasonableness of a strip search turns on “the scope of the particular intrusion, the manner in which it is conducted, the justification for initiating it, and the place in which it is conducted.” Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559 (1979). Absent specific facts indicating that an arrestee is concealing a weapon or contraband, officers may not strip search a person incident to arrest for an offense that is not “commonly associated by its very nature with the possession of weapons or contraband.” Logan v. Shealy, 660 F.2d 1007, 1013 (4th Cir. 1981). Moreover, courts have “repeatedly emphasized the necessity of conducting a strip search in private.” Amaechi v. West, 237 F.3d 356, 364 (4th Cir. 2001) (finding strip search unreasonable where it was conducted in public view). BPD policy likewise recognizes that strip searches should be conducted only “under very limited and controlled circumstances” and that “strip searching . . . [] suspects in public view or on a public thoroughfare is forbidden.”
Nevertheless, our investigation found that BPD officers frequently ignore these requirements and strip-search individuals prior to arrest, in public view, or both. Numerous Baltimore residents interviewed by the Justice Department recounted stories of BPD officers “jumping out” of police vehicles and strip-searching individuals on public streets. BPD has long been on notice of such allegations: in the last five years BPD has faced multiple lawsuits and more than 60 complaints alleging unlawful strip searches. In one of these incidents— memorialized in a complaint that the Department sustained—officers in BPD’s Eastern District publicly strip-searched a woman following a routine traffic stop for a missing headlight. Officers ordered the woman to exit her vehicle, remove her clothes, and stand on the sidewalk to be searched. The woman asked the male officer in charge “I really gotta take all my clothes off?” The male officer replied “yeah” and ordered a female officer to strip search the woman. The female officer then put on purple latex gloves, pulled up the woman’s shirt and searched around her bra. Finding no weapons or contraband around the woman’s chest, the officer then pulled down the woman’s underwear and searched her anal cavity. This search again found no evidence of wrongdoing and the officers released the woman without charges. Indeed, the woman received only a repair order for her headlight. The search occurred in full view of the street, although the supervising male officer
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claimed he “turned away” and did not watch the woman disrobe. After the woman filed a complaint, BPD investigators corroborated the woman’s story with testimony from several witnesses and by recovering the female officer’s latex gloves from the search location. Officers conducted this highly invasive search despite lacking any indication that the woman had committed a criminal offense or possessed concealed contraband. The male officer who ordered the search received only a “simple reprimand” and an instruction that he could not serve as an officer in charge until he was “properly trained.”
An African-American teenager recounted a similar story to Justice Department investigators that involved two public strip searches in the winter of 2016 by the same officer. According to the teenager, he was stopped in January 2016 while walking on a street near his home by two officers who were looking for the teenager’s older brother, whom the officers suspected of dealing narcotics. One of the officers pushed the teenager up against a wall and frisked him. This search did not yield contraband. The officer then stripped off the teenager’s jacket and sweatshirt and frisked him again in front of his teenage girlfriend. When this search likewise found no contraband, the officer ordered the teenager to “give your girl your phone, I'm checking you right now.” The officer then pulled down the teenager’s pants and boxer shorts and strip-searched him in full view of the street and his girlfriend. The officers’ report of the incident disputes this account, claiming that they did not conduct a strip search and instead recovered narcotics from the teenager during a consensual pat down. No narcotics were ever produced to the teenager’s public defender, however, and the State’s Attorney’s Office dismissed the drug charges for lack of evidence. The teenager filed a lengthy complaint with BPD describing the incident and identifying multiple witnesses. The teenager recounted to us that, shortly after filing the complaint, the same officer approached him near a McDonald’s restaurant in his neighborhood, pushed the teenager against a wall, pulled down his pants, and grabbed his genitals. The officer filed no charges against the teenager in the second incident, which the teenager believes was done in retaliation for filing a complaint about the first strip search.
Other complaints describe similar incidents in which BPD officers conduct public strip searches of individuals who have not been arrested. For example, in September 2014, a man filed a complaint stating that an officer in the Central District searched him several days in a row, including “undoing his pants” and searching his “hindquarters” on a public street. When the strip search did not find contraband, the officer told the man to leave the area and warned that the officer would search him again every time he returned. The man then filed a complaint with Internal Affairs and identified the officer who conducted the strip search by name. When Internal Affairs investigators pressed the man to provide a detailed description of the officer, the man recalled that the officer “had red patches with sergeant stripes” on his uniform. The investigator recognized this description as patches worn by the officer in charge of a shift and confirmed that the officer named by the man was working as an officer in charge in the Central District on the dates the man alleged he was stripsearched. Internal Affairs nonetheless deemed the complaint “not sustained” without further explanation.
Deficient oversight and accountability has helped perpetuate BPD’s use of unlawful strip searches. Although the Department’s policy limits strip searches to specific, narrow circumstances following an arrest, BPD supervisors have failed to ensure that officers comply with this policy and internal affairs officials have not adequately investigated frequent complaints that officers violate it.
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BPD does not separately categorize or track complaints alleging unlawful strip searches. But our manual review of BPD’s Internal Affairs database revealed more than 60 such complaints in the last six years—only one of which was sustained. In response to dozens of other strip search complaints, IA has deemed them “administratively closed,” classified them solely for “administrative tracking,” or found them not sustained – after minimal, if any, investigation. For example, in 2015 an African American man filed a complaint stating that he was strip-searched by an officer whom BPD eventually fired in 2016 after numerous allegations of misconduct. The man stated that the officer ordered him out of his vehicle during a traffic stop and searched the vehicle without the man’s consent. When the stop of the vehicle did not uncover contraband, the officer pulled down the man’s pants and underwear, exposing his genitals on the side of a public street, and then stripsearched him. The officer seized marijuana and cash during the strip search and allegedly told the man that the officer would return his money and drugs if the man provided information about more serious crimes. The complaint stated that when the man did not provide this information, the officer arrested him and turned over only part of the confiscated money, keeping more than $500. Despite the serious charges in this complaint and the officer’s lengthy record of alleged misconduct, IA deemed it “administratively closed” without interviewing the complainant. This type of inadequate oversight has allowed BPD’s unlawful strip search practice to continue.
3. BPD Makes Unconstitutional Arrests
Our investigation likewise found reasonable cause to believe that BPD’s approach to streetlevel crime suppression has contributed to officers making thousands of unlawful arrests over the past five years. This pattern has three main components: (1) warrantless arrests made without probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment; (2) arrests for minor offenses, such as failure to obey and trespassing, in circumstances that violate the Due Process Clause’s requirement to provide fair notice of prohibited conduct; and (3) investigative detentions that exceed the limits of Terry and constitute arrests.
a. BPD Arrests Individuals Without Probable Cause
The Fourth Amendment requires that arrests be supported by probable cause. See, e.g, Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 207–13 (1979); U.S. CONST. AM. IV. Probable cause requires “a probability or substantial chance of criminal activity” and is evaluated by examining “the totality of the circumstances.” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 243 n.13 (1983). It “require[s] . . . the kind of fair probability on which reasonable and prudent people, not legal technicians, act.” Florida v. Harris, 133 S. Ct. 1050, 1055 (2013) (internal quotations omitted). Police may satisfy the probable cause requirement by obtaining a warrant prior to arrest or determining that probable cause exists in the field. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 113–14 (1975). Our investigation determined that, when BPD officers make arrests in the field without a warrant, they often do so without probable cause.
Data maintained by the State of Maryland shows that, from November 2010–July 2015, BPD made thousands of arrests that reviewing officials declined to charge. The State’s data records information about each person arrested, the arresting agency, all charges levied, and whether reviewing officials found that the charges were adequately supported. This data captures several stages of review of officers’ justification for each arrest. When a BPD officer makes a warrantless arrest and brings the arrestee to Central Booking, a supervisor at booking determines whether to
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commit the arrestee into jail; release the arrestee on bond, on their own recognizance, or with a citation; or to nullify the arrest and release the arrestee without charge. For all cases except where an arrestee is released without charge, a representative from the State’s Attorney’s Office then conducts an initial review of the charging documents to ensure that they recite probable cause. This review usually occurs the same day as the arrest and looks only at the officer’s stated justification for the arrest, not evidence from any other source. In some cases, the State’s Attorney’s review finds that an arrest lacks probable cause or otherwise should not result in filed charges.
Analysis of this data reveals that, from November 2010–July 2015, supervisors at Central Booking released 6,736 arrestees without charge. Prosecutors from the State’s Attorney’s Office declined to charge an additional 3,427 cases, explicitly finding that 1,983 of the underlying arrests lacked probable cause. In sum, BPD officers made 10,163 arrests that authorities immediately determined did not merit prosecution—an average of roughly 200 arrests per month.
BPD’s pattern of making arrests without probable cause is most pronounced with nonfelony offenses that stem from street encounters between officers and residents. For example, during the last five years prosecutors and booking supervisors rejected 1,350 disorderly conduct charges—20 percent of the total. Arrests for other highly discretionary, non-violent offenses were nullified at even higher rates. Officials rejected 24 percent of disturbing the peace charges, 23 percent of failure to obey charges, and 24 percent of hindering charges. Officials likewise rejected 156 trespassing charges, comprising roughly 5 percent of the total. And these numbers almost certainly understate the extent of BPD’s problematic arrests, as they reflect only cases dismissed during preliminary review based on facial deficiencies in officers’ reports, not arrests later shown to be invalid during pretrial hearings or at trial.
Indeed, our review of a random sample of 150 incident reports describing the probable cause for these discretionary arrests found that officers frequently recite facially inadequate justifications. In particular, these reports reveal that officers often arrest individuals for “trespassing” where the person arrested was standing on a public street that bordered property owned by the City or a private party. Such conduct is not criminal. “[I]ndividuals in this country have significant liberty interests in standing on sidewalks and in other public places.” City of Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41, 54 n.19 (1999) (quoting Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae 23).
Several examples highlight this pattern. In June 2011, an officer dispatched in response to suspected drug sales observed an African-American male fitting the basic description of one of the suspects. The officer wrote in his report that the suspect was standing on a public street “in front of” property owned by “the mayor and city council of Baltimore City.” When the officer approached, the man “became nervous and could not provide a valid explanation for being at this location.” Lacking any further evidence suggesting that the man was involved in narcotics sales or other criminal activity, the officer nonetheless transported the man to the Western District headquarters for “debriefing” and then to Central Booking, where the man was charged with trespassing. The man was not charged with any other offense, and the officer’s account of the encounter furnishes no basis for the trespassing arrest. Rather, it shows that the man was merely standing lawfully on a public street. In January 2010, officers similarly approached a man who was “standing in front of 1524 Mount Mor Ct looking around” and who walked away when he saw officers. Officers stopped the man and arrested him when he “could not provide a valid explanation
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for being in front of 1524 Mount Mor Ct,” a part of the Gilmore Homes public housing complex. In another case, an officer arrested an African-American man observed “standing in front of 578 Orchard St.” The officer’s report explained that when he approached, the man “began to walk east bound on Orchard St attempting to elude the officer.” The officer stopped the man and asked him “why was he standing in front of 578 Orchard St and if he knew the resident” who resided there. When the man replied that he did not know the resident, the officer arrested him for trespassing. The officers’ accounts of these and many similar incidents describe facially unlawful arrests for conduct that is not criminal.
b. BPD Arrests People Lawfully Present on Baltimore Streets in Violation of Due Process
BPD’s application of city ordinances banning loitering, trespassing, and failing to obey an officer’s order violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Citing these provisions, BPD frequently arrests people who are lawfully present on public sidewalks without providing the constitutionally required notice that they are engaging in prohibited conduct. These arrests are unconstitutional under the void-for-vagueness doctrine where they are made in circumstances that “fail to provide the kind of notice that will enable ordinary people to understand what conduct it prohibits.” Morales, 527 U.S. at 56 (invalidating city ordinance that defined loitering as “to remain in one place with no apparent purpose.”). Where conduct—like loitering—is generally lawful, police may make arrests only where the arrestees violated the ordinance knowingly. See id. at 57–58.46
Moreover, absent clear standards and an intent element, a “dispersal order itself is an unjustified impairment of liberty” and cannot form the basis of an arrest for failure to obey. Id. at 58. The Court of Special Appeals of Maryland has criticized BPD’s application of the Baltimore’s anti-loitering ordinance for precisely these reasons. See Williams v. Maryland, 780 A.2d 1210 (Md. Ct. App. 2001). The Williams court reversed a defendant’s narcotics conviction after finding that the defendant’s underlying arrest for loitering violated due process. The court noted that, although BPD officers claimed the man was part of a group that was impeding pedestrian traffic on a sidewalk, there was no “evidence even remotely supporting an inference of scienter” or that the defendant had notice that such conduct was illegal. Id. at 1217. Moreover, the court held that such notice must include a specific description of the prohibited conduct; officers could not provide sufficient notice by “[t]elling someone merely that he is ‘loitering’ and that if he does not move on he will be arrested.” Id. at 1218.
The same vagueness problem exists in BPD’s enforcement of trespassing statutes against individuals who are standing on sidewalks adjacent to public housing or private establishments. Indeed, a federal district court in Maryland has expressed concern about the type of highly discretionary trespassing arrests that BPD utilizes. See Diggs v. Housing Authority, 67 F. Supp. 2d 522, 532–35 (D. Md. 1999). There, the court enjoined enforcement of the City of Frederick’s trespassing ordinance and noted that a “policy of issuing citations to persons with ‘no apparent legitimate reason’ for being on Housing Authority property may raise serious due process concerns in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Chicago v. Morales.” Diggs, 67 F. Supp. at 534 n.19.
46 We do not address whether Baltimore City ordinances criminalizing loitering, failing to obey, and trespassing are facially unconstitutional.
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BPD’s arrests of “loiterers” for trespassing and failing to obey orders to disperse frequently fall short of these due process standards. BPD often arrests people standing on streets or sidewalks for “trespassing” when they cannot provide a reason for their presence that officers deem acceptable. Our review found numerous cases in which BPD officers arrested individuals on sidewalks near public housing complexes or private businesses simply because officers determined that the arrestees had “no legitimate purpose” or “no business” in the area—precisely the type of vague, subjective trespassing standard invalidated in Morales. See 527 U.S. at 56 (finding unconstitutionally vague a statute that permitted arrest of “loiterers” who lack an “apparent purpose”); see also Diggs, 67 F. Supp. 2d at 534 n.19 (questioning arrests premised on having ‘no apparent legitimate reason’ for being on Housing Authority property”).
For example, in April 2010, BPD officers approached five African Americans sitting on a brick wall in front of a private business. Officers wrote in their report that they “approached the group to ascertain their purpose for sitting on the wall in front of this location.” When the individuals responded that they “were ‘just chillin,’” officers arrested them for trespassing because the men “could not give a valid purpose for being on [the property].” Officers provided no warning before arresting the men and did not charge them with any other offense. Later the same month, a different BPD officer approached “two males sitting on the steps of 110 North Fremont Ave,” a street that borders a public housing complex. When the men “attempted to get up and walk away,” the officer stopped them and “asked what they were doing on the property.”47 The men responded that they were “just talking.” The officer then—without any warning—arrested the men for trespassing because “neither was able to provide any legitimate explanation for being on the Housing Authority property.” In September 2011, a BPD officer similarly arrested a man “loitering directly beside the 2501 E. Preston Street Greater Missionary Baptist Church.” The officer made the arrest after asking the man “why he was in the area” and learning that the man “had no business near the area of the [church’s] steps.” Each of these arrests violates constitutional due process requirements because the arrested individuals lacked notice that their apparently innocent behavior was unlawful.
We found evidence that BPD supervisors have explicitly condoned trespassing arrests that do not meet constitutional standards, and evidence suggesting that trespassing enforcement is focused on public housing developments. A shift commander for one of BPD’s districts emailed a template for describing trespassing arrests to a sergeant and a patrol officer. The template provides a blueprint for arresting an individual standing on or near a public housing development who cannot give a “valid reason” for being there—a facially unconstitutional detention. Equally troubling is the fact that the template contains blanks to be filled in for details of the arrest, including the arrest data and location and the suspect’s name and address, but does not include a prompt to fill in the race or gender of the arrestee. Rather, the words “black male” are automatically included in the description of the arrest. The supervisor’s template thus presumes that individuals arrested for trespassing will be African American.
47 Officers lacked reasonable suspicion to make the initial stop, as the men were observed only sitting on steps and then walking down a public sidewalk.
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BPD likewise makes constitutionally deficient arrests of people who fail to obey officers’ unlawful orders to disperse. BPD policy requires that, prior to making such an arrest, officers warn people allegedly loitering that their specific conduct is illegal. Yet our review found that officers frequently do not provide this warning or indicate only that a person must disperse because he or she is “loitering”—an instruction that is unconstitutionally vague. See Williams, 780 A.2d at 1218 (due process requires more than “telling someone merely that he is ‘loitering’ and that if he does not move on he will be arrested.”). Instead, we found numerous “failure to obey” arrests made without the required warning and premised on an officer’s subjective dissatisfaction with a person’s stated reason for standing or sitting on a public sidewalk.
In October 2011, for example, an officer approached a group of African-American men standing on a sidewalk “within 100 feet of Amko liquor store.” All but two of the men left when the officer approached. The officer stopped the two remaining men and warned them that they were “loitering” by blocking pedestrian traffic and that they were “trespassing near a liquor store.” The officer then told the men “to leave the area, to stop loitering . . . and to stop trespassing near the liquor store.” When one of the men replied, “I’m not leaving, I’m going to stay and finish talking to my brother,” the officer arrested him for failing to obey. The order the man failed to obey—a general instruction not to “loiter” or trespass “near a liquor store”—falls far short of the notice required to support an arrest. Similarly, in July 2011 officers approached three males standing on the sidewalk in front of Crazy John’s restaurant on East Baltimore Street because they were purportedly “obstructing pedestrian traffic in a public walkway.” After several warnings, the officer ordered the men to leave the area and informed them that they would be arrested if they “returned.” The three men then walked away and crossed the street, where they resumed “hang[ing] out.” When the officer followed the men to their new location, the men walked farther down Baltimore Street, “taunted” the officer, and then ran away. Forty minutes later, the officer saw the men walking down an adjacent street while “attempting to come back on the 400 block of Baltimore Street” and arrested them for failure to obey the order not to “return.” This arrest is premised on an unconstitutionally vague order not to return to a public street for an indeterminate time period.
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These and similar arrests identified by our investigation reflect BPD officers exercising nearly unfettered discretion to criminalize the act of standing on public sidewalks. Absent clear warning about the specific types of conduct that will result in such arrests, this practice fails to provide notice required by the Due Process Clause and risks arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. See Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 357 (1983).48 Accordingly, these arrests are unconstitutional.
c. BPD Unlawfully Detains Individuals for Investigation, Effectively Arresting Them Without Probable Cause
Our investigation further revealed that BPD officers unlawfully detain persons for extended periods of time—sometimes for at least several hours—without probable cause. These detentions constitute arrests and violate the Fourth Amendment. BPD does not process these detentions as arrests; instead officers use them to: (1) detain and question people suspected of crimes in hopes of uncovering evidence supporting an arrest; and (2) facilitate custodial interrogations of witnesses or other people with knowledge of suspected crimes. Neither purpose vitiates the requirement that officers must have probable cause to exceed the constitutional limits on investigative detentions.
“[D]etention for custodial interrogation—regardless of its label—intrudes so severely on interests protected by the Fourth Amendment as necessarily to trigger the traditional safeguards against illegal arrest.” Dunaway, 442 U.S. at 216; see also Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 605 (1975) (detention in a police station without probable cause “for investigation or for questioning” violates the Fourth Amendment). The Fourth Amendment likewise prohibits officers extending detentions “for the purpose of gathering additional evidence to justify the arrest.” County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 56 (1991); see also Brown, 422 U.S. at 605 (station house detention and questioning “in the hope that something might turn up” requires probable cause). While Terry allows officers to detain individuals for brief investigation where officers have reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot, Terry stops may not “resemble a traditional arrest.” Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court, 542 U.S. 177, 186 (2004). Courts have resisted putting precise limits on the permissible duration of Terry stops, but have found 90-minute detentions unconstitutional. See United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 709–10 (1983); accord United States v. Watson, 703 F.3d 684 (4th Cir. 2012) (investigative detention for three hours without probable cause constituted an unlawful custodial arrest under the Fourth Amendment); Zavala, 541 F.3d at 579–80 (90-minute detention in which subject was transported to different location constituted “a de facto arrest”); United States v. Chamberlin, 644 F.2d 1262, 1266–67 (9th Cir. 1980) (placing a suspect in the back of a police car for twenty minutes while the officer pursued another suspect exceeded the limits of a Terry stop).
While BPD does not formally document investigative detentions, we found troubling indications that BPD officers use such detentions as a regular part of investigating people suspected of criminal activity. Local prosecutors described this practice to Justice Department officials as BPD officers making arrests without probable cause on the street, then hours later deciding to “unarrest” when detention and questioning failed to uncover additional evidence. Our review of BPD documents confirmed that BPD uses these unlawful detentions.
48 Indeed, as set forth in Section II(B), infra, these practices have resulted in highly discriminatory outcomes.
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For example, in October 2010, an officer responded to a call for suspected burglary that indicated several African-American men were using a green truck to carry away a furnace. The officer arrived on the scene and approached three African-American men who were standing around a green truck with a furnace in the back. In response to the officer’s questions, one of the men stated that he was helping the other men move the furnace, which had been found in a nearby alley. The officer detained the men while he conducted a canvass of the area, which did not find any property from which the furnace could have been removed. Despite failing to identify evidence suggesting the men were involved in a burglary, the officer nonetheless placed all three men in custody and transported them to the Western District headquarters “for further investigation.” While the men were held at the station, the officer reviewed a CitiWatch camera that confirmed their explanation that they moved the furnace from an alley. After detaining the men for 1 hour and 40 minutes, the officer released them. BPD records contain no indication that the men consented to their detention, much less to being detained for nearly two hours. In other cases, BPD officers have likewise stopped individuals based on reasonable suspicion, transported them to precincts for fingerprinting and further investigation, then ultimately released them more than an hour later when the investigation failed to uncover probable cause to make an arrest. See supra, at 29. These custodial detentions violate the Fourth Amendment, which forbids extending Terry stops “for the purpose of gathering additional evidence to justify [an] arrest.” Riverside, 500 U.S. at 56; see also Brown, 422 U.S. at 6025 (station house detention and questioning “in the hope that something might turn up” requires probable cause).
4. BPD’s Unconstitutional Stops, Searches, and Arrests Result from a Longstanding Practice of Overly Aggressive Street Enforcement with Deficient Oversight and Policy Guidance
BPD’s pattern of making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests arises from its longstanding reliance on “zero tolerance” street enforcement, which encourages officers to make large numbers of stops, searches, and arrests for minor, highly discretionary offenses. This approach to street-level enforcement magnifies the importance of providing officers with robust policies and training and overseeing officer activity with comprehensive accountability systems. Yet BPD failed to collect reliable data, conducted minimal oversight of enforcement activities, and forced officers to rely on policies that provide insufficient guidance or, in several important areas, facially misstate constitutional requirements. Taken together, these deficiencies contribute to widespread constitutional violations.
a. Baltimore Leadership Prioritized “Zero Tolerance” Crime Suppression Tactics for Many Years
Starting in the late 1990s, Baltimore City and BPD leadership expressly adopted a policing model that embraced the principles of “zero tolerance” street enforcement. According to City and BPD leaders past and present, as well as media reports, Baltimore City based its approach in part on tactics developed by the New York Police Department and brought in consultants from NYPD’s program to oversee its implementation in Baltimore.49 As we heard from BPD officers and leaders,
49 See, e.g., Gerard Shields, O’Malley is wooing zero-tolerance gurus, BALTIMORE SUN, Oct. 2, 1999, http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-10-02/news/9910020227_1_jack-maple-violent-crime-police-commissioner (last accessed Aug. 5, 2016).
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as well as numerous community members, the strategy involved BPD officers making widespread use of pedestrian stops and searches in a purported effort to seize guns and narcotics and deter crime. BPD supervisors encouraged officers to issue citations and make arrests for low-level “quality of life” offenses, including loitering, trespassing, disorderly conduct, failure to obey, and disturbing the peace. As part of this strategy, BPD leadership pressured officers to increase the number of arrests and to “clear corners,” whether or not the officers observed criminal activity. The result was a massive increase in the quantity of arrests—but a corresponding decline in quality. Of the 100,000 arrestees that BPD processed through Central Booking in 2004,50 more than one in five were released without charge.51 Although our investigation did not analyze data on the number of stops and searches that took place during the same time period, it is doubtless that they far exceeded the number of arrests.
From the beginning, some community members and policymakers questioned the value of the policy, arguing that it could lead to harassment of residents without an appreciable reduction in crime. Zero tolerance enforcement made police interaction a daily fact of life for some Baltimore residents and provoked widespread community disillusionment with BPD, as well as calls from activists, former police officers, and state officials to adopt new practices. The strategy also created disillusion within the Department. According to the police union president at the time, some officers referred to the stop-and-frisk program as a “VCR detail,” standing for “violation of civil rights.”52
In June 2006, the ACLU of Maryland and the NAACP filed a lawsuit alleging that BPD was illegally arresting thousands of residents every year. The complaint asserted that BPD had not properly trained officers on the legal standard necessary to make an arrest, and had placed pressure on supervisors to bolster numbers, leading to citizens being improperly detained without probable cause. Shortly after the suit was filed, BPD began to take steps to decrease its reliance on zero tolerance policing. In the late 2000s, under Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, the number of arrests, and arrestees released without charge, began to decrease.53 In 2010, BPD and the City entered into a settlement to resolve the ACLU lawsuit, with BPD agreeing to adopt policies rejecting its former zero tolerance strategy and make changes to existing policies and procedures. The settlement established an Independent Auditor to evaluate BPD’s progress toward adopting stop and arrest practices consistent with the Constitution. In 2015, BPD published a number of amended policies, including one addressing the core legal elements of quality of life offenses, in which it cautioned that verbal warnings, counseling, and citations are preferable to arrest. The policy states that arrest should only take place where the quality of life violation was committed in the officer’s presence, and the officer has an objectively reasonable belief that arrest is necessary under the facts and circumstances or to otherwise protect the officer and citizens of Baltimore.
50 At the time, Baltimore City had a population of approximately 650,000 residents.
 51 JUSTICE POLICY INSTITUTE, BALTIMORE BEHIND BARS 10 (2010).
 52 Gus G. Sentementes, Police step up frisking tactic, BALTIMORE SUN, Nov. 13, 2005,
 http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2005-11-13/news/0511130098_1_frisking-deter-crime-police-officers (last accessed
 Aug. 5, 2016).
 53 JUSTICE POLICY INSTITUTE, BALTIMORE BEHIND BARS 10 (2010).

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Current Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis and former Commissioner Anthony Batts have acknowledged that BPD’s zero tolerance strategy damaged community relationships and created obstacles to effective policing. Both commissioners have publicly supported a more holistic policing model focused on rebuilding and leveraging community trust. Nevertheless, the practices of officers on the street have continued to reflect many of the problematic aspects of the previous strategy, resulting in a pattern of unconstitutional conduct. These problematic practices are reflected in our findings. BPD’s failure to engage in meaningful change was also noted in the reports of the Independent Auditor established by the ACLU lawsuit settlement agreement. At the end of the four-year monitoring period, the Auditor determined that BPD had not reached full compliance on more than half of the conditions of the agreement. Failure to consistently and adequately report arrests and engage in meaningful oversight of street-level enforcement was, and remains, a recurring problem. All of the Auditor’s reporting indicated that arrest reports for quality of life offenses did not meet the requirements of BPD departmental policies. The final report from 2014 noted that there was no systematic improvement in reporting for these offenses during the monitoring period.
One of the reasons that the intended move away from zero tolerance policing has not sufficiently curbed BPD’s practice of unconstitutional street-level enforcement is a persistent perception among officers that their performance continues to be measured by the raw numbers of stops and arrests they make, particularly for gun and drug offenses. Many officers believe that the path to promotions and favorable treatment, as well as the best way to avoid discipline, is to increase their number of stops and make arrests for these offenses. By frequently stopping and searching people they believe might possess contraband, with or without requisite reasonable suspicion, officers aim to improve their statistical output, which will in turn reflect favorably in their performance reviews. During shifts observed by Justice Department investigators, patrol officers actively sought out corners to clear and indicated that they believed they were obligated to move groups of people standing on sidewalks, whether or not the individuals in the groups appeared to be engaged in criminal conduct. Several officers demonstrated a mistaken understanding of the law, expressing that a group standing in front of a business or a vacant lot was necessarily loitering or trespassing on the property.
These views are reinforced by BPD’s mid-level supervisors, many of whom served in the Department during the height of the zero tolerance strategy and continue to embrace its principles. Some officers we interviewed expressed frustration with supervisory pressure to prioritize drug and gun arrests over community policing and longer, more intensive investigations. One officer acknowledged the futility of breaking up a crowd of “loiterers” because the crowd would simply relocate to a different store or corner. Yet supervisors still encourage officers to “clear corners” and engage in blanket enforcement of low-level offenses, as demonstrated by the incident discussed in Section II.A., supra, in which the officer’s supervisor encouraged him to “make something up” in order to disperse residents who were gathered peaceably on a street corner. Other officers told us that they were denied the opportunity to work overtime because supervisors believed they did not make enough stops and arrests.
This pressure from supervisors not only contributes to constitutional violations, but can also result in poor tactical decision-making that imperils the lives of officers and innocent civilians. In one incident we reviewed, an officer observed a gathering of people talking, eating, and waiting for food outside a late-night restaurant after bars had closed. None of the people appeared to be
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committing any crimes. But rather than monitoring the group or calling for backup in case of trouble, the officer decided to attempt to disperse the gathering alone. The officer reported that he decided to do this because he believed his supervisor would not be happy if he saw the area had not been cleared. As a result of his decision to clear the corner, the officer ended up in a physical altercation with a man who refused to leave. Alone and surrounded by an unfriendly crowd, the officer fired his service weapon at a man he feared was about to kick him. The bullet struck two people, at least one of whom was not involved in the incident. Despite the officer’s serious tactical mistakes, reviewing supervisors did not report any errors and concluded that the officer had acted appropriately.
b. Deficient Policies, Training, and Oversight
BPD exacerbates the risk that its aggressive street enforcement tactics will lead to constitutional violations by failing to use effective policies, training, oversight, and accountability systems. While these deficiencies are discussed in greater depth in Section III, infra at 128-54, several failings are particularly relevant to BPD’s pattern or practice of making unlawful stops, searches, and arrests.
i. BPD Policies and Training Materials Do Not Equip Officers to Police Effectively and Constitutionally
Important BPD policies and training materials either misstate the law or are too vague to provide meaningful guidance to officers about operative constitutional standards. As a result, officers committed to constitutional policing are often not equipped to provide it.
For example, BPD’s newly adopted order titled “Quality of Life Offenses—Core Legal Elements” from April 2015 does not accurately explain the legal requirements for making loitering arrests. The order includes a section discussing special considerations for a violation of the Baltimore City Code prohibiting loitering, but fails to mention the requirement that officers may not arrest individuals for loitering until they have been told what specific conduct is prohibited, warned that a violation of law is occurring, and still refuse to desist. As discussed above, BPD’s stops policy likewise misstated the applicable legal standard until 2015 by not requiring officers to have suspicion that a person is armed and dangerous prior to conducting a weapons frisk. Other policies are insufficiently specific to provide effective guidance to officers. For example, General Order 4-94, “Strip Searches and Body Cavity Searches,” requires officers to obtain a warrant in order to conduct a body cavity search “unless exigent circumstances exist to justify a warrantless search.” However, the policy provides officers with no guidance about what would constitute sufficient exigent circumstances to justify an immediate, warrantless body cavity search.54
54 Other policies related to searches and seizures, though not directly related to our findings, are similarly troubling. For example, BPD General Order J-7 (January 5, 2004), “Search and Seizure Warrants” states that “Immediate entry may be initiated if sounds, conversations or other activity coming from within the premises leads you to believe that activity is occurring which may indicate a potential threat of physical harm to police officers/occupants, evidence is being destroyed, or a suspect is escaping.” However, this does not accord with constitutional requirements. Prior to “forcibly entering a residence, police officers ‘must knock on the door and announce their identity and purpose.’” Bellotte v. Edwards, 629 F.3d 415, 419 (4th Cir. 2011) (quoting Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, 387 (1997)). While it is true that exigent circumstances may sometimes justify a “no-knock” entry, “police must have a reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence, under the particular circumstances, would be dangerous or futile, or that it
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Several key training materials likewise fail to provide officers with an understanding of relevant constitutional requirements. For example, a lesson plan from a 2009 stop and frisk training indicates that “Investigative contacts of citizens by members of this agency will be conducted with articulable reason.” The confusing reference to “articulable reason” misstates the Terry standard requiring reasonable suspicion based on specific and articulable facts. The lesson plan later instructs that the member “must be able to articulate reasonable suspicion or belief a crime has been or will be committed to perform a stop & frisk.” This similarly misstates the relevant law, as it indicates that the same standard of suspicion is required for both an investigatory stop and a subsequent frisk—contrary to the requirement that an officer possess separate reasonable suspicion that an individual is armed and dangerous prior to initiating a frisk. Throughout the training, and on the reporting form, stop and frisk are consistently mentioned together, suggesting to officers that frisks are a matter of course during any stop. The training likewise does not mention that weapons frisks must be limited to a pat down of a person’s outer clothing.
BPD leadership recognized the deficiencies in its stop and frisk guidance and updated the Department’s policy on field interviews, investigative stops, weapons pat-downs and searches in 2015 to reflect a more accurate statement of the law. The new policy also requires that commanding officers provide trainings and conduct audits to ensure members engage appropriately and within policy, and fulfill reporting requirements. However, trainings have yet to be administered to the majority of field officers, and supervisors have not consistently audited reports or held officers accountable for failing to comply with the updated policy.
ii. BPD Lacks Effective Oversight and Accountability of Stops, Searches, and Arrests
BPD fails to use effective measures to review stops, searches, and arrests to identify and correct constitutional violations or provide counseling and support to its officers. BPD conducts minimal substantive review of the justification for particular stops, searches, and arrests, and does not sufficiently collect and analyze data to identify problematic patterns in these activities. Consequently, BPD relies almost exclusively on its complaint system to identify constitutional violations. These practices are not sufficient to ensure constitutional policing.
Substantive review of stops, searches, and arrests: BPD supervisors conduct minimal substantive review of officers’ justifications for stops, searches, and arrests. Although BPD policy
would inhibit the effective investigation of the crime by, for example, allowing the destruction of evidence.” Bellotte, 629 F.3d at 420 (citation omitted). “Generic” threats and dangers “raised at the most general level” are not particularized enough to establish exigent circumstances. Id. at 424 n.2. Entry without knocking based on mere speculation is likewise not reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 423. The BPD policy also permits immediate entry, even in the absence of exigent circumstances, where there has been no response within 20 seconds of knocking on the door. This is not in accord with applicable law. Although 15–20 seconds may be a sufficient amount of time to wait if officers have reason to believe the delay gives rise to exigent circumstances, “in a case with no reason to suspect an immediate risk of frustration or futility in waiting at all, the reasonable wait time may well be longer when police make a forced entry, since they ought to be more certain the occupant has had time to answer the door.” United States v. Banks, 540 U.S. 31, 41 (2003); see also Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 590 (2006) (“Our reasonable wait time standard is necessarily vague.”) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
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instructs officers to document all stops, frisks, and searches on a stop form, it lacks an effective means to identify and address unconstitutional behavior. For most of the period covered by our review, BPD officers recorded stops on a “Stop and Frisk” form that typically did not record an officer’s reasons for making a stop or initiating a frisk. As a result, BPD officers did not document the facts justifying a stop or search except in cases that resulted in an arrest or use of force, for which officers were required to complete an incident report or use of force report. This information deficit precluded supervisory review for the large majority of stops that do not lead to arrests or citations—stops for which such review is imperative. BPD attempted to address this data collection issue through a policy change in 2015, when it began requiring officers to document the basis for Terry stops and frisks on a “Form 309” and instructing supervisors to review these justifications. But this process has not generated robust review. While supervisors usually review stop reports, they almost universally sign off on the bases for stops and searches—even where officers describe facially unlawful activity. Indeed, BPD supervisors told us they view their role as merely “documenting” officer activity, not reviewing it for compliance with policy and law. Moreover, our ride-alongs and officer interviews revealed that many officers who make Terry stops that do not lead to arrest report that they conducted only a voluntary “field interview”—or no stop at all—to avoid the new documentation requirements. And BPD has not audited its field reports or CAD data to root out this practice.
We found similar deficiencies throughout BPD’s review of officers’ justifications for arrests. As with stops and frisks, BPD front line supervisors consistently sign off on incident reports describing the basis for warrantless arrests, even where the reports describe egregious constitutional violations. Indeed, our review did not identify a single arrest questioned by a front line supervisor. And as with stops, BPD supervisors told us that they see their role as documenting officer activity, not reviewing to ensure it conforms to constitutional standards.
Data collection and pattern analysis: BPD likewise fails to collect and analyze data to identify patterns in officers’ stops, searches, and arrests. Despite a long record of public outcry and numerous complaints regarding illegal stops, searches, and arrests for low level offenses, BPD has never consistently collected and analyzed data regarding the number, type, and nature of its investigatory stops. BPD enters certain information from stop forms into an electronic database, but the limited types of data and inconsistent data entry practices preclude analysis. Indeed, BPD does not conduct any statistical analysis of its stops or searches using these data, nor are the data entered into BPD’s early intervention system to help identify officers whose activities may warrant further scrutiny. This lack of meaningful data analysis hinders BPD’s ability to manage its officers effectively.
The inability to analyze data keeps BPD from identifying important trends, curbing unlawful practices, and assisting officers or units that may benefit from additional training or support. For example, BPD’s data systems cannot identify whether specific officers or units bear a disproportionate share of responsibility for illegal stops and searches. During the course of our investigation, we received a large number of anecdotes specifically identifying plainclothes officers enforcing violent crime and vice offenses (the names and organization of the units have changed multiple times over the years covered by the investigation) as particularly aggressive and unrestrained in their practice of stopping individuals without cause and performing public, humiliating searches. A disproportionate share of complaints likewise accuse plainclothes officers of misconduct. Yet
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much of BPD’s stop data does not even identify the unit of the officers involved in the stop, making unit-level analysis impossible. Indeed, BPD’s data on roughly half of the 300,000 stops recorded from 2010–2014 contain no information about the units of the officers who made the stop.
BPD similarly fails to track data on arrests made by officers. Although BPD enters information on arrests in a basic database, the Department conducts no analysis to identify trends in the type, frequency, or quality of arrests made by particular officers or units. For example, one measure that could be used to assess whether individual officers or units are engaged in a pattern of illegal arrests would be to monitor arrest outcomes to determine if prosecutors filed or dismissed charges in cases stemming from arrests by certain officers, units, or supervisors. Doing so would identify officers who make arrests that cannot be prosecuted due to lack of probable cause, failure to collect evidence in a constitutional manner, or other improprieties. Tracking arrest outcomes is an important tool for imposing accountability as well as identifying officers who would benefit from additional training, guidance, or other early intervention. Yet BPD does not take any steps to track or identify officers or units who make arrests that cannot be prosecuted, or to identify supervisors who sign off on such arrests.
Even where prosecutors have provided BPD with specific information on problematic officers who routinely make improper arrests, searches, or seizures, the Department has failed to meaningfully investigate the information or take appropriate action. For several years, the State’s Attorney’s Office maintained a “Do Not Call” list of officers that prosecutors should not subpoena to testify because prosecutors determined that the officers did not testify credibly about their enforcement actions. Although the State’s Attorney’s Office regularly shared this list with BPD, the Department rarely used the information to identify officers who may need support or discipline. As a result, problematic officers remain on the street, detaining, searching, and arresting people even though the State’s Attorney’s Office has determined that it cannot prosecute a crime based on the officers’ testimony. The State’s Attorney’s Office no longer maintains a written “Do Not Call” list, but prosecutors informally maintain a registry of problematic BPD officers who cannot be used to support criminal prosecutions. In recent years, the State’s Attorney’s Office has contacted BPD leadership on several occasions to identify officers that prosecutors determined can no longer testify credibly due to misconduct. In most of these cases, BPD leadership took no action against the identified problem officers.
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B. BPD DISCRIMINATES AGAINST AFRICAN AMERICANS IN ITS ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITIES
We find reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing against African Americans. Statistical evidence shows that the Department intrudes disproportionately upon the lives of African Americans at every stage of its enforcement activities. BPD officers disproportionately stop African Americans; search them more frequently during these stops; and arrest them at rates that significantly exceed relevant benchmarks for criminal activity. African Americans are likewise subjected more often to false arrests. Indeed, for each misdemeanor street offense that we examined, local prosecutors and booking officials dismissed a higher proportion of African-American arrests upon initial review compared to arrests of people from other racial backgrounds. BPD officers also disproportionately use force—including constitutionally excessive force—against African-American subjects. Nearly 90 percent of the excessive force incidents identified by the Justice Department review involve force used against African Americans.
In the early 2000s, BPD began a “zero tolerance” enforcement strategy that encouraged officers to make frequent stops, searches, and arrests for misdemeanor offenses. This strategy overwhelmingly impacted the City’s African-American residents and predominantly AfricanAmerican neighborhoods. BPD has had notice of concerns about its policing of African-American communities for many years, yet it has failed to take adequate steps to ensure that its enforcement activities are non-discriminatory. The Department did not implement a “Fair and Impartial Policing” policy until 2015 and conducted virtually no analysis of its own data to assess the impact of its enforcement activities on African-American communities. BPD likewise has failed to effectively investigate complaints alleging racial bias—often misclassifying complaints to preclude any meaningful investigation. In some cases, BPD supervisors have ordered their subordinates to target African Americans specifically for heightened enforcement. We also found numerous examples of BPD officers using racial slurs or making other statements that exhibit bias against African Americans without being held accountable by the Department. These racial disparities and indications of intentional discrimination erode community trust that is a critical component of effective law enforcement. We heard repeatedly from community members who believed they were treated disrespectfully or singled out for enforcement because of their race. BPD leadership acknowledges that its legacy of zero tolerance enforcement in certain neighborhoods has damaged community partnerships and has taken steps to begin improving the Department’s relationship with African-American communities. While we applaud these steps, significant work remains.
In addition to harming its relationship with the broader community, BPD’s racially disparate enforcement violates the Safe Streets Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These statutes prohibit law enforcement practices that disparately impact African Americans unless the practices are necessary to achieve non-discriminatory objectives. Cf. Gallagher v. Magner, 619 F.3d 823, 837 (8th Cir. 2010) (in the related context of Fair Housing Act litigation, an official action that causes racially disparate impact may be justified only by showing that the action “has a manifest relationship to legitimate, non-discriminatory objectives”); Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 425 (1975) (finding in the Title VII employment discrimination context that an employer may rebut prima facie showing of disproportionate impact by proving that the requirement causing disparate
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impact has a “manifest relationship to the employment in question”). Title VI provides that no person shall “be excluded from participating in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving [f]ederal financial assistance” based on race. 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. The Title VI implementing regulations ban recipients of federal funds from using “criteria or methods of administration” that have an unnecessary disparate impact based on race. 28 C.F.R. § 42.104(b)(2). The Safe Streets Act likewise proscribes law enforcement practices that cause disparate impact based on race except where such impact is necessary to achieve nondiscriminatory objectives. See 28 C.F.R. § 42.203.
1. BPD’s Enforcement Activities Disproportionately Impact African Americans
There is overwhelming statistical evidence of racial disparities in BPD’s stops, searches, and arrests. This evidence demonstrates a discriminatory impact on African Americans under Title VI and the Safe Streets Act. See Chavez v. Illinois State Police, 251 F.3d 612, 637 (7th Cir. 2001) (“The Supreme Court has long noted the importance of statistical analysis in cases in which the existence of discrimination is a disputed issue.”) (internal citation omitted); Bradley v. United States, 299 F.3d 197, 206 n.11 (3d Cir. 2002) (“In profiling cases . . . statistical evidence of discrimination may be the only means of proving a discriminatory effect”); Floyd v. City of New York, 959 F. Supp. 2d 540, 661– 62 (S.D.N.Y. 2013) (statistical evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in police stop and frisk practices, including post-stop outcomes, proved adverse impact under the Equal Protection Clause); Melendres v. Arpaio, No. CV-97092513, 2013 WL 2297173 (D. Ariz. May 24, 2013) (statistical evidence proved that certain patrol operations at a sheriff’s office disparately impacted Latinos); Maryland NAACP v. Maryland State Police, 454 F. Supp. 2d 339, 349 (D. Md. 2006) (disparities in stops and searches of African Americans constituted “powerful circumstantial evidence of racial profiling”). Here, statistical evidence highlights racial disparities at all levels of BPD’s street enforcement, from the initial decision to stop pedestrians or vehicles to conducting searches and making arrests. We also found troubling trends in the sample of use of force reports we reviewed, suggesting that force may be used disproportionately against African Americans.
a. Racial Disparities in Stops and Searches
BPD officers subject African Americans to a disproportionate number of pedestrian and vehicle stops on Baltimore streets and search African Americans disproportionately during these stops.
i. Stops
BPD disproportionately stops African Americans standing, walking, or driving on Baltimore streets. The Department’s data on all pedestrian stops from January 2010 to June 2015 shows that African Americans account for 84 percent of stops55 despite comprising only 63 percent of the City’s population. Expressed differently, BPD officers made 520 stops for every 1,000 black residents in Baltimore, but only 180 stops for every 1,000 Caucasian residents.
55 Stops for which officers did not record the subject’s race are excluded from this analysis.
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Figure 1 – BPD Pedestrian Stops Per 1,000 Residents, 2010-2015
The high rate of stopping African Americans persists across the City, even in districts where African Americans make up a small share of the population. Indeed, the proportion of AfricanAmerican stops exceeds the share of African-American population in each of BPD’s nine police districts, despite significant variation in the districts’ racial, socioeconomic, and geographic composition.56 For example, African Americans accounted for: 83 percent of stops in the Central District (compared to 57 percent of the population), which contains the City’s downtown business area; over 93 percent of stops in the Eastern District (compared to 90 percent of the population), which includes predominantly low-income, urban neighborhoods; and 83 percent of stops in the Northern District (compared to 41 percent of the population), which includes many affluent, suburban neighborhoods. Even in the Southeast District—with an African-American population of only 23 percent—two out of three BPD stops involved African-American subjects. Figure 2 illustrates this pattern.
56 The proportion of African American pedestrian stops and population was virtually identical in the Western District, where both figures are approximately 96 percent.
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Figure 2 –Pedestrian Stops Compared to Population, by BPD District, 2010-2015
Closer analysis highlights the impact of these racial disparities. Individual African Americans are far more likely to be subjected to multiple stops within relatively short periods of time. African Americans accounted for 95 percent of the 410 individuals stopped at least ten times by BPD officers from 2010–2015. During this period, BPD stopped 34 African Americans at least 20 times and seven other African Americans at least 30 times.57 No person of any other race was stopped more than 12 times. One African-American man in his mid-fifties was stopped 30 times in less than four years. The only reasons provided for these stops were officers’ suspicion that the man was “loitering” or “trespassing,” or as part of a “CDS investigation.” On at least 15 occasions, officers detained the man while they checked to see if he had outstanding warrants. Despite these repeated intrusions, none of the 30 stops resulted in a citation or criminal charge. The map on the following page shows the concentration of stops in African-American neighborhoods.
57 As explained in Section II.A.1, there is strong evidence that BPD under-reports its pedestrian stops. Thus, the true number of African Americans who hit these—or higher—stop thresholds may be significantly larger.
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BPD likewise stops African-American drivers at disproportionate rates. From 2010–2015, African Americans made up 82 percent of people stopped by BPD officers for traffic violations, compared to only 60 percent of the City’s driving age population. As with pedestrian stops, BPD stopped a higher rate of African American drivers in each of the City’s districts, despite large differences in those districts’ demographic profiles and traffic patterns. For example, African Americans accounted for 80 percent of vehicle stops in the Northern District despite making up only 41 percent of the district’s population, and made up 56 percent of stops in the Southeast District compared to only 23 percent of the population living there.
While there are limitations on using population data to benchmark vehicle stops because the proportion of drivers on roadways does not necessarily match the population living in a particular area, there are strong indications that BPD’s high rate of stopping African-American drivers is discriminatory. Indeed, the proportion of African-American drivers on Baltimore roadways is almost certainly less than their 60 percent share of the City’s driving age population. Baltimore’s traffic patterns are influenced by commuters and visitors from surrounding areas with significantly smaller African-American populations than the City’s. BPD’s data confirms that 25 percent of the Department’s traffic stops involve drivers who live outside the City, overwhelmingly in towns and suburbs within the Baltimore metropolitan area. The presence of these individuals on Baltimore roads lowers the proportion of African-American drivers, as African Americans account for only 27.6 percent of the driving age population in the Baltimore metropolitan area. Moreover, basic population data is likely to overstate the portion of African-American drivers on Baltimore roadways because African Americans are less likely than other City residents to have access to vehicles.58 Nationally, 19 percent of African Americans live in households that do not have access to automobiles, compared to 4.6 percent of Caucasians, a disparity that “follows directly from sharp racial differences in household income and poverty.” Berube, Deakin, & Raphael, SOCIOECONOMIC DIFFERENCES IN HOUSEHOLD AUTOMOBILE OWNERSHIP RATES 203 (2008). This trend is pronounced in Baltimore, where over 100,000 African Americans live in poverty, constituting an outsized share of the City’s low-income residents.59 Consequently, African Americans almost certainly comprise less than 60 percent of Baltimore drivers, but account for 82 percent of BPD’s traffic stops.
ii. Searches
We also found evidence of bias in BPD’s searches during pedestrian and vehicle stops, although our analysis is limited by significant shortcomings in BPD’s data collection. We first examined spreadsheets provided by BPD that purportedly reflect the Department’s data on all vehicle and pedestrian stops from 2010–2015, including whether officers conducted a search during each stop. Although these spreadsheets typically record the race of the person stopped and the district in which the stop occurred, they do not appear to reflect complete information about searches. BPD’s data record that officers conducted searches in only 1.3 percent of pedestrian stops
58 According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2010–2013, 30 percent of Baltimore residents do 
 not have access to automobiles.
 59 African Americans account for more than 76 percent of Baltimoreans living below the poverty line despite making up 
 only 63 percent of the City’s population. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2014 One-Year Estimate.

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and 0.5 percent of vehicle stops—rates that are implausibly low. Interviews with BPD personnel responsible for entering data from officers’ stop reports into the spreadsheets confirmed that information on searches is frequently not captured. Other relevant data—such as the reason for the stop, officers’ unit assignments, etc.—also appear to be recorded inconsistently. In an attempt to address this under-reporting and facilitate more comprehensive analysis of searches, experts retained by the Justice Department drew a sample of nearly 14,000 hard copy BPD stop reports, manually coded them, and created a new database containing all of the information recorded on the reports. Within this sample, officers conducted searches in 13 percent of pedestrian stops and 8.2 percent of vehicle stops—far higher rates than reflected in the data BPD captured in its data entry.
The database we created from hard copy stop reports reveals that BPD officers search African Americans at disproportionate rates. During pedestrian stops, officers searched 13 percent of African Americans compared to only 9.5 percent of other people—making African Americans 37 percent more likely to be searched when stopped than other residents. Similarly, officers were 23 percent more likely to search African Americans during vehicle stops. These differences are significant beyond conventional levels of statistical significance.60 Justice Department experts found that racial disparities in search rates persisted after using regression techniques to control for relevant variables, including the area in which a stop occurred and the assignment and experience level of the officers involved.
These racial disparities suggest that BPD’s search practices discriminate against African Americans. Search rate differences do not alone establish disproportionate impact based on race, however, because it is possible that differential search rates are driven by race-neutral explanations. For that reason, the best measure of racial patterns in searches is a comparison of the rates at which officers find contraband during searches, or “hit rates.” See, e.g., John Knowles, Nicola Persico & Petra Todd, Racial Bias in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence, 109 JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 203 (2001). A lower hit rate for searches of a particular demographic group is evidence that officers apply a lower threshold of suspicion when deciding to search members of that group compared to others.
To the extent that BPD collects hit rate data, it suggests that officers’ search decisions are biased against African Americans. Indeed, BPD’s data on all stops from 2010–2015 shows that searches of African Americans have significantly lower hit rates than other searches. During vehicle stops, BPD officers reported finding some type of contraband less than half as often when searching African Americans—in only 3.9 percent of searches of African Americans, compared to 8.5 percent of other searches. Search hit rates during pedestrian stops also exhibited large disparities, with officers finding contraband in only 2.6 percent of African American searches compared to 3.9 percent for other searches—a 50 percent difference.61 These results are statistically significant.
60 In the fields of statistics and criminology, results are generally considered statistically significant if they would occur by chance no more than 5 times out of 100. 61 This analysis is based on all 3,863 searches that BPD recorded for pedestrian stops and 1,495 searches recorded for vehicle stops from 2010–2015. As discussed above, these data likely fail to capture a significant number of searches that BPD officers actually conducted during this period. The hit rates from these searches are nonetheless indicative of bias, however, because there is no reason to believe that there are systematic differences in how BPD records search outcomes based on the race of the person searched. In other words, BPD officers sometimes fail to record their searches at all. But when searches are recorded, there is no indication that officers change how they record the fruits of the search based on the race of the person searched. Nor does it appear that officers disproportionately record searches
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Figure 3 – Search Hit Rates, 2010-2015
In short, BPD’s pedestrian and vehicle stops disproportionately impact African Americans. The large racial disparities in stops persist throughout the City, subjecting African Americans to heightened intrusion from the police in their lives. Officers also search African Americans at higher rates during these stops, even though searches of African Americans are less likely to find contraband than searches of people from other racial backgrounds. These differential search rates are not justified by characteristics of the people searched.
Our analysis of racial patterns in BPD’s searches was challenging because of the Department’s deficient data collection. BPD’s failure to record consistent search information not only inhibits our analysis here, it limits the Department’s ability to root out discriminatory conduct by its officers. Moving forward, BPD must reform its data collection and analysis systems to ensure that robust search data is tracked and analyzed to prevent and correct discriminatory practices.
in certain parts of the City. To the contrary, the proportion of searches recorded in each district roughly tracks the number of stops in those districts. In sum, BPD’s data showing that searches of African Americans are less likely to find contraband than other searches is reliable evidence of disproportionate impact.
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b. Racial Disparities in Arrests
The racial disparities in BPD’s stops and searches are further reflected in BPD’s arrest practices. From November 2010–July 2015, BPD charged African Americans with 280,850 criminal offenses, constituting over 86 percent of all charges filed for which the race of the offender is known.62 Expressed a different way, African Americans in Baltimore were charged with one offense for every 1.4 residents, while individuals of other races were charged with only one offense per 5.1 residents. This discriminatory pattern is particularly apparent in two categories of BPD’s enforcement: (1) warrantless arrests for discretionary misdemeanor offenses such as disorderly conduct and failing to obey an officer’s order; and (2) arrests for drug possession. In both cases, officers arrest African Americans at rates far higher than relevant benchmarks.
i. Racial Disparities in Misdemeanor Street Arrests
BPD’s warrantless arrests for discretionary misdemeanor offenses exhibit substantial racial disparities. Our analysis of these arrests is based on data the State of Maryland tracks for all criminal charges made by law enforcement officers. For each charged offense, this data captures the agency making the arrest, the race and gender of the person arrested, and the arrest’s disposition. As explained in Section II.A, supra, the disposition data records whether each arrestee was committed into jail, issued a criminal or civil citation, released without charges, or released because of mistaken identity. For arrests that do not result in immediate release, the data also record whether reviewing officials at the State’s Attorney’s Office found that the arrest lacked probable cause or otherwise declined to charge the offense. Analysis of this data reveals that African Americans account for the overwhelming majority of BPD’s discretionary misdemeanor arrests, and that reviewing officials are more likely to dismiss charges against African Americans—indicating that officers apply a lower standard when making them.
As an initial matter, BPD officers arrest African Americans for several common misdemeanor offenses at high rates. Although they make up only 63 percent of Baltimore’s population, African Americans accounted for: 87 percent of the 3,400 charges for resisting arrest; 89 percent of 1,350 charges for making a false statement to an officer; 84 percent of the 4,000 charges for failing to obey an order; 86 percent of the more than 1,000 charges for hindering or obstruction; 83 percent of the roughly 6,500 arrests for disorderly conduct; and 88 percent of the nearly 3,500 arrests for trespassing on posted property. Figure 4 highlights the magnitude of these disparities by expressing the number of arrests for these offenses per 1,000 Baltimore residents.
62 After removing duplicates from data provided by the State of Maryland, we found that BPD filed 331,764 criminal charges during this period. Of these charges, 5,641 were excluded from analysis because the arrestee’s race was not recorded.
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Figure 4 – Misdemeanor Charges Per 1,000 Residents, 2010-2015
These disparities are even more pronounced where officers arrest individuals solely for a misdemeanor street offense, unconnected to a more serious charge. In such cases, African Americans comprise 91 percent of trespassing charges; 91 percent of failure to obey charges; 88 percent of hindering charges; and 84 percent of disorderly conduct charges. BPD also charged 79 people solely with “resisting arrest,” despite not arresting them for any other crime. African Americans accounted for 90 percent of these charges.
In addition to these common misdemeanor offenses, BPD enforces other minor charges almost exclusively against African Americans. For example, BPD charged 657 people with “gaming” or playing “cards or dice,” of whom 652—over 99 percent—were African Americans. Although we are not aware of any data tracking the precise rate at which people of different races play cards or dice, it is extremely unlikely that African Americans comprise 99 percent of those doing so. Notably, in some cases, BPD has expended significant resources to enforce these minor offenses against African Americans. For example, BPD has used a helicopter unit known as “Foxtrot,” which typically coordinates officers’ response to shootings and other serious crimes, to enforce misdemeanor gambling offenses against African Americans. In early 2016, a Foxtrot unit alerted patrol officers that a group of young African-American men were playing dice on a street corner. Officers on the ground responded to this intelligence by confronting the group and arresting one of the men, who was charged solely with “playing dice.”
The differential rates at which BPD supervisors release without charges or local prosecutors decline to charge BPD’s misdemeanor arrests underscore their discriminatory nature. To arrest for a misdemeanor offense, BPD officers must have probable cause that an offense occurred. As
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explained above, in some cases reviewing officials at booking or the State’s Attorney’s Office disagree with officers’ probable cause determinations and decline to charge arrestees. If officers apply a consistent, unbiased standard when making arrests, the rate of such declinations should be roughly equivalent across racial groups for arrests on any particular offense. However, our outcome analysis shows large racial disparities: misdemeanor arrests of African Americans are dismissed or declined at significantly higher rates than other arrests.
During their initial review of arrest documents, booking officers and prosecutors dismissed charges against African Americans at significantly higher rates than arrests of other people. This disparity exists for every common misdemeanor offense we examined, as evident in Figure 5 below. Officials dismissed charges against African Americans for trespassing at a rate 52 percent higher than the rate at which they dismissed other trespassing arrests; dismissed African American resisting arrest charges at a 57 percent higher rate; failure to obey charges at a 33 percent higher rate; false statement charges at a 231 percent higher rate; disorderly conduct charges at a 17 percent higher rate; and disturbing the peace charges at a 370 percent higher rate. These disparities are statistically significant. Notably, the racial disparities in outcomes for these highly discretionary, non-violent offenses are not present for less discretionary felony offenses. We found that reviewing officials’ initial review resulted in dismissal of charges for first degree assault, burglary, and robbery at nearly identical rates across racial groups. The implication of these findings is that there are no underlying conditions that cause officials to dismiss African-American charges at higher rates. Instead, the large racial differences in the proportion of dismissed charges for misdemeanor street offenses demonstrate that, where officers have wider discretion to make arrests, they exercise it in a discriminatory manner.
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Figure 5 – Percent of Charges Dismissed Upon Initial Review, 2010-2015
In sum, BPD disproportionately arrests African Americans for common misdemeanor street offenses. The proportion of African Americans arrested for these offenses is far higher than their share of Baltimore’s population, and reviewing officials determined that arrests of African Americans for these offenses are significantly more likely to lack probable cause or otherwise not merit prosecution. Taken together, these facts demonstrate that BPD arrests African Americans for misdemeanor offenses based on lower evidentiary thresholds than it uses when arresting people from other racial backgrounds.
ii. Disproportionate Arrests for Drug Possession There are large racial disparities in BPD’s enforcement of laws criminalizing possession of controlled substances. We analyzed drug possession charges for several reasons: such charges make up more than one third of all BPD arrests; stakeholders and community members we interviewed frequently expressed their belief that BPD focuses on African Americans for heightened drug enforcement; and data on the drug arrests can be compared to relevant benchmarks on drug usage to assess whether BPD enforces drug laws disproportionately. For this analysis, we compared BPD’s drug arrests to: (1) survey data on drug usage; and (2) the rates of drug arrests in jurisdictions similar to Baltimore. We find that BPD arrests far more African Americans for drug offenses than would be expected based on drug usage and population data, and that this disparity is not attributable to any legitimate law enforcement objective. Indeed, BPD’s rate of African-American drug arrests is significantly higher than the rate of such arrests by law enforcement agencies in cities with similar demographic profiles and socioeconomic challenges. These analyses reveal that BPD’s
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drug enforcement disproportionately impacts African Americans. BPD arrests African Americans for drug possession offenses at rates far
exceeding their drug usage: To assess the racial impact of BPD’s drug arrests, we first aggregated all drug possession offenses63 for which BPD made at least 3,000 charges from November 2010–June 2015. BPD charged approximately 100,000 people for drug possession under these offenses. Eighty-nine percent of those charged were African American.64 BPD made 254 drug arrests for every 1,000 African-American Baltimore residents while making only 52 drug arrests per 1,000 residents of other races.65 African Americans were thus five times more likely than others to be arrested for drug offenses. Figure 6 – Drug Possession Charges Per 1,000 Residents, 2010-2015
The racial disparities in BPD’s enforcement are far higher than any demographic differences in the rates at which individuals use drugs. While the observed prevalence of illicit drug use varies somewhat by data source, most comprehensive surveys indicate that African Americans use drugs at rates that, at most, only modestly exceed other population groups. The Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that, in 2013, 8.7 percent of African Americans over age 12 had used drugs within the past month, compared to 7.7 percent of Caucasians. The 2012 survey reported similar figures, with 9.1 percent of African Americans and 7.4
63 Some criminologists believe that, when comparing drug arrests to survey data on drug usage, the most accurate comparison includes police arrests for drug possession and drug distribution because law enforcement officers may charge individuals possessing controlled substances with intent to distribute them. Accordingly, we also compared BPD’s rate of charging individuals for all drug possession and distribution offenses to data on drug usage. This comparison yielded nearly identical results. African Americans account for 90 percent of possession and distribution offenses charged by BPD, compared to 88.5 percent of possession charges alone. 64 We excluded a small number of charges for which the race of the arrestee was not recorded. 65 These figures include only drug offenses for which BPD made at least 3,000 charges from 2010–2015. The total number of all drug arrests is higher, as indicated in the analysis of Bureau of Justice Statistics data discussed below.
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percent of Caucasians reporting drug use.66 In other words, the CDC survey found that African Americans were between 1.1 and 1.2 times more likely to use drugs than Caucasians, yet BPD arrests African Americans for drug possession 5 times as often as others.67
BPD’s disparate rate of arresting African Americans for drug crimes cannot be explained by differences in drug usage within Baltimore as compared to the nation as a whole. To the contrary, drug use in Baltimore appears broadly similar to national averages. For example, data maintained by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) shows that the rate of marijuana use from 2010–2012 averaged 8.2 percent in Baltimore, compared to a national average of 7.0 percent. For drugs other than marijuana, SAMHSA surveys show that usage in Baltimore averaged 3.3 percent during this period, compared to a national average of 3.4 percent.
BPD arrests African Americans for drug possession offenses at higher rates than similar cities: A second measure of BPD’s disproportionate drug enforcement is the agency’s high rate of arresting African Americans for drug possession offenses compared to law enforcement agencies in cities with comparable demographic profiles, crime rates, and economic profiles. Expert criminologists retained for our investigation identified five cities most comparable to Baltimore for purposes of this analysis: Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Memphis, and Milwaukee. These cities reported overall drug usage rates in line with Baltimore’s 8.2 percent, including: 9.0 percent in Milwaukee; 13.6 percent in Detroit; and 6.5 percent in Atlanta.68 The comparison cities likewise reported usage rates similar to Baltimore’s 3.3 percent for drugs other than marijuana. Cleveland reported 3.5 percent nonmarijuana usage, Atlanta 3.1 percent, and Detroit 3.7 percent.69 Despites these similarities in rates of drug use, however, we found that BPD makes far more drug arrests than agencies in Baltimore’s peer cities.
To make this comparison, we collected data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) on drug arrests in Baltimore and the five comparison cities. The most recent period for which BJS data is available is 2010–2012. We used the 2010–2012 BJS data for all cities—including Baltimore—to standardize how arrests are categorized and reported.70 We then controlled for population differences among these cities by measuring arrest rates based on the number of drug arrests per 1,000 residents in each racial category. The results show that BPD’s rate of arresting African Americans for drug crimes dramatically exceeds the rate of such arrests by agencies in the comparison cities. Indeed, for each of the three years we examined, Baltimore drug arrests of
66 See National Survey on Drug Use and Heath, CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL (Aug. 4, 2016), 
 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data.
 67 Ninety-nine percent of BPD’s arrestees for drug possession were either African American or Caucasian.
 68 National Survey on Drug Use and Health Table 5, SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
 (August 4, 2016), 
 http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUHsubstateChangeTabs2012/NSDUHsubstateChangeTabs2012
 .htm.
 69Id.
 70 The BJS data on drug arrests in Baltimore differs slightly from the data BPD provided to us during the investigation,
 but the small differences do not impact our analysis. Indeed, for all three years we examined, the BPD data show that
 the agency arrested an even larger number of African Americans than the data reported to BJS. The analysis presented
 here thus may slightly understate the magnitude of BPD’s disparate drug arrests of African Americans when compared
 to agencies in other cities.

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African Americans were between 200 and 500 percent higher than the comparison cities.71 Figure 7 – Drug Possession Arrests Per 1,000 African-American Residents, 2010-2012
c. Use of Force The consequence of the large racial disparities in stops, searches, and arrests may also manifest itself in what may be disproportionate use of force against African Americans by BPD. We found that African Americans accounted for roughly 88 percent of the subjects of non-deadly force used by BPD officers in a random sample of over 800 cases we reviewed. This trend is consistent across different types of non-deadly force, including tasers, the most common weapon used by BPD officers. While these patterns merit attention, we draw no firm conclusions about their relative impact on African Americans because we did not compare the rates of force to any “benchmark” of encounters in which force is warranted. Nevertheless, this rate of force is significantly higher than the proportion of African Americans in Baltimore’s population, heightening our concerns.
*** In sum, we find large racial disparities in BPD’s pedestrian stops, vehicle stops, searches, and arrests. We further identified troubling indications that BPD officers disproportionately use force during encounters with African Americans on Baltimore streets. As explained further below, BPD’s disparate stops, searches, and arrests of African Americans are not part of a calibrated,
71 BPD also arrests non-African Americans for drug possession offenses at somewhat higher rates than the national average and the comparison cities. As explained above, however, the proportion of BPD drug arrests of African Americans is far higher than would be expected based on drug usage data and population statistics. The comparison to law enforcement agencies in similar cities demonstrates that these disparities are not driven by legitimate responses to socioeconomic conditions. Rather, BPD’s discriminatory drug enforcement renders it a significant outlier.
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proportionate strategy for responding to criminal activity. These disparities establish disproportionate impact under the Constitution and the nondiscrimination provisions of Title VI and the Safe Streets Act. Title VI and the Safe Streets Act prohibit law enforcement agencies that receive federal financial assistance from engaging in practices that have an unnecessary disparate impact based on race. Because BPD’s disparate stops, searches, and arrest are not done in a manner necessary to achieve BPD’s legitimate public safety goals, they violate Title VI and the Safe Streets Act.
2. Racial Disparities in BPD’s Enforcement, Along with Evidence Suggesting Intentional Discrimination Against African Americans, Exacerbates Community Distrust
The policing practices that cause the racial disparities in BPD’s stops, searches, and arrests, along with evidence suggesting intentional discrimination against African Americans, undermine the community trust that is central to effective policing. Indeed, we heard from many community members who were reluctant to engage with BPD officers because of their belief that the Department treats African Americans unfairly. See also Jack Glaser, Suspect Race: Causes and Consequence of Racial Profiling 96–126 (2015) (racial profiling has a “high risk” of undermining efforts to control crime and promote public safety). These concerns were acknowledged by BPD leadership and officers, who explained that the lack of trust—particularly in many of Baltimore’s African-American communities—inhibited officers’ efforts to build relationships that are a key component of effective policing.
Starting in the early 2000s, BPD implemented a “zero tolerance” policing strategy. This strategy encouraged officers to take discretionary enforcement actions, including stops, searches, and arrests for misdemeanor offenses like loitering and disorderly conduct. As described above, this enforcement strategy focused on African Americans and predominantly African American neighborhoods for discretionary enforcement actions, and it led to officers frequently stopping, searching, and arresting individuals without the required constitutional justification. We also found evidence of officers using racial slurs or making other statements exhibiting bias while taking enforcement actions against African Americans.
The Department has had notice of concerns about the impact of its zero tolerance strategy on African Americans and predominantly African-American neighborhoods for many years, but for many years it failed to take adequate steps to ensure that its policing efforts are non-discriminatory. BPD did not institute a “Fair and Impartial Policing” policy until 2015, leaving officers without critical guidance on how to lawfully perform their duties. We likewise found no evidence that BPD has performed any analysis to determine if its enforcement strategies and activities disparately impact African Americans, even though it has collected the basic data to perform such assessments for years. Indeed, every analysis we include in this report is based on BPD’s own data, but BPD never developed systems to conduct this analysis. We also found that BPD repeatedly fails to investigate complaints of racial bias. In the approximately six years of complaint data we received from BPD, we found only one complaint that BPD classified as a racial slur. This is implausible. By manually reviewing and performing text searches on BPD’s complaint data, we found 60 more complaints that alleged that BPD officers used just one racial slur—“n****r”—but all these complaints were misclassified as a lesser offense.
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Recently, City and BPD leaders have acknowledged that the zero tolerance policing strategy has harmed the City’s predominantly African-American communities. See supra at 17-18. During our investigation, one of BPD’s top officials told us that “stop and frisk killed the hopes and dreams of entire communities.” The City’s and BPD’s recognition that its zero tolerance policing strategy has had a significant, unwarranted impact on Baltimore’s African-American communities has led to recent changes in the Department, including implementing the “Fair and Impartial Policing” policy in 2015, and efforts to improve its collection of data on its enforcement activities. We commend the City and BPD for these efforts.
Still, many BPD supervisors continue to reinforce zero tolerance enforcement. Officers patrolling predominantly African-American neighborhoods routinely receive orders to “clear corners” by stopping or arresting African-American youth standing on sidewalks. This practice has continued despite concerns raised by officers themselves, who have told BPD leadership that these actions lack legal justification, are time-consuming, and counterproductive. In some cases, supervisors have issued explicitly discriminatory orders, such as directing a shift to arrest “all the black hoodies” in a neighborhood. And when officers have expressed concerns about such directives, the Department has failed to take corrective action. To restore the community’s confidence in BPD and ensure that its policing services are being provided equitably, BPD must continue to improve its policies, training, data collection and analysis, and accountability systems.
The assessment of discriminatory intent focuses on “circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available.” See Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266 (1977). “The impact of the official action . . . may provide an important starting point” for assessing discriminatory intent. Id.; see also Williams v. Hansen, 326 F.3d 569, 585 (4th Cir. 2003). In addition to evidence of disparate impact, other factors include: direct statements that exhibit bias; an agency’s departures from its own procedures and accepted practices in the field; and the relevant historical context. Arlington Heights, 429 U.S. at 266–68; Sylvia Dev. Corp. v. Calvert County, 48 F.3d 810, 819 (4th Cir. 1995).
a. BPD’s Enforcement Activities Disproportionately Impact African Americans
The magnitude of the racial differences in BPD’s stops, searches, and arrests are evidence that BPD’s disproportionate enforcement may constitute intentional discrimination. We found consistent racial disparities in BPD’s stops, searches, and arrests that are not attributable to population patterns, crime rates, or other race-neutral factors.
• BPD stops African Americans disproportionately in each of its nine police districts, despite significant variation in the districts’ demographic characteristics and crime rates. Moreover, BPD has used pedestrian stops as a regular part of its discretionary enforcement— documenting over 300,000 stops in five years—despite their demonstrated ineffectiveness for ferreting out crime. Only 3.7 percent of pedestrian stops uncovered evidence of criminal activity—and the rate of criminal activity found during stops of African Americans was lower than stops of others. Supra at 28.
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• Racial disparities in BPD’s search rates persisted after controlling for the area in which a search occurred and numerous other factors, including the unit assignment and experience level of the officers involved. And searches of African Americans were less likely to find contraband compared to searches of people from other racial backgrounds, indicating that officers apply a lower threshold of suspicion when deciding to search African Americans. Supra at 53.
• There is also substantial evidence that the large racial disparities in BPD’s enforcement of drug possession statutes are not explained by rates of drug usage. While survey data on drug usage shows that African Americans use banned substances at rates similar to or slightly higher than other population groups, BPD arrested African Americans for drug possession offenses at five times the rate at which it arrested others. BPD also arrested African Americans for drug possession offenses several times more often than law enforcement agencies in cities with similar crime rates and demographic and economic characteristics. Supra at Section II.B.1
• The consistent racial disparities in outcomes from BPD’s misdemeanor arrests also do not appear to be attributable to non-racial factors. For every misdemeanor offense we examined, supervisors at Central Booking and prosecutors dismissed a significantly larger share of charges brought against African Americans than others. This consistent pattern suggests that, for these highly discretionary offenses, BPD is disproportionately likely to arrest African Americans based on insufficient evidence. See supra at Section II.B.1.
Together, these findings provide substantial evidence that BPD’s disparate stops, searches, and misdemeanor arrests of African Americans are not part of a calibrated, proportionate strategy for responding to criminal activity.
In addition, BPD’s disproportionate enforcement against African Americans is suggestive of intentional discrimination because the racial disparities are greatest for enforcement activities that involve higher degrees of officer discretion. In the five years of arrest data we reviewed, African Americans accounted for a larger share of charges for highly discretionary misdemeanor offenses than for other offenses, including: 91 percent of those charged solely with trespassing, 91 percent of charges for failing to obey an officer’s orders, 88 percent of those arrested solely for “impeding” and 84 percent of people charged with disorderly conduct. As noted above, booking supervisors and prosecutors dismissed a significantly higher portion of charges made against African Americans for each of these charges. This pattern indicates that, where BPD officers have more discretion to make arrests, they exercise that discretion to arrest African Americans disproportionately. Moreover, the racial disparities in dismissal rates exist only for highly discretionary misdemeanor arrests, not felony arrests. That is, booking officials and prosecutors dismissed charges at nearly identical rates across racial groups for felony charges like first degree assault, burglary, and robbery for which there is little officer discretion about whether to arrest suspects. For every discretionary misdemeanor offense that we examined, however, officials dismissed charges against African Americans at significantly higher rates—indicating that officers apply a lower standard when arresting African Americans for these offenses.
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b. BPD’s “Zero Tolerance” Strategy Focused on African-American Neighborhoods
In addition to this statistical evidence of disparate impact, we also have evidence that racial disparities occurred, at least in part, because of BPD’s reliance on “zero tolerance” enforcement tactics in predominantly African-American neighborhoods. BPD employed these tactics without adequate oversight, training, or analysis, despite frequent community concerns about their impact. We also found evidence of direct orders that encourage discriminatory treatment.
Zero tolerance tactics in African-American neighborhoods prioritized officers making large numbers of stops and arrests for minor offenses, despite knowing the potential impact of these practices. For example, in the approximately five and half years of data we examined, BPD recorded nearly 55,000 pedestrian stops in its smallest police district—the Western District, with a population of a little more than 37,000 people that is 97 percent African American—while making only 21,000 stops in the predominantly white Northern District, with a population of approximately 91,000.72 Expressed differently, BPD made 146 stops for every 100 residents in the predominantly African American Western District while making only 22.5 stops per 100 residents in the predominantly white Northern District—a more than 6 to 1 disparity. We found that disparities in BPD’s stops of African Americans persist across all of BPD’s nine police districts.
We heard concerns from numerous officers that zero tolerance tactics have resulted in unconstitutional stops and arrests, and that they are counterproductive. The Fraternal Order of Police’s 2012 Blueprint for Improved Policing noted how zero tolerance tactics are counterproductive:
Comstat numbers drive everything in BPD, which has led to misplaced priorities . . . As a result, officers in the BPD feel pressure to achieve numbers for perception’s sake,” and “[t]he focus on assigning blame for less-than-satisfactory numbers during Comstat, rather than problem-solving, is completely unproductive and weakens the collective morale of the BPD.”
The Blueprint concluded that BPD “must discontinue the practice of rewarding statistically driven arrests.”
Nevertheless, many BPD supervisors continue to encourage patrol officers to use zero tolerance tactics. Based on our observations during numerous ride-alongs and conversations with BPD officers, instructions to “clear corners” remain a regular feature of patrolling certain predominantly African-American neighborhoods. These activities frequently lack any legal basis. One officer informed us that she stops and disperses youth standing on sidewalks because “it looks bad.” The same officer, while responding to a call about a gang fight, stopped to engage an African American man and his four-year-old son who were sitting on a fence by a playground where the young boy had been playing. The officer told them that they “couldn’t just stand around” and “needed to move.” A second officer, after explaining to his supervisor that he had no legal basis to clear a corner, was told to “make something up.” BPD has continued this practice despite its impact on African-American residents and its lack of effectiveness for fighting crime. Indeed, we found
72 These stops also fell disproportionately on African Americans. Despite making up only 41 percent of the Northern District’s population, African Americans accounted for 83 percent of stops in the district.
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that BPD’s pedestrian stops—and searches conducted during these stops—uncover criminal activity at extremely low rates. See supra at Section II.A.2. And the rate of finding criminal activity when stopping and searching African Americans is lower still. Id.
In some cases, BPD supervisors have instructed their subordinates to specifically target African Americans for enforcement. A sergeant told us that in 2011 her lieutenant—a commander in charge of setting enforcement priorities for an entire police district during the shift—ordered the sergeant to instruct officers under her command to “lock up all the black hoodies” in her district. When the sergeant objected and refused to follow this order, she received an “unsatisfactory” performance evaluation and was transferred to a different unit. The sergeant filed a successful complaint about her performance evaluation with BPD’s Equal Opportunity and Diversity Section, but BPD never took action against the lieutenant for giving the order to target “black hoodies” for enforcement. Similarly, as described above, in 2012 a BPD lieutenant provided officers under his command with a template for trespassing arrests that suggested officers would arrest exclusively African-American men for that offense. As in the first example, this directive is especially concerning because it came from a shift commander. See supra at 63. These statements targeting African Americans for enforcement reinforce the statistical disparities in enforcement outcomes that we measured. The enforcement activities ordered by the BPD commanders—arresting African Americans for trespassing and finding any possible basis to arrest “black hoodies”—are consistent with the racial disparities we found in BPD’s discretionary stops, searches, and misdemeanor arrests.
c. Statements Exhibiting Bias Against African Americans
We also found numerous examples of BPD officers using racial slurs or other statements that exhibit bias. Officers’ use of racial language was a recurrent theme during the hundreds of interviews we conducted with members of the Baltimore community. The frequency of this conduct is difficult to quantify, however, because BPD erects many formal obstacles to filing complaints, community members often do not file complaints because they believe doing so would be fruitless, and BPD fails to properly document and classify allegations that are made. See infra at 139. Even when individuals successfully make a complaint alleging racial bias, BPD supervisors almost universally misclassify the complaint as minor misconduct—such as discourtesy—that does not reflect its racial elements.
Indeed, BPD’s internal affairs records contain only one complaint that officers categorized as a racial slur allegation in the six years of data we examined. Our interviews with hundreds of Baltimore residents, along with other complaints we have received from the Baltimore community, demonstrates that this number is implausibly low. Because of this, we manually reviewed the narrative descriptions of a subset of the complaints that were not classified as alleging racial bias, and we identified more than one hundred examples of officers allegedly using racial epithets, slurs, and making threats when interacting with African Americans in that subset. Indeed, we found 60 separate allegations between 2010 and 2016 that officers used the word “n****r” that were not classified as complaints alleging use of racial slurs or other racial bias.73 As explained further below,
73 Use of “racial epithets undoubtedly demonstrate racial animus.” Jones v. Robinson Prop. Group, 427 F.3d 987, 993 (5th Cir. 2005). Many courts have recognized that particular slurs are extremely probative of racial animus. See Spriggs v. Diamond Auto Glass, 242 F.3d 179, 185 (4th Cir. 2001) (“Far more than a ‘mere offensive utterance,’ the word ‘n****r is pure anathema to African-Americans.”); Brown v. E. Miss. Elec. Power Ass’n, 989 F.2d 858, 861 (5th Cir. 1993) (“the term
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BPD misclassifies and fails to investigate complaints of racial slurs and racial bias, allowing a culture of bias against African Americans to persist. Several examples highlight the types of statements we found that exhibit bias towards African Americans:
• The City paid $95,000 in 2012 to settle a lawsuit brought by an 87-year-old AfricanAmerican grandmother who alleged that she was shoved against a wall after she refused to allow an officer to enter her basement to conduct a warrantless search. After shoving the woman to the floor, the officer allegedly stood over her and said, “Bitch, you ain’t no better than any of the other old black bitches I have locked up.”
• In 2014, a middle-aged African-American man alleged that a sergeant in Southeast Baltimore stopped him near Patterson Park and strip-searched him in public. When the man protested and said he would contact a lawyer, the sergeant allegedly told him, “Get your n****r ass out of here.” BPD found the complaint “not sustained” without interviewing any of the involved parties.
• One Baltimore firefighter and an emergency medical technician told us that, prior to a march led by a prominent African-American pastor in 2015, a BPD officer told the firefighters “they’re going marching and there’s going to be a problem. What y’all should do is turn them hoses on them.”
• In 2013 a white male BPD officer made a racially-charged threat to an African-American teenager while booking the youth into Baltimore’s juvenile facility on a failure to appear charge. The incident stemmed from an argument about George Zimmerman, who had been acquitted of murdering Trayvon Martin four days earlier. In response to the teenager referring to the officers present as “Zimmermans,” a white officer threatened the juvenile by referring to the outfit Martin wore at the time he was killed: “Put a hoodie on and come to my neighborhood, you will see.” The officer also threatened the youth by stating, “If you come to my neighborhood I’ll throw you in the water and feed you to the crabs. I will then let the crabs get fat off you and then sell them to your family.” When BPD investigated the incident, the officer admitted to “talking about the crabs and throwing him in the river,” but claimed to internal affairs investigators that he “could not recall” whether he made the remark about the hoodie. BPD sustained a complaint against the officer for “misconduct” and making an “inappropriate comment,” but the investigative file contains no record of discipline. The officer remains employed at BPD.
• In a complaint from August 2011, an African-American man alleged that during a vehicle stop, an officer warned a second officer to “be careful” because the occupants of the car “might do voodoo on you”—an apparent reference to their heritage and accents. A second officer made monkey noises throughout the encounter. BPD closed the complaint without making an investigative finding.
‘n****r is a universally recognized opprobrium, stigmatizing African-Americans because of their race.”); Boyer-Liberto v. Fontainebleau Corp., 786 F.3d 264, 280 (4th Cir. 2015) (use of the slur “porch monkey” is about as odious as the use of the word n****r).
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• An African-American man told us that, while out walking in April 2015, officers stopped him, accused him of looting, and called him a “low life n****r.”
The use of racial slurs and other racially charged statements described above, as well as others we uncovered during our investigation, typically occurred while officers were conducting stops or searches of African Americans. This is consistent with the areas in which we found large statistical disparities in BPD’s enforcement.
d. BPD Misclassifies Complaints of Racial Bias and Fails to Investigate Racial Bias Allegations
BPD fails to record complaints of racial bias or affirmatively misclassifies complaints to mask their racial components. BPD also fails to investigate allegations of biased enforcement.74 By not using its own procedures to deter and correct biased conduct, BPD exacerbates relationships with Baltimore’s African-American communities. Numerous individuals told us that BPD either refused to accept complaints—even for egregious, racially-motivated misconduct—or did not take their complaints seriously. Many community members thus feel that BPD is biased against African Americans and does not respond their concerns.
i. BPD’s defective procedures for recording and classifying complaints of racial bias
BPD’s internal affairs database reflects only five complaints from 2010–2016 that BPD supervisors classified as alleging use of a racial slur or other racial bias.75 The absence of such records stems from at least two procedural deficiencies. As discussed above, BPD erects significant obstacles to filing complaints. And even when community members succeed in filing a complaint of racial bias according to BPD’s requirements, supervisory officers almost universally misclassify those complaints to mask their racial elements. As a result, BPD does not investigate the frequent allegations of race-related misconduct made against its officers and has no mechanism to track such allegations to correct discriminatory policing where it occurs.
Most notably, BPD supervisors affirmatively misclassify complaints of racial bias, precluding the Department from investigating or tracking bias allegations. A commander at BPD’s Internal Investigation Division told us BPD requires all complaints claiming officers used a racial epithet to be categorized as “racial slur” complaints, and BPD’s disciplinary matrix makes clear that “conduct relating to a person’s race” is a serious offense that may result in termination. Yet in nearly every case in which an officer allegedly used a racial slur, BPD officials categorized the allegation merely as “discourtesy” or using “inappropriate language.” For the complaints in which our manual review found that BPD recorded allegations that officers used the word n****r, supervisors failed to classify the complaint as a racial slur or other allegation of racial bias 98 percent of the time.
74 Prior to enacting its “Fair and Impartial Policing” policy in 2015, BPD only had a general prohibition against discrimination, which did not provide sufficient guidance to officers on how to conduct their policing activities in a nondiscriminatory manner, although it did provide a basis for BPD to discipline officers. 75 We refer in this section only to complaints alleging bias by BPD officers towards members of the African American community in Baltimore.
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BPD similarly misclassified nearly all of the complaints we identified that alleged other types of racial discrimination in BPD’s enforcement. Out of the dozens of complaints that our manual review found to allege “racial profiling” or “racial discrimination,” BPD supervisors classified only four as alleging any type of racial bias. And even those complaints triggered no meaningful review. BPD referred two of the complaints to command investigation units tasked with addressing only minor allegations, and closed a third complaint seven minutes after opening an internal affairs “investigation.” Although we found that BPD routinely misclassifies other complaints due to systemic deficiencies in its practices, see infra at 138, we did not find anything approaching the level of systematic misclassification of complaints we found relating to alleged racial discrimination, such as the 98 percent misclassification of use of the word n****r. Moreover, the complaints that are misclassified allege racial discrimination on their face, such as the use of a racial epithet. Failing to recognize the potential for racial discrimination in the use of a racial epithet is difficult to attribute to a lack of training, policy guidance, or other systemic deficiency. This systematic misclassification of complaints, particularly when the classification is not difficult, indicates that the misclassification is because of the racial nature of the complaint.
BPD’s practice of obscuring racial elements of misconduct impedes any significant disciplinary action, even in cases where an officer admitted to using a racial epithet. Several examples highlight this practice. In a case from 2010, an officer admitted that he said “you know, you’re acting like a real n****r right now” during an encounter with a young African-American male he had stopped for “loitering.” The officer’s partner, who was African American, filed the complaint after witnessing the incident. The complaint was initially categorized as a “racial slur” complaint. Before issuing an investigative finding sustaining the allegation, however, the lead BPD investigator changed the categorization in BPD’s internal affairs database from “racial slur” to “inappropriate comments, profanity, or gestures to a departmental member.” This change in classification, shortly before the allegation was sustained, indicates an intent to disguise and excuse the racial motivation for the enforcement action. The incident resulted in minimal discipline against the offending officer.76 Other aspects of the investigation are equally troubling. The detective who downgraded the complaint also expanded his review of the incident to investigate the officer who reported the racial slur for “neglect of duty,” ostensibly based on the officer’s failure to provide the African-American man with a citizen contact receipt. We are concerned that the expanded investigation may have been done in retaliation for reporting a fellow officer’s racial bias. Despite the complaint’s clear misclassification in violation of Department policy, BPD supervisors signed off throughout the chain of command.
In another incident from 2010, an African-American man stated that he witnessed officers use excessive force during an arrest and punch a fourteen-year-old boy who attempted to film the arrest on his cell phone. The African-American man recounted that the officers used “the word ‘n****r’ frequently” and asked him if he “take[s] it up the ass by Allah.” When the man went to the district headquarters to report the misconduct, he was met by the same officers who told him, “what brings your black ass back here?” and “you can take your black ass down to Kirk Avenue77 before
76 The officer was not fired or suspended. Instead, he received a letter of reprimand, was required to attend sensitivity training, and forfeited thirty days of his leave. 77 Kirk Avenue refers to the location of BPD’s Internal Investigation Division, or “IID.” Under BPD policy, members of the public should be able to file external complaints of officer misconduct both at district headquarters, and also at the IID.
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the bus leaves because you know how you black people like the bus.” Despite the seriousness of the allegations and the fact that the complaint identified two witnesses, BPD never investigated the incident’s alleged racial motivation. Instead, detectives categorized the allegations as “misconduct,” “excessive force,” and “unwarranted action,” and administratively closed78 the case without conducting a single interview.
ii. BPD fails to investigate racial bias allegations
BPD further impedes accountability for discriminatory policing by departing from its procedures for investigating biased conduct. BPD supervisors repeatedly fail to seek evidence that could corroborate bias allegations and result in officer discipline. For example, a 2011 complaint described an incident in which two white officers told an African-American man who had doubleparked his car and was blocking the street to “move this car, n****r!” The man was double parked in order to assist his aunt into her home in Northeast Baltimore and was not charged with any offense. The man’s complaint—the one complaint BPD correctly categorized as a “racial slur” in the more than six years of data we examined—was assigned to be investigated at the command level79 and administratively closed six months later. The file BPD provided has no record of the investigation or any attempt to identify the officers involved.
BPD conducted a similarly inadequate investigation in a 2010 case that also alleged racemotivated misconduct. There, an African-American man alleged that while being held in a cell at the Southwest District, several officers called him a “monkey” and a “n****r” while beating him. The investigative file, which consisted solely of a few summary paragraphs about the incident, revealed that the investigating officer administratively closed the case without even reading a related incident report because “it was locked in the report box at the time of my investigation.”
In another example, BPD failed to adequately investigate a complaint that an officer called an African-American woman a “black b***h.” BPD never interviewed the officer accused of using the offensive term. Instead, he was asked only to complete a written questionnaire that omitted the racial component of the woman’s allegation. The questionnaire asked whether the officer “at any time call[ed] or refer[red] to [the woman] as a bitch?” BPD found the allegation not sustained based on the officer’s written denial. The omission of the racial component of the woman’s allegation indicates that BPD investigators intended to conceal the racial nature of the interaction and avoid determining whether the heightened discipline required for using a racial slur should be imposed.
e. Baltimore’s History of Residential Segregation
BPD’s ”zero tolerance” policing strategy has focused on predominantly African-American neighborhoods that have been segregated for generations due to government policies that systematically prevented African Americans from acquiring wealth, and obstructed their ability to move into neighborhoods with better jobs or schools.
78 As discussed further in Section III.C.1, infra, internal investigations should be issued one of four possible findings:
 sustained, not sustained, unfounded or exonerated. We found that BPD frequently disposed of cases with minimal or
 no investigation by labeling them as “administratively closed.”
 79 As described further in Section III.C, infra, under BPD policy, “minor” misconduct can be investigated and handled at
 the command level by “command investigations units.”

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Starting in the early 20th Century, the City sponsored residential segregation programs that forced the large number of African Americans who settled in Baltimore during the “Great Migration” to live in economically depressed neighborhoods. Baltimore was the ninth most segregated city in the country when the Great Migration ended in 1970,80 and the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data shows that the City remains extremely segregated.81 In its lawsuit against Wells Fargo for discriminatory lending practices, the City of Baltimore itself acknowledged that its minority communities have been “victimized by traditional redlining practices,” and that the city itself remains highly segregated:
[E]ven though Baltimore is 64% African-American and 32% white, many neighborhoods have a much higher concentration of one racial group or the other. For example, the African-American population exceeds 90% in East Baltimore, Pimlico/Arlington/Hilltop, Dorchester/Ashburton, Southern Park Heights, Greater Rosemont, Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park, and Greater Govans. It exceeds 75% in Waverly and Belair Edison. At the same time, the white population of Greater Roland Park/Poplar, Medfield/Hampden/Woodberry, and South Baltimore exceeds 80%, and the white population of Cross-Country/Cheswolde, Mt. Washington/Coldspring, and North Baltimore/Guilford/Homeland exceeds 70%.
City of Baltimore v. Wells Fargo, No. 1:08-cv-00062-JFM (D. Md. Oct. 21, 2010).
City leadership encouraged and supported this segregation by passing the country’s first block-by-block segregation ordinance, which made it a crime for African Americans to move to majority white blocks, and vice versa. At the time of the ordinance’s enactment in 1910, the New York Times described it as “the most pronounced ‘Jim Crow’ measure on record” and noted that “[n]othing like it can be found in any statute book or ordinance record of this country.”82 The Supreme Court later struck down a similar ordinance in Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917), but the effect in Baltimore was minimal. White property owners, with support from City leadership, continued to enforce the rule informally by requiring homeowners in certain white neighborhoods, like the affluent Roland Park area in North Baltimore, to sign covenants barring African Africans from owning or renting their property. The mayor directed City building and housing inspectors to institute a practice of citing for code violations anyone who rented or sold property to AfricanAmericans in those neighborhoods. See Antero Pietila, NOT IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD 35, 53–54 (2010).
80 See Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, Hypersegregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Black and Hispanic Segregation Along Five Dimensions, 26 Demography 3, 1989. The Great Migration refers to a mass relocation of African Americans between 1910 and 1970 when six million African Americans migrated from rural Southern states to settle across the country. When the Great Migration ended around 1970, nearly half of all black Americans were living outside the South, compared to ten percent when the Migration began. Baltimore is affected by “hyper-segregation,” a term sociologists use to refer to the nearly complete division of races following the Great Migration. See Isabel Wilkerson, THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS 8–10, 398 (2010). 81 According to the 2010 census, the dissimilarity index for Baltimore is 71.8, which indicates the percentage of African Americans that would need to move to less segregated areas for the population to be distributed equally with whites. 82 Baltimore Tries Drastic Plan of Race Segregation, N.Y. Times, Dec. 25, 1910, at 34, 43, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1910/12/25/105900067.html?pageNumber=34.
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The federal government also contributed to Baltimore’s segregation by instituting policies that further isolated African Americans. During the Great Depression, the government’s Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) created maps of 239 cities, including Baltimore, to rate residential areas for market value and risk. Baltimore’s neighborhoods with large African-American populations were colored red on the map to signify HOLC’s conclusion that these neighborhoods were “hazardous,” leading to the term “red-lining.” See HOLC 1937 map (following page).83 After the Great Depression, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) carried on HOLC’s legacy well into the 1960s. The FHA promoted home-ownership in white suburban neighborhoods, and tolerated further red-lining by private banks and insurance companies. Id. at 61–74.
The legacy of this government-sanctioned discrimination continues to impact the AfricanAmerican community in Baltimore today. The City remains highly segregated, and AfricanAmerican residents live disproportionately in neighborhoods with social and economic challenges. More than 100,000 African-Americans residents live in poverty, constituting more than threefourths of Baltimoreans who do so.
BPD leadership is acutely aware of the challenges posed by this backdrop. Former Commissioner Batts explained that when he was appointed to lead BPD in 2012 “it was like going back a little bit in time. It’s about black and white racism in [Baltimore]. It’s all the things you dealt with in the 1960s.”84 Commissioner Davis has also recognized the challenges officers face in addressing racism and poverty, among other social problems: “when cops hear that they have the burden to address racism and poverty and education and homelessness . . . I think cops misinterpret that message with, ‘how do you expect me to do that?’”85 Recently, BPD has taken several commendable steps towards addressing these concerns, including issuing a “Fair and Impartial Policing” policy and launching an educational program for officers that addresses some of the racial dynamics in the City’s history.
Nevertheless, many challenges remain. BPD needs to ensure that it employs law enforcement strategies that do not discriminate against African Americans and predominantly African-American neighborhoods. Working together with the community will promote proactive, constitutional, and effective policing.
***
In sum, BPD’s stops, searches, and arrests disproportionately impact African Americans and predominantly African-American neighborhoods and cannot be explained by population patterns, crime rates, or other race-neutral factors. This disparate impact violates Title VI and the Safe Streets
83 HOLC devised a system of rating neighborhoods based on their perceived suitability to receive home mortgage loans,
 ranging from the ostensibly most suitable “A” areas to the least suitable “D” areas. HOLC classified the “A” areas,
 colored green on the map, as most “in demand” for home mortgage loans. The “B” areas, colored blue on the map,
 were rated as “still desirable.” The yellow-coded “C” areas were rated as “definitely declining.” The red “D” areas were 
 rated as too “hazardous” for general lending practices. Baltimore residents living in the D areas were generally unable to 
 obtain mortgages. See Not in My Neighborhood, at 67-70.
 84 Q&A C-SPAN: Anthony Batts (C-SPAN television broadcast Jan. 20, 2015), https://www.c-span.org/video/?3238861/qa-anthony-batts.
 85 http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-davis-challenges-20150711-story.html.

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Act. We also found evidence suggesting intentional discrimination against African Americans. This racial discrimination undermines community trust in BPD.

Home Owner's Loan Corporation (HOLC) 1937 Map

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C. BPD USES UNREASONABLE FORCE
Based on our review of nearly a thousand of BPD’s own investigative files of its officers’ uses of force, we find reasonable cause to believe that BPD officers use unreasonable force86 in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and fail to make reasonable modifications necessary to avoid discrimination in violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, contributing to the pattern or practice of conduct that violates the constitution and federal law. BPD’s unreasonable force is not limited to officers’ use of any specific weapon; we found it throughout the use of force files we reviewed.
The Fourth Amendment guarantees the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. CONST. amend. IV. This protection from “unreasonable” seizures prohibits an officer from using excessive force when making a seizure. “Determining whether the force used to effect a particular seizure is ‘reasonable’ under the Fourth Amendment requires a careful balancing of the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against the countervailing governmental interests at stake.” Graham v. Conner, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989) (internal quotation marks omitted). The determination must be made while viewing the incident “from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” Id. at 396, 399.
To determine whether force used by a law enforcement officer is reasonable, we look to (1) “the severity of the crime at issue;” (2) “the extent to which the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others;” and (3) “whether [the suspect] is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.” Estate of Armstrong v. Vill. of Pinehurst, 810 F.3d 892, 899 (4th Cir. 2016) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). “To properly consider the reasonableness of the force employed we must view it in full context, with an eye toward the proportionality of the force in light of all the circumstances.” Id. at 899 (internal quotation marks omitted). “[O]fficers using unnecessary, gratuitous, and disproportionate force to seize a secured, unarmed citizen, do not act in an objectively reasonable manner. . . .” Meyers v. Baltimore County, 713 F.3d 723, 734 (4th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Our evaluation of BPD’s use of force was informed by many sources, including: (1) interviews with hundreds of individuals who have had encounters with officers or witnessed those encounters; (2) interviews of the Department’s officers, supervisors, and command staff; (3) an extensive review of nearly one thousand of the Department’s reports and investigations of officers’ uses of force; (4) the Department’s policies and training materials; and (5) analysis by our expert police consultants.
The nearly one thousand force cases we reviewed included a randomly selected, statistically significant sample from all use of force incidents by BPD officers occurring between January 1, 2010, and June 19, 2015. The sample of 814 cases was identified by our statistical experts from the universe of all 2,818 incidents of force, including both deadly force and less-lethal force, identified
86 Throughout this letter, we use the terms “unreasonable” and “excessive” interchangeably; both terms refer to force that exceeds constitutional limits, or in other words, is disproportional in light of the severity of the crime suspected, threat posed to officers or others, and level of resistance. When using the term “unnecessary,” we mean that force was used when the incident could have been resolved without resorting to any force at all.
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by BPD. The sample size accounted for a number of factors, including the type of weapon used by officers and whether the force was used against people with mental health disabilities or in crisis.
Because of their critical nature, we also attempted to review all uses of deadly force by BPD occurring from January 1, 2010, through the duration of our investigation, and we reviewed what was provided to us through May 1, 2016. However, though we identified for BPD on multiple occasions additional deadly force cases that we had not received, BPD was never able to find and produce case files for all deadly force investigations from this time period. The Department informed us that it is unable to locate the files for twenty firearms discharges from the time period that we requested. Because of this lack of documentation, we were unable to conclusively determine the number of deadly force incidents that occurred during the time period we reviewed. This failure is quite concerning. The Department’s inability to maintain the files for officers’ firearms discharges reflects a serious deficiency in the oversight of officers’ uses of deadly force. For a number of other shooting cases, BPD provided us with supplemental information nearly a year after we initially requested the complete files. In the end, we were able to review over one hundred investigations of BPD’s uses of deadly force. We carefully reviewed each of the force files we were provided, both deadly force and less-lethal force, to determine whether each use of force was justified under applicable legal standards. Our review of individual use of force reports and investigations informed our determination of whether a pattern or practice of excessive force exists within BPD.
We note that, in a number of cases—of both deadly and less-lethal force—the reports and reviews of force provided too little information about the circumstances surrounding the use of force to allow our team and experts to determine whether the force was reasonable. This is troubling because, despite the lack of adequate information to determine whether these uses of force were reasonable, BPD supervisors still approved all but a handful of these uses of force. This systematic failure to provide adequate oversight of use of force requires correction. Even given the significant number of cases in which we were unable to make a decision, however, we were nevertheless able to make determinations in a sufficient number of cases to conclude that there is a pattern or practice of excessive force at BPD.
While reviewing BPD’s force investigations, we noted a number of trends. First, in a significant number of cases, officers use aggressive tactics that escalate encounters and stifle public cooperation, leading to the use of physical force when it is not necessary to resolve an incident. Officers approach incidents involving mere quality of life violations in a confrontational manner and fail to use basic conflict resolution skills, creating conflict where it did not exist before. BPD trains officers to be aggressive, inculcating an adversarial mindset in its recruits and teaching them to, for example, point a weapon at unarmed and innocent civilians to control a scene. Tactics such as these unnecessarily escalate encounters, increase tensions and lead to unnecessary force.
Second, officers use excessive force against individuals with mental health disabilities or in crisis. When families in Baltimore confront a family member experiencing a mental health issue, they often call 911 to request an officer to safely escort their family member to a hospital for a mental health evaluation and, if necessary, commitment. In too many of these calls, officers arrive at the homes of families, knowing they are being called to assist with a mental health incident, without a plan to account for the mental health issue. Because of their lack of planning and proper tactics, they end up in violent confrontations with individuals with mental health disabilities or in crisis and use force, sometimes deadly, against these vulnerable individuals.
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Third, officers use unreasonable force against juveniles. It is apparent that officers have not received guidance nor have been trained on well-established best practices for police interactions with juveniles that account for their developmental stage and prevent the unnecessary criminalization of overwhelmingly minority youth. The lack of policy and training for these interactions results in excessive force being used against youths.
Finally, officers use unreasonable force against people who present little or no threat to them or others. One such group includes individuals who are already restrained and under officers’ control. Another group is individuals who are fleeing away from officers. Officers in Baltimore engage in a high number of foot pursuits, a tactic with a number of attendant risks, including endangering officers and community members. Due to the risks inherent in foot pursuits, agencies must exercise careful oversight over foot pursuits and provide proper guidance and training on when it is appropriate to engage in foot pursuits and how to do so safely. BPD fails to do so. In some cases, the people who officers pursue have not committed serious crimes and present no threat to officers or community members, but these pursuits end with BPD officers using significant force. Additionally, in some cases when individuals flee in vehicles, officers use unreasonable force after any potential threat to them has subsided.
The Department’s failure to provide officers with the necessary guidance, skills, and oversight to resolve incidents in a way that keeps them and community members safe underlies officers’ constitutional violations. The Department fails to provide proper policy guidance on how and when it is appropriate to use force. It also fails to properly train officers on how to operationalize its policies and, in some cases, has improperly trained its officers by teaching incorrect legal standards or improper tactics that lead to officers’ unreasonable force. Finally, the Department fails to exercise proper oversight to address potentially unreasonable force and remedy bad tactics when they occur. These failures have led to the systemic use of unreasonable force that we observed in our investigation.
1. BPD’s Overly Aggressive Tactics Unnecessarily Escalate Encounters and Result in Excessive Force
BPD officers’ aggressive tactics in their encounters with civilians unnecessarily escalate situations and contribute to officers’ systemic use of unreasonable force. Officers use aggressive tactics in encounters that begin consensually or in cases where officers stop individuals for low-level and highly discretionary violations such as “loitering,” as well as violations that officers charge based on civilians’ conduct during the encounter, such as “failure to obey,” “resistance” or “disorderly conduct,” as discussed supra at Section II(A). In these encounters, officers issue commands without explanation rather than communicating respectfully, explaining the purpose for their approach and providing subjects an opportunity to voice their concerns.87 When subjects do not immediately comply with officers’ commands, rather than attempt to problem-solve or use conflict-resolution skills, officers resort too quickly to physical force even if individuals do not present a threat to them or others. Even where force is justified, officers frequently use a high level of force when only a low
87 Citizens who do not understand why they are being stopped and feel they are being treated unfairly and disrespectfully are less likely to comply with officers’ orders. See Tom R. Tyler, Procedural Justice, Legitimacy, and the Effective Rule of Law, 30 Crime & Justice 283, 350–51 (2003) (“When people judge that legal authorities and institutions are making their decisions fairly, they view those authorities as more legitimate and more willingly defer to and cooperate with them in personal encounters and in their everyday law-related behaviors.”).
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level of force is objectively reasonable. Officers use these tactics against individuals with mental health disabilities or in crisis, who have committed no crime, and also on juveniles. The force used by officers in these situations is often unnecessary and disproportional to the suspected violation, threat, and resistance posed by civilians under Graham. See Armstrong, 810 F.3d at 900 (internal quotation marks omitted) (“The problems posed by, and thus the tactics to be employed against, an unarmed, emotionally distraught individual who is creating a disturbance or resisting arrest are ordinarily different from those involved in law enforcement efforts to subdue an armed and dangerous criminal who has recently committed a serious offense.”). Cf. Waterman v. Batton, 393 F.3d 471, 477 (4th Cir. 2005) (“[T]he reasonableness of the officer’s actions in creating the dangerous situation is not relevant to the Fourth Amendment analysis.”). In addition to contributing to officers’ unconstitutional conduct, these tactics greatly undermine BPD’s efforts to repair its damaged relationship with some segments of Baltimore’s community.
For example, in a 2014 incident, an officer informed a young man, Matthew,88 that he could not smoke inside a public market and asked him to leave. Matthew left and the officer followed him outside. Once outside, the officer asked him for identification to issue a civil citation. According to the Department’s use of force report, the Matthew “became agitated and started to argue” with the officer, attracting a crowd. The young man refused to provide identification and moved backward. The officer grabbed the young man by his jacket, at which point he pulled away and fled. Two officers pursued Matthew for blocks and when they eventually caught up with him, “used arrest and control techniques” to tackle him and “stop him from further fleeing.” “While trying to control him on the ground and place him in handcuffs,” he “sustained abrasions to the left and right side of his face and a cut to his upper lip,” requiring two stitches. The officer arrested Matthew for being “disorderly,” but according to the arrest database that BPD provided, the State’s Attorney’s Office declined to formally charge the young man.
The officer repeatedly escalated this encounter, using unnecessarily aggressive tactics against a young man who had not committed a crime, resulting in the man being subjected to excessive force. The decision to grab the man by his jacket, after he had obeyed the officer’s warning by leaving the market, escalated the encounter and led to the man resisting the officer’s force by pulling away. The officer’s decision to then pursue the young man, for a mere civil citation, also escalated the encounter. Other than calling off the pursuit (which would have been appropriate), as discussed in more detail infra at page 91, the most likely way to end the pursuit was by using force. Tackling, and using control and arrest techniques resulting in two stitches and abrasions to his face, was disproportionate in light of the civil violation the young man had committed, and where he posed no threat to officers or anyone else. See Graham, 490 U.S. at 396.
In another example, in a 2010 incident, a major who was patrolling in uniform in an unmarked police vehicle “observed several people on the steps of an apartment building.” He asked the group “if everyone lived there.” One of the group, a young 5’6”, 147-pound African-American man, Daniel, asked the major “what the problem was.” The major “told the suspect there was no problem and he can go back to his steps.” The major reported that Daniel “walked in front of [the major’s] vehicle acting in a [sic] agitated state wearing and adjusting some type of athletic gloves and taking his shoes off.” An older African-American man “was instructing [the young man] to ‘stop
88 We use pseudonyms for individuals who were the subject of force with BPD officers to protect against disclosing personally-identifying information. We also do not identify BPD personnel by name, as the purpose of these illustrations is not to assess individual liability but to support and illustrate the findings of a pattern or practice.
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acting like this.’” Daniel began “yelling at this older male in a threatening manner and challenging him.” The major called for backup, withdrew his taser,89 and ordered Daniel to “sit on the curb.” A lieutenant arrived as backup. The major reportedly told the lieutenant that the young man “was warned to desist but to no avail and is ready to fight . . . he needs to be arrested before he hurts someone.” The investigating sergeant reported that the subject moved to one side of the street and sat on the curb. The major informed the lieutenant that Daniel “was the aggressor and he continued to be a threat.” There is no indication in the report that Daniel stood up from his seated position on the curb. Nevertheless, the lieutenant “immediately pushed [Daniel] to the ground with [a] left foot kick to the chest.” Daniel had committed no crime, was seated on a curb and obeying officer’s commands at the time the lieutenant unnecessarily and unreasonably kicked him in the chest. This incident, involving a lieutenant and a major, was investigated by a lower-ranked sergeant, undermining the credibility of the investigation. The major, who was involved in the incident, ultimately approved the sergeant’s investigation, though the major lacked the independence to objectively determine whether the force used was appropriate.
Officers also use heavy-handed tactics when civilians simply refuse to obey their commands and escalate encounters by resorting to force too quickly, including against individuals who are not being arrested for any crime, with mental health disabilities or in crisis.90 We determined that approximately 20 percent of use of force files BPD provided involved individuals with mental health disabilities or in crisis. In one of many such incidents we reviewed, in 2013, three officers and one sergeant responded to a call to transport an individual to a hospital for a mental health evaluation. According to their report, the officers arrived at the back of a house and found a woman, “Ashley,” the subject of the petition, sitting on the ground with a clenched hand. Ashley reportedly had a “small” build and was yelling “don’t shoot me.” One officer asked her to empty her hands and she refused, stating, “you have to shoot me first I am not giving it up [sic].” There is no indication that the officers attempted to verbally persuade Ashley in any way to open her hands or calm her down. Rather, the officers physically attempted to force her hands open. Ashley resisted the officers’ physical attempts and began to “kick[] and swing[]” at them. According to the report, one officer used a taser in drive-stun mode “to try to calm [her] down.” Because drive-stunning an individual causes great pain, it did not calm her. The technique also carries a heightened risk of serious harm or injury when used on individuals with mental health disabilities or in crisis. See Police Exec. Research Forum & Cmty. Oriented Policing Servs., 2011 Electronic Control Weapon Guidelines 14 (2001) (hereinafter “PERF & COPS, 2011 Electronic Control Weapon Guidelines”). Ashley continued to resist. In response, the officer drive-stunned her two more times, with similar results. The officers were
89 A “taser,” or an “Electronic Control Weapon” (ECW) is a weapon that “‘can be used either in ‘probe’ mode or in ‘stun’ mode. In probe mode, two probes are fired from a distance, attached to thin electrical wires, to lodge in the skin of the subject. The [t]aser then delivers a fixed five-second cycle of electricity designed to cause electro-muscular disruption, effectively freezing the subject’s muscles and thereby temporarily disabling him. In stun mode, the probe cartridge is removed and the [t]aser’s electrodes are applied directly to the subject. The [t]aser operator can then deliver a painful electric shock, the duration of which is completely within [the operator’s] control. In stun mode, the [t]aser does not cause muscular disruption or incapacitation, but rather functions only as a ‘pain compliance’ tool.’” Meyers, 713 F.3d at 728 n.3 (alterations in original) (quoting Meyers, 814 F. Supp. 2d 552, 555 n.3 (D. Md. 2011)). 90 A “crisis” incident is one in which someone experiences or displays intense feelings of personal distress (e.g., anxiety, depression, anger, fear, panic, hopelessness); a thought disorder (e.g., visual or auditory hallucinations, delusions, sensory impairment, or cognitive impairment); obvious changes in functioning (e.g., neglect of personal hygiene); or catastrophic life events (e.g., disruptions in personal relationships, support systems or living arrangements, loss of autonomy or parental rights, victimization, or natural disasters). This could be a result of mental illness (including substance use disorders), an intellectual disability, a personal crisis, or the effects of drugs or alcohol.
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eventually able to physically pry open Ashley’s hands, which held two vials, the contents of which emptied onto the ground. Ashley was transported to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Use of the taser in drive-stun mode three times against a woman experiencing crisis, who was unarmed, posed no serious threat to the officers or others, and was not being arrested for any crime, was unnecessary and unreasonable. Problematically, it appears the only investigation of this incident was conducted by the sergeant who was at the scene. A sergeant who participated in the incident lacks the necessary objectivity and independence to fairly assess whether officers on the scene acted appropriately. Having an involved sergeant investigate the force undermines the integrity of the investigation.
Aggressive and violent police interactions, such as those described above, have left some Baltimore residents with the belief that encounters with BPD officers will result in their being subjected to unnecessary force. Community members told us in interviews that even when they believe they have done nothing wrong, they flee from interactions with officers, believing that it is better to run at the sight of an officer rather than take the risk that an interaction with the officer will result in unnecessary and excessive force being used against them.91 Indeed, officers’ unnecessary and unreasonable force during arrests for highly discretionary charges such as “loitering,” “disorderly conduct,” “resisting” or “failure to obey” an officer’s commands, confirm these community members’ fears.
The fault for officers’ systemic use of these heavy-handed tactics lies with BPD as an agency. Through training used for many years—some of which is still ongoing—BPD teaches officers to use aggressive tactics. We reviewed a number of training materials, such as BPD’s Academy-Level training on Use of Force, Defensive Tactics, and BPD’s in-service training on “Characteristics of an Armed Person.” We also observed in person BPD’s training on foot patrols and interactions with people with mental illness.92 Through its Defensive Tactics training, for example, BPD instructs officers to point their firearm at individuals when they need to control a scene. In the cases we reviewed, and in media reports, we saw this troubling tactic in operation. BPD groups this tactic on par with “command presence,” “verbal commands,” and using a “firm grip.” Pointing a gun at an individual for general control is an inappropriate use of a firearm and is a threat of deadly force where the underlying offense, if any, does not justify deadly force being used. See Holland v. Harrington, 268 F.3d 1179, 1192 (10th Cir. 2001) (explaining that an officer’s pointing of a firearm “involves the immediate threat of deadly force” and thus “should be predicated on at least a perceived risk of injury or danger to the officers or others, based upon what the officers know at that time”). Pointing firearms directly at individuals is also dangerous because it can lead to accidental discharges; limit officers’ ability to use other, more appropriate force when one hand is occupied with holding a firearm; and lead to unnecessary use of deadly force. During our review, we saw instances in which officers drew and pointed their firearms at individuals when the use of deadly force did not appear to be justified, including an incident that resulted in an accidental discharge that fortunately did not strike anyone. In part through aggressive tactics such as these, BPD’s trainings fuel an “us vs. them” mentality we saw some officers display towards community members, alienating the civilians they are meant to serve.
91 While flight in a high crime area may give officers reasonable suspicion to conduct a Terry stop under Illinois v. Wardlow, 
 528 U.S. 119, 124–25 (2000), flight alone does not provide a justification to use the amount of force we observed in 
 many cases.
 92 Throughout this Report, the term “mental illness” includes substance use disorders.

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Moreover, the Department has failed to equip officers with sufficient de-escalation skills and tactics. The Department had no comprehensive training on de-escalation techniques until 2015, when it added de-escalation training to the Academy’s Use of Force curriculum for new recruits. We commend the Department for its efforts and desire to implement de-escalation training. Nevertheless, work remains to ensure that these de-escalation skills are sufficiently emphasized within the Academy’s Use of Force curriculum. Even with the new Academy training, these skills must be constantly refreshed through in-service training for experienced officers after they leave the Academy. BPD does not sufficiently prioritize these skills in the in-service training courses it offers.
The other trends we identified below through BPD’s own force investigations—using force against vulnerable groups and individuals who are not a threat—also reflect officers’ aggressive tactics that result in unreasonable force.
2. BPD Uses Unreasonable Force Against Individuals with a Mental Health Disability and Those in Crisis and Fails to Make Reasonable Modifications When Interacting with Individuals with Mental Health Disabilities
BPD officers routinely use unreasonable force against individuals with mental health disabilities or those experiencing a crisis93 in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Additionally, by routinely using unreasonable force against individuals with mental health disabilities, BPD officers repeatedly fail to make reasonable modifications necessary to avoid discrimination in violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131–12134. Since 2004, BPD has provided some specialized training to its new officers on how to interact with individuals with disabilities and those in crisis. But this training has not been provided to all officers. Moreover, the Department does not have a protocol requiring that a person with this training be dispatched to a crisis call. The result is that BPD officers frequently fail to de-escalate encounters with unarmed individuals with mental health disabilities and those in crisis. Indeed, their tactics often escalate these encounters. Instead of requesting an officer trained in handling crisis events or a mobile crisis team made up of trained mental health professionals, officers handcuff and detain people with mental health disabilities and those in crisis and resort too quickly to force without understanding or accounting for the person’s disability or crisis.
For example, BPD officers often are called to the scene to escort individuals likely to have disabilities to a hospital for a mental health evaluation (referred to as an “emergency petition” under Maryland law), and possible civil commitment. Frequently, these individuals have committed no crime and present no significant threat to officers or other members of the public. “Where a seizure’s sole justification is preventing harm to the subject of the seizure, the government has little interest in using force to effect that seizure. Rather, using force likely to harm the subject is manifestly contrary to the government's interest in initiating that seizure.” Armstrong, 810 F.3d at 901. In the course of engaging with these individuals, usually to transport them for medical treatment, BPD officers resort to using unreasonable force if individuals fail to comply with their commands.
Under the Fourth Amendment, “officers who encounter an unarmed and minimally threatening individual who is “exhibit[ing] conspicuous signs that he [i]s mentally unstable” must

93 For a definition of “crisis,” see note 90, supra.

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“de-escalate the situation and adjust the application of force downward.” Id. at 900. Similarly, the ADA, which applies to BPD’s services, programs, and activities, including on-the-street encounters, arrests, and transportation to a hospital for mental health evaluation, see 42 U.S.C. § 12132; 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(a), requires BPD to “make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures when the modifications are necessary to avoid discrimination on the basis of disability.” See also 28 C.F.R. 35.130(b)(7); Title II Technical Assistance Manual § II-3.6100, at 14.94 BPD’s obligations apply when officers respond to a scene where they know or reasonably should know that an individual has a mental health disability.95 For example, BPD has knowledge of an individual’s disability when BPD is called for an emergency petition, when a mother calls 911 and says her son has schizophrenia and is not eating, or when a person is exhibiting apparent signs of mental illness.
Training BPD officers on how to interact with individuals with mental health disabilities is a reasonable modification to policies, practices, and procedures to afford people with mental health disabilities the equal opportunity for a police intervention that is free from unreasonable force. See Estate of Saylor v. Regal Cinemas, Inc., 54 F. Supp. 3d 409, 424 (D. Md. 2014) (holding that the failure to provide appropriate training for officers to interact with individuals with developmental disabilities, which resulted in the death of a 26-year-old man with Down Syndrome after officers attempted to force him to leave a movie theater, properly stated a claim under Title II of the ADA). Among other things, such training should result in officers employing appropriate de-escalation techniques or involving mental health professionals or specially trained crisis intervention officers.
Rather than employing such de-escalation tactics, we found that BPD officers often resort too quickly to using force against individuals with mental health disabilities or in crisis. We found that on many occasions, the officers’ unreasonable use of force involved use of tasers in drive-stun mode. As the Fourth Circuit has recognized, “[d]eploying a taser is a serious use of force. The weapon is designed to cause . . . excruciating pain and application can burn a subject’s flesh.” Armstrong, 810 F.3d at 902 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The court noted that “using drive stun mode ‘to achieve pain compliance may have limited effectiveness and, when used repeatedly, may even exacerbate the situation.’” Id. at 902 (quoting PERF & COPS, 2011 Electronic Control Weapon Guidelines, at 14); see also Armstrong, 810 F.3d at 897 n.3 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (“Tasers generally have two modes. In dart mode, a taser shoots probes into a subject and overrides the central nervous system. Drive stun mode, on the other hand, does not cause an override of the victim's central nervous system; that mode is used as a pain compliance tool
94 The ADA’s obligation to make “reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures” is not limitless. A modification is not required if it would “fundamentally alter the nature of the service, program, or activity.” 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(b)(7). The requested modifications here would not “fundamentally alter” BPD’s programs. As discussed in further detail in Section II(C)(5), infra, BPD already offers some policing services specifically tailored toward individuals in crisis, although significant work remains to fully develop this program. Additionally, the requested modifications are consistent with BPD’s obligations under the Constitution. BPD would not have to make the requested modifications if the person requiring the modification poses a direct threat to the safety of an officer or others. See 28 C.F.R. § 35.139. A direct threat is “a significant risk to the health or safety of others that cannot be eliminated by a modification of policies, practices, or procedures, or by the provision of auxiliary aids or services.” 28 C.F.R. § 35.104. In many of the incidents we reviewed involving individuals with mental health disabilities or in crisis, however, the person against whom force is used does not meet the definition of “direct threat” as that term is used in the ADA. 95 Guidance on ADA Regulation on Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in State and Local Government Services, 28 C.F.R. pt. 35, app. B, at 686 (2015) (Law enforcement agencies and officers are “required to make appropriate efforts to determine whether perceived strange or disruptive behavior . . . is the result of a disability”), available at https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2015-title28-vol1/pdf/CFR-2015-title28-vol1-part35-appB.pdf.
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with limited threat reduction.”). Even Taser International, the company that manufactures tasers, has cautioned against using the drive stun mode on “emotionally disturbed persons or others who may not respond to pain due to a mind-body disconnect.” Id. at 903.
Nonetheless, BPD officers have repeatedly used drive-stuns while responding to people with mental health disabilities and those in crisis, causing unnecessary pain and suffering without any noticeable benefit. In fact, these uses have often, if anything, exacerbated the situation. In a 2011 incident we reviewed, several officers responded to a call about a domestic disturbance, at which point they were flagged down by “Michael,” standing outside without shoes in January weather, smelling of alcohol. His wife, present on the scene, informed officers that she had not been assaulted, but that her husband was intoxicated and that she was packing things to leave for the night. Michael yelled profanities and stated that he wanted to die. Instead of using de-escalation techniques, calling for help from an officer trained in crisis intervention techniques or a mental health professional, or working to connect Michael with appropriate treatment services, the officers attempted to physically force Michael into handcuffs, and when he resisted, drive-stunned him with a Taser five to six times. One officer specifically noted in his report that “[t]he Taser seemed to have a minimal affect [sic] upon [Michael] possibly due to his level of alcoholic intoxication and mentally disturbed state.” After handcuffing him, the officers took Michael to the hospital for stabilization. He was never charged with a crime. The force used by the officers was unreasonable because he had not committed a crime and did not appear to pose a threat to officers or his wife. It was also ineffective in rendering Michael compliant, and caused unneeded suffering without any appreciable benefit.
In another 2011 incident, nine officers responded to a call for service regarding a man, “Christopher,” standing in the street with no clothing on. In this case, there is no documented attempt to have a specially-trained officer at the scene. When the officers encountered Christopher, they reported that he was speaking religious verses and arguing with himself. They believed he had a mental illness and decided to transport him to a hospital to be evaluated. There is no indication in the reports that the officers sought to have Christopher go with them voluntarily, and instead they sought to place him in handcuffs, even though he was not under arrest. In order to handcuff him, one officer held his left arm, a second officer held his right arm, and a third officer attempted to apply the handcuffs. Christopher reportedly “became aggressive and violent,” attempting to grab and bite officers. The officers and Christopher fell onto the ground. From the officers’ reports, it appears that six additional officers were on the scene and available to assist in bringing Christopher under control, but there is no indication that they attempted any control techniques on Christopher. There is also no indication that de-escalation techniques or other reasonable modifications were used, such as attempts to verbally calm Christopher, create distance or slow down the incident.
Instead, the transport van driver exited his van and promptly drive-stunned Christopher. Using a taser in drive-stun mode is to be avoided unless it is necessary to “creat[e] a safe distance between the officer and subject.” PERF & COPS, 2011 Electronic Control Weapon Guidelines, at 14. BPD had no policy or training so limiting the use of drive-stuns, even against individuals with mental illness or in crisis, at this time. Thus, the van driver continued to drive-stun Christopher, an
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individual in crisis, “a few more times in his chest and back area”96 until Christopher became compliant. As a result of the encounter, Christopher and two officers received minor injuries, and Christopher was transported to the emergency room for treatment. Before the officers’ attempts to handcuff him, he had not committed any violent offense, and presented no immediate physical danger to the officers or the public at large. Christopher was never arrested or charged with a crime. In 2016, BPD issued new guidance limiting officers’ uses of tasers, a positive step forward. Additional work remains, however, to ensure that officers abide by the new guidance.
In many incidents involving individuals in crisis, the use of force was precipitated by officers’ perceived need to bring the individual into immediate custody at all costs, including handcuffing them and placing them into a police vehicle for transport in order to provide necessary mental health treatment. During this detention process, a number of uses of unreasonable force against individuals with mental illness and crisis have occurred when they had committed no crime at all— instead, BPD’s interaction with the individual was precipitated by calls for help from a loved one, friend or concerned citizen. That a person has committed no crime “weighs heavily” against a finding that the use of force by law enforcement was reasonable. Bailey v. Kennedy, 349 F.3d 731, 744 (4th Cir. 2003) (finding that blows and kicks against a man resisting arrest for an unwarranted emergency medical evaluation were unreasonable). In many incidents, however, officers have failed to distinguish between people in crisis who are being escorted to the hospital for treatment, and people who have committed crimes and are being placed under arrest. From our review of BPD’s force reports, it appears that officers make little, if any, effort to de-escalate or engage peaceably with the person in crisis, resorting to the use of force as a first option in order to transport the individual for treatment. If they do not submit to handcuffing or respond immediately to officers’ commands, they are often subjected to uses of force in order to physically restrain them, rather than neutralize a threat. The only difference is that the final destination will be an emergency room, rather than jail.
In one such incident, in 2010, several officers responded to a call from the father of a man, “James,” in mental health crisis. The father informed the officers that James was the subject of an emergency petition, had a history of mental illness and hospitalization, and was unarmed. The petition itself indicated that James was not taking his medication, wearing a winter coat in hot weather, and yelling at people on the street and his father. When they could not convince James to open the door, officers attempted to pry the door open with a crowbar, then sprayed two bursts of mace in an attempt to force him out of the apartment. Once inside, a lieutenant deployed his taser in probe mode, striking James, when he resisted being handcuffed. Despite the fact that James had committed no crime and there is no indication in the force report that he was a threat himself or the officers other than resisting handcuffing, the officers resorted to a high-level of force to detain the man. See Armstrong, 810 F.3d at 900 (internal quotation marks omitted) (“The problems posed by, and thus the tactics to be employed against, an unarmed, emotionally distraught individual who is creating a disturbance or resisting arrest are ordinarily different from those involved in law enforcement efforts to subdue an armed and dangerous criminal who has recently committed a serious offense.”). Using effective de-escalation techniques and calling for assistance from a mental
96 In an October 2009 Training Bulletin, Taser International recommended that its Tasers, the leading brand of ECWs, not be used on individuals’ chests, to avoid controversy about whether such shots affect the human heart. See TASER Int’l, Training Bulletin 15.0 Medical Research Update & Revised Warnings (Oct. 15, 2009).
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health provider or crisis intervention trained officer would have likely prevented the use of force against James.
In another incident, two officers encountered a “possible mental patient” inside a vacant dwelling. The man, “David,” was “yelling incoherently” and would not come out of the building when ordered. The officers entered, and when David became louder and placed his hands in his pockets, one officer pointed a taser at him as a threat, purportedly to protect himself and to persuade David to comply with the order to exit the building. David told the police officers that tasers did not work on him. In response, the officer deployed one cycle of his taser in probe mode, striking the man “to eliminate the need for a fight.” Without waiting to assess whether additional force was necessary, the officer used a second cycle. David was handcuffed and transported to the hospital. The only justification offered by the officer for the second taser cycle was that it was necessary “to gain his full compliance.” For many people with mental health disabilities or in crisis, the appearance of officers pointing weapons may convey the impression that they are being threatened or arrested, rather than provided treatment that is intended to help them. The use of a taser against David in this context was unnecessary and unreasonable where it had the sole purpose of bringing him into the physical custody of the officers for treatment, and David presented no immediate threat to himself or others. Using effective de-escalation techniques and calling for assistance from a mental health provider or officer trained in crisis intervention techniques would have likely prevented the use of force against all of these individuals.
Tragically, some encounters with people with mental health disabilities or in crisis have resulted in uses of deadly force that may have been avoided had officers used tactics to account for the mental state of the individuals involved. For example, in a 2012 incident, a single officer was the first to arrive on the scene in response to a call by a man, Zachary, who informed the dispatcher that he had “a weapon” and was “about to do something crazy.” After the officer was dispatched, another officer and sergeant stated over the air that they would respond as backup. The officer did not wait for backup to arrive, however, or request the presence of a specially trained crisis intervention officer, despite the fact that he had prior information that Zachary had a weapon and was in crisis. The officer also made no attempt to contact Zachary inside the house before approaching the door, or consider less-lethal options for intervention. Instead, the officer went up to the door, alone, and with his gun already drawn. When Zachary opened the door with a lit cigarette in one hand, and a knife in the other, the officer reportedly ordered the man three times to drop the knife, and when he did not comply, the officer fired, killing him. After radioing dispatch to inform that he had arrived on the scene, less than two minutes passed before he announced that Zachary had been shot two to three times. Although there is insufficient information to make a determination about the shooting itself, this incident shows how different tactics could have changed the outcome.
Officers’ use of arrest techniques, including force, handcuffing and prisoner transport vans to detain people with mental health disabilities or in crisis for emergency petitions when they present no immediate threat to officers or the public, may cause people to perceive that they are being attacked or arrested, rather than transported for treatment. This perception may escalate the encounter, resulting in additional force.
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In some cases, officers resort to arresting individuals with mental health disabilities or in crisis in situations where treatment—instead of jail—would more effectively serve the goals of public safety and welfare and could prevent the need for unnecessary force. For example, in one case, officers responded to a “mental case” and found a man, “Robert,” speaking to his mother, who explained that her son had a mental illness and that she was afraid of him. The officers told Robert to leave and put a shirt on, which he did, and then returned. Officers then told Robert he had to leave, or would be arrested. When he refused, officers handcuffed him and sat him in a chair while waiting for a transport van to arrive. This decision to arrest and handcuff Robert, a person in crisis, led to unreasonable force. While waiting, Robert repeatedly stood up in what the officer believed was an attempt “to flee,” and was “kicking his legs” to “create space around himself.” After being told several times to stop standing and stop kicking, and that he would be struck in the leg with a baton if he did not comply, Robert refused to comply. He attempted to stand again, in what officers reportedly believed was another attempt to flee. One officer struck him in the right shin with his baton. This force used against Robert, while he was handcuffed, was unreasonable because he had not acted violently, did not present any evident threat to the officers or his mother, and the officers had been informed that he had a mental illness. This force could have been avoided by using deescalation techniques before handcuffing Robert or by calling a mobile crisis team for assistance. In this incident, as with all of the above incidents involving individuals with mental health disabilities or in crisis, officers did not seem to understand that individuals’ mental illness or intoxication might diminish their ability to comply with orders. Moreover, the officers in this incident believed— contrary to the Department’s policy—that they could not emergency petition Robert because he had not displayed any signs of mental illness in their presence, despite his mother’s call for assistance based on that mental condition and her explanation of his history of hospitalization. Instead, the officers arrested him and charged him with disorderly conduct, trespassing, resisting arrest, and failure to obey. All charges against him were subsequently dismissed.
BPD routinely uses unreasonable force against people with mental illness or in crisis, even when they have not committed any crimes and when the officers know or should know that the individual has a mental health disability. As a result, individuals are exposed to serious harm that exacerbates their disability and the crisis that precipitated the request for BPD assistance. This unreasonable use of force against individuals in crisis violates the Fourth Amendment. And BPD further violates Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to make reasonable modifications to its policies, practices and procedures, such as training in de-escalation, effectively using specialized crisis intervention trained officers, and involving mental health professionals as necessary to avoid discrimination against individuals with disabilities.
3. BPD Uses Unreasonable Force Against Juveniles And Ignores Widely Accepted Strategies For Police Interactions With Youth
BPD officers frequently use unreasonable force against juveniles without implementing widely accepted techniques and tactics for engaging with youth. Courts have recognized that an individual’s age can be a factor in whether the force used against them was reasonable. See Graham, 490 U.S. at 396 (“the test of reasonableness” . . . “requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case. . . .”); Doe ex rel. Doe v. Hawaii Dep’t of Educ., 334 F.3d 906, 909–10 (9th Cir. 2003) (noting Plaintiff “was eight years old” in analysis under Graham of whether force was reasonable); Ikerd v. Blair, 101 F.3d 430 (5th Cir. 1996) (finding a reasonable jury could
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conclude a deputy used excessive force where “the appellants produced evidence that Deputy Varnado, a 300–pound man, violently jerked Laura, a ten-year-old child, out of her living room chair and dragged her into another room”). We found that BPD officers engage in unnecessary and excessive force with youth and fail to adjust their tactics to account for the age and developmental status of the youth they encounter.
For example, in a 2011 incident, an officer noticed a 5’2,” 85 pound female youth standing with a male in a “known area for high drug trafficking.” The officer in charge who investigated the force reported that the involved officer “was familiar with the female juvenile and her past history for selling CDS.” The involved officer’s incident report does not mention any history of selling drugs but states that she “suspected [the female was] a missing juvenile.” Regardless of the basis for stopping the youth, the officer got out of her patrol vehicle “to identify” the female. When she did so, the youth and the male began to “walk away very quickly.” The officer commanded the individuals to “stop” but they did not comply. The officer again commanded the two to stop. When they continued to not comply with her command, the officer discharged her taser in probe mode at the young 85-pound female, “which gave an electric shock.” The youth “stopped and supported herself on [a] fence,” and the officer “discontinued the electric discharge[].” When the officer discharged her taser, she did not have probable cause for an arrest. There is also no indication in BPD’s own reports that the youth was threatening the officer or others; rather, she was simply walking away. Even assuming that there is reasonable suspicion for a stop, refusing to obey an officer’s command to “stop,” when the officer has no probable cause to arrest and there is no threat to the public or officer, does not justify the use of a taser. The officer’s use of a taser was unnecessary and excessive.97 The chain of command failed to identify any issues with the officer’s use of force.
In another incident, in 2010, two officers approached a group of individuals who were standing on a sidewalk in a residential neighborhood and “verbally warned this small crowd to disperse.” A juvenile, Brian, and his sister walked onto the steps of their home, remaining outside. When one of the officers approached Brian’s sister to “warn her about loitering,” she informed the officers, yelling and cursing, that she lived in the house. The officers did not appear to dispute her claim that she lived in the house. Their reports do not show that any effort was made to confirm whether it was her home. Nevertheless, the officers continued to “warn” her to leave and “cease causing a disturbance.” They eventually attempted to arrest her for “non-compliance.” One of the officers walked up the steps of the siblings’ stoop to attempt to make the arrest. Brian attempted to block the officer, and the officer began to “struggle” with the juvenile. According to civilian witness statements that are summarized in the Department’s reports, the officer punched Brian in the face. The officer also used oleoresin capsicum, or “OC” spray, against both siblings and arrested them for loitering, resisting arrest and assault on a police officer. All of the officer’s uses of force against the siblings, who were standing on or in front of their own property, were unreasonable. These individuals were placed into the criminal justice system for standing on their own steps.
Allegations of BPD’s unreasonable use of force against juveniles are not new. BPD has a history of problematic encounters with youth that pre-date the period of our review. For example, in 2007, officers arrested a seven-year old child for sitting on a dirt bike during an initiative to
97 Behind where the youth and her male companion were stopped, officers found bags of “a green leaf substance suspected to be [m]arijuana.” Additional bags of the green leaf substance fell out of the man’s pants. The youth was arrested for a controlled substance violation and taken to a juvenile detention center.
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confiscate dirt bikes. Allegedly, although the dirt bike was turned off, it was not “securely locked or otherwise immobilized” in violation of Baltimore City Code. According to Court documents filed by the family’s attorney, officers attempted to confiscate the bike and “maliciously and unreasonably grabbed [the child] by his shirt collar and dragged [him] off the bike.” According to the same documents, the child’s mother informed officers that she intended to file a complaint, and the officers, in turn, arrested the child. The family alleged he was handcuffed to a bench at the district station for hours, and detained and questioned without his parents’ consent. He was eventually released and never formally charged. This incident garnered widespread media attention in Baltimore and invoked a community outcry about BPD’s aggressive tactics, particularly against a seven-year old child. Despite the outcry and widespread attention, BPD failed to create policy guidance or comprehensive training for officers’ interactions with youth.
In addition, three officers were criminally charged this year for assaulting a youth who had been in crisis and was restrained in a 2015 incident. According to a complaint filed about the incident, when the child was admitted to the hospital for evaluation of a mental health condition, independent witnesses on the scene indicated that he had no injuries. In his hospital room, he was handcuffed with both hands behind his back but was being unruly—yelling and kicking his legs. One of the officers reportedly ordered hospital staff to leave the room and reportedly slapped or punched the youth in the face repeatedly. The nurses observed the officers being verbally abusive to the child and observed injuries to his face when they returned to the youth’s room.
Research has established that adolescent development affects the manner in which juveniles comprehend, communicate, and behave. These unique realities of adolescent development warrant specific policies and tactics for officers’ interactions with juveniles. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has recognized this need and created guidance for officers’ interactions with youth.98 Specific strategies for officers include “[a]pproach[ing] youth with a calm demeanor, conveying that you are there to help them” because “[a]ggression may cause the youth to shut down and make the situation worse.”99 BPD officers are not provided guidance on the causes and unique qualities of youth behavior and communication or trained on the skills and tactics necessary for interacting with youth. Officers use the same overly aggressive tactics they use with adults, unnecessarily escalating encounters with youth. As the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing notes, “[u]se of physical control equipment and techniques against vulnerable populations—including children . . . can undermine public trust and should be used as a last resort.”100
We reviewed numerous other cases that also raised concerns about officers’ interactions with juveniles. These cases demonstrate that BPD fails to adjust its tactics, even when dealing with youth. They also show that BPD needs to provide detailed and comprehensive policy guidance and training for interactions involving juveniles, and to hold officers accountable if they fail to abide by their training and guidelines.
98 Int’l Assn. of Chiefs of Police, The Effects of Adolescent Development on Policing 2 (2015), available at
 http://www.iacp.org/teenbrain).
 99 Id. at 4. 
 100 Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing 15 (May 2015).

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4. BPD Uses Unreasonable Force Against People Who Are Not a Threat to Officers or the Public
a. BPD Uses Unreasonable Force Against People who Are Already Restrained
BPD uses unreasonable force against people who are already restrained and pose little or no threat to the officer or the public. In some instances, these individuals may continue to verbally resist or not submit to officer’s demands, but this type of passive resistance or non-compliance does not justify using force. This practice contravenes well-settled law.
In Meyers, the Fourth Circuit determined that an officer’s use of force was excessive and unreasonable where the officer repeatedly administered electrical shocks from a taser on an individual who was no longer armed, was no longer actively resisting arrest and was physically restrained by several other officers. 713 F.3d at 734. “We also have stated in forthright terms that ‘officers using unnecessary, gratuitous, and disproportionate force to seize a secured, unarmed citizen do not act in an objectively reasonable manner.’” Id. (quoting Bailey v. Kennedy, 349 F.3d 731, 744–45 (4th Cir. 2003)); see also Champion v. Outlook Nashville, Inc., 380 F.3d 893, 902 (6th Cir. 2004) (citing cases) (“We have consistently held that various types of force applied after the subduing of a suspect are unreasonable and a violation of a clearly established right.”). The Court in Meyers also indicated that “any ‘unnecessary, gratuitous, and disproportional force’” against unarmed and secured individuals was objectively unreasonable regardless of the type of weapon used, whether arising from a gun, a baton, a taser, or other weapon. 713 F.3d at 734–35 (quoting Jones v. Buchanan, 325 F.3d 520, 532 (4th Cir. 2003) (fists)) (citing Park v. Shiflett, 250 F.3d 843, 852–53 (4th Cir. 2001) (pepper spray)).
In Baltimore, BPD officers use excessive force against restrained individuals, often when those individuals are awaiting transport to Central Booking after being arrested for committing lowlevel street offenses. For example, in a 2011 incident, three BPD officers responded to an anonymous tip about persons using illegal drugs inside a pick-up truck. Arriving on scene, the officers located illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia in the truck’s cab. The three occupants—two women and one man—were removed from the vehicle and arrested for controlled substance violations. While waiting for a prisoner transport vehicle, one of the women, “Sarah”, began “moving around” in a perceived attempt to wander away or escape. Sarah attempted to get up on six occasions and “each attempt to rise was met with a verbal warning to stop” and an admonition that the next time she tried to “escape” the officer would use force to against her. Sarah again tried to stand up and the officer, already holding his police baton in his hand, struck Sarah in the leg and then “managed to maintain physical control over her.” This baton strike appears to be used as punishment for failing to follow the officer’s commands rather than necessary and reasonable force to control Sarah, who was not actively aggressive and was being detained for a minor drug offense. Sarah later told the investigating supervisor that she was not attempting to escape; rather she was trying to stand up because her knees were in pain from kneeling on the hard pavement for such a long time. In this situation, other less forceful techniques should have been employed—for instance an escort position, joint manipulation, or utilizing leg restraints if escape was truly a concern. Moreover, BPD specifically trains its officers that impact weapons should not be used when individuals are non-compliant or passively resisting. Rather, striking an individual with an impact
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weapon should only be used to stop an attacker who is actively attempting to inflict injury. Nevertheless, this strike against a restrained individual was summarily approved by the chain of command.
In a 2014 incident that we reviewed, a CitiWatch operator who was monitoring security cameras placed throughout Baltimore notified BPD patrol officers that he observed an unknown male, later identified as “Brandon,” conduct a hand-to-hand exchange of suspected narcotics. An officer and a trainee responded to the scene and entered a local store to interview Brandon. After producing identification, the officers smelled an odor of marijuana emanating from Brandon, whom they then patted down for weapons, but found none. As they were exiting the store, BPD officers noticed a baggie containing a white powdery substance on the floor near the entrance where Brandon had been standing. According to their force reports, having seen no one else enter or leave the store, the officers determined that the baggie belonged to Brandon, handcuffed him and took him outside to wait for a transport wagon.
When a BPD sergeant arrived on scene, Brandon was sitting on the ground in handcuffs. The sergeant began speaking to Brandon and reportedly observed another small baggie containing a white powdery substance and a clear sandwich baggie containing green plant material under Brandon’s tongue. According to the sergeant, he asked Brandon to spit out the baggies, but Brandon clenched his mouth “and attempted to destroy the narcotics/evidence by swallowing them.” The sergeant placed his hand on Brandon’s cheeks and, most troublingly, on his throat and then applied pressure—“not to restrict his breathing, but just to keep him from swallowing the illegal narcotics/evidence which could have also put [Brandon’s] life at risk.” When Brandon refused to spit out the suspected narcotics, the sergeant ordered the police officer trainee on the scene to tase Brandon, even though he was restrained. The trainee drive-stunned Brandon on his legs. When Brandon did not spit out the baggies, the sergeant ordered the trainee to drive-stun Brandon three additional times. Brandon spat out “several” small baggies and was transported to the district for processing.
The use of force on Brandon’s neck—a handcuffed detainee who did not pose a threat to officer safety, and who was being arrested for what the officer’s described in their own report as a “street level drug transaction”—was excessive and unreasonable. Although some force to prevent the destruction of evidence or to protect Brandon may be reasonable, the sergeant’s application of pressure to Brandon’s throat was a use of lethal force that was not justified by the possible destruction of evidence or even the potential threat to Brandon of swallowing the narcotics. If Brandon had actually swallowed the baggies, officers should have transported him to a hospital for treatment by trained medical professionals. The officer’s use of his taser on Brandon was also highly questionable, if not excessive.
In a 2010 incident, two BPD officers and a lieutenant arrested a 5’6,” 160-pound man for littering after observing him throw a cigar wrapper on the ground and then empty the tobacco contents from the cigar. The officers handcuffed and sat 19-year old “William” on a curb, and conducted a search incident to arrest. They removed William’s shoes and recovered a blue Ziploc bag containing what they suspected was marijuana. According to the force reports, William began to yell profanities and accuse the officers of planting the drugs. One officer placed William against a wall while they waited for a transport vehicle. William continued to yell, then pushed off the wall and began to run. After only a few steps, an officer pushed William to the ground. According to the force report, William continued to flail and try to “strike the officers by head butting, kicking,
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shouldering and spitting.” The officers attempted to gain control of William, but were unable. A crowd formed around the officers and William. Although William was in handcuffs and three officers were present to control the restrained man, the officers resorted to tasing the man in drivestun mode “approximately six times.” The lieutenant and one of the officers also reportedly kicked William several times either in an effort to get him to the ground or to keep him on the ground; the reports are unclear. When the drive-stuns were reportedly ineffective, and William reportedly pushed away the taser and continued to fight, the lieutenant ordered the officers to move away and deployed two bursts of pepper spray in William’s face. The officers were then able to hold William on the ground and place him in a transport vehicle. The inability of three officers to control William is concerning and reflects insufficient training on arrest and control techniques. While we take no position on the reasonableness of much of the force used in this incident, the use of the taser on a handcuffed individual “approximately six times” was unreasonable. The use of taser on a restrained individual is rarely reasonable, and tasing the person in drive-stun mode six times is unreasonable and excessive in almost any case. A drive-stun is to be used only to create distance. William suffered abrasions on his knees, arm, back and a small fracture of left shoulder. He was charged only with littering and disorderly conduct.
BPD officers also use excessive force against restrained detainees who refuse to exit BPD transport vehicles, in some cases when being transported to the hospital for an emergency petition evaluation. In a 2010 case we reviewed, a BPD transport officer responded to a call about a person with possible mental illness in a wheelchair who was allegedly exposing himself to take him to a hospital for an evaluation. Although the incident report is vague, difficult to read, and lacks any follow-up investigation, it appears that the officer approached the man, “Timothy,” who was “agitated and disorderly,” and asked for identification. Timothy produced his identification and then jumped out of the wheelchair and kicked the patrol car. When the officer attempted to take Timothy into custody, Timothy began kicking, and the officer tased him and took him into custody. Timothy was transported to an area hospital for an emergency petition evaluation. Upon arriving at the hospital, Timothy refused to come out of the transport vehicle and kicked at the BPD transport officer. The transport officer gave Timothy several commands to stop kicking or he would be tased. A second officer stood outside witnessing the events, but there is no indication that he made any effort to intervene. After the transport officer gave Timothy a third command to stop kicking, the transport officer deployed his taser in drive-stun mode.
The reasonableness of the first taser incident cannot be determined because there were conflicting accounts of what occurred, there was no supervisory investigation, and the incident reports contain little detail. However, tasing Timothy the second time while he was restrained in the back of a transport vehicle was unreasonable. In Orem v. Rephann, 523 F.3d 442 (4th Cir. 2008), abrogated on other grounds by Wilkins v. Gaddy, 559 U.S. 34, 39 (2010), the Court of Appeals addressed whether the use of a taser against an arrestee who was being transported to jail in a police officer’s car constituted excessive force. Because the subject was already in custody, the court analyzed the excessive force claim under the Fourteenth Amendment’s standard of whether the officer “inflicted unnecessary and wanton pain and suffering.” Orem, 523 F.3d at 446; but see Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 135 S. Ct. 2466 (2015) (holding that excessive force claims brought by pretrial detainees need only meet the Graham standard of objective unreasonableness). In doing so, the court held that the use of a taser on a detainee who was already in handcuffs and restrained in the back of a police car was clearly unlawful, despite the fact that the detainee was extremely unruly and uncooperative. Orem, 523 F.3d at 446–47; Cf. Wernert v. Green, 419 F. App’x 337, 342–43 (4th Cir. 2011). Here, Timothy
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was transported to an area hospital because BPD officers determined that he needed an emergency psychological evaluation. Timothy was in crisis and kicked at the transport officer, but he was restrained and was not currently a danger to himself or a threat to the officers. There was no urgent need to remove Timothy from the transport vehicle. Instead of having patience and attempting to de-escalate the situation—or asking for assistance from the other officer on scene or qualified medical personnel in the hospital—the transport officer resorted to a high level of force to gain compliance from a person in crisis who may not have understood his commands. The use of the taser in this instance, and in other similar BPD force files we reviewed, was punitive rather than necessary and reasonable.
Nevertheless, in determining that the officer’s actions conformed to Departmental Guidelines, the supervisor justifying this use of force wrote: “The X26 Taser fills the action void with a force less than either espantoon101 or deadly force to elicit compliance from individuals who are about to be arrested. It allows members to use a relative mild force and provides a safer option than suffering or inflicting serious injury.” The supervisor’s determination that drive-stunning a restrained, mentally ill person is “mild” and justified because it prevents suffering or serious injury illustrates a lack of appreciation for the seriousness of the force used and the possibility of harm that could result. See Bryan v. MacPherson, 630 F.3d 805, 825 (9th Cir. 2010) (“The physiological effects, the high levels of pain, and foreseeable risk of physical injury lead us to conclude that the X26 and similar [tasers] are a greater intrusion than other non-lethal methods of force we have confronted.”). It also demonstrates an ignorance of applicable Fourth Circuit law that prohibits the use of a taser in these circumstances. Orem, 523 F.3d at 446–47.
In a strikingly similar 2014 incident, a BPD officer responded to a domestic violence call, took the subject into custody, and transported him to the district station. When officers ordered “Eric” to exit the transport wagon, he refused and stated “I want the police to shoot me. I have nothing to live for.” The officers warned Eric several times that he would be tased, but when he refused to comply with their commands, the sergeant on the scene ordered one of the officers to tase Eric. The taser probes struck Eric in the arm and buttocks. Subsequently, the officers transported Eric to the hospital for an emergency petition. This use of force on a passively noncomplaint person in crisis was unreasonable. The officers resorted to force simply to gain compliance from Eric, not because they needed to gain control over him. In doing so, BPD officers disregarded an individual’s constitutional rights in favor of expediency. The sergeant who ordered the officer to tase Eric—and also investigated the use of force, despite the conflict of interest— justified the taser deployment by citing what appears to be a version of the Department’s Training Guidelines titled “Electronic Shock Devices,” that had been replaced in 2010, four years before the incident took place.
b. BPD Uses Unreasonable Force Against Persons who Are Fleeing from Them and Present Little or No Threat of Harm
A significant number of incidents we reviewed involved BPD officers using force against individuals who were fleeing from officers and presented little or no threat of harm to them or others. Many of these incidents involved officers who chased civilians on foot, often without suspicion that they had committed any serious crimes. Such foot pursuits increase the likelihood that officers will use force in order to stop an individual that is not reasonable in light of the threat
101 An “espantoon” is one type of baton used by BPD officers.
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posed or crime committed by the person. Foot pursuits of individuals for low-level offenses are also an unsafe tactic that unnecessarily endangers officers and community members.
Similarly, we found a number of cases in which officers shot at vehicles that were fleeing or moving away from them, after any threat of harm to them or others had subsided. Such shootings are unreasonable.
i. In Foot Pursuits, BPD Uses Excessive Force Against Individuals Who Are Fleeing From Them and Tactics That Endanger Themselves and Community Members
BPD officers used excessive force against individuals during foot pursuits. When officers encounter civilians who flee from them, officers nearly always give chase, without weighing the severity of any suspected crime, whether the person poses a threat, and any alternative, safer means to affect a stop or seizure. Once engaged in a foot pursuit, BPD officers then often used force to end the pursuit regardless of whether they had only reasonable suspicion to conduct a stop, or probable cause to make an arrest. See Cortez v. McCauley, 478 F.3d 1108, 1126 (10th Cir. 2007) (“[P]olice have historically been able to use more force in making an arrest than in effecting an investigative detention.”); see also Rabin v. Flynn, 725 F.3d 628, 632–33 (7th Cir. 2013) (“When an officer’s use of force during such a Terry stop becomes so disproportionate to the purpose of such a stop in light of the surrounding circumstances—and the purpose may include ensuring the safety of the officers or others—then the encounter becomes a formal arrest (which must then be justified by probable cause.”)) (citations omitted). Often, the force officers used to end the pursuit was disproportional to the suspected crime and the threat posed by the civilian. See Armstrong, 810 F.3d at 899 (internal quotation marks omitted) (“To properly consider the reasonableness of the force employed we must view it in full context, with an eye toward the proportionality of the force in light of all the circumstances.”). Based on the force reports we reviewed, the frequency with which officers engaged in foot pursuits, without considering the seriousness of the suspected crime, any alternative means to stop the individual, and risks to themselves, the suspect, and others is concerning.
Foot pursuits are generally a high-risk tactic and have civil rights implications. See generally IACP, Protecting Civil Rights: A Leadership Guide for State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement, p. 133. In particular, at the end of a foot pursuit, when officers seize an individual, they may experience an adrenaline rush; actions taken under such circumstances may impede an officer’s ability to exercise proper judgment and appropriate restraint. For this reason, police departments should, and generally do, give careful consideration to foot pursuits in policy and training.
BPD has not engaged in the careful consideration that foot pursuits require as a policy and training matter. BPD has no policy on foot pursuits to guide, and hold accountable, its officers’ conduct. An internal report in 2013 recommended that the Department issue a policy on these pursuits, and its internal documents indicate that it has intended to draft a policy to guide officers’ conduct in pursuits for a number of years. However, to date, BPD has not issued any policy on this issue. BPD’s training on foot pursuits for both new and experienced officers also is deficient. Only in 2015 did BPD create a specific training on foot pursuits for its recruits in the Academy. Previously, its training on this tactic was spread throughout several different courses, leaving it to officers to tie the lessons together. Additionally, the skills that officers learn in the Academy must
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be refreshed frequently throughout an officer’s career through in-service training. For experienced officers, BPD provided in-service training on foot pursuits for the first time in 2015.
BPD officers resort to excessive force to end foot pursuits, or after a pursuit has occurred. For example, in the 2010 incident discussed supra on page 31, an officer reportedly in an area “known for violent crime and narcotics distribution” recognized an African-American man who had previously fled when the officer had attempted to conduct a field interview and again fled at the sight of the officer. The officer reportedly pursued the man because he believed he was “involved in criminal activity” though he did not identify any specific crime he suspected. He also reportedly believed he “may be armed with a concealed weapon” because of his “actions, loose clothing and the surroundings.” Such generic and vague descriptions are insufficient to justify using serious force against a person. Smith v. Ball State Univ., 295 F.3d 763, 771 (7th Cir. 2002) (applying Graham and finding force used in a Terry stop reasonable because it was “measured, brief, and appropriate to accomplish the purposes of the investigative stop.”). Here, the officer pursued the man on foot for eight blocks. During the pursuit, the officer deployed his taser in probe mode two times on the man, and then finally used a drive-stun to stop the individual.102 The officer then frisked the man and found he was not carrying any firearms. To strike the man with two deployments of a taser in probe mode and one in drive-stun was excessive in these circumstances. A lieutenant who arrived on the scene interviewed the man and asked why he had run from the officer. The man informed the lieutenant that “he was scared.” Officers released the man without charging him with any crime.
Separate from the risk of excessive force, BPD officers also use unsafe tactics when they engage in foot pursuits, needlessly endangering themselves and community members. The risks of engaging in a foot pursuit may outweigh the benefits in a number of cases. Particularly when officers are acting alone, pursuits are not advised. Indeed, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has also cautioned that “[n]ormally, conducting a foot pursuit alone is far too dangerous an undertaking to be permissible.”103 In our reviews of BPD’s files, officers engage in solo foot pursuits frequently, even when, in some cases, they believe the person they are pursuing to be armed. Engaging in a solo pursuit of an armed person is dangerous to the officer, and may make it more likely that shots may be fired, increasing the danger to community members. BPD officers repeatedly fail to consider the risk factors inherent in foot pursuits. They too frequently employ tactics that are unsafe for officers, the individuals they pursue, and the community.
When officers decide to pursue a suspect, even though they must decide quickly whether to pursue, they should assess the seriousness of the suspected violation at issue, the dangerousness of the pursuit under the circumstances, whether the person they intend to pursue poses an immediate and serious threat or could be apprehended later or through other means. The need for the suspect’s immediate apprehension must be weighed against the risks to officers and the public caused by engaging in a foot pursuit. If officers know the identity of the suspect, his or her immediate apprehension is likely unnecessary without exigent circumstances. However, if circumstances require that the suspect be immediately apprehended, officers should contain the suspect and establish a perimeter rather than engaging in a foot pursuit, particularly if officers believe the suspect may be armed. Officers may then conduct a sweep in a coordinated manner within the contained area to locate the suspect, with the assistance of surveillance if this is available. This recognizes that
102 Striking a stationary individual with a taser in probe mode, if at a distance, can be difficult; striking a moving person 
 while an officer is also running has a low likelihood of being effective.
 103 Int’l Ass’n of Chiefs of Police, Foot Pursuits Concepts & Issues Paper 2 (Feb. 2003).

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the safety of the officers and community members is paramount when alternative tactics are available to resolve the incident. Containing a suspect and establishing a perimeter also slows the incident down, decreasing the need for rushed decisions or judgments made in adrenaline-filled circumstances, and decreases the need to use force to apprehend a suspect.
Officers should be encouraged and incentivized to choose safe and professional courses of conduct. Indeed, the IACP recommends that “[b]ecause of the inherent and demonstrated dangers involved in foot pursuits, it should be a matter of agency policy that officers should not be criticized or sanctioned for making a rational and professionally informed decision not to engage in or to terminate a foot pursuit.” BPD, to the contrary, indirectly encourages foot pursuits by placing a heavy emphasis on officers’ arrest numbers. As discussed above in Section II(A)(1) some supervisors still assess officers, at least in part, by the number of arrests they make, regardless of the severity of the underlying crime. This incentivizes officers to pursue individuals for even minor infractions to increase the number of arrests they make. Additionally, pressure from past City officials to lower the rate of violent crime also has encouraged officers to pursue and seize individuals who may be armed, in an attempt to seize and remove their guns from the street. This is a high-risk strategy that, if engaged in, must have strict controls and oversight to ensure that officers’ actions are constitutional and that officers and the public are not exposed to unnecessary risk. Our investigation finds that such controls and oversight are not present, and that officers do not appear to be engaging in pursuits of individuals who they suspect are armed in a manner that keeps them and others safe.
For example, in a 2014 incident, a uniformed officer patrolling in an area allegedly known for drug trafficking and violence turned on his lights and sirens to respond to a call for service regarding “a silent alarm at a nearby block.” As he did so, he noticed Andrew, “an unknown black male observe [his] marked uniform presence and flee on foot.” The officer noted that Andrew was “holding his left side” which the officer believed to be “a characteristic of an armed person.” The officer abandoned the call for service that he had been responding to and instead pursued Andrew, an unknown individual, alone, on foot. Andrew entered a residential home from the back porch and locked the door behind him. The officer, “[b]elieving that he might be armed, and fearing that the house he entered might not have been his, and also fearing that any evidence or contraband/weapons he may have on him would be destroyed/concealed,” “forced entry into the house, damaging the door in the process.”104 If Andrew had been armed, the officer’s choice of tactics—forcing entry without backup—could have resulted in the officer being shot. Andrew ran to the front door where the officer caught up to him and attempted to make an arrest—the officer did not specify the crime for which he was attempting to make the arrest. While the two were “struggl[ing]” at the front door, a pit bull charged at them from inside the house. The officer withdrew his service weapon “fearing” that he would “have to shoot the dog.” Eventually, to avoid the dog, the officer let Andrew run out the front door and continued to pursue on foot. The officer then decided to tase Andrew because he believed Andrew “was involved in illegal activity,” suspected he “had entered an unknown house,” “might be armed,” and “had already resisted all
104 It is not clear that the officer had cause to enter the home without a warrant. See Brigham City, Utah v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006) (internal quotation marks omitted) (“It is a basic principle of Fourth Amendment law that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.”). While officers in “hot pursuit” of a fleeing suspect are granted an exigency exception to the general principle prohibiting a search of a home without a warrant, it is not clear that this qualifies as a “hot pursuit” where the officer had insufficient basis to believe the man had committed a specific crime, or that any other exigency existed here permitting the officer to enter the home. See id.
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attempts to apprehend him.” The officer tased Andrew two times, as the first deployment was not effective. After taking him into custody, the officer discovered that Andrew was not armed, had no contraband, and was eventually determined, at a later, unknown time, to have an open warrant. The reason for the officer’s force listed in his use of force report was that the “suspect refused to comply.”
This officer repeatedly used unsafe tactics that endangered himself, the individual he pursued, and a homeowner, and damaged a homeowner’s property. He chose to engage in a foot pursuit in an allegedly violent area, alone, while believing the person he was pursuing to be armed. There is no indication in the report that he called for backup or considered discontinuing the pursuit at any time. He forced entry into an unknown home, where the person he was pursuing was inside and at a tactical advantage to the officer. If Andrew had actually been armed, as the officer suspected he was, the officer could have been shot. The officer damaged a home by breaking the door, potentially increasing the danger to the homeowner he was trying to protect, and pointing his firearm at the homeowner’s dog while struggling with a man, creating a risk of harm to the homeowner’s property. The officer’s use of force against Andrew was highly questionable, if not clearly unreasonable, particularly given the officer’s own training on the likelihood that the individual was armed.
Like the officers in the above accounts, officers frequently cite factors learned in BPD’s training on “Characteristics of an Armed Person” such as “grabbing one’s waistband” or “wearing loose clothing.” Officers appear to use these factors to justify the force they use during or following pursuits, asserting that they believe individuals who exhibit any one of these factors to be armed. BPD provides their training on “Characteristics of an Armed Person” to teach officers to identify when a person may be armed, which may provide reasonable suspicion for a stop. BPD training instructors warn students that there may be false positives, and informed us that they instruct students that eighty percent of individuals who show characteristics of an armed person—such as wearing loose or baggy clothing, or grabbing their waistbands while running—will not be armed.105 Despite purportedly being trained on false positives, BPD officers nevertheless frequently engage in foot pursuits and use force on individuals based solely on factors such as “wearing loose clothing.” We found that this results, at times, in the use of excessive force.
Some of the incidents we reviewed involved officers shooting at individuals who were fleeing from them and who officers suspected were armed. In a number of cases involving BPD officers’ uses of deadly force, it was not clear that the individuals officers shot at had actually threatened the officer or others with serious or deadly harm. Without an immediate threat, simply being in possession of a firearm does not justify using deadly force. Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 11 (1985); Cooper v. Sheehan, 735 F.3d 153, 159 (4th Cir. 2013) (“[T]he mere possession of a firearm by a suspect is not enough to permit the use of deadly force. Thus, an officer does not possess the unfettered authority to shoot a member of the public simply because that person is carrying a weapon. Instead, deadly force may only be used by a police officer when, based on a reasonable assessment, the officer or another person is threatened with the weapon.”).
105 It is highly unlikely that only eighty percent of individuals who are wearing loose or baggy clothing are unarmed. Nevertheless, this training gave officers clear notice that even a person who is displaying some of the characteristics of an armed person is most likely to be unarmed. BPD officers also appear to be relying too heavily on only a single characteristic of an armed person, rather than a set of characteristics that, when combined, together indicate that a person is armed.
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However, because the investigations of these incidents were so incomplete, as further explained below in section II(C)(5), it is difficult to determine based on the information provided in BPD’s investigative files whether officers faced any immediate threat before firing. For example, in a 2013 case, four officers traveling in two unmarked vehicles pursued a suspect after they heard gunshots. The suspect allegedly raised a firearm while running, then ran through the yard of a residence, though the officers’ statements regarding the suspect’s actions are inconsistent. The officers parked their vehicles and gave chase on foot. At some point during the foot pursuit, the suspect may have tossed his gun (one witnessing officer stated in his interview that the suspect tossed his gun when he “jumped on” a bush before the officer heard the next gunshot) which struck the suspect. When asked whether the potential gun toss occurred before or after he was shot, he stated he had not seen the actual gun toss. Another officer found a gun near a bush several feet from where the suspect lay after being shot. The interviewers did not thoroughly examine whether the potential gun toss occurred before or after the officer shot at the suspect. The four officers involved in this case were interviewed for only 5, 8, 8, and 14, minutes. During these cursory interviews, the interviewers made no efforts to probe the basis for the officer’s initial statement that the suspect had tossed his gun, and did not question the other officers about whether and when the potential gun toss occurred.
Officers should have policy guidance and training on when and how to safely engage in foot pursuits, given the frequency with which officers conduct them in Baltimore, and the risks involved for both officers and the public. It is critical that BPD provide officers with policy guidance on how to assess whether circumstances warrant engaging in a foot pursuit, and sufficient training on how to conduct these pursuits safely, without needlessly endangering themselves, suspects, and the public.
ii. BPD’s Discharges of Firearms at Moving Vehicles Are Highly Dangerous, Ineffective, and May Be Constitutionally Impermissible
BPD officers shot at moving vehicles in eight cases during the time period we reviewed. Shooting at a vehicle that is fleeing away from officers is unreasonable except in rare circumstances. See Waterman v. Batton, 393 F.3d at 482 (“[O]nce Waterman’s vehicle passed the officers, the threat to their safety was eliminated and thus could not justify the subsequent shots.”); cf. Plumhoff v. Rickard, 134 S. Ct. 2012, 2021 (2014) (finding officers’ use of deadly force against fleeing suspect reasonable where suspect engaged in “outrageously reckless driving,” leading officers on a chase that exceeded 100 miles per hour and passing more than two dozen vehicles, several of which were forced to alter course). In some of these cases, although the factual descriptions were incomplete, it appeared officers may have fired shots at individuals in moving vehicles as the vehicle was fleeing away from them. At that point, the vehicle itself no longer posed a serious threat to the officers, and if it posed a threat to others, shooting at it likely increased the threat, rather than eliminating it. See Police Exec. Research Forum, Guiding Principles on Use of Force 44 (Mar. 2016) (“Shooting at vehicles must be prohibited. . . . unless someone in the vehicle is using or threatening deadly force by means other than the vehicle itself.”); IACP Nat’l Law Enforcement Pol. Ctr., Use of Force Concepts & Issues Paper 5 (Rev. Feb. 2006). The investigations of these incidents often left critical questions unanswered, however, making it difficult to determine whether the officers faced an immediate threat of serious harm before discharging their weapons. Nevertheless, supervisors and investigators generally approved officers’ decisions to fire shots at moving vehicles.
Additionally, shooting at a moving vehicle is a highly dangerous tactic and an ineffective way to stop the vehicle. Using firearms against a moving vehicle often creates greater risks than it
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eliminates. If a driver is shot while a vehicle is in motion, the vehicle itself may become out of control and a danger, to officers and innocent bystanders in its path, rather than coming to a stop. Further, a moving vehicle is a difficult target to shoot with accuracy; shots fired may miss the intended target and hit bystanders or passengers in the vehicle. Thus, shooting at a moving vehicle should be permissible in only extreme circumstances. Since 2006, the IACP’s model policy on Use of Force has accounted for these risks, requiring:
Firearms shall not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless a person in the vehicle is immediately threatening the officer or another person with deadly force by means other than the vehicle. The moving vehicle itself shall not presumptively constitute a threat that justifies an officer’s use of deadly force. An officer threatened by an oncoming vehicle shall move out of its path instead of discharging a firearm at it or any of its occupants.
Two illustrative incidents identify some of our concerns with BPD’s use of firearms on fleeing vehicles, although we make no finding on whether the force used in either of these incidents was unreasonable. In one 2013 incident, an investigation into a possible drug transaction ended with an officer firing seven shots at the front, side and rear of a vehicle as it drove away. One of three officers on the scene observed what he suspected was a drug transaction in progress in a car parked near a gas pump and signaled to the other two officers to investigate. One officer approached to the driver’s side door of the vehicle and the other to the passenger side. The officer at the driver’s side, reportedly fearing the driver was reaching for a weapon, opened the driver’s side door and reached inside while the car was still running; he does not appear to have ordered the driver to turn the engine off. Rather than reaching for a weapon, the driver had put the car into drive. With the officer’s torso inside the vehicle, the driver hit the gas and the car sped forward. The officer, becoming caught halfway into the car, was dragged by the car. He reached for his weapon and fired one shot toward the driver of the car, missing both the driver and the officer standing on the other side of the vehicle. The officer’s gunshot reportedly caused the driver to jerk the car, dislodging the officer from the car. The vehicle turned to exit the parking lot, driving towards the third officer who had observed the incident. According to BPD’s documents, the third officer stepped out of the way of the oncoming vehicle and then fired seven rounds, two of which hit the front windshield, and five of which hit the right side passenger windows, and rear passenger door, shattering the rear windshield and hitting the rear roof of the car. The officer admitted—during a brief, 15 minute interview BPD investigators conducted 258 days after the incident—that he shot at the vehicle as it was fleeing away from him. It appeared he shot at the vehicle, which had fled the wrong way down a one-way street, to disable it, though BPD officers conducting his interview did not clarify this point. BPD determined all force in this incident to be reasonable.
In another incident from 2013, two officers were on foot, directing traffic near a crowded nightclub. A civilian car traveling the wrong direction struck the two officers from behind, knocking them to the pavement. The car then started to leave the scene. One of the two officers fired eight shots at the vehicle as it was fleeing away from him. In this case, investigators determined the discharges to be inappropriate. In our review, we observed additional incidents of firearms discharges at moving vehicles which, even if they were not unreasonable, endangered members of the public.
The disparate treatment of the officers in these two incidents may have resulted from the lack of clear policy guidance on when officers might be justified in shooting at moving vehicles. The
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Department’s 2001 “Use of Deadly Force Guidelines” instruct officers that they “may not shoot at vehicles moving away from them unless the vehicle turns around and attempts to injure them or someone else and adequate cover is not available.” However, Guidelines function differently from policies—they are not binding on officers. The prohibition on shooting at vehicles moving away from officers was not made clear in policy until May 2016. The Department now prohibits shooting at moving vehicles unless confronted with a deadly threat, other than the vehicle itself. This new policy prohibiting shooting at moving vehicles, regardless of whether they are fleeing, is a positive step forward.
5. BPD’s Deficient Policies, Training, Crisis Intervention Program, and Lack of Oversight Underlie The Pattern Or Practice Of Excessive Force and Violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act
BPD’s deficient policies, training, crisis intervention program, and failures in oversight over force incidents underlie the pattern or practice of unconstitutional force we observed. It is the Department’s responsibility to articulate policies that provide sufficient guidance, both in quality and content, to officers on when and how it is appropriate and lawful to use force against members of the public. BPD’s policies fail to provide this guidance. It is also the Department’s responsibility to train officers to ensure they understand how the Department’s policies are to be operationalized, and to provide officers with skills they need to safely and constitutionally resolve the broad spectrum of incidents they encounter on the street while minimizing the need to resort to force. The Department has failed to provide such training. The Department is likewise charged with investigating incidents of force to ensure they comply with its policies and the law, and where they do not, remedying officers’ conduct through retraining and discipline, as appropriate. The Department has failed to exercise proper oversight over incidents of force and address deficiencies when they occurred, allowing officers to continue using unreasonable force and unsafe tactics. In addition, BPD fails to adequately prepare officers for their interactions with individuals with disabilities or in crisis, and to partner effectively with other social service providers in these incidents. Thus, the responsibility for the pattern or practice of unconstitutional force we observed lies with the Department as an agency.
a. BPD’s Deficient Policies Have Contributed To and Permitted BPD’s Pattern or Practice of Excessive Force
Deficiencies in BPD’s policies regarding the use, reporting, and investigation of force have contributed to officers’ systemic use of excessive force. Overall, BPD’s policies regarding when and how to use force: (1) are missing critical elements; (2) are scattered across multiple documents, making it difficult for officers to synthesize their guidance; (3) included elements that were not enforced; and (4) are sometimes inaccessible to some officers. These policies fail to provide officers with clear and consistent guidance that officers need to safely and constitutionally conduct their law enforcement activities. BPD issued revisions to its policies governing officers’ uses of force on July 1, 2016. The policies appear to have improved in some respects and the Department is to be commended for its initiative and efforts. However, the recent updates may require additional amendments to correct the patterns or practices of unconstitutional force our investigation uncovered.
BPD’s policies on use of force, and on use of specific weapons were, until very recently, missing critical elements. BPD implemented its first policy governing officers’ use of batons in
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2016. The Department’s first policy governing the use of oleoresin capsicum, or “OC” spray was implemented in 2015. Despite the previous lack of policy guidance on the use of these weapons, the Department had issued these weapons to its officers for decades. It is a fundamental responsibility of the Department to provide controlling guidance to officers regarding when they are permitted to use the weapons the Department has supplied them. Previously, officers’ use of these weapons was governed only by “Training Guidelines,” but these training guidelines did not establish clear standards for officer conduct.
While the Department implemented a policy on Electronically Conducted Weapons, or tasers, in 2007, this policy failed to provide officers with necessary guidance on when it would be appropriate to use a taser. Training Guidelines regarding tasers, which were issued in 2010, similarly failed to provide any restrictions on officers’ use of these weapons. Instead, both the policy and Guidelines simply provided officers with descriptions of the various modes that the weapon may be used in, without providing proper limitations on those uses. Neither the policy nor the training guidelines were updated when the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, in conjunction with the Police Executive Research Forum, released ECW Guidelines in March 2011, which recommended restrictions such as not using a taser more than three times on a particular individual.
Importantly, until its 2016 policy update, BPD did not require a number of types of force by BPD officers to be reported. This included takedowns, punches, control holds and pain compliance techniques, unless a subject complained of pain, or injury resulted. Our review of BPD’s reports suggests that, in practice, force involving an officer’s hands was generally only reported if the subject sustained injuries requiring medical attention. Our review of BPD’s force cases, interviews with community members in Baltimore, as well as interviews with officers, demonstrated that a significant volume of force by BPD officers involves officers using their hands against individuals in close encounters—types of force that BPD did not require officers to report until very recently. Force that is not documented cannot be managed or monitored. In our interviews with community members, many members of the public described experiences in which officers used force such as takedowns and control techniques without sufficient justification. These incidents have led to the deep frustration that some members of the public feel towards BPD.
Until July 2016, BPD policies on force failed to encourage any de-escalation strategies. It is critical that officers be provided guidance not only on when and how force may be used, but also that they be encouraged to use tactics that minimize the need for force. Using force against members of the public is not only an intrusion to the subject of force, it also creates risks for officers entangled in these encounters by heightening tensions and creating situations in which officers may also, in turn, be injured. BPD’s new policies have taken some steps to incorporate deescalation principles, but significant work remains to ensure that de-escalation strategies are understood and utilized throughout the Department. Additionally, although BPD implemented a policy governing contacts with youth in June 2015, the policy fails to provide any guidance on the unique qualities of youth behavior and development or prescribe specific techniques for officers’ approach and interactions with youth.
Second, in addition to missing critical elements, BPD’s guidance on when and how to use force, as well as to report, investigate, and review uses of force is scattered throughout many policies, training guidelines, and their various updates. For example, the rules governing officers’ uses of their service weapons are contained in at least four separate policies and a “Training
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Guideline” on the use of deadly force, rather than a single, cohesive policy. Additionally, when the Department updates a policy, each update is written in a new and separate document. One policy can have many updates, and thus officers are expected to keep track of many different documents simply to understand a single policy. To understand all of the applicable policies governing force, officers must be aware of and synthesize dozens of documents. There is no cohesive, comprehensive guidance for officers that is digestible and workable. Having this critical guidance scattered throughout dozens of disparate documents makes it difficult to understand and operationalize what guidance the Department does provide its officers about use of force. In interviews, officers expressed concern that policies were simply implemented and distributed without sufficient guidance regarding the meaning of provisions. A number of officers we spoke with expressed confusion about the contents of recently updated policies, including the Department’s new use of force policy.
Third, until recently, officers had insufficient access to Departmental policies. Officers received a policy manual in the Academy upon joining the Department, but later updates to policies were not distributed in a manner that ensured officers received and reviewed the updated policy. Officers receive policy updates through their email, which many officers do not frequently check or have access to because Department computers in the precincts are old, outdated, and frequently break down. Officers were not required to sign off on whether they had received policy updates and the Department had no tracking mechanisms in place to ensure that all officers had received, much less understood, policy updates. To its credit, the Department has realized that this is a significant problem, and has purchased a new software application to track the distribution of new and updated policies and proficiency testing of officers on the new or updated policies, but that application had not yet been rolled out by June 2016.
Finally, the Department does not uniformly and consistently enforce its policies. For example, a 1999 policy on reviewing and investigating firearm discharges that was in effect until 2012 included a requirement that each discharge be reviewed by an “ad hoc board” consisting of a number of chiefs and other personnel appointed by the Commissioner. To our knowledge, based on the documents we reviewed, such a review board was never constituted under this policy during the period of our review. Instead, under former Commissioner Batts, a new policy regarding a Use of Force Review Board was implemented in 2014, under which a number of reviews were conducted. As we describe in more detail in Section III(A) below, the Department’s failure to consistently enforce its policies has contributed to the pattern or practice of excessive force that we found.
These deficiencies in policy guidance, organization, distribution, and enforcement contribute to the pattern or practice of unconstitutional force we observed.
b. BPD’s Training On Force Is Severely Lacking, Leading To Officers’ Systemic Constitutional Violations
BPD officers are trained in the Academy when they initially join the Department, and then through mandatory annual in-service training. Training at both levels—at the Academy and through in-service—is lacking. As described in more detail in Section III(A)(1) below, BPD’s training generally fails to provide officers with sufficient instruction on how to operationalize policies. It lacks the integrated, scenario-based training that equips officers with the tactical skills necessary to
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conduct law enforcement activities in a safe and constitutional manner, including strategies that decrease the need for force.
BPD’s Defensive Tactics training teaches officers an erroneous legal standard for excessive force. It separates excessive force into (1) “perceived” excessive force; (2) “intentional” excessive force; and (3) “unintentional” excessive force. This separation between “perceived,” “intentional” and “unintentional” excessive force has no place under well-established Fourth Amendment standards governing excessive force. An officer’s subjective intent is irrelevant for Fourth Amendment purposes. Graham, 490 U.S. 386, 397 (1989) (“the reasonableness inquiry in an excessive force case is an objective one: the question is whether the officers’ actions are objectively reasonable in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation”) (internal quotations and citations omitted). Indeed, the Supreme Court explicitly rejected the notion that excessive force required intent or malice decades ago, declaring that “[a]n officer’s evil intentions will not make a Fourth Amendment violation out of an objectively reasonable use of force; nor will an officer’s good intentions make an objectively unreasonable use of force constitutional.” Id. According to BPD’s Defensive Tactics training, the “appropriate” consequence for “unintentional” excessive force, a category of force that does not exist in the legal landscape, is “remedial training”—no other consequence is identified. This training is a disservice to officers, because it is inconsistent with how courts will consider their use of force. The category of “perceived” excessive force is also problematic because it appears to discredit the complainant—whether the complainant is another officer or a community member.
BPD’s training on “Characteristics of an Armed Person” also appears to be ineffective. While instructors teach students that eighty percent of individuals who show characteristics of an armed person—such as wearing loose or baggy clothing, or grabbing their waistbands while running—will not be armed, this issue of false positives does not appear to be taught in an effective manner. No scenarios involving false positives are employed in the training that would allow officers to internalize and retain this lesson. Additionally, it is critical to learn how to safely and constitutionally approach and investigate an individual who may be armed. In a training on the same subject, sponsored by the Department of Justice and the IACP and held at BPD’s training center for law enforcement agencies throughout the region, the instructor spent a significant amount of time refreshing students’ knowledge of Fourth Amendment law and principles. In that training, the instructor repeatedly reinforced throughout the course that a person who displays one of these characteristics is not necessarily armed; each characteristic should be one factor in an officer’s analysis. It does not appear that BPD’s own training on “Characteristics of an Armed Person” provides officers with such critical guidance.
Additionally, until recently, BPD had no comprehensive training on de-escalation strategies to guide officers on how to resolve incidents without resorting to force. It created a short course on de-escalation in 2015, a positive step forward. However, given the novelty of de-escalation tactics within BPD’s curriculum, it is important that leadership within the Department make clear to officers that this skill-set is critical to keeping officers, as well as community members, safe. The Department must ensure that de-escalation is sufficiently emphasized and integrated into all of its courses involving force such that officers understand it is a critical tool for resolving incidents.
Similarly, officers have been provided with little to no training on tactics and techniques for interacting with youth, including on how to engage with juvenile witnesses or victims. Because their developmental state affects the manner in which adolescents comprehend, communicate, and
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behave, BPD officers must be trained on these unique realities and equipped with skills and techniques to account for them when interacting with youth.
The Department provided a brief training, running from May through June of 2016 for officers on its new use of force policy and 26 other policies the Department reviewed and updated. We were able to attend one of the first sessions of the training and hear from consultants about a later session. Our observations based on the first session we attended gave us serious initial concerns about the adequacy of the training, but it appears the training substantially improved with time. We applaud the Department’s desire to issue new guidance and training to its officers, but we have some concerns about the adequacy of the training being provided, given the ambitious scope of what the Department intends to cover. It is clear to us, however, that the Department is committed to improving the guidance it provides to officers on use of force, and we look forward to working with the Department to make sure it is successful in its efforts.
c. BPD’s Lack of Oversight Of Officers’ Uses of Force Has Contributed to the Pattern of Excessive Force
As a whole, BPD fails to exercise oversight of its officers’ uses of force. Of the 2,818 force incidents that BPD recorded in the nearly six-year period we reviewed, BPD investigated only ten incidents for excessive force based on concerns identified through its internal review. Of these ten incidents, it found only one use of force to be excessive. During the same period, twenty-five officers were sued four or more times in cases alleging violations relating to use of force, stops, searches, arrests, or discriminatory policing. The few incidents that the Department internally noted as problematic are also striking considering the many incidents we determined to be unconstitutional.
Like that of many departments, BPD policy sets out different investigative requirements for different levels of force that officers use. BPD officers’ use of force is investigated through one of two routes. First, for most incidents of force other than shootings, officers notify their supervising sergeant after using force. The sergeant travels to the site where force was used, and conducts an investigation at the scene. The chain of command then reviews the sergeant’s investigation and either returns it for further investigation or makes a decision on whether the officer’s force was reasonable. The process for these investigations is outlined in a policy that has been in place since 2003; it remained in place until July 2016. Until November 2014, all uses of force other than shootings were to be investigated in this manner by an officer’s chain of command. For ease of reference, we refer to these as “chain of command investigations.”
In these chain of command investigations, if BPD investigators or reviewers believed that a use of force may have been unreasonable or out of policy, in order to investigate that concern, a supervisor in the chain of command would have to file an internal complaint of excessive force with Internal Affairs. Internal Affairs would then also separately investigate the complaint through its processes. We found that, in practice, internal complaints were exceedingly rare—the data we reviewed indicated only ten such complaints had been made during the period of our review. Indeed, one sergeant we spoke with about his force investigations of officers under his command indicated that he would not feel comfortable filing a complaint with Internal Affairs if he suspected an officer under his supervision had used unnecessary or unreasonable force. Instead, he would call his chain of command and inform them of the situation, leaving it to them to make the decision of whether to file a complaint about the officer for Internal Affairs to investigate.
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The second route that an administrative investigation of force may take is reserved for officers’ use of deadly force. The process for investigating these deadly force cases changed a number of times during the period of force incidents we reviewed. From the beginning of our period of review, in 2010 until early 2014, this second route was reserved for officer-involved shootings, which were investigated by officers in BPD’s Homicide Unit. In January 2014, BPD instituted a specialized “Force Investigation Team” (FIT) to investigate shootings and other uses of force that have “the potential to cause serious physical injury or death.” The FIT functioned only until July 31, 2015, when it was replaced as an interim measure by the Homicide unit in 2015, and then by a Special Investigation Response Team (SIRT) in September of 2015. The SIRT has the same jurisdiction as the former FIT and currently investigates shootings as well as other serious use of force cases. For ease of reference, we refer to these as “deadly force investigations.”
Based on our review of BPD’s force investigations and our interviews with BPD officers and sergeants, it appears that the chain of command fails to thoroughly and objectively evaluate officers’ uses of force. BPD’s investigative files of force incidents are missing critical elements necessary to allow the chain of command to understand and adjudicate the force incidents. This is perhaps unsurprising, because, until this year, BPD provided no training whatsoever for sergeants on how to investigate their officers’ uses of force, or for lieutenants, captains or majors, regarding their responsibilities and obligations in reviewing force investigations. Similarly, BPD also fails to thoroughly and objectively investigate officers’ uses of deadly force. BPD’s deadly force investigations likewise lack critical information necessary to evaluate the force used and reflect bias on the part of investigators. These investigations are also subject to unreasonable delays, to the detriment of both officers and the community.
i. BPD’s Investigations of Less-Lethal Force Cases are Missing Critical Elements that are Necessary to Evaluate the Propriety of the Force Used
In BPD’s chain of command investigations, critical information that is necessary to investigate force incidents is routinely missing. Investigators routinely fail to interview any civilian witnesses, witnessing officers, the involved officer, and the person against whom force was used. In many cases, there are no witnesses—civilian or officer— interviewed even though witnesses were present on the scene. For example, in one 2014 narcotics arrest at a public housing complex during which a taser was deployed, there were reportedly 20 to 30 civilian witnesses gathered at the site of the arrest, and the officer felt it necessary to call in additional units for backup to deal with the crowd. However, the force report did not include a single civilian witness statement. Although the report states that “[t]here were no civilian witness[es] who wished to provide a statement,” there is no indication of the efforts the officers made in attempting to obtain statements from witnesses.
From our interviews, it appears that some people may refuse to speak with officers because of the distrust they have of the police. While BPD’s policy on use of force reporting requires that “notations of a neighborhood canvass for witnesses must be included,” many other reports we reviewed did not include such a notation. Even in the instances where it appeared an investigator spoke with a civilian who had witnessed the incident, investigators did not record the civilian’s statement or provide the civilian’s account in their own words. Instead, the investigator summarized the civilian’s statement for the investigative file. If the investigator misses relevant information, or misunderstands a civilian’s statement in any way, or if the investigator biases the civilian’s statement
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in any way—whether intentionally or not—this cannot be remedied by the chain of command’s review.
We also found that, in cases where a civilian’s account appeared to be inconsistent with information provided by an officer, investigators appeared to summarily dismiss the civilian’s account or credit officers’ accounts over civilians’ without sufficient investigation. For example, in a 2014 incident, a sergeant responded as back-up to assist two plainclothes officers with an arrest for CDS possession. He observed them “engaged in an ongoing struggle in the street” when he arrived on the scene. Even though the sergeant was on the scene in a supervisory role when the use of force was taking place, he also investigated the officers’ force. When attempting to locate witnesses, he reported “several citizens in the block” stated, “They didn’t have to beat him like that,” “Another case of police brutality,” “They picked that man up and dumped him on his head,” and “Somebody has it on video. It will be on youtube tomorrow,” though he was unable to gain contact information for the person with video. Shortly after the incident, a woman formally complained to the Department about the incident, and the same sergeant responded to address her complaint. Despite these statements from witnesses, the sergeant dismissed the five complaints of the force used and determined “[b]ased on the facts of this incident, witness interviews, and reviews of CCTV footage” that the officers had used appropriate force.106 In addition to our concerns about how the different witness and officer accounts were reconciled in this investigation, this is one of a number of cases we saw where sergeants who were involved in an incident where force was used investigated that incident. The sergeant’s supervision of the use of force undermines the integrity of his investigation of the force as well as the individuals’ complaints of the incident—he lacked the independence and objectivity to investigate either the force or the complaints.
Officers’ statements, when they were provided, were only in written form, often lacked details of the force used and why it was necessary, and used vague and boilerplate language, preventing reviewers from understanding the nature of the threat that officers faced and the nature of the force that officers used. Often, the only documented basis for using force was that the subjects were “resisting,” with no detail about which actions taken by the suspect while he or she “resisted” necessitated force by the officer. Descriptions of the force itself were likewise often vague. In some cases where a taser was used, officers reported they used the taser on an individual “a few” or “several” times or until he or she “complied” or “became subdued,” rather than specifying the number of times that they deployed their taser. The specific number of times that a taser is deployed is critical to assessing the reasonableness of its use under the circumstances and must be reported. Similarly, in almost all instances in which officers employed a takedown technique, the officers did not specify the type of technique used, such as a straight arm bar, joint manipulation, or pressure points. Without knowing the specific actions that officers took, it is difficult to evaluate whether they acted reasonably under the circumstances. For example, during a 2010 incident, three plainclothes officers approached two men, who they believed were involved in distributing narcotics, to arrest them. Reportedly, as the officers approached, one of the two men punched one of the officers and ran. Two of the officers gave chase. When they caught up with the individual, the involved officers reported that the individual began to “violently resist” and “during the struggle,” was reportedly “tackled to the ground several times,” during the course of which the suspect “struck his head against a fence.” According to the investigating sergeant’s report, the
106 The sergeant requested video from “Citiwatch,” but the video was “on pan mode during the entire incident.” He reported that the parts which “capture the incident are grainy, but gave no indication that unnecessary force was used.” The video was not produced to us with the investigative file.
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suspect suffered head injuries in this altercation requiring 37 staples. It is difficult to assess whether the officers’ force here was reasonable without more information about how the suspect resisted the officers and what techniques the officers used on the suspect that caused a head injury requiring 37 staples. The suspect in this case was not interviewed, depriving BPD of critical information to assess the incident. In their review of this incident, the chain of command approved the force without asking for any additional information, despite the vagueness of the officers’ accounts. This was the case in many of the incidents we reviewed.
Officers’ written statements, when any were provided, were also often nearly identical— facially lacking in independence. The officers’ accounts appeared to have been copied after they agreed upon a single account of the incident. Indeed, because of this, officers’ accounts sometimes referred to themselves in the third person because the account had been electronically copied into the force report. We also found that the language investigators used in their reports indicated a lack of objectivity, such as a description that officers “were forced to use” a taser, baton, OC spray, or other weapon. This language does more than simply state the facts, and indicates bias in favor of the involved officers.
We also found that inconsistencies between officers’ statements were not routinely reconciled or addressed. In one incident, in which a sergeant pointed out inconsistencies between officers’ accounts, it appears the chain of command took issue with the sergeant’s investigation and report that highlighted the inconsistencies. In a 2011 incident, an investigating sergeant, to his credit, explicitly reported that two officers’ “versions of events differ[ed]” regarding whether a juvenile was sprayed with OC spray before or after he was handcuffed—a significant fact that could affect the reasonableness of the force used, and whether it had been in or out of policy. See Tracy v. Freshwater, 623 F.3d 90, 98–99 (2d Cir. 2010) (jury could find officer’s application of pepper spray to be unreasonable where plaintiff claimed he was handcuffed and not resisting); Henderson v. Munn, 439 F.3d 497, 502–03 (8th Cir. 2006) (officer not entitled to qualified immunity at summary judgment where jury could find that he had applied pepper spray to non-resisting plaintiff's face while plaintiff was lying on his stomach and handcuffed with his hands behind his back); Vinyard v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340, 1347–49 (11th Cir. 2002) (officer not entitled to summary judgment where he had pulled over and applied pepper spray while arrestee was yelling and arrestee had been arrested for minor offenses, was handcuffed and secured in backseat of police car, posed no threat to the officer or herself, and there was a partition separating her from the officer). According to the sergeant’s report, when he realized that the officers’ reports varied on this point, he called them both into his office to “question them, about what had happened.” The witnessing officer stated that “his administrative report was correct” and submitted it. The officer who used OC spray “with-drew his administrative report, stating he was getting worried about how this investigation was progressing and stated that he wanted to talk to the FOP prior to submitting his administrative report.” The sergeant reported these facts—that the officers reported inconsistently about whether force was used on a handcuffed person, and that the involved officer withdrew his report—to his chain of command. He submitted his investigation for approval. A lieutenant colonel responded, “NOT APPROVED; RETURNED FOR CORRECTIONS,” and stated, “YOU NEED TO SEE ME IMMEDIATELY REGARDING THIS SUMMARY!” There is no documentation of the conversation between the sergeant and the lieutenant colonel. In the final report produced to us, the second page of the witnessing officer’s report is missing; the document specifically notes that it is two pages long, yet only the first page is provided. The first page of the witnessing officer’s report simply states the facts about the beginning of the incident and provides no information about the
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force that was used and whether it was used after the juvenile was handcuffed. Ultimately, it appears the sergeant identified an inconsistency in this case, and the chain of command not only refused to address it, but may have attempted to cover up the report that identified potentially problematic officer conduct.
Witnesses’ accounts, both officers’ and civilians’, are important not only for determining whether an officer’s use of force was within policy, but also in assessing whether the officer’s tactics were appropriate, and whether there are any issues on which the officer would benefit from additional training, mentoring, or guidance. The lack of specifics in these statements prevents supervisors from improving officers’ performance and preventing future misconduct. One sergeant informed us during an interview that judging an officer’s tactics is simply not part of a use of force investigation; he did not deem it to be his job to “second-guess” an officer’s tactics. This is a failure in supervision—it is a sergeant’s job to mentor officers in areas where they may benefit from additional guidance. The sergeant’s statement here reflects a lack of understanding of the role of a supervisor, and indicates a Departmental failure to train sergeants on how to be effective supervisors.
Our investigation also found that critical evidence was often missing from the chain of command force investigations. We did not see a single chain of command investigation in which photographs of the subject’s injuries were provided. These photographs are taken by Crime Lab technicians, but, as a matter of protocol, they are not kept with the investigative file. Among the over eight hundred chain of command investigative files we reviewed, we did not see any indication that a lieutenant or major had requested to see photographs of the subject’s injuries in any case. Similarly, taser downloads verifying the number of times that officers deployed their tasers were not included in investigative files, thereby preventing the chain of command from confirming the accuracy of officers’ reports. These deficiencies in chain of command investigations prevent supervisors from being able to exercise real oversight over officers’ uses of force. Without details of incidents provided by civilian witnesses, involved and witnessing officers, and evidence such as taser downloads or photographs of injuries, officers’ use of force cannot be critically examined.
Finally, we found evidence that serious incidents involving use of force by officers went entirely unreported. Indeed, because it was not required to be reported by policy, much of the force used by officers with their hands was not reported, even when it—and not the force reported—was the source of injuries to officers. In the 2011 incident involving a juvenile above at page 105, for example, the sergeant reported that the officers “fought” with the juvenile. The involved officer was transported to a hospital and treated for abrasions and bruises to his knee. His knee injuries were severe enough that he was unable to work for a number of days. However, the use of force report was created to report on the officers’ use of OC spray. An injury report alleges the juvenile kicked the officer in the knee but the use of force report does not provide any specific information about the fight between the officers and the juvenile that caused the officer’s injury, other than that the youth was making threatening statements, and “kicking” and being “combative” while officers were attempting to handcuff him. It does not include any details about the officers’ use of their hands during the fight. These failures in exercising oversight of officers’ use of force are attributable in part to BPD’s prior deficient policy on reporting use of force. The policy on reporting use of force, through multiple provisions, allowed investigators and reviewers to ignore allegations of excessive force. It stated that “[w]hen allegations of excessive force arise[],” investigating sergeants were to inform the complainants of the “the reporting requirements for complaints of excessive force” and
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provide the complainants with the telephone number and address of the Internal Affairs Division. The policy did not require an investigating sergeant to address the complaint him- or her-self in any way or to ensure that Internal Affairs was notified of the complaint. These policy failures allowed significant force, and allegations of excessive force, to go entirely uninvestigated.
ii. BPD’s Deadly Force Investigations Lack Critical Analysis and Information that is Necessary to Evaluate the Threat Faced and Force Used
Like its chain of command investigations, BPD’s investigations of officers’ use of deadly force, including officer-involved shootings, lack critical information needed to evaluate the propriety of the force, reflect a bias in favor of involved officers, and include unreasonable delays. This is concerning, as “[t]he intrusiveness of a seizure by means of deadly force is unmatched. The suspect’s fundamental interest in his own life need not be elaborated upon. The use of deadly force also frustrates the interest of the individual, and of society, in judicial determination of guilt and punishment.” Garner, 471 U.S. at 9. Officers’ uses of deadly force must be critically examined to ensure that they conform with the Department’s policies and law. Even when the use of deadly force is justified, much can be learned by critically examining incidents to improve tactics and lessen the need to use such force.
In our investigation, we requested investigative files for all deadly force incidents, including all officer-involved shootings, between January 1, 2010 and May 1, 2016. Troublingly, BPD informed us that they could not locate the investigative files for twenty officer-involved shootings that occurred in that timeframe, and could provide no explanation for their absence. These included lethal shootings of members of the public, including one lethal shooting, as well as firearms discharges against animals and unintentional discharges. Failing to maintain files of such high risk incidents is a serious omission, inhibiting effective oversight and eroding public confidence that BPD takes seriously its responsibility to oversee its own use of force.
Our review of BPD deadly force investigations revealed many of the same problems that were present in the chain of command investigations. Transcripts of interviews were routinely excluded, and it appears that they were not created in many cases. Inconsistencies between witness accounts, officer statements, and physical evidence were frequently not investigated. Moreover, documents and evidence that one would expect to see in an administrative investigation of an officer-involved shooting, such as crime scene logs, photographs of the subject or the scene, and crime lab reports, were frequently missing from the investigative files we reviewed. As in the chain of command investigations, we saw evidence that involved officers conferred with other involved and witnessing officers about the incident before speaking with investigators. Investigators also failed to question officers about their conduct before the shooting, to ascertain—even if the shooting was lawful—what tactical, training or other issues could be identified.
We also found that significant delays in BPD’s deadly force investigations diminished the integrity of the investigations. As a matter of practice, BPD investigators do not interview officers who discharge their weapons until after the State’s Attorney’s Office issues a letter declining to prosecute the officer for any potential criminal act. Often, the State’s Attorney’s Office takes many months, and in a number of cases, over a year, to determine whether to prosecute, and, if not, to issue a declination letter. In one extreme case, for a shooting that occurred on August 29, 2010, the State’s Attorney’s Office did not issue a declination letter until October 16, 2012, over two years
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later. Many law enforcement agencies conduct parallel administrative investigations of officerinvolved shootings, understanding that precautions can be taken to ensure that the officer’s statements are segregated and do not taint any potential criminal investigation. BPD does not conduct such parallel investigations.
We also found significant differences between BPD’s practices when interviewing witnesses and its practices when interviewing officers that suggest a bias in favor of the officer. For example, when interviews of the officers finally did occur, they were conclusory and superficial, often lasting no longer than ten or fifteen minutes, with some ending after five minutes. Officers were generally not asked any critical questions about the threat they faced or their decision-making process leading up to their deadly force. For example, in a lethal 2013 shooting, the Internal Affairs detective’s interview of the shooting officer lasted only five minutes, which included form questions about the nature of the interview which were not particular to the facts of that case. The actual substantive interview of the officer lasted three minutes. BPD’s interviews of civilian witnesses, on the other hand, often last hours, and the investigators ask specific, probing questions, demonstrating their ability to be thorough and exacting. We also found that BPD has a practice of conducting “preinterviews” with officers before turning on the recording device; at times, investigators stated that they had done a “pre-interview” on the record. For example, in another 2013 officer-involved shooting, an investigator from Internal Affairs stated, “Sir, please just as we did before we went on the tape, just tell us what happen [sic].” The officer then provided a canned and prepared presentation about a shooting, summarizing the incident, from beginning to end. The entire interview, on tape, lasts only eight minutes. Pre-interviews impede the integrity of the investigation. Because of this, pre-interviews in investigations of officer-involved shootings have been discouraged since the at least the early 1990s. See, e.g., JAMES G. KOLTS & STAFF, THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT 140 (1992), available at http://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/ PN-CA-0001-0023.pdf.
These investigative deficiencies prevent BPD from being able to evaluate whether officers who used deadly force faced an immediate threat of serious harm, and whether their force was justified. Moreover, by failing to critically evaluate officers’ tactics and decision-making prior to their use of deadly force, including opportunities to de-escalate, the Department fails to help officers improve their skills and potentially decrease the need to resort to deadly force. To effectively oversee its use of force, BPD must take steps to remedy these deficiencies.
d. BPD Has Inadequate Policies, Programs, and Training to Guide Officer Interactions with Individuals with Disabilities or in Crisis, and Fails to Coordinate Adequately with Other Social Services Providers
BPD’s inadequate policies, training, and programs regarding officer interactions with individuals with a disability or in crisis also contribute to the systemic use of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment and the failure to provide reasonable modifications necessary to avoid discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The vast majority of individuals with mental health disabilities, including substance use disorders, or intellectual or developmental disabilities (I/DD) in Baltimore are working, learning, and living in the community and will live their lives without any involvement with BPD. Some individuals with disabilities, however, who are not able to access sufficient home- and community-based services to meet their needs may be unable to avoid crisis, maintain housing and employment or, for youth, to engage with school, leading some to come into contact with law enforcement. According to a 2009 Baltimore
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City Community Health Survey, 23 percent of residents reported having unmet mental health needs.107 The rate was notably higher for black residents (33.4 percent) and for all individuals with less than a bachelor’s degree in education (28.6 percent).108 This disparity was reflected again in a 2011 Maryland Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System study, which found that 19.5 percent of black residents and 15.1 percent of white residents reported that their mental health was “not good” for eight or more out of the past 30 days.109 Law enforcement officers are often the first responders when people with mental health disabilities are experiencing a crisis, and the same is true in Baltimore.110 It is therefore incumbent upon BPD to provide clear guidance to its officers on how to interact with individuals in crisis, but that guidance is lacking.
i. BPD’s Crisis Intervention Practices Are Inadequate
BPD’s crisis intervention policies and procedures are inadequate to safely and lawfully serve individuals in crisis. Based upon our investigation, including our review of use of force files, reports, and training materials, as well as interviews with BPD employees, community members, and service providers, it is clear that BPD officers are not prepared to effectively and safely respond to individuals experiencing crisis. Consequently, BPD officers frequently resort to unreasonable force against individuals in crisis and fail to make reasonable modifications necessary to avoid discriminating against people with disabilities.
BPD itself recognized the challenges that police officers face when responding to individuals in crisis. But the program it launched in 2004, called Behavioral Emergency Services Team (BEST) has proven to be ineffective.111 First, since 2009, BEST training has been offered only to new recruits in the training academy. Crisis calls are among BPD’s most challenging calls for service, and officers early in their careers are typically not well prepared to handle these complex incidents while also adjusting to their many new duties as a police officer. An effective crisis intervention response program would provide at least a basic level of crisis intervention training to all officers, including new officers in the academy, but it would also ensure that at least some of its more experienced officers had received a high level of crisis intervention training. These experienced, highly-trained officers are the ones well positioned to handle the complex situations that interactions with individuals in crisis present. Because BPD only offers crisis intervention training to new recruits, many officers are not trained to identify whether an individual is in crisis or engaging in behavior related to a disability, to interact effectively with people with disabilities, to de-escalate a crisis, and to connect the individual with local resources to provide treatment or support. BPD should regularly provide in-service training to refresh the lessons recruits learned in the academy once they have experience in patrol. Our investigation revealed that insufficiently trained BPD officers have
107 See BALTIMORE CITY HEALTH DEP’T, HEALTHY BALTIMORE 2015, at 11 (2015), http://health.baltimorecity.gov/sites/default/files/HealthyBaltimore2015_Final_Web.pdf. 108 Id. 109 See BALTIMORE CITY HEALTH DEP’T, HEALTHY BALTIMORE 2015: INTERIM STATUS REPORT 28(2013) available at http://health.baltimorecity.gov/sites/default/files/HB2015InterimUpdateOct2015Optimized_2.pdf. 110 See, e.g., Law Enforcement and Mental Health, NAT’L ALL. ON MENTAL ILLNESS, https://www.nami.org/GetInvolved/Law-Enforcement-and-Mental-Health (last visited May 25, 2016) (“With our failing mental health system so inadequate, law enforcement agencies have increasingly become de facto first responders to people experiencing mental health crisis.”). 111 The BEST program has trained over 800 officers since its inception. During the first five years of the project, it trained an average of 70 officers each year. Since 2009, the training numbers average 136 officers per year.
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escalated interactions that did not initially involve criminal behavior, resulting in the arrest of, or use of force against, individuals in crisis, or with mental health disabilities or I/DD, or unnecessary hospitalization of the person with mental health disabilities or I/DD.112 When BPD officers have discretion about whether to make an arrest, agency policies and procedures should direct them to consider whether it would be appropriate to decline to arrest or issue a citation, and instead connect individuals to community-based services without further criminal justice involvement.
Second, dispatchers do not receive training on BPD’s BEST program and BPD has no mechanisms in place to ensure that BEST-trained officers are dispatched to crisis-related calls for service. Nor does the Department collect data on whether and how often BEST-trained officers respond to calls involving individuals in crisis. Moreover, other officers and community members do not know to request a BEST-trained officer when a crisis does occur. During an interview on crisis intervention, for example, one district commander bluntly stated “We don’t do that here.” Similarly, many Baltimore City mental health service providers indicated they were unaware of the program or had only a limited familiarity with the concept of BEST training, and an even smaller number stated that they request BEST-trained officers to respond to individuals in crisis.
Third, BPD policy does not require that a BEST-trained officer be dispatched to calls involving individuals in crisis. In fact, the only BPD policy we found that specifically addresses individuals in crisis is an order describing the process for executing a petition for an emergency evaluation. And until BPD amended the policy in July 2015, it failed to provide any guidance to officers on how to identify and interact with an individual in crisis or mention utilizing BESTtrained officers. Indeed, this policy is both underdeveloped and unnecessarily restrictive. The policy suggests that de-escalation techniques and BEST-trained officers are only needed in situations where someone is going to be taken to the hospital for an emergency petition evaluation. It is unsurprising, therefore, that many BPD officers see detention for an emergency petition, arrest, or inaction as their only options when responding to a crisis situation.
Officers in the field also stated that it is not a common practice to seek out BEST-trained officers for assistance with crisis calls. Similarly, during our review of force reports, there was no indication that BPD officers rely on BEST-trained officers to help them respond to crisis calls, even when they request back up for a call involving an individual in crisis. We reviewed one force file where BPD officers, responding to a call for an assault where people experiencing homelessness were known to stay, encountered an individual clearly in crisis, naked, hiding in the woods, bleeding and yelling. Instead of requesting the assistance of a BEST-trained officer, BPD officers asked dispatch to request that an officer armed with a taser respond to the scene. When one arrived, the officers yelled at the man to walk out of the woods, and that he would be tased if he did not comply. The officers’ report indicated that the man had his arms “tucked up under his arm pits” and “positioned himself into a fighting stance[.]” Allegedly believing that the man might charge, the
112 Under Title II of the ADA’s “integration mandate,” public entities must administer services, programs, and activities in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with disabilities. 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(d). The Supreme Court in Olmstead v. L.C., 527 U.S. 581 (1999), further held that Title II prohibits the unjustified institutionalization of individuals with disabilities. The Court held that public entities are required to provide community-based services to persons with disabilities when (a) such services are appropriate; (b) the affected individuals do not oppose community-based treatment; and (c) community-based services can be reasonably accommodated, taking into account the resources available to the entity and the needs of others who are receiving disability services from the entity. Id. at 607.
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officer tased him, striking him in the groin and causing him to fall to the ground. When they approached him, he started kicking his legs and grabbing at the trees. The officers responded by cycling the taser five additional times. None of the four officers present on the scene were BESTtrained.
Not every encounter with an individual in crisis will or should result in arrest or an emergency petition evaluation. Employing sound crisis de-escalation techniques could prevent unnecessary and unreasonable force with individuals in crisis and also prevent needless incarceration and hospitalization.
ii. BPD Does Not Partner Effectively with Community Service Providers
Our investigation found that there are existing services in the community that BPD fails to utilize sufficiently, many of which may prevent an individual from experiencing a crisis or may prevent recurring instances of crisis. The City of Baltimore provides a range of services for people with disabilities to which the police should be connecting individuals, including community mental health clinics where individuals can receive mental health and substance use assessments, individual and group therapy, and medication management; Assertive Community Treatment teams, which are mobile teams of psychiatrists, social workers, nurses and mental health professionals who provide mental health treatment and support services; and the array of crisis services, such as communitybased psychiatric crisis intervention and addictions treatment services. These include a telephone crisis hotline, mobile crisis teams (mental health professionals including psychiatrists, social workers, and nurses who can be dispatched to any Baltimore City location to provide immediate assessment, intervention, and treatment), medical detoxification for individuals addicted to substances, and inhouse and community case management.
Although there appears to be a sufficient array of services to meet the needs of many individuals with disabilities, there does not appear to be sufficient capacity in many of those services to meet the need. Gaps in Baltimore City’s community mental health service system increase the community’s reliance on the police as mental health first responders. If a person with mental health disabilities is not adequately connected to services or is not getting her mental health needs met by the mental health system, she may end up in crisis, and BPD will likely be called to intervene. BPD, alone, cannot solve the problem of insufficient mental health services or capacity—although BPD’s collaboration with the mental health service system could result in greater reliance on the mental health system to serve people in crisis, rather than law enforcement. What BPD can control, however, is how effectively it uses the resources that exist in the community.
BPD’s BEST program does not partner effectively with the behavioral health community, consumers of these services, and their families. Until relatively recently, BPD’s approach to crisis intervention has been limited to its academy training program. Beginning in 2014, the BEST coordinator formed the Collaborative Planning and Implementation Committee (CPIC) with the purpose of bringing together a body of stakeholders from the behavioral health community to act as an advisory board for further developing BPD’s BEST program. CPIC is a substantial undertaking, and we are encouraged that BPD is taking this important step toward greater collaboration between BPD and Baltimore’s behavioral health community, and, ultimately, toward providing effective crisis intervention services to the people of Baltimore. Progress has been slow, however, and during our
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site visits, it was apparent that BPD officers had not been trained on diversion to community-based treatment as an alternative to jail or short-term acute hospitalization, demonstrating that additional work remains for CPIC. BPD should continue to find ways to build and strengthen relationships with local providers that serve individuals with disabilities or in crisis.
Finally, BPD should better track when it connects people to service providers. It is difficult to fully assess BPD’s efforts to connect individuals with disabilities to services because BPD does not aggregate data on mental health calls and does not track connection to services.
iii. To Remedy the ADA Violations, BPD Should Strengthen its Crisis Intervention Policies, Training, Community Partnership, and Data Collection Practices
In order to prevent further ADA violations, BPD should strengthen its crisis intervention policies, training, community partnership, and data collection practices. BPD must develop and implement policies and procedures for all officers on responding to individuals with mental health disabilities to ensure that officers make reasonable modifications necessary to avoid discrimination. BPD must develop and implement effective training for all officers and dispatchers that focuses on identifying individuals with mental health disabilities and effectively responding to individuals with mental health disabilities, including making reasonable modifications and diversion to treatment services. To better ensure the success and efficacy of these efforts, BPD should work collaboratively with the mental health community, including mental health agencies, providers, advocates, and consumers and their families, to develop the policies, procedures, and trainings. BPD must ensure appropriate officer accountability for protecting the civil rights of people with disabilities. BPD should collect, aggregate, and analyze information on officer interactions with individuals with mental health disabilities. BPD should use the data and information to make further improvements to policy, procedures, training, and accountability measures as necessary to avoid discrimination.
6. BPD’s Transport Practices Create a Significant Risk of Harm
Our investigation revealed significant deficiencies in BPD’s transport practices that place detainees who are being transported at significant risk of harm. A lack of video monitoring and data collection surrounding BPD’s transport practices prevented us from reaching a conclusive determination regarding a practice of “rough rides” or constitutional violations in transportation. Nonetheless, we found evidence that BPD officers routinely fail to safely secure arrestees in transport vans with seatbelts. In multiple instances in the past, this failure has resulted in serious injuries and, in some circumstances, death. This risk of harm should be remedied.
a. BPD Has a History of Not Securing Arrestees
BPD relies on specially outfitted vans to transport detainees from the location of arrest or crisis to the district station, Central Booking, or the emergency room.113 BPD’s use of these vans has, at times, been the subject of considerable controversy and has led to some reforms, but these have not been consistently carried through in practice. For example, in 1997, BPD arrested Jeffrey
113 Most BPD cruisers do not have partitions, or “cages,” and are therefore unsuitable for transporting people who have been arrested.
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Alston for speeding. According to testimony at a later trial, he was placed into a chokehold by BPD officers during the arrest and thrown unsecured into a transport van. As a result of the treatment and transport, Alston was left quadriplegic. A civil jury found in favor of Mr. Alston, and the City ultimately settled with him for $6 million. Following this incident, BPD issued a General Order requiring officers to ensure every individual placed in a van is secured with seat or restraint belts. The Police Commissioner reaffirmed this requirement in 1999, issuing a memorandum stating that it is the responsibility of the officer to “[e]nsure that prisoners transported in prisoner transportation vehicles are secured with a seat belt.”
Despite its longstanding policy that officers must secure detainees, BPD has received repeated indications that officers routinely fail to comply with seatbelt policies, sometimes with tragic results:
• In 2005, Dondi Johnson, Sr. was arrested for urinating on a public street and transported in a van by a BPD officer. During a subsequent trial, officers admitted that neither the driver of the van nor the arresting officers secured Mr. Johnson in the back of the van. While transporting him, the driving officer testified that she heard several bangs from the back of the van, and that she reached the district station in half the time it would have taken if she had driven at the speed limit. When the van was opened, Mr. Johnson was found face-down on the floor and in pain. Hospital records revealed that Mr. Johnson described being hurt while falling after the van took a sharp turn, and an expert witness testified that the nature of the injury was such that the van must have been driven in an aggressive manner. Mr. Johnson died shortly afterward due to complications from paralysis. A jury found in favor of Mr. Johnson’s family, awarding $7.4 million in damages.
• In 2013, Christine Abbott sued BPD officers, alleging that she and her boyfriend were subjected to a “rough ride” in addition to other constitutional violations. The suit stated that officers threw her into the back of the police van, failed to secure her, and drove erratically. Ms. Abbott claimed she was violently thrown around the interior of the van during the ride and sustained injuries. In a deposition, the transporting officer acknowledged that Ms. Abbott was not secured during the ride. The City settled the case with Ms. Abbott for $95,000.
b. BPD Continues to Place Detainees At Risk During Transport
Our investigation found that BPD continues to place detainees at significant risk during transport. Following each of the Johnson and Abbott lawsuits, BPD undertook inspections of its transport vans to determine if officers were properly securing arrestees. An audit conducted by BPD from April 12, 2012, through May 14, 2012, inspected 18 vehicles, two from each BPD district. The audit found that none of the 34 arrestees in those vehicles were secured with seatbelts.
BPD conducted similar audits of nine vehicles in April 2014 and September 2014, and another shortly after the death of Freddie Gray in April 2015. With each audit, BPD inspected one transport vehicle from each of the districts, one time. The April 2014 audit found that one out of 11 arrestees was not secured by a seatbelt. The September 2014 audit found that all of the 15 arrestees in the inspected vehicles were secured. The April 2015 audit found that 13 out of 14 detainees were secured. While this represents a significant improvement from 2012, the audits were limited in
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scope and sample size, and as described below, are contradicted by the statements of officers about BPD’s actual practices. According to the documents produced to us in our investigation, BPD has not conducted any further inspections of the transportation process, nor has it gathered any data to ensure that detainees are consistently secured in vans.
Given the limitations of the BPD audits, we attempted, through several methods, to obtain information from BPD about injuries that occur during transport. BPD neither collects data about injuries that detainees incur during transport nor tracks data on the source of injuries reported by detainees after they are accepted at Central Booking or the emergency room. Thus, we attempted to obtain injury data directly from Central Booking and to match it to injury data available in BPD’s incident and force reports. These data were insufficient for us to reliably match and analyze them.
We also attempted to obtain videos BPD maintained of detainees during transport. BPD transport vans originally contained cameras to show drivers the detainees in the rear of the van. Many of these cameras ceased to function shortly after the vans were put in use, however, and have not been repaired. Because of these failures, we were unable to obtain video of detainees and conduct an evaluation of their treatment during transport. Without functioning video, data collection on injuries, or more frequent inspections, we could not confirm that detainees are still routinely being transported while unsecured.
Given such difficulties in obtaining data about BPD transport practices, we conducted an anonymous poll of recent arrestees during bail review hearings throughout the month of March 2016, with assistance from lawyers at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. Sixty of the 298 polled arrestees reported that they had been unsecured for at least a portion of the ride to Central Booking—more than 20 percent of the arrestees polled. Several of the respondents indicated that they hit their head, neck, or back during the ride, and/or reported minor injury. While this survey was limited in scope, it was larger than any of the audits conducted by BPD. And, despite its limitations, the results suggest that BPD continues to fail to secure arrestees during transport, placing them at significant risk of harm.
We also obtained significant anecdotal evidence from officers that detainees were often unsecured while being transported by BPD officers, particularly before Freddie Gray’s transport last year. One officer who spoke to us described the transportation process before Freddie Gray’s death as “load and go,” often with little regard for seatbelts. Other officers repeatedly told us that they knew of or had heard about “rough rides” that had taken place in the past, although they declined to give us specifics.
c. BPD Transport Equipment Continues to Place Detainees At Risk
Our evaluation of BPD transport vans heightens our concern regarding transportation practices. Many vans used by BPD remain unsuitable for safe transportation because of a lack of functioning seatbelts and video observation equipment, although BPD has made a number of changes over the last few months to address this problem. Until recently, all vans featured a rear compartment split down the middle by a dividing wall, creating two parallel sections to enclose detainees, with three seats facing inward in each section. While each seat features a seatbelt, this was not always the case: for some time, many vans had no seatbelts. Moreover, though vans are now equipped with seatbelts, we observed on our ride-alongs that some are broken. The space inside each of the transport vans is limited, making it possible for detainees being transported, if not
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properly secured, to strike their head on the divider or walls relatively easily; and there is virtually no padding to protect the person from injury. The physical layout of the van also creates significant concerns for officer safety. In order to belt in multiple individuals, the officer has to climb into the van, exposing his weapons and equipment to those seated in the first two seats. Once inside the compartment, the officer runs the danger of being harmed by an individual in the van or even locking himself inside. Officers reported to us that such lock-ins occur with some frequency.
BPD is currently retrofitting older vans with a partition, or “cage,” that has a different format. The new cage features an open compartment accessed from the rear doors of the van, with seating for four people; two on each side of the van, facing inward. There is a separate, smaller compartment, accessed from the side of the van, with seating for two people sitting side by side, facing the door. Each seat is equipped with a seatbelt and a strap for the detainee to grip for stability while seated with hands cuffed behind his or her back. The newer vans also have video cameras in the rear compartments that can be viewed by the driver and have the capability to record.
However, significant challenges remain, even with the new system. Officers reported that the video recording function has yet to be enabled. There is no clear line of sight from the driver to the rear compartments and sounds are muffled by the barrier. Accordingly, if any person in the rear compartment is hurt or otherwise requires assistance, the driver may remain unaware of the person’s condition. This is contrary to a recommendation by the International Association of Chiefs of Police that officers should maintain visual contact with people they transport at all times, through either video or direct observation.114 Similar to the older vans, the interiors are small and lack padding, so anybody riding in the back, if unsecured, could be injured if the manner of driving caused them to hit the walls, seats or floor. Even when functioning, the seatbelts are positioned in such a way that a person with hands cuffed behind his back can unbuckle himself by turning his body. This raises additional concerns for people in crisis, as well as for officer safety with uncooperative detainees.
BPD has also made other efforts to improve their transportation practices and procedures. After the 2012 audit, officers were briefed on the requirement to seatbelt arrestees. Following Freddie Gray’s death and the 2015 audit, BPD sent officers who operate the transport vehicles to academy training, and conducted a brief training during “roll-call” at the beginning of shifts. The training and certification program is short, however, consisting of only four hours of instruction. And while it purports to cover a wide range of topics, from proper handcuffing and search techniques to identification of mental health and medical issues, the training does not cover driving techniques. BPD has also indicated that new patrol cars coming into the departmental fleet will be equipped with protective partitions allowing for the transport of detainees, but it is not clear when BPD will have a sufficient number of equipped cars to eliminate the need for transport vans.
Thus, despite such improvements, BPD still has a great deal of work to do. Most fundamentally, BPD must improve its oversight and monitoring of its transportation practices to ensure that its own policies are followed, and that arrestees are consistently transported in a manner that is safe and secure.
114 IACP Law Enforcement Policy Center, “Transportation of Prisoners Concept and Issues Paper,” originally published August 1990, revised October 1996, March 2005, and September 2015.
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D. BPD UNLAWFULLY RESTRICTS PROTECTED SPEECH
The people of Baltimore have a constitutional right to observe and verbally criticize the police. “Since the day the ink dried on the Bill of Rights, the right of an American citizen to criticize public officials and policies is the central meaning of the First Amendment.” McCurdy v. Montgomery County, 240 F.3d 512, 520 (6th Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). We found that BPD officers routinely infringe upon the First Amendment rights of the people of Baltimore City, typically in one of three ways. First, we found that BPD unlawfully stops and arrests individuals for speech they perceive to be disrespectful or insolent. Second, we found that officers retaliate against individuals for protected speech through the use of excessive force. Third, we have concerns that BPD improperly interferes with individuals who record police activity.
1. BPD Unlawfully Detains and Arrests Members of the Public for Protected Speech
BPD detains and arrests individuals for speech perceived to be rude, critical, or disrespectful. These arrests—described by the officers in their own words in incident and arrest reports—violate the First Amendment. For example, an officer in downtown Baltimore in 2011 “felt . . . that it was reasonable” to order a young African-American man to leave the area because he “had no respect for law enforcement” and was “making idle threats towards a uniformed officer.” As the young man walked away accompanied by a friend, the two made additional comments mocking the officers and the BPD; 15 minutes later, the officer again spotted the two men in the same area and placed both under arrest for failure to obey. “The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principle characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.” City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 462–63 (1987) (striking down municipal ordinance that made it illegal to oppose or interrupt a policeman as constitutionally overbroad under the First Amendment).115 By ordering the young men to leave, and then arresting them for their comments, the officer violated their First Amendment right to peacefully and verbally criticize or oppose law enforcement officers without actively interfering with the officers’ lawful performance of their duties.
In another incident from 2011, BPD officers arrested a man for disorderly conduct after he refused to leave a public area following an order issued without just cause, and yelled “fuck you” repeatedly at the officer. This arrest was also unlawful, as individuals may not be punished for using vulgar or offensive language unless they use “fighting words,” that is, words that “by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572 (1942). Use of profanity alone is not sufficient to rise to the level of inflicting injury or inciting a breach of peace. See Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105, 107–08 (1973) (finding that profane words were not fighting words because they were not a personal insult); Lewis v. City of New Orleans, 415 U.S. 130, 132–34 (1974) (invalidating New Orleans ordinance that made it unlawful to curse at a police officer on duty); Buffkins v. City of Omaha, 922 F.2d 465, 467–68, 472 (8th Cir. 1990) (arrest was unlawful as use of the word “asshole” towards officers did not constitute fighting words). From our review of their reports, some BPD officers appear to believe that use of vulgar or profane language provides probable cause to arrest or grounds for ordering a person to leave a location.
115 As discussed in Section supra at 36-39, this order and arrest also likely violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process clause.
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Indeed, in another case, an officer patrolling the inner harbor on the Fourth of July complained that a man, “Nicholas,” bumped his shoulder while walking past. As Nicholas continued walking, the officer said, “Hey, you ran right into me,” to which Nicholas replied “fuck you” and continued walking. Although no crime had been committed, the officer pursued Nicholas and demanded his identification. Nicholas continued to walk away from the officer, who attempted to grab his arm. Nicholas swore at the officer again and continued to pull away, at which point the officer informed him he was under arrest. According to the officer’s report, after attempting to place the man under arrest, the incident ended in a physical altercation between officers, Nicholas, and his brother, with the brother eventually being tased. Though Nicholas made repeated attempts to walk away peacefully, the officer pursued him and escalated the encounter. According to the officer’s report, he believed that Nicholas’s attitude and actions indicated “he was purposely looking for a confrontation with law enforcement[.]” However, Nicholas made no obvious threats or aggressive movements toward the officer. His use of profanity did not rise to the level of “fighting words” and was protected by the First Amendment. The officer’s pursuit, detention, and eventual arrest was an unlawful exercise of government power to exact personal vengeance for a perceived slight.
BPD officers also violate the First Amendment by arresting individuals who question the lawfulness of their actions. In one reported use of force, an officer described the arrest of a man who approached him during a traffic stop to ask why the officer had stopped his friend. The proffered justification for the arrest was that the man refused to leave the area when ordered to do so by the officer. Nothing in the officer’s report indicates that the man physically interfered with the officer’s duty or was otherwise committing a crime. He was arrested merely because he continued to stand “near” the officer. Arrests for failing to leave a crime scene are also unlawful. The man had a right to “voice his objection to what he obviously felt was a highly questionable detention by a police officer.” Norwell v. City of Cincinnati, Ohio, 414 U.S. 14, 16 (1973); see also Wilson v. Kittoe, 337 F.3d 392, 402 (4th Cir. 2003) (officers lacked probable cause to arrest an attorney who did not obey officers’ orders to leave the scene of the arrest of another person, and that the subsequent arrest of the attorney unlawfully infringed upon his First Amendment rights). The man sustained an injury to his head while struggling during the course of being taken into custody following the unlawful arrest. Despite a clear lack of probable cause, supervisory review found that the officer had acted properly and within policy.
In a similar incident from 2014, BPD officers arrested a man for disorderly conduct because he was shouting at the officers. The man believed they had assaulted his nephew and stolen from him while detaining him on suspicion of “gambling.” When he approached the officers, demanding to know which of them had punched his nephew, a crowd gathered, and he was placed under arrest. The man was within his rights to question the officers’ actions, and the arrest unlawfully suppressed his speech. Officers arrested him for objecting to their actions and for making vocal inquiries into their conduct.116 In making these arrests, BPD officers violated these individuals’ right to question and criticize police actions. See Norwell, 414 U.S. at 16 (speech protesting officers’ actions is protected even if “loud and boisterous” or “annoying” to officers).
116 Although one officer later told a supervisor that the man had adopted a “fighting stance” before the decision to arrest, this was not corroborated by other officers or civilian witnesses on the scene, who reported that the man merely refused to leave and made repeated demands to know who had assaulted his nephew.
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“[A] clear and present danger of crowd violence” may be a consideration in determining whether a First Amendment violation occurred. Smith v. McCluskey, 126 Fed. Appx. 89, 94 (4th Cir. 2005) (per curiam) (unpublished) (internal quotations omitted). But the presence of other people alone is insufficient to render otherwise protected speech grounds for arrest, unless such speech “is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969). See also State of Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 409–10 (1989) (rejecting the argument that “the potential for breach of peace” satisfies the Brandenburg standard); Patterson v. United States, 999 F.Supp.2d 300, 316 (D.D.C. 2013) (“[C]ursing at an officer in the presence of a crowd, without some indication of a likely violent reaction from that crowd, does not give rise to probable cause to believe that the speaker is engaged in disorderly conduct.”); Dormu v. District of Columbia, 795 F.Supp. 2d 7, 21 (D.D.C. 2011) (“[D]isorderly conduct does not occur merely because a crowd gathers to watch a citizen-police encounter.”). And unlike the plaintiff in Smith v. McCluskey, the individuals in the above described incidents had not been placed under valid arrest at the time their speech was suppressed. Neither the man’s demand to know which officer had struck his nephew, nor the woman’s shouts or profanity were evidently directed to produce imminent lawless action on the part of the crowd. Accordingly, their suppression by arrest was unlawful.
These and other arrests for protected speech demonstrate that BPD officers may consider speech critical or disrespectful of their activities to be assaultive or disruptive, and therefore sufficient to justify suppression through the unlawful use of police powers to detain and arrest.
2. BPD Retaliates by Using Force Against Individuals Who Engage in Protected Speech
BPD uses unreasonable force to retaliate against individuals who engage in protected speech critical of law enforcement, in violation of both the First and Fourth Amendments.117 City of Houston, 482 U.S. at 461; Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250, 256 (2006) (“the law is settled that as a general matter the First Amendment prohibits government officials from subjecting an individual to retaliatory actions . . . for speaking out.”). We reviewed a number of troubling incidents where BPD officers appeared to use force against individuals simply because they did not like what those individuals said. In one case from 2011, officers tackled and used a taser to drive-stun a young black man who was, in their view, “loitering” near a market during business hours in downtown Baltimore. When told to move, the young man refused and swore at the officers, who then tackled him. Nothing indicated the man was armed, violent, or presented a danger to the officers or others. Supervisors who investigated and approved the incident failed to recognize that the force appeared to be retaliatory, even though the man, when interviewed, told them he believed he was tackled because he cursed at the officers.
Furthermore, we have reviewed many incidents in which BPD officers believe they are justified in using force or arresting a person, based solely on profane or insulting words. We reviewed an incident, for example, in which an officer tased a young man who, according to the officer’s report, had removed his shirt and was yelling at club patrons and staff. The officer justified
117 Retaliatory force also violates the Fourteenth Amendment when used against individuals who have been arrested are being held as pretrial detainees, for example during prisoner transport. See Orem v. Rephann, 523 F.3d 442, 446 (4th Cir. 2008), abrogated on other grounds by Wilkins v. Gaddy, 559 U.S. 34, 39 (2010).
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using the taser on the basis that the man approached the officer in an aggressive manner while swearing. Although the report is not altogether clear on what the officer meant by “aggressive,” the report does make clear that the man’s “mouth”—his words—constituted the weapon or means of attack:
Indeed, this report appears to indicate the officer felt he was justified in tasing an individual—a high level of force—for this reason. Moreover, the report noted that the individual’s “trademark” was “[e]xplicit word this place.” If this was in fact the officer’s justification for tasing this individual, it is grossly insufficient, and it would violate both the First and Fourth Amendments. Although we make no finding about this specific incident because of the vagueness of word “aggressive” in the report, it is notable that the officer’s direct supervisor signed off on the report, and a review of the use of force found it to be justified without need of clarification.
We reviewed a number of substantially similar incidents where BPD officers only resorted to force after an individual swore at them. These uses of force in retaliation for protected speech violate the First and Fourth Amendments, and they undermine public confidence in the BPD.
3. Concerns that BPD Interferes with the Right to Record Public Police Activity
We also have serious concerns that BPD officers interfere with individuals who attempt to lawfully record police activity, although we do not make a finding of constitutional violations in this area because we did not find a sufficient number of incidents to warrant such a finding at this time. We nevertheless received and reviewed a number of allegations that BPD officers seize, view, and destroy video and audio recordings that constitute private property without just cause to do so. In 2012, we provided guidance to BPD on the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment considerations related to the recording of public police activity in a Statement of Interest filed in Sharp v. Baltimore City Police Dep’t., No. 1:11-cv-02888-BEL (D. Md. Jan. 12, 2012), 2012 WL 9512053.
That case was brought by the ACLU of Maryland on behalf of a man whose cellular phone was seized by BPD officers during an incident at the Pimlico Race Course in 2011. The City settled the case in 2014 for $250,000. The plaintiff alleged that BPD officers seized, searched, and deleted the contents of his phone after he used it to record officers using force during an arrest of his acquaintance. When BPD returned the phone to him, all of the videos on the device were deleted, including a number of personal videos of his young son. After the man filed suit, BPD moved for partial summary judgment, and the Department of Justice opposed that motion in our Statement of Interest. Shortly thereafter, on May 14, 2012, in advance of the parties’ settlement conference, we sent a letter to both parties. In our letter, we described in more detail how these constitutional interests play out in practice, and we gave technical assistance on their implications for policy and
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training. The parties settled, and, as part of the settlement, BPD agreed to implement a new policy and training program concerning the right to audiotape, videotape, and photograph BPD members during the public exercise of their duties. The new policy was published in 2014. Nonetheless, in the time period since Sharp, we have received numerous allegations that BPD officers continue to interfere with the individual right to record police activity, in violation of the First Amendment and their own policy.
One example of the allegations we received stems from an incident in 2015. According to the complainant, a young man was charged with three offenses after filming BPD officers arresting his friend for trespassing outside a nightclub in Baltimore City. The friend was engaged in an argument with security officers at a bar complex about refunding his admission fee. When BPD Officers informed him that he was trespassing and began handcuffing him, his companion, allegedly standing approximately 20 feet away, began to film the incident using his phone. Two other officers on the scene turned and confronted him, grabbing his phone and placing him in handcuffs. While the alleged trespasser was released with only a ticket, the man filming was arrested and charged with three offenses: failure to obey, trespassing, and assault (for what appears to be a later-discovered alleged assault against the nightclub’s bouncer). During the arrest process, the man watched as an officer openly went through his phone. When BPD released the man after he spent two nights in jail, he discovered that the video of the incident had been deleted. Ultimately, a state court entered a judgment of acquittal for the assault and failure to obey charges, and the man was acquitted of the trespassing charge at trial. According to the man, the sole justification for his arrest was his attempt to record the officers’ interaction with his friend. We also note that, to the extent that the officers thought that the man recording their activities was somehow interfering in their enforcement efforts, the officers do not appear to have made any effort to instruct the man who was recording them to move to a less-intrusive place where he could continue recording.
In addition to these apparent First Amendment violations, BPD officers also appear to have violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments by searching the phone following the arrest, apparently without a warrant, and by deleting the video. When individuals record police officers in the public exercise of their duties, they have a Fourteenth Amendment property right to maintain the possession of their belongings, including recordings and recording devices. See, e.g., Helton v. Hunt, 330 F.3d 242, 247–49 (4th Cir. 2003) (striking down statute allowing police to seize and destroy video gaming machines without due process). BPD’s policy accordingly prohibits employees from erasing, deleting, or instructing others to erase or delete any recordings from a recording device. By going through the man’s phone and deleting the video, BPD destroyed valuable evidence and disregarded the owner’s property rights and the Department’s own policy.
First Amendment violations acutely affect a community’s trust in the legitimacy of law enforcement operations. BPD’s sensitivity to criticism and recording of their activity is ultimately both a symptom and a cause of mutual mistrust with the community. There is emerging evidence that video recording can be a valuable tool to reduce use of force incidents and complaints, and protect the rights of both community members and officers.118 To create an atmosphere of mutual respect and accountability, officers will need to demonstrate the ability to work within the confines of the First Amendment.
118 See, e.g., IACP. The Impact of Video Evidence on Modern Policing: Research and Best Practices from the IACP Study on In-Car Cameras, available at: http://www.theiacp.org/Portals/0/pdfs/WhatsNew/IACP%20InCar%20Camera%20Report%202004.pdf (last accessed June 10, 2016).
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*** In sum, BPD takes law enforcement action in retaliation for individuals’ engaging in protected speech or activity in violation of the First Amendment.
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E. BPD’S HANDLING OF SEXUAL ASSAULT INVESTIGATIONS RAISES SERIOUS CONCERNS OF GENDER-BIASED POLICING
Our investigation also raised serious concerns about how BPD responds to and investigates reports of sexual assault.
1. Evidence of Gender Bias in BPD’s Response to Sexual Assault
a. Treatment of Victims of Sexual Assault
By its very nature, sexual assault is a crime about which it can be difficult to ascertain the facts: for example, sexual assault often occurs in a private setting, with no witnesses other than the people involved as the victim119 and suspect, and victims of sexual assault are often reluctant to report the assault, particularly to law enforcement. For that reason, victim advocates—who act as confidantes and guides for victims as they navigate the criminal justice system, and whose role affords them a unique perspective from which to identify patterns in their clients’ experiences—play a critical role in providing information about sexual assaults to BPD.
The information provided to us by victim advocates, and, in some cases, by victims of sexual assault themselves, together with our review of BPD’s sexual assault case files and related documents, raise serious concerns about gender bias in BPD’s treatment of victims of sexual assault. For instance, officers and detectives in BPD’s Sex Offense Unit often question victims in a manner that puts the blame for the sexual assault on the victim’s shoulders—for example, with questions suggesting the victims should feel personally responsible for the potential consequences of a criminal report on a suspect or for having engaged in behavior that invited the assault. In their interviews of women reporting sexual assault, for example, BPD detectives ask questions such as “Why are you messing that guy’s life up?” BPD officers and detectives also asked questions suggesting that they discredit the reports of victims who delayed in reporting the assault to the police. This type of questioning is inappropriate in a detective interview of a potential victim of sexual assault and suggests gender bias by the detectives.
We were also troubled by statements of BPD detectives suggesting an undue skepticism of reports of sexual assault. One victim advocate told us about a detective in the BPD Sex Offense Unit making comments at a party, in the company of BPD officers and victim advocates, that, “in homicide, there are real victims; all our cases are bullshit.” When another person suggested the detective soften the statement, the detective added, “Ok, 90 percent.” We also reviewed e-mail correspondence between a BPD officer and a prosecutor in which they openly expressed their contempt for and disbelief of a woman who had reported a sexual assault: the prosecutor wrote that “this case is crazy. . . I am not excited about charging it. This victim seems like a conniving little whore. (pardon my language).”; the BPD officer replied, “Lmao! I feel the same.”
119 Throughout this findings letter, we have used the terms “victim” and “victim of sexual assault” to refer to people having experienced sexual assault because it is the term generally used in criminal legal definitions of sexual assault and in the criminal justice system. We appreciate, however, that many prefer the terms “survivor” or “victim/survivor,” and encourage respect for those preferences.
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In addition, we found indications that BPD disregards reports of sexual assault by people involved in the sex trade—a particularly troubling trend given the vulnerability of those individuals to rape.120 According to one case report, the suspect had approached the victim with a gun, the victim had called the police right away, and the suspect’s interview was almost entirely consistent with the victim’s account of the assault—all evidence that could have supported an investigation and prosecution. Nonetheless, the BPD detective made no attempt to corroborate the victim’s account of the assault with witness interviews or other evidence and told the suspect that he would not be charged with anything other than possession of a gun.
b. BPD’s Treatment of Transgender Individuals
We received allegations of BPD officers’ mistreatment of transgender individuals and have concerns that BPD’s interactions with transgender individuals reflect underlying unlawful gender bias. We heard allegations that BPD officers make disparaging and inappropriate comments to transgender individuals, and that BPD officers refuse to acknowledge transgender women as women. One transgender woman, for example, described an incident after a traffic stop in December 2015 in which she was asked by the officer whether she identified as male or female, and told the officer that she identified as female. Despite her response, the arresting officer then said to another officer at the scene, “Well, are you going to transport him?” We also heard from the transgender community that their interactions with BPD are degrading and dehumanizing and that, as a result, transgender individuals are afraid to report crime to law enforcement. The same transgender woman described above, for example, alleged that when she arrived at intake, the female supervisor who was called to search her said, “I am not here for this shit. I am not searching that.” When she then tried to ask the supervisor to show her some respect, the supervisor said, “Like I said, I don’t know you. I don’t know if you’re a boy or a girl. And I really don’t care, I am not searching you.” This is not the only example we heard about BPD officers conducting inappropriate searches of transgender individuals. We heard several reports that indicate that BPD officers lack guidance on the appropriate process for conducting searches of transgender individuals, including ensuring that searches are conducted by a person of the appropriate gender.
BPD’s treatment of women victims of sexual assault and of transgender individuals should not reflect gender-based stereotypes and assumptions that may compromise the effectiveness and impartiality of BPD’s response to reports of sexual assault and discourage women and transgender individuals from engaging with the criminal justice system.
2. BPD Fails to Adequately Investigate Reports of Sexual Assault
BPD seriously and systematically under-investigates reports of sexual assault, and the sexual assault investigations it does conduct are marked by practices that significantly compromise the effectiveness and impartiality of its response to sexual assault. These are not new issues for BPD. BPD’s handling of sexual assault was subject to widespread public scrutiny in 2010, spurred by media reports of BPD’s misclassification of rape cases, failure to identify and investigate reports of sexual assault, and substantial backlog of rape kits. Victim advocates, for example, criticized the
120 See, e.g., Michele R. Decker et al., Violence Against Women in Sex Work and HIV Risk Implications Differ Qualitatively by Perpetrator, 13 BMC PUB. HEALTH 876 (2013), available at http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-13-876.
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manner in which BPD treated victims of sexual assault—including interrogating rape victims, questioning women in the emergency room, threatening to hook up women reporting sexual assault to lie detectors, and not informing victims about the status of their cases. Moreover, victim advocates reported that BPD’s Sex Offense Unit was only minimally investigating reports of sexual assault; for example, they were not making efforts to identify witnesses or submitting rape kits for testing.
Despite some attempts at reform by BPD and Baltimore City leaders, most of these problems either remain or have returned. BPD’s response to reports of sexual assault is, overall, grossly inadequate: for example, BPD allows more than half of its rape cases to linger in an “open” status, often for years at a time, with little to no follow-up investigation, while fewer than one in four of its rape investigations are closed due to the arrest of a suspect, a rate roughly half of the national average; BPD detectives request testing of rape kits in fewer than one in five of BPD’s adult sexual assault cases, leaving these rape kits to sit untested in BPD’s evidence collection unit; and BPD detectives rarely, if ever, seek to identify or interview suspects and witnesses, even in cases where they are clearly identified by the woman reporting the assault. In addition, BPD investigative policies and practices significantly undermine the quality, effectiveness, and fairness of BPD’s response to reports of sexual assault, making it more difficult to uncover the truth when sexual assault allegations are made.
a. Failure to Develop and Resolve Preliminary Investigations
In the majority of BPD’s sexual assault cases, BPD fails to pursue investigations beyond the immediate, preliminary response to a report of sexual assault. According to BPD’s own data, for example, between 53 and 58 percent of its sex offense cases were in an “open” status each year between 2013 and 2015. In our own review of a sample of BPD’s sexual assault cases between 2010 and 2015, we found that more than half of these cases were described by BPD as being in an “open” status and that only a preliminary investigation had been done in a substantial proportion of those “open” cases. One sexual assault case, for example, was identified by BPD as “open,” despite the fact that there had been no activity on the case since February 2013. In this case, there had been no request for a lab test kit, no follow-up with the suspect’s lawyer to interview the suspect or test DNA, and no indication of communication with the victim over the past three years. Indeed, it appeared from the file that communication with the victim, and BPD’s investigation of the case, had slowed and ultimately stopped after the suspect hired a defense attorney.
b. Failure to Identify and Collect Evidence to Corroborate Victims’ Complaints
Similarly, BPD makes little, if any, effort to corroborate victims’ accounts of their assaults, either by identifying and interviewing witnesses, gathering other types of evidence, or identifying and interrogating suspects. BPD routinely fails to contact witnesses to sexual assaults in the first instance and, where their initial attempts to contact witnesses fail, BPD almost never make a second attempt to contact those witnesses. Even when a victim describes having reported the assault to others in the immediate aftermath of the crime, BPD makes no effort to identify and interview these “outcry” witnesses—in other words, the people who first heard the allegation of sexual assault. In one case, for example, the victim had immediately told her father and other witnesses about the assault; however, BPD made no attempt to contact any of these outcry witnesses to corroborate the
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victim’s story. Similarly, BPD persistently fails to make any efforts to contact eye witnesses to sexual assaults. In one case, for example, the victim and the suspect had been in two different bars together before the assault. The victim believed that the suspect had drugged her, and she had injuries all over her body. After the assault, the victim had run out of a bar and immediately reported the crime. Given these facts, it is reasonable to expect that there would have been numerous people who would have seen the victim and the suspect together at or around the time of the assault and who could have corroborated details of the victim’s account. But BPD made no attempt to contact the bartenders of the bars or to identify any other eye witnesses.
In addition to failing to seek out corroborating witness testimony, BPD persistently fails to seek other types of evidence that could corroborate a victim’s account of the assault. In the case just described, for example, in addition to neglecting to identify and interview witnesses, BPD made no attempt to review surveillance camera recordings from the two bars visited by the victim and the suspect, no effort to have the victim tested for drugs, and no attempt to gather physical evidence from the scene.
BPD persistently neglects to request lab testing of rape kits and other forensic evidence. Rape kits are only tested if a detective makes a request and all too often, detectives do not request that rape kits be tested. Between 2010 and September 2014, for example, rape kits were tested in only 15 percent of BPD’s cases involving sexual assaults of adult victims. Similarly, between January and September 2015, BPD detectives requested testing of rape kits in only 16 percent of BPD’s cases involving sexual assaults of adult victims. In the few cases where BPD is requesting rape kit tests, we found that there are long delays in making those requests. In one case, for example, BPD requested a lab test nine months after receiving a report of the sexual assault; it took another five months for BPD to get the results of the lab test.
Similarly, BPD detectives consistently neglect to gather DNA evidence and to request lab tests for DNA evidence from swabs or clothing. In one case, for example, a taxi driver drove an intoxicated woman to his home instead of to the address given to him by a bartender; the woman reported that the taxi driver had then raped her at his home. BPD subsequently interviewed the taxi driver, and he admitted to having taken the woman to his home. A rape kit was submitted and tested positive for semen. However, BPD made no attempt to get a DNA sample from the taxi driver.
BPD also makes minimal to no effort to locate, identify, interrogate, or investigate suspects. We found this to be true even in cases where the suspects had been identified or were easily identifiable on the basis of the victim’s testimony. For example, in one case, involving an attempted sexual assault of a woman by the driver of an unauthorized taxi, the detective was able to identify the suspect based on the woman’s detailed description of the suspect’s car. The detective made no attempt to contact the suspect, however, and the investigation progressed no further. Because sexual assault is a crime that frequently occurs in private settings, it is critical that law enforcement make efforts to gather, preserve, and analyze evidence, especially corroborative evidence, as quickly as possible. BPD’s persistent failure to seek out and develop such corroborative evidence, including suspect interrogations, constitutes a significant and damaging omission from their investigations of sexual assault.
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BPD fails to identify and follow up on indications of serial suspects in its sexual assault cases. Serial suspects are believed to be responsible for a substantial proportion of sexual assaults— one oft-cited study concluded, for example, that two in three rapists who had never been prosecuted for their crimes were repeat rapists121—and thus there may be enormous public safety consequences when law enforcement fails to identify and hold accountable serial rapists. We were troubled to find evidence of such failures in BPD’s investigations of sexual assault. For example, we reviewed numerous cases of forcible rapes of women by strangers that presented circumstances suggesting there might be serial rapists involved; however, BPD detectives did not take the steps necessary to make that determination, such as searching for cases presenting similar factual scenarios or identifying other victims in Baltimore or neighboring jurisdictions.
c. Missing or Inadequate Documentation of Investigation
BPD’s sexual assault case files, as a general matter, are missing critical information and lack sufficient documentation of the investigation to allow detectives, their supervisors, and prosecutors to effectively evaluate the quality of investigation and to assess and respond to the reported crimes. For instance, we found that BPD’s sexual assault case files frequently lack video recordings of victims, witnesses, and suspects, even where the notes in the case file indicate that those interviews had taken place and been recorded. BPD’s sexual assault case files generally lack notes from officers and detectives. Where case files do include such notes, the notes provide insufficient information about officers’ and detectives’ impressions and observations, or about their reasons for making investigative decisions, to present a comprehensive, factual picture of the reported assault. Indeed, across the board, we found that we learned far more about victims’ impressions and recollections of their assaults from the forensic medical exam reports than from BPD’s own reports.
d. Failure to Collect and Review Data About, and to Appropriately Report and Classify, Reports of Sexual Assault
The information provided to us by BPD in response to our requests for data regarding the department’s cases of sexual assault suggests to us that BPD continues to have problems with improperly identifying, reporting, and classifying reports of sexual assault, as well as with collecting, reviewing, and analyzing data about sexual assaults reported to BPD. BPD has previously been subject to public scrutiny for its misclassification of cases of sexual assault and for its failures to appropriately identify or report cases of sexual assault. In June 2010, the Baltimore Sun reported that BPD patrol and detectives had classified more than 30 percent of their rape cases as “unfounded”— a classification that is appropriate only for a report of rape that is found, after an investigation, to be either false or baseless; BPD’s “unfounded” rate for rape cases at that time was five times the national average.122 A subsequent review of unfounded cases conducted by the Baltimore City Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) audit unit found that, of the cases reviewed by the SART audit unit, more than half of the sexual assault cases classified as “unfounded” by BPD detectives
121 David Lisak & Paul M. Miller, Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists, 17 VIOLENCE AND VICTIMS
 73–84, 78, 80 (2002).
 122 See, e.g., Justin Fenton, City Rape Statistics, Investigations Draw Concern, BALTIMORE SUN(June 27, 2010),
 http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-06-27/news/bs-md-ci-rapes-20100519_1_rosalyn-branson-police-detectivepolice-figures.

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had been misclassified.123 According to data from BPD, the proportion of rape cases classified as “unfounded” by BPD has dropped dramatically since 2010; BPD’s data reflected a rate of 9.6 percent of rape cases classified as “unfounded” between January 2010 and March 2016. We are concerned, however, that these statistics mask a continuing problem with BPD’s understanding and application of the appropriate definitions and uses of the classification categories, as well as with its practices for identifying and reporting sexual assaults. In 2015, for example, BPD described approximately 56 percent of its rape cases as “open.” Meanwhile, only 17 percent of BPD’s rape cases in 2015 were closed by arrest – a rate less than half the national average for the proportion of rape cases closed by arrest. Also in 2015, according to both data and anecdotal evidence from the Baltimore City SART, only a handful of BPD’s cases were closed as “unfounded;” SART data indicated a rate of 6.6 percent of rape cases classified as “unfounded” by BPD between January and September 2015, and BPD presented only a handful of cases classified as unfounded to the SART audit committee for their review. Taken in the aggregate, this data suggests that BPD is keeping the majority of its rape cases in an “open” status, thus drastically reducing the rate of its rape cases closed as “unfounded”—and creating the illusion of having made meaningful reforms to its procedures for identifying and classifying sexual assaults.
In addition, we were troubled by the fact that BPD was unable to provide us with responses to our requests for basic data about the victim and suspect population, the incidence and nature of cases of sexual assault reported to and handled by the department, and the incidence of cases of sexual assault involving BPD officers. The inability to collect and produce such data suggests to us that BPD, at present, lacks the capacity to effectively assess the effectiveness its own response to sexual assault, to identify trends in the incidence of sexual assault, both in the Baltimore community and within its own department, and to make decisions about how to adjust or improve its response to sexual assault. Particularly in light of the public attention to the serious flaws in BPD’s identification, reporting, and classification of cases of sexual assault, BPD’s failure to remedy its procedures for collecting and reviewing data about sexual assault represents a significant weakness in the department’s handling of sexual assault.
e. Lack of Supervisory Review
Although a supervisory review form is included as a matter of course in BPD’s sexual assault case files, these supervisory review forms are almost always left blank. In the rare circumstances where the supervisory review forms are filled out, they include little information and appear to reflect a limited review of what steps have been taken in the investigation, and not an examination of the quality of the investigation or the reasoning for the outcome of the investigation. Similarly, although a “State’s Attorney Contact Log” form is included as a matter of course in BPD’s sexual assault case files, this form is rarely completed and, when it is filled out, contains very little information. The extremely limited nature of the information provided by the supervisory review form and State’s Attorney Contact Log form raises concerns for us about the inadequate supervision and review, both within and external to the police department, of BPD’s sexual assault investigations.
123 Md. Coal. Against Sexual Assault, Baltimore City Sexual Assault Response Team Annual Report 10 (Oct. 5, 2011), http://www.mcasa.org/_mcasaWeb/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/BaltimoreCityAnnualReport_print.pdf.
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III. SYSTEMIC DEFICIENCIES IN BPD’S PRACTICES CONTRIBUTE TO CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATIONS, ERODE COMMUNITY TRUST, AND INHIBIT EFFECTIVE POLICING
The constitutional violations described in our findings result in part from critical deficiencies in BPD’s systems to train, equip, supervise, and hold officers accountable, and to build relationships with the broader Baltimore community. First, BPD fails to adequately supervise its officers. This lack of supervision manifests itself in multiple ways, including a failure to guide officer activity through effective policies and training; a failure to collect and analyze reliable data to supervise officer enforcement activities; and the lack of a meaningful early intervention system (EIS) to identify officers who may benefit from additional training or other guidance to ensure that they do not commit constitutional violations. Second, BPD lacks meaningful accountability systems to deter misconduct. BPD does not consistently classify, investigate, adjudicate, and document complaints of misconduct according to its own policies and accepted law enforcement standards. Indeed, we found that BPD personnel sometimes discourage complaints from being filed and frequently conduct little or no investigation—even of serious misconduct allegations. As a result, a culture resistant to accountability persists throughout much of BPD, and many officers are reluctant to report misconduct for fear that doing so is fruitless and may provoke retaliation. Third, BPD fails to have proper agreements in place to coordinate its activities with other agencies that are operating within its jurisdiction. Fourth, BPD fails to adequately support its officers through effective strategies for recruitment, retention, and staffing patterns, and does not provide them with appropriate technology and equipment. Fifth, BPD does not engage effectively with the community it polices. BPD’s failure to use accepted community policing strategies and transparency mechanisms erodes the community trust that is central to productive law enforcement.
These systemic deficiencies impair officer safety and effectiveness and lead directly to violations of the Constitution and federal law.
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A. BPD FAILS TO ADEQUATELY SUPERVISE ITS OFFICERS’ ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITIES
1. BPD Does Not Provide Adequate Policy Guidance and Training to its Officers
BPD’s inadequate policies and training contribute to the Department’s pattern or practice of constitutional violations. Clear, comprehensive, and legally accurate policies and training are essential to the proper functioning of a police department. They provide crucial guidance for officers regarding what practical steps to take to remain in compliance with departmental rules and legal requirements, allow supervisors to properly monitor and instruct officers, and provide consistent guidelines for officer discipline. Here, we find that certain BPD policies and trainings do not fulfill these functions. BPD officers thus lack sufficient guidance to ensure that their enforcement activities are effective, safe, and consistent with the constitutional rights of the people they serve. While BPD has made admirable efforts to update its policies in 2015 and 2016, some outdated and contradictory policies remain in effect, diminishing the impact of the new policies and procedures.
a. Deficient Policies
As we described above in our findings, critical deficiencies in BPD’s policies contribute to officers violating the constitutional rights of Baltimore residents. For example, officers’ frequent use of tasers to apply constitutionally excessive force is connected to the Department’s failure to have any policy governing the use of electronic control weapons until 2015. BPD similarly lacked any policy on baton use—also a frequent source of constitutional violations—until 2016. The Department likewise lacked a fair and impartial policing policy until 2015, despite longstanding notice of concerns about its policing of the City’s African-American population. And policy deficiencies also contribute to officers’ frequent illegal stops, searches, and arrests by misstating the law on the justification required to stop or frisk individuals suspected of criminal activity. Indeed, several BPD policies do not adequately capture the current state of the law, and others provide insufficient guidance to officers to allow them to align their conduct with constitutional requirements.
Beyond these specific policy deficiencies, however, we found systemic problems with BPD’s method of drafting, distributing, and implementing policies that has made it difficult for officers to understand proper procedures and adapt to changing rules. BPD fails to follow widely accepted principles in developing, distributing, and implementing new policies. The International Association of Chiefs of Police, for example, has developed a set of best practices for effective development of operational policy and procedures. Among other recommendations, these principles indicate that staff should be involved in the development of the manual and kept informed of any changes. Chief W. Dwayne Orrick, Best Practices Guide: Developing a Police Department Policy-Procedure Manual, International Association of Chiefs of Police, http://www.theiacp.org/portals/0/pdfs/BPPolicyProcedures.pdf (last visited June 17, 2016). Empirical research has also suggested that officers are more likely to support and comply with policies when they have been provided opportunities to give input, and supervisors clearly explain decisions that they have made. Nicole E. Haas et. al., Explaining officer compliance: The importance of procedural justice and trust inside a police organization, 15 Criminology & Crim. Just. 4, 16 (Sept. 2015).
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BPD does not follow these accepted methods of policy development. Instead, the Department has historically developed and published policies and amendments in a manner that officers find to be confusing and opaque. As many officers told us, the numbering system alone is a source of confusion. Generally, BPD policies have been organized with titles that included letters and numbers. During one period, however, the letter-and-number system was replaced with a system that included numbers alone. The new system only applied to newly implemented policies, however, and the majority of policies were still classified by letter-and-number. Policies from different eras are written in different formats, and often modified by annexes, memoranda, amendments, and rescissions, instead of replacing the old policy completely, making it difficult for officers to be confident that they had the current, complete policy. While the policy manual has a table of contents, there is no index, and new additions and revisions can quickly make older manuals difficult to navigate. In fact, during our investigation, BPD was unable to locate one of its own amendments to disclose to us. In short, BPD policies do not provide officers with clear guidance that can be rapidly digested and put into practice in the field. Although in early 2016 BPD made efforts to provide clearer and more effective guidance to its officers by distributing a binder of updated, core policies that each officer can use in the field, significant work remains to ensure that all of BPD’s policies are clear, internally consistent, and readily available to officers.
BPD likewise fails to provide officers the opportunity to provide input on the policy as it is developed. We spoke with many officers, including supervisors and others in positions of authority, who were frustrated by the lack of input they were able to have on policy development, including the policies developed in 2016. With nearly 3,000 sworn officers and another 1,000 personnel, BPD will likely receive conflicting input in addition to the helpful ideas generated if it seeks input from officers. Without seeking this input, however, BPD fails to learn critical lessons from the field, and, as importantly, it risks alienating its officers and undermining adherence to the policies it develops. Indeed, during our interviews and ride-alongs, we found that large numbers of officers expressed a lack of confidence in the policy guidance BPD provides.
To ensure that its policies provide officers with sufficient guidance to police within the bounds of the Constitution, BPD must update its policies to make them reflect current legal requirements and develop a system to distribute and maintain policies and procedures in a way that promotes officer confidence and allows officers to use the policies effectively.
b. Deficient Training
Compounding the problems with policy development, BPD relies on deficient training on a broad array of substantive policing functions. This contributes to the pattern or practice of violations of the Constitution and federal law that we observed. Officers have not been properly trained on numerous important topics, from the use of force and de-escalation to stops, searches, and arrests, to how to supervise and investigate misconduct. Absent effective training on how to properly conduct these actions, it is not surprising that BPD officers frequently violate federal law when interacting with the community. Our observations of training programs, review of internal documents, and conversations with BPD personnel revealed that training deficiencies within the Department arise from foundational issues in BPD’s overall approach to training. The Department has failed to establish a robust training program and lacks the basic organizational capacities, infrastructure, and support required to effectively train police officers to respond to situations that arise in law enforcement encounters.
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i. Training Has Not Been a Top Priority Within BPD
Our investigation revealed that one of the fundamental causes of the breakdown in training is the Department’s indifferent attitude towards its training program. Numerous members of BPD, from line officers to command staff to training personnel, conveyed to us that training is not a priority within the Department. Indeed, BPD’s former director of the Training Academy released a needs assessment in 2015 that highlighted an “internal culture of placing training second,” “expectations for ‘rushed’ training,” and “outside pressure to condense training programs” as threats to the current program. See Baltimore Police Department Training Academy Needs Assessment (July 2015), at 5. Unfortunately, after the training director sent the needs assessment to BPD leadership, he did not receive a response for months. He also organized three different meetings with patrol commanders to begin making changes based on the needs assessment, but no commanders attended the meetings.
We found that this lack of emphasis on training has a pervasive influence on the Department. A significant number of officers we spoke with had no training beyond Maryland’s basic requirements. Officers who had furthered their training did so because of their own personal interest or ambition, often using private funds and overcoming obstacles posed by supervisors or work schedules. Rather than encouraging additional training, supervisors view training as a peripheral activity that is consistently superseded by the need to keep officers on the street. Strikingly, training personnel are also subject to being pulled from their training duties to other tasks: basic training is frequently postponed or shifted due to overtime details for training personnel, leading to the extension of time basic recruits spend at the Academy. See id.
Training is crucial for effective and lawful policing in Baltimore. Indeed, keeping officers on the street without proper or up-to-date training is a disservice not only to community members, but to officers because of the impact on officer safety.
ii. BPD Lacks Basic Infrastructure to Train its Officers
The failure to invest in training infrastructure underscores BPD’s failure to prioritize this critical component of effective policing. BPD lacks adequate staff to train its officers efficiently; its training facilities are outdated, ill-repaired, and often unable to accommodate modern training methods; and BPD lacks mechanisms to track officer attendance and performance to ensure that officers receive and understand the training they need to engage in safe, effective, constitutional policing.
The training academy is notably under-resourced. The program lost about two-thirds of its staff over the past three years: training staff fell from approximately 60 in 2013 to 20 currently. During the course of our investigation, thirty classes had no primary instructor. Multiple training units, including the ones responsible for supervisor training for new sergeants and lieutenants, were entirely vacant with no personnel staffing them. We also found that student-to-instructor ratios during training classes were often extremely high, undermining effective communication of the material. The Fraternal Order of Police has also highlighted this concern, noting that class sizes for new recruit training have averaged 35–50 officers. See FOP Blueprint for Improved Policing (July 11,
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2012), at 7. Minimal staffing also poses difficulties for BPD instructors to attend outside courses to develop their training skills.
BPD training facilities are in a similarly troubling state. During the course of our investigation, we were informed that BPD has only 17 computers available to train its nearly 4,000 personnel. The buildings themselves are in disrepair: water cannot be consumed from the faucets, and the buildings often lack workable air conditioning and heating. According to the Academy’s recent needs assessment:
The decrepit state of the academy itself gives the impression of a lackadaisical and uncommitted attitude towards the necessities of training the modern police officer. Recruits, sworn personnel, visiting law-enforcement experts, and civilians get the impression that they are party to a fly-by-night, poverty-stricken department when they find themselves in a crumbling, drafty building.
See Baltimore Police Department Training Academy Needs Assessment (July 2015), at 12. The needs assessment additionally describes a long list of basic equipment and structures missing from training facilities, from protective headgear to mats for defensive exercises. Our observations confirmed many of these shortcomings.
Equally problematic is BPD’s inability to evaluate and track officer training, thus failing to properly enforce training requirements. According to internal documents produced to us during the investigation, practical training exercises do not have a comprehensive evaluation tool that measures the skill and comprehension levels of students; instructors are unable to properly assess recruits’ proficiency with defensive tactics or their ability to determine when situations require force; and the current curriculum lacks pre- and post-testing procedures for evaluating how training changed recruits’ comprehension of relevant information. Nor is there a mechanism to track the follow-up remedial training required after a disciplinary incident. Numerous personnel conveyed that they do not have a workable tracking system for determining when officers require training or have failed to attend a class. Rather, the current system relies on a single officer updating an Excel spreadsheet with the activities of thousands of officers and formulating a training schedule. Likely due to this deficient tracking system, members of the training staff noted that they often find that officers are “missing” significant amounts of required training.
iii. Despite Efforts to Improve Training, Much Work Remains to Fix the Program
Individuals throughout the Department have highlighted that the Department needs to significantly improve its training program. For example, in 2012, the Fraternal Order of Police’s Blueprint for Improved Policing in Baltimore includes an entire section focused on training issues and recommendations. See FOP Blueprint for Improved Policing (July 11, 2012), at 6–8. More recently, BPD’s July 2015 Training Academy Needs Assessment provides a program analysis, describing major issues in personnel, curriculum, equipment and structures, and budgeting. It also notes that the Academy has been working to address some of these issues. This includes topic-area trainings on, for example, the use of force, de-escalation, and understanding youth. The Academy has also begun to create training videos and providing roll-call trainings on current law, two important steps forward.
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While this is encouraging, these new initiatives will not be successful without a considerable change in the overall approach to the Department’s training. Much work remains, and this work will require dedication from all members of the Department to provide BPD’s training programs with the necessary resources and to create an atmosphere that actively encourages training and preparation.
Three particular types of training will need significant work if the Department wants to effectively implement reforms. First, the Department lacks sufficient scenario-based training for its officers. This “real world” training is critical for building officers’ skills. The FOP has also noted this deficit: according to the FOP, simulation training on real-life scenarios should be an area of focus for BPD, and officers have frequently noted that simulation training is crucial because it teaches officers how to react in situations that regularly arise. See FOP Blueprint for Improved Policing (July 11, 2012) at 7. Such training, especially within a defensive tactics or crisis intervention curriculum, helps students determine the most appropriate actions during law enforcement activities, such as the level of force to be used in an encounter. Fortunately, leaders in the Department have also recognized this need, but much work remains to address it.
Second, BPD’s Field Training Officer, or FTO, program needs significant improvement. An effective FTO program is a critical tool for the Department to reinforce the training and values communicated to a new officer during the academy. Likewise, a poor FTO program can undermine the investment the Department has made in a recruit before that training has become ingrained. Generally speaking, BPD does not currently attract and retain the right officers for the FTO positions, and those who do become FTOs receive only one week of training. There is a dearth of qualified FTOs throughout the Department; some districts lack FTOs entirely. The importance and benefit of a strong FTO program have long been recognized. See, e.g., Michael S. McCampbell, Field Training for Police Officers: The State of the Art (1987) (discussing research showing that FTO programs can help reduce civil liability complaints and increase a police agency’s effectiveness in the community). To achieve the reforms required, BPD needs to invest in this program to ensure that the new officers it adds to the Department have a solid foundation to engage in effective and constitutional policing.
Finally, supervisor and leadership training is a critical need within the Department. Across all levels of BPD, we found that training for these positions was deficient. Our interviews revealed that many Department commanders do not have the opportunity to receive command development training, and the FOP noted a similar lack of training. See FOP Blueprint for Improved Policing (July 11, 2012) at 6. The Blueprint describes management training overall as “very insular,” because department managers generally “stay in Baltimore.” Id. In an agency of BPD’s size, command-level and supervisory training is critical to ensuring that the values of the agency are reinforced by its leaders on a consistent, day-to-day basis. To create the type of cultural transformation required to address the constitutional violations we found, strong, capable leadership is required. Effective leadership, combined with procedural justice internal to the agency, results in officers who are more likely to behave according to agency standards when interacting with members of the community. See, e.g. The Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (May 2015) at 54.
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2. BPD Does Not Adequately Supervise Officers or Collect and Analyze Data on their Activities
Serious deficiencies in BPD’s supervision of its enforcement activities, including through data collection and analysis, contribute to the Department’s failure to identify and correct unconstitutional policing.
a. BPD Does Not Effectively Use Data to Oversee Officer Activity
BPD fails to collect and record important data on a broad range of police activities, and that, when it does collect data, BPD does not use the data to manage and supervise officer activity. As discussed in Section II.A4, supra, BPD’s own internal audits and other indications demonstrate that officers fail to record any information on a large portion of the stops and searches conducted on Baltimore streets, contrary to BPD’s own policies and procedures. When officers do record the existence of a stop, they do not consistently record important information connected to it. We found that officers likewise often fail to report using force against individuals. And as with stops and searches, even where force is reported, officers do not consistently document important supporting information, such as statements from witnesses and other officers on the scene. These omissions violate BPD’s own policy requirements. The policies and procedures are also underinclusive, however, and do not require information to be gathered that is essential to supervise officer activity effectively.
Even where data is collected, BPD fails to store it in systems that are capable of effective tracking and analysis. Chief among the data analysis challenges is BPD’s failure to use integrated systems to maintain information. Information technology officers with the Department informed us that BPD uses 232 separate databases to store information, most of which cannot link to each other. Moreover, most files do not contain unique identifiers that allow supervisors to identify and review information about a single incident that may be stored in separate databases. For example, BPD uses different programs or databases to record stops, arrests, and incident reports. The different information captured on these activities is siloed: BPD’s systems do not allow a supervisor reviewing the record of an arrest or use of force that stemmed from a pedestrian stop to access the stop record that is maintained separately. BPD’s failure to respond to its pattern of conducting unlawful arrests illustrates the consequences of segregating related data in unconnected systems. As explained above, Maryland maintains data on all arrests by BPD officers for which booking officers find “no probable cause” or otherwise result in prosecutors declining to bring charges. Many of these problematic arrests stem from stops, searches, or other incidents described in various BPD reports. Yet the Department lacks any mechanism to connect problematic arrests to information about the enforcement actions that precipitated them because that information is maintained in separate programs or databases. BPD supervisors thus lack critical information to correct these constitutional violations.
Moreover, BPD conducts minimal pattern analysis of officer activities. The Department does not generate any reports or otherwise track patterns in officers’ stops, searches, arrests, uses of force, or community interactions. For example, supervisors do not have access to information about how frequently officers search suspects during stops, the proportion of stops and searches that find weapons or contraband, how often stops or arrests lead to officers using force, or how
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often arrests lead to charges being dismissed. Because the Department does not track these activities, it lacks information to assess the effectiveness of its policing strategies and resource utilization.
BPD’s inadequate data collection and analysis reflects broader deficiencies relating to officer supervision that allow constitutional violations to go uncorrected. As explained throughout our findings on stops, searches, arrests, and uses of force, supervisors conduct minimal substantive review of officers’ justifications for these activities. A number of supervisors informed us that they view their role as “documenting” activity rather than assessing whether the activity conformed to policy, or that they believe internal affairs—not direct supervision—is the appropriate vehicle for assessing whether an enforcement action meets policy or constitutional requirements. Indeed, our review did not identify a single stop, search, or arrest that a front line supervisor found to violate constitutional standards—even though numerous incident reports for these activities describe facially unlawful police action. Supervisory review of officers’ use of force is similarly limited. As explained further in Section II.C.5, supra, the Department sustained only one excessive force complaint that came from internal channels between 2010 and 2015, despite the over 2,800 uses of force that BPD recorded during that time period. These failures are compounded by the data collection and analysis deficiencies highlighted above. Supervisors lack important information about the activities and effectiveness of officers under their command.
BPD’s failure to implement systems to collect and analyze data undermines not only BPD’s ability to supervise its own activities, but also the ability of City leadership and the community to review the activities of their own police force. The lack of data and data analysis renders BPD opaque to any external entity, making it difficult to ascertain whether BPD is policing in a manner that accords with the priorities of City leadership or the communities BPD serves. BPD must institute more effective data management, so that it can be accountable to its community and leadership.
b. BPD Does Not Use an Adequate Early Intervention System
Related to BPD’s failure to supervise its officers and collect data on their activities, the Department lacks an adequate early intervention system, or EIS, to identify officers based on patterns in their enforcement activities, complaints, and other criteria. An effective early intervention system allows sergeants, lieutenants, and commanders to proactively supervise the officers under their command and to continually assess officers’ risk of engaging in problematic behavior. EIS is a forward-looking tool that helps supervisors interrupt negative patterns before they manifest as misconduct or unconstitutional activity. Likewise, early intervention systems help supervisors recognize positive patterns that should be encouraged. BPD’s EIS does not achieve these goals.
Despite BPD’s longstanding notice of concerns about its policing activities and problems with its internal accountability systems, the Department has failed to implement an adequate EIS or other system for tracking or auditing information about officer conduct. Rather, BPD has an early intervention system in name only; indeed, BPD commanders admitted to us that the Department’s early intervention system is effectively nonfunctional. The system has several key deficiencies. First, BPD sets thresholds of activity that trigger “alerts” to supervisors about potentially problematic
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conduct that are too high. Because of these high thresholds, BPD supervisors often are not made aware of troubling behavioral patterns until after officers commit egregious misconduct. Second, even where alerts are triggered, we found that BPD supervisors do not consistently take appropriate action to counsel the officer, consider additional training, or otherwise intervene in a way that will correct the behavior before an adverse event occurs. Third, critical information is omitted or expunged from the EIS that could help address officer training or support needs or help prevent future misconduct. For example, BPD expunges discipline imposed from “command investigations”—more than half of all internal investigations handled by the Department—within one year where an officer voluntarily accepts the command punishment. This expungement is problematic for officer discipline, which is not the function of EIS, but it also inhibits a functional EIS because this critical information is omitted. Together, these deficiencies impede BPD’s ability to identify and interrupt patterns of behavior that may compromise safety or lead to future misconduct. Moreover, under the State Law Enforcement Officer Bill of Rights, all complaints that do not result in a sustained finding are eligible to be expunged within three years and thus no longer captured in the Department’s EIS system.
It is clear that the Department has been unable to interrupt serious patterns of misconduct. Our investigation found that numerous officers had recurring patterns of misconduct that were not adequately addressed. Similarly, we note that, in the past five years, 25 BPD officers were separately sued four or more times for Fourth Amendment violations. BPD has likewise failed to identify officers in need of support through its EIS. For example, one of the officer-involved shooting files we reviewed revealed that the involved officer—who unloaded his entire magazine at a car driving toward him—had been previously involved in two other officer-involved shootings in the past five years, in addition to a long history of complaints for harassment and excessive force. When interviewed about the most recent shooting, the officer told detectives that he believed he still had post-traumatic stress related to the other shootings. Even under BPD’s high EIS thresholds, the officer’s conduct had triggered alerts. But based on the records we reviewed, the Department failed to respond to those alerts in a way that could have uncovered the officer’s condition or otherwise allowed for an intervention. The officer was criminally charged in the shooting. BPD’s lack of an effective EIS exposes officers, the Department, and the public to risk that should be avoided.
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B. BPD FAILS TO ADEQUATELY SUPPORT ITS OFFICERS
BPD fails to support its officers through effective strategies for recruitment, retention, and staffing patterns, and does not provide them with appropriate technology and equipment. The Department must address a number of internal challenges—namely, current and projected manpower shortages, and outdated technology, facilities, equipment and insufficient resources— in order to ensure that officers are adequately supported. BPD districts are short-staffed, an issue that is further complicated by challenges the Department is facing in retaining experienced officers, and in recruiting qualified cadets. Additionally, the Department’s technology, equipment, and facilities are outdated, creating inefficiencies for officers and the Department, and negatively impacting the Department’s relationship with the community. The Department also lacks critical resources to support officers, such as psychological counseling for officers following a traumatic incident.
First, BPD does not have a Department-wide plan to address staffing shortages in patrol; instead, each district deals with its own shortages independently. Districts address their staffing shortages by “drafting,” or requiring, officers to work additional hours after their regular ten-hour shift. Officers are “drafted” to work up to an additional ten hours after their regular shift, making for, potentially, a twenty-hour day. Only one district indicated that they attempt to draft officers who are not working the following day after being drafted. Each district has crafted its own process of drafting, and there are variations in each district’s procedures. The Department has, however, indicated it is in the process of creating a policy to more consistently address staffing shortages. The Department does not record, track, or assess which officers are drafted, how frequently they are drafted, or for how many hours they are drafted per day or over any period of time. Officers we spoke with consistently informed us of the serious negative impact that drafting has on their morale. Additionally, the potential negative impact that drafting has on officers’ decision-making skills after working for up to twenty hours is equally troubling. It would be difficult even for officers who are well-trained and guided by proper policies – which BPD officers are not – after working fourteen to twenty hours, to exercise restraint and good judgment in their interactions with the public. It is difficult to expect ill-trained officers who are provided little to no guidance to do so in such circumstances.
It appears BPD’s staffing shortage will not be resolved in the short term. We heard from officers, supervisors, and command staff that many officers join BPD to gain experience in a highactivity environment, and after three to five years, leave the Department for less-demanding and higher-paid positions with neighboring agencies. See FOP Blueprint for Improved Policing (July 11, 2012) at 4, 13. This is a significant drain on the Department’s resources, as these experienced officers, if they remained, would be the future leaders of the Department, and critical to the success of the Department’s law enforcement efforts. The Department also appears to be confronting challenges in recruiting qualified officers – it has only met a fraction of its goals for the 2016 Academy class. At least one of the Department’s background check processes—its psychological testing—has been investigated for allegedly rushing those evaluations, sometimes conducting psychological evaluations for aspiring officers in as little as fifteen minutes.124 The Department must ensure that in its efforts to recruit a sufficient quantity of officers, it does not sacrifice the quality of officers that the Baltimore community and current employees of the Department deserve.
124 Kevin Rector, Provider of mental health evaluations for Baltimore police under investigation, The Baltimore Sun, Aug. 5, 2015 (9:23 PM), http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-md-police-psych-evals-20150805-story.html.
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Second, officers are also challenged by BPD’s outdated technology, equipment, and facilities. The Department is hampered by significant technological infrastructure gaps and historically has underestimated the infrastructure required to implement technology. While we applaud the Department’s advances, such as its commitment to equipping all officers with body-worn cameras, BPD must also ensure that it updates its technological infrastructure to support such initiatives, as necessary. Likewise, officers suffer from being supplied with outdated, broken, or in some cases, no equipment. As one officer noted to the Fraternal Order of Police in a focus group, “How am I supposed to pull someone over for having a taillight out when my car has two?” See also FOP Blueprint for Improved Policing (July 11, 2012) at 10. Officers have no computers in their cars, forcing them to return to the district station to type reports, and even those computers are often not working. Although the Department uses the “PocketCop” application on departmentally issued cell phones, we found that many officers did not have access to it for various reasons, and that it could not be used for many reports. This absence of technology for field-based reporting creates an additional drain on the Department’s already limited resources. Taking officers off the street to type reports at the district takes away from time that could be spent on law enforcement or community building activities. It also creates inefficiencies for officers who often must write reports on paper in the field while their memories of incidents are fresh, and then type the same information into computer databases after arriving at the district station at the end of their shift.
These equipment issues not only create inefficiencies for officers and drain the Department’s resources, they also negatively impact officer morale. The dilapidated state of some of the Department’s district stations also lowers officer morale, and affects community relationships. The Department also lacks critical support services for officers, such as adequate psychological counseling or peer support program following a shooting or other traumatic event. Despite its budgetary issues, the City of Baltimore will need to make an investment in its public safety facilities and resources to ensure that officers have the tools necessary to properly serve the residents and businesses of the City.
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C. BPD FAILS TO HOLD OFFICERS ACCOUNTABLE FOR MISCONDUCT
BPD relies on deficient accountability systems that fail to curb unconstitutional policing. For years, the Department’s process of investigating and adjudicating complaints has been plagued by systemic failures, including: discouraging individuals from filing complaints; poor investigative techniques; unnecessary delays; minimal review and supervision; and a persistent failure to discipline officers for misconduct, even in cases of repeated or egregious violations. BPD likewise fails to provide information about officer misconduct in a transparent manner or receive input on the accountability process from the community it serves. As a result, a cultural resistance to accountability has developed and been reinforced within the Department. This culture further undermines accountability by discouraging officers from reporting misconduct and discouraging supervisors from sustaining allegations of it. BPD’s persistent failure to hold officers accountable for misconduct contributes to an erosion of the community trust that is central to effective law enforcement.
Central to BPD’s accountability systems is the Internal Investigation Division, or IID. IID investigates and resolves complaints of officer misconduct, both complaints received internally from other officers or BPD employees, and those received from members of the community. Within the IID, “Ethics” detectives investigate complaints that officers engaged in potentially criminal activity, or other allegations that, though not criminal, implicate an officer’s integrity or truthfulness. “General internal affairs” detectives investigate all other allegations of serious officer misconduct, including most instances of excessive force. Outside of the IID, each of the nine patrol districts, along with each Specialized Unit within BPD’s Operations Bureau, housed a “Command Investigations Unit,” or CIU, until January of 2016, when the Department centralized all Command Investigation Units at the IID. Before centralization, each CIU operated independently of the other CIUs and of the IID. The CIUs investigate minor violations of BPD policy, and BPD has authorized district and unit commanders to impose minor discipline in the event an accused officer agrees to the discipline.
When IID sustains the allegations in an investigation,125 or an officer refuses to accept discipline at the command level, the case is sent to the Office of Administrative Hearings to coordinate the drafting of administrative charges and, if necessary, to arrange disciplinary proceedings. Under the State’s Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights (LEOBR), officers are then entitled to an adversarial hearing, or trial board, before the Department can discipline them. At BPD, trial boards convened to adjudicate certain minor violations of BPD’s command discipline policy typically consist of one person, drawn from a pool of BPD commanders. Trial boards convened to adjudicate major discipline are composed of two commanders and one BPD member of the same rank as the accused officer. If the trial board finds the officer is not guilty of violating BPD policy, that finding terminates the case and the Department cannot discipline the officer. But if the trial board finds the officer is guilty, it hears a presentation of mitigating evidence, and then recommends discipline. Ultimately, the commissioner determines the appropriate discipline, but
125 When BPD completes an internal investigation, there are four possible outcomes. The Department can sustain an allegation, which means investigators found, by a preponderance of evidence, that a policy violation occurred. Allegations can be found “not sustained,” which means that investigators were unable to tell either way. Allegations can be unfounded, meaning the investigator determined that the violation did not occur. Or allegations may be exonerated, meaning that the action alleged did occur, but that it did not violate Department policy.
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may only do so if the trial board first finds the officer guilty. The commissioner may depart from the Board’s recommendation and impose less or more discipline. But if the commissioner imposes greater discipline, the officer is entitled to another opportunity to be heard. The officer may then appeal any discipline imposed by the Department to the state courts in Maryland.
We found deficiencies throughout these accountability systems that undermine adherence to BPD’s policies and procedures and contribute to the violations of federal law that we found.
1. BPD Lacks Adequate Systems to Investigate Complaints and Impose Discipline
BPD’s systems for holding officers accountable are plagued by several deficiencies. We found that BPD discourages members of the public from filing complaints; improperly classifies complaints to mask misconduct; delays investigations of complaints unnecessarily; uses poor investigative techniques to gather evidence about misconduct; fails to consistently document the results of its investigations; and does not receive input from the community or share information about its investigative processes. As a result, the Department is rarely able to impose discipline for misconduct, and many officers believe that disciplinary determinations are not made fairly or consistently.
a. BPD Discourages Members of the Public from Filing Complaints
BPD discourages members of the public from filing complaints against officers through the procedural requirements BPD has imposed on filing complaints, and BPD officers and supervisors have actively discouraged community members from filing complaints. These practices pose significant barriers to members of the Baltimore community who try to alert the Department to misconduct by its officers.
As an initial matter, BPD places unnecessary conditions on the filing of complaints. While the Department ostensibly accepts complaints made in person, by telephone, or over email, it requires complaints alleging many common types of misconduct—including excessive force, abusive language, harassment, false arrest and imprisonment—to be signed, notarized, and filed in person at one of just a few locations throughout the City.126 Additionally, complaints alleging excessive force must be sworn under penalty of perjury. Although IID commanders we interviewed informed us that, despite these requirements, the Department investigates all complaints even if they are not notarized or submitted in person, our review of BPD’s files indicated that, in practice, BPD does not investigate unless these requirements are met. For example, in 2013 an individual called BPD’s internal affairs to complain about an officer who grabbed him by the neck and called him a “punk ass faggot.” Although the individual gave a statement describing the incident over the phone, BPD supervisors closed the case because the complainant did not show up in person at BPD’s Internal Investigation Division to “fill out a CRB form and to have his statement notarized.” Indeed, the BPD investigator claimed that the man “failed to cooperate” by not submitting a notarized form. These requirements all but ensure that numerous anonymous complaints, or those received over the phone, by email, or in person at any of BPD’s nine police districts, will go unexamined.
In addition, we found examples of BPD officers expressly discouraging civilians from filing
126 If the complaint is made by a juvenile, the juvenile must be accompanied by an adult.
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complaints, sometimes mocking or humiliating them in the process. Some civilians wishing to alert BPD to officer misconduct had to endure verbal abuse and contact BPD multiple times before investigators would move forward with any investigation. As described supra at 69-70, for example, BPD officers ridiculed an African-American man attempting to file a complaint that officers used excessive force and racial slurs during an arrest: when the man arrived at the district headquarters to make the complaint, officers told him, “you can take your black ass down to Kirk Avenue before the bus leaves because you know how you black people like the bus.” Kirk Avenue is the location of BPD’s Internal Investigation Division. In another incident, a woman alleged that a BPD supervisor flatly refused to accept a complaint that officers used excessive force when arresting her son. According to the woman, the supervisor refused to accept the complaint, telling the woman “she could not go against her officers.”
To ensure that it learns about potential constitutional violations and other misconduct by its officers, and to rebuild its relationship with many of the communities it serves, BPD must reform its complaint intake procedures and make them accessible to the public.
b. Supervisors Misclassify Complaints and “Administratively Close” Them Without Investigation
After intake of a complaint, BPD investigators frequently misclassify those complaints or administratively close them with little attempt to contact the complainant.
First, BPD investigators often inappropriately categorize complaints as minor allegations that may be resolved at the command level without IID involvement. Appropriately categorizing a complaint is critical because it affects which internal affairs component will investigate, the level of investigation undertaken, and the possible discipline imposed. BPD’s policy on command discipline lists categories of cases which “may” be handled by the district, but this fails to provide guidance for officers and detectives about when cases should be referred to IID, or who is responsible for making that decision. Instead, we were told that BPD officers and IID investigators categorize complaints based on “common sense.” Moreover, we found that BPD does not use its internal affairs database to consistently review how complaints are categorized, and that is its only mechanism for doing so. This process vests considerable discretion in supervisors, and we found that supervisors frequently use this discretion to classify allegations of misconduct that result in minimal investigation. Indeed, we found that the Department resolved the majority of the approximately 38,000 allegations127 made against BPD officers from 2010 through 2015 at the command level without referral to IID, resulting in significantly less investigation. Moreover, of these 38,000 allegations, 9,694 allegations were categorized as “supervisor complaints,” which, according to BPD commanders, require no investigation at all. Accordingly, allegations handled as supervisor complaints virtually never result in discipline. We found that BPD “administratively closed” 67 percent of supervisor complaints and sustained just 0.27 percent of them, or 1 out of every 370 allegations.
Many complaints that were sent to command investigations or classified as “supervisor complaints” alleged serious misconduct, including allegations that officers committed criminal assault, theft, and domestic violence. In 2014, for example, although a complaint on intake alleged a
127 A single complaint may contain multiple allegations.
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“sexual assault,” the case was assigned to a command investigations unit and categorized as “misconduct/improper search” and “discourtesy.” In 2011, a sergeant likewise misclassified a complaint alleging that that BPD officers had been harassing an African-American woman’s nephew over the past month by repeatedly stopping him near their home in West Baltimore. Though the woman wished to make a complaint of harassment, the sergeant categorized the complaint as a “supervisor complaint” and closed the case without conducting any interviews of the involved officers or the woman’s nephew. This is troubling, particularly given our findings that BPD officers engage in unlawful stops and discriminatory policing.
Second, even where complaints are nominally “accepted,” BPD supervisors often “administratively close” them with minimal investigation. Indeed, BPD supervisors administratively closed 33 percent of all allegations received from 2010 through 2015—ensuring that the allegations would result in no further investigation or officer discipline. Administrative closures frequently occur after supervisors make only minimal efforts to contact the complainant. Some of the files we reviewed contained no indication that investigators attempted to contact complainants at all. Many other files showed that investigations languished for months before investigators made any effort to reach out, or that investigators closed cases after complainants failed to respond to a single letter, answer a phone call, or appear for a scheduled interview. By administratively closing complaints, BPD investigators evade BPD policy that requires all complaints to be labeled as sustained, not sustained, exonerated or unfounded. Some BPD officers we interviewed believed it was appropriate to administratively close a complaint when the complainant withdrew his or her complaint, or could otherwise not be reached. Others believed “complaints” that failed to allege a “real” violation of BPD policy should be administratively closed. These administrative closures, combined with BPD’s failure to ensure that complaints are appropriately classified, undermine BPD’s system of accountability and contributes to the perception shared by officers and community members alike that discipline is inconsistent and arbitrary.
c. BPD Fails to Investigate Complaints in a Timely Manner or with Effective Techniques
When investigations of complaints do proceed, they are hampered from the start by poor investigative techniques and unreasonable delays. These failures limit the Department’s ability to discipline its officers by preventing investigators from gathering evidence of misconduct and subjecting evidence to attack during administrative proceedings.
i. Delays Impede Investigations
BPD’s misconduct investigations are frequently plagued by delays that compromise the evidence-gathering process and undermine community confidence. As an initial matter, even when BPD nominally “accepts” an external complaint and assigns the case to an investigator, the Department’s practice in most cases is to not investigate that complaint until the individual appears in person at BPD’s Internal Investigation Division during business hours and participates in a formal, taped interview. By that point, key evidence that could corroborate claims may be lost or destroyed. We found instances in which investigators waited months before canvassing neighborhoods in which alleged misconduct occurs. After such delays, physical evidence is often
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destroyed, witnesses cannot be located, and witness memories have faded. Other important evidence, such as surveillance video, may also be unavailable.
These delays not only impede effective investigations, they communicate to the community that BPD does not take complaints seriously—even those alleging egregious officer behavior. For example, a man alleged in 2013 that two plainclothes officers punched him in the face, placed him in a chokehold, and spit in his face during an arrest. The man, whose arrest prosecutors declined to pursue, participated in a formal interview at IID during which he provided the investigator with the name of a witness to the incident, and the witness’s wife, who could help investigators locate him. The investigator made no effort to follow up with the civilian witness until eight months after the incident occurred. At that time, the investigator went to the car wash where the witness’s wife had been working at the time of the incident and was told by the owner that she was no longer employed there. The investigator then recommended to close the complaint as “not sustained” because “[w]ithout testimony from independent witnesses,” along with the officers’ denial, “there exists insufficient evidence to prove or disprove the allegations.” BPD’s investigation of a second 2013 complaint alleging serious misconduct suffered even longer delays. The complainant alleged he was hospitalized after two officers slammed him to the ground and unlawfully arrested him for “hindering” and failing to obey due to his refusal to leave the area while officers questioned his brother-in-law. The complaint was not investigated for thirteen months while two command investigation units sent the complaint back and forth. After the case was rediscovered after an audit of IA Pro, it lingered for another four months before a supervisor finally assigned the case to an IID detective. BPD ultimately found the complaint not sustained for “lack of cooperation” when witnesses failed to show up for interviews seventeen months after the complaint was filed. According to the investigative file, the Department never interviewed the accused officers.
In another egregious example, an investigator made minimal delayed attempts to look into a woman’s complaint that two BPD officers fondled her when conducting a search and called her a “junkie, whore bitch.” The investigator assigned to the case made no attempt to contact the woman until four months after she made these serious allegations. And at that point, the investigator merely sent the woman a certified letter seeking information. Two months later, after the letter had come back unclaimed, the investigator went to the residential address the woman had originally provided, only to discover she had been evicted months before. Moreover, the delays precluded investigators from identifying relevant video evidence. The incident occurred in a public location—the Lexington Market—that was likely captured on video surveillance. Yet the detective made no attempt to gather the footage until ten months after the incident. By that time, any video had been deleted. Investigators also waited ten months to reach out to a witness, even though the complainant had provided the witness’s contact information at the time she filed the complaint. Ultimately, the investigator learned that the complainant had passed away several months before he first contacted the witness. BPD then found the complaint “not sustained.”
In these and many similar cases we reviewed, unnecessary delays precluded BPD investigators from gathering important evidence about allegations of serious misconduct. Going forward, collecting and assessing such evidence in a timely manner will be a critical piece of the accountability system that BPD must build to identify officers’ constitutional violations and impose appropriate discipline.
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ii. BPD Uses Ineffective Methods to Investigate Misconduct Allegations
In addition to frequent delays that limit the information available about misconduct allegations, poor investigative techniques further compromise BPD’s investigations. We identified several key failures that recur throughout the Department’s investigative files, including the failure to adequately consider inconsistencies in investigations, as well as inappropriate interviewing methods and notice of allegations.
First, investigators fail to adequately consider evidence and statements from witnesses or other officers that contradict explanations provided by officers accused of misconduct. Indeed, BPD appears to apply a standard that favors officers when evaluating statements made by complainants and involved officers. While BPD’s Internal Affairs Manual encourages investigators to be wary of a complainant’s inconsistent statements, the Department permits officers to submit addendums that clarify their original statements. And when inconsistencies arise—either from such addenda or other evidence—investigators generally discredit or discount entirely evidence contradicting the accused officer’s account. We found investigations in which this took place even where the accused officer’s account is contradicted by physical evidence, including photographic or video evidence.
Second, BPD investigators compromise officer interviews by failing to probe beyond reports the accused officer already provided, and performing unrecorded “pre-interviews” with accused officers. As we described in Section II.C.5, supra at 107, regarding force investigations, these preinterviews compromise the integrity of an investigation. Similarly, we also found numerous instances in which officers reviewed their statement or administrative report related to the incident before the interview, and the interview then consisted merely of the accused officer orally reciting his administrative report.128 IID investigators did not probe beyond this oral recitation. These interview techniques inhibit the function of IID investigators to obtain reliable information from officers accused of misconduct.
Third, BPD risks compromising investigations by providing accused officers with a detailed notice describing the alleged misconduct, often right after a complaint has been filed and before any investigation occurs. While LEOBR provides that officers must receive basic notice of allegations and five days to obtain counsel prior to questioning, BPD frequently notifies officers almost immediately after the Department receives a complaint.129 This notice often takes place before a detective undertakes any investigation or even attempts to contact the complainant to set up an
128 BPD officers’ collective bargaining agreement provides the opportunity to review statements and reports prior to being interviewed . 129 Until early 2016, LEOBR entitled officers to a ten day notice period to obtain counsel prior to being questioned. We note that these waiting periods prescribed by LEOBR may, in many instances, impede effective investigations, and that a similar waiting period is not afforded to members of the public who may have been involved in an incident or were witnesses to the incident. In some instances, we saw evidence that BPD required witnesses to be interviewed immediately, even while the witness’s friend or family member was being taken to the hospital as a result of the incident. The best practice is to interview the officer as soon as possible. Additionally, the International Association of Chiefs of Police “opposes any special and/or additional protection for law enforcement officers. Officers’ rights should be no greater than those of other private and public sector employees.” LEGISLATIVE AGENDA FOR THE 114TH CONGRESS, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CHIEFS OF POLICE 20, http://www.theiacp.org/Portals/0/documents/pdfs/IACP114thLegislativeAgenda.pdf.
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interview. Moreover, the notice specifically articulates the allegations against the officer— sometimes including the date and time of the incident in question. Providing such detailed notice at the outset of an investigation, which is not required by LEOBR, may compromise certain investigative steps and opens the possibility that a complainant may be retaliated against or intimidated prior to speaking with investigators. Indeed, the Department’s own internal affairs audit identified these same potential problems in 2014. The Department nonetheless continues to use its early notification practice.
iii. BPD Fails to Adequately Supervise Investigations
The deficiencies in BPD’s investigative techniques persist in part because of ineffective supervision and training. Indeed, we found that most investigators receive no formal investigative training. Lack of training coupled with minimal supervision results in some investigators continuing to rely on poor investigative techniques. For example, one CIU detective who was responsible for all command investigations for an entire district told us that his practice was to allow accused officers to be interviewed by questionnaire—which officers could complete off-site with the assistance of their attorneys—rather than submit to in-person interviews. Although BPD formally discontinued the use of written questionnaires years ago, the practice persists because of inadequate training and oversight. Indeed, this practice has continued even after it was criticized by the Department’s own internal affairs audit.
Moreover, BPD supervisors fail to identify deficiencies or questionable findings in investigations. We found that commanders consistently approve investigative findings, even where investigative files are deficient or incomplete. In our review, we found that files frequently omitted basic information, such as the outcome of the investigation or any discipline imposed. We also found key pieces of evidence referred to in the investigator’s narrative—including witness statements, photographs, and video footage—were left out of the case file itself. Nevertheless, across all the case files we reviewed, we saw virtually no evidence that supervisors sent cases back for further investigation or clarification. Nor do supervisors meaningfully review investigators’ determinations about whether to sustain complaints. Indeed, CIU investigators told us they were not required to have supervisors review and sign off on investigations that resulted in findings of “not sustained,” although supervisors must approve an investigation that results in a finding of “sustained.”
Additionally, BPD’s internal affairs files and database indicate that BPD does not adequately supervise investigators to ensure that they meet investigative deadlines, especially in the command investigations units. Under LEOBR, in order to discipline an officer for misconduct, the Department must complete the internal investigation and bring administrative charges within one year. We reviewed complaints where investigators recommended closing cases because the investigations had extended past the one-year deadline. Indeed, BPD’s internal affairs database itself includes possible “findings” that indicate cases were closed due to “expiration.”
Finally, BPD has not taken sufficient steps to ensure that investigators do not have a conflict of interest. We found instances in which conflicts of interest could have compromised an internal investigation. For example, one internal affairs detective we interviewed told us that he had been detailed to serve under the supervision of an officer he was investigating at that time, and that the
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commander knew of the investigation. This is troubling, and it communicates to officers, investigators, and the community that internal investigations are not a priority of the Department.

BPD’s failure to ensure that investigations are thoroughly and fairly investigated limits its ability to hold officers accountable for misconduct. Without adequate evidence, the chances of sustaining allegations of officer misconduct are diminished. And even where allegations of misconduct are sustained, the Department’s ability to marshal adequate evidence at trial board proceedings is compromised. Consequently, officers frequently do not face internal discipline even where evidence of misconduct exists.

d. BPD Fails to Sustain Complaints and Apply Discipline Consistently

Deficiencies in BPD’s complaint intake and investigation contribute to BPD’s extremely low rate of sustaining allegations of officer misconduct, which in turn leads to a lack of discipline and accountability in the Department. Discipline for allegations of serious misconduct is rare. Of the 1,382 allegations of excessive force that BPD tracked from 2010 through 2015, only 31 allegations, or 2.2 percent were sustained. These allegations arose out of fourteen separate incidents. In light of the significant evidence of excessive force we found in our investigation, the low rate of sustaining excessive force complaints is troubling. Similarly, BPD completed investigations into 1,359 allegations of discourtesy from 2010 through 2015, and sustained just 2.6 percent of those allegations, arising out of just fifteen incidents. This low number of sustained outcomes is also concerning, considering the number of community members we spoke to who described BPD officers behaving in a rude or abusive manner during encounters with community members.

When complaints of misconduct are sustained, however, the trial board process that follows in order for discipline to be imposed also has several problems that impede accountability. First, the process is beset by delay. The Department reported to us, for example, that some trial boards conducted in 2015 were to resolve cases BPD began investigating in 2011. Delays of this magnitude send a message to officers that misconduct is tolerated, frustrating officers and supervisors who are trying to follow and implement Department policies and procedures. They also signal to the public, and in particular to the complainant, that officers who commit misconduct are unlikely to be held accountable.

Second, officers facing the trial board have substantial powers granted to them by LEOBR and BPD’s collective bargaining agreements to shape the membership of the trial board that will hear their case, undermining accountability. Trial boards convened by BPD to adjudicate allegations of misconduct are typically composed of three officers selected from a pool determined by the commissioner. Under LEOBR, each board must include one officer who is “the same rank as the law enforcement officer against whom the complaint is filed.”130 The accused officer has the right to reject assigned Board members a total of three times through the use of peremptory strikes. The officer can exercise these strikes up to and including the day of the hearing itself, potentially dismissing all members of the board. We heard from numerous sources, including many within BPD and City leadership, that this use of peremptory strikes permits officers to assemble a trial board sympathetic to their interests, particularly because the pool of eligible command staff in the Department is limited, and because the command staff members are also part of the same union.

130 Md. Code Ann., Pub. Safety § 3–107.

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The Maryland legislature amended LEOBR in early 2016 to authorize jurisdictions within the state to allow up to two voting or nonvoting civilians to serve on trial boards if authorized by local law or if negotiated through collective bargaining with the police union. To date, BPD does not allow civilians to serve on the trial board.
Although BPD produced a very limited amount of information about trial board proceedings, we saw indications that the construction of the trial boards undermines confidence in the equity of the process. We requested information on all trial boards conducted between 2010 and 2015, and BPD produced only twelve transcripts of trial board proceedings, and no summaries and no written findings for the 139 trial boards the Department reported took place between 2010 and 2015, despite our request that the Department produce “all documentation” concerning trial board cases. In addition, BPD’s attorneys told us the Department will only create a transcript of a trial board that results in a guilty finding if the officer challenges the discipline imposed in court. This lack of information is consistent with BPD’s own assessment: according to an internal audit, BPD has historically failed to fully track information related to disciplining officers. Such minimal documentation of the trial board process prevents the Department from fully evaluating the proceedings or identifying patterns or deficiencies that may contribute to the Department’s failure to discipline an officer.
This lack of consistency and fairness in imposing discipline has a profound effect on officer morale, and it also affects how officers interact with the public. Throughout our interviews and ride-alongs with officers, we heard officers express that discipline is only imposed if an incident makes it into the press or if you were on the wrong side of a supervisor, not because of the magnitude of the misconduct. Similarly, some officers felt that command staff creates an appearance of addressing problems after a high-profile incident by rushing to issue new policies, without any officer input, and often in conflict with existing policies. By BPD rushing to issue these new policies, officers felt that they were not provided with adequate training to follow the new rules, exposing them to risk even as the Department appeared to address the problem and respond to City politics. This lack of internal procedural justice—officers’ sense that they are being treated fairly by their Department—diminishes officer morale and diminishes officers’ adherence to Departmental rules. This, in turn, can make officers less likely to treat members of the public fairly and in accordance with BPD policies and procedures, potentially contributing to violations of federal law we found in our investigation. See, e.g., Nicole E. Haas et. al., Explaining officer compliance: The importance of procedural justice and trust inside a police organization, Criminology & Criminal Justice, p. 14 (January 2015) (finding that “the perception of procedural justice and trust is associated with higher levels of endorsement of rules and regulations on the use of force”).
e. BPD Lacks Effective Civilian or Community Oversight
BPD’s accountability system is shielded almost entirely from public view, and the civilian oversight mechanisms that are currently in place are inadequate and ineffective. These flaws damage the Department’s legitimacy in the community.
Community members are unable to obtain information about BPD’s complaint and discipline systems at almost every step in the process. Complainants face many hurdles in filing complaints, but once they are filed, it is difficult for complainants to obtain information about how the complaints are progressing or whether and when they will be acted upon. Indeed, even when
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discipline is imposed, notice of this action is only given to a small group within the Department, not to the complainant or to the public except in unusual circumstances where the Department determines that a broader announcement of the discipline is in the public interest. Trial board proceedings have been closed to the public historically. Although they were opened to the public in early 2016, it is too early to determine what effect this has on the community’s ability to affect the accountability process. The Maryland Public Information Act, or MPIA, further limits BPD’s transparency to the public. The MPIA prohibits disclosure of documents that constitute “personnel records.” See Md. Code Ann. § 10–616. The statute does not define the scope of this prohibition, but Maryland appellate courts have held that it applies to all materials related to hiring, promotions, and discipline, as well as “any matter involving an employee's status.” See, e.g., Montgomery County v. Shropshire, 23 A.3d 205, 215 (Md. Ct. App. 2011). We heard from numerous sources that this provision has repeatedly blocked attempts to access information about the resolution of complaints and other issues of public concern related to BPD’s policing activities.
In addition, Baltimore’s Civilian Review Board, or CRB, has proven to be ineffective at changing this dynamic, in large part because it has never been provided with adequate authority or resources to perform its intended function. Established in 2000, the Board was meant to be a crucial check on police misconduct by providing an alternative investigative and review process. The Board is made up of civilian representatives from each of the City’s nine police districts selected by the Mayor and approved by the City Counsel, along with members without voting power from local advocacy organizations and the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police. The Board may accept complaints that allege excessive force, abusive language, harassment, false arrest, and false imprisonment directly from the community. BPD is also required by policy to forward all complaints containing these categories of allegations to the Board. The Board may review BPD’s investigations, or it may conduct an independent investigation and make recommendations directly to the commissioner that the complaint be sustained, not sustained, unfounded, or exonerated. It can also request that BPD undertake additional investigation.
The Board has faced several impediments to serving as a meaningful community backstop for accountability. First, the Board relies upon BPD to forward complaints that fall within its authority, except when a complaint is filed directly with the Board, and BPD often fails to forward complaints in a timely manner. Indeed, CRB staff members told us of cases BPD forwarded to the Board only after BPD had already closed its investigation, despite BPD’s obligation to share the complaint with the Board within 48 hours of receipt. The Board has no authority to audit BPD to determine if it has received all the complaints that should have been forwarded to it. Second, the Board has insufficient resources and authority to conduct its own investigations. During 2010 to 2015, the Board only had a single investigator to investigate all the complaints that fell within its authority. The Board also cannot compel officers to participate in investigations; indeed, LEOBR provides that sworn law enforcement officers can only be “interrogated” by other sworn law enforcement officers. Finally, when the Board makes recommendations to the commissioner about investigative findings, or recommends that the IID conduct additional investigation, the Board has no way of knowing if BPD acts on its recommendations, much less requiring that BPD do so. The lack of resources and authority that the City currently invests in the Board render it ineffective, heightening community perceptions that BPD is resistant to accountability.
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We note that we are encouraged that the Civilian Review Board was recently able to hire several new staff members, and is now coordinating a new mediation initiative for police and community members. Although these are steps in the right direction, the Board will still be unable to fulfill its mission if it is not granted more authority and supported with adequate resources to perform its duties.
2. BPD’s Internal Culture is Resistant to Effective Discipline
The longstanding deficiencies in BPD’s systems for investigating complaints has contributed to a cultural resistance to accountability that persists in the Department. The cultural opposition to meaningful accountability within the Department is reflected by the lack of discipline for serious misconduct and widespread violations of minor policy provisions; the failure to take action against officers with a known reputation for repeatedly violating Department policy and constitutional requirements; and the reluctance of officers to report observed misconduct for fear that doing so will subject them to retaliation.
a. BPD Has Allowed Violations of Policy To Go Unaddressed Even When They Are Widespread Or Involve Serious Misconduct
In part because of the above failures in investigating complaints against officers, BPD allows policy violations to go unaddressed, even when they occur in large number or involve serious misconduct. For example, the most common allegations of policy violation that fall under command investigations level is that officers fail to appear in court. The Department’s internal affairs database indicates that 6,571 allegations were made that officers failed to appear in court between January 1, 2010, and March 28, 2016. For 1,698 of these allegations, the Department did not record any disposition at all, although a “completed date” has been entered for all but a handful of these incidents, indicating that the investigation has concluded. Additionally, the Department “administratively closed” 1,142 of the cases. Thus, nearly half of these policy violations—43 percent—resulted in no action being taken against the officer for failing to appear in court. Without the arresting or witnessing officer’s testimony, many of these cases lack adequate evidence to proceed, and are dismissed.
Moreover, we found evidence that some BPD officers engage in criminal behavior that BPD does not sufficiently address. We heard complaints from the community that some officers target members of a vulnerable population—people involved in the sex trade—to coerce sexual favors from them in exchange for avoiding arrest, or for cash or narcotics. This conduct is not only criminal, it is an abuse of power. Unfortunately, we not only found evidence of this conduct in BPD’s internal affairs files, it appeared that the Department failed to adequately investigate allegations of such conduct, allowing it to recur.
For example, BPD investigators became aware of one officer’s alleged misconduct in March of 2012 when they conducted a “prostitution initiative” “for the purposes of gathering intelligence and obtaining confidential informants relating to police corruption.” One of the women interviewed informed BPD investigators that she met with a certain officer and engaged in sexual activities in the officer’s patrol car once every other week “in exchange for U.S. Currency or immunity from arrest.” The Department administratively closed the case nine months later,
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without, it appears, referring the matter for criminal prosecution or interviewing the accused officer, or any other potential witnesses.
Ten months after closing the first investigation, the Chief of BPD’s Office of Professional Responsibility received an anonymous “Crime Stoppers” tip that the same officer was “having sex in his patrol vehicle” with a different person involved in the sex trade. The Department initiated a new investigation, and assigned the case to a different detective. One day after opening the investigation, an assistant state’s attorney directed the detective to subpoena the woman’s phone records for a six month-period. The detective waited more than a month to do so, and then did not review those records for another six months, until May of 2014. The records confirmed that the officer and the woman exchanged 237 text messages and five phone calls in the six-month period for which records were subpoenaed. Approximately four months later, the State’s Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute the officer, though BPD’s administrative investigation remained open.
Four months after the State’s Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute, in February of 2015, BPD received a third, new tip that the same officer was engaging in sexual activities with the same woman involved in the sex trade who was mentioned in the “Crime Stoppers” tip. The new tip came from a neighboring Police Department, which interviewed the woman and subpoenaed her phone records in the course of an investigation. Though BPD’s administrative investigation into the “Crime Stoppers” tip remained open, BPD opened a third, separate investigation into the new tip, assigning a new, third detective to investigate the same officer’s conduct. The case was assigned “low” priority. The third BPD detective attempted to interview the woman but postponed the interview because she was in ill health. Two days later, the woman passed away. The investigators finally reviewed the officer’s phone records, which indicated that the officer had exchanged text messages—some sexually explicit—with several other women whose numbers were linked to online profiles for sex trade services. Finally, months later, Department investigators interviewed the officer two times in connection with the two open investigations. The allegations resulting from the “Crime Stoppers” tip and the third investigation were eventually sustained in the fall of 2015, based largely on the evidence provided by the neighboring Police Department. The officer was allowed to resign from BPD. It is unclear from BPD’s files whether any state authorities were notified of the officer’s sexual misconduct.
This was not the only case in which allegations were made that officers coerced sex in exchange for immunity from arrest. We found other complaints of this nature were also not properly investigated. Failing to properly investigate allegations that officers were engaged in sexual misconduct is troubling in light of the concerns of gender bias discussed supra at 122-27. Failing to properly investigate and address repeated policy violations and serious misconduct also does a disservice to community members and the vast majority of law-abiding BPD officers who are unfairly tainted by the misconduct of a few. By failing to timely address repeated policy violations and misconduct the Department does harm to its internal credibility and external legitimacy.
b. BPD Has Failed To Take Action Against Offenders Known to Engage in Repeated Misconduct
Our investigation also found substantial evidence that BPD fails to take disciplinary action against officers BPD knows have engaged in serious or repeated misconduct. One example of this
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problem is the so-called “Do Not Call” list. BPD has had notice, including from the State’s Attorney’s Office, that particular officers may be engaging in behavior that is, at a minimum, unethical and impacts their credibility and integrity. Through at least 2011, the State’s Attorney’s Office maintained a formal “Do Not Call” list of officers prosecutors would not call to testify because they believed their testimony would be undermined by issues of credibility or integrity. The size of this list varied over time, and included as many as a dozen officers. BPD was aware of the list—the State’s Attorney’s office regularly discussed the officers on the list with the Chief of BPD’s Office of Professional Responsibility—but failed to take action on the information. Instead, the officers listed remained on the streets, making arrests that could not be credibly prosecuted. At one point, we were told, an entire squad’s members were on the list, leading to a number of cases being dismissed. Although the formal “Do Not Call” list has been discontinued, the State’s Attorney’s Office continues to discuss problem officers with BPD.

BPD’s ability to take disciplinary action against officers on the “Do Not Call” list is expressly circumscribed by LEOBR and BPD’s contract with the police union. Specifically, BPD cannot take punitive action against the officer “based solely on the fact that [the] officer is included on the list,” including demotion, dismissal, suspension without pay, or reduction in pay.131 Because of this prohibition, BPD has not taken any action against officers that the State’s Attorney’s Office has notified BPD cannot be called to testify, and these officers remain on duty. Particularly given the evidence of numerous unlawful stops, searches, and arrests that we found, the fact that officers whose arrests are not able to be prosecuted remain on the street is troubling. While LEOBR may prevent the Department from taking disciplinary action against officers solely for appearing on the list, it does not prevent the Department from taking other action, including initiating its own investigation of officers’ conduct to independently determine whether discipline, training, reassignment, or other action is appropriate.

We also found evidence that BPD fails to take action against officers with a long history of misconduct that is well known to the Department. Our investigation found, for example, that one officer currently employed by BPD has received approximately 125 complaints from complainants within the Department and from the community since 2010, and many of these complaints allege serious misconduct. Indeed, complaints from different individuals alleged remarkably similar facts—specifically, that the officer subjects civilians to unwarranted strip and cavity searches in public. But the Department has sustained only one complaint against the officer for minor misconduct—for not filing a proper vehicle inventory report, resulting in the loss of a camera valued at $1,200. The officer was “verbally counseled on the proper procedure” for filling out inventory reports. Although we were unable to conclusively determine whether other complaints should have been sustained based on the information BPD provided, such a large number of complaints, including unrelated complaints alleging similar behavior, is troubling. We have serious concerns that BPD is not adequately addressing repeated misconduct by its officers.

c. BPD Officers are Reluctant to Report Misconduct

BPD’s systemic accountability failures have also contributed to a culture in which some officers are reluctant to raise concerns to supervisors about problematic policing practices or identify misconduct by their fellow officers. Several officers told Justice Department investigators that they

131 Md. Code Ann., Pub. Safety § 3–106.1.

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believe their fellow officers have retaliated against them for reporting misconduct or objecting to improper enforcement activities. Other officers expressed fears that they would face such retaliation, and that BPD supervisors would not address any retaliation that occurs. Our review of BPD’s internal affairs files underscores these concerns.
Several examples highlight BPD’s resistance to internal accountability. In 2014, a BPD lieutenant placed several signs next to the desk of an African-American sergeant with a reputation for speaking out about alleged misconduct in the Department. Among the signs were warnings to “stay in your lane,” “worry about yourself,” “mind your own business!!” and “don’t spread rumors!!!” After the sergeant filed a complaint about the signs, the lieutenant admitted to creating them and placing them next to the sergeant’s desk. Yet BPD took no meaningful corrective action. Though the complaint was sustained, the lieutenant received no suspension, fine, or loss of benefits. Instead, he was given only “verbal counseling” instructing him that such behavior is “unprofessional and inappropriate.” This minimal response to admitted allegations that a supervisor warned his subordinate to “mind your own business” rather than report misconduct underlines BPD’s failure to create a culture of accountability.
In a widely-publicized incident,132 a former BPD detective in the Violent Crime Impact Division (VCID) faced retaliation after reporting two officers, including his sergeant, for alleged excessive force in the fall of 2011. According to the detective, the VCID unit arrested a man for drug possession after a chase that ended with the man breaking into the home of an officer’s girlfriend to hide. According to the officers’ reports of the incident, after the man’s arrest the sergeant brought him back inside the home to “apologize” to the woman living there. When the man emerged from the home, his shirt was ripped open, he was bleeding, and he had suffered a broken ankle and other injuries. The sergeant claimed that the arrested man injured himself by attempting to head-butt the sergeant and falling to the ground. Concerned that the sergeant and offduty officer had beaten the man inside the home, the detective asked a different BPD sergeant whether to report the incident to internal affairs. According to the detective, the sergeant discouraged him from reporting the incident, stating “If you’re a rat, your career here is done.” The detective reported the incident to prosecutors in the State’s Attorney’s Office, who indicted both officers on criminal charges stemming from the incident. After the detective testified against the officers at trial, a jury convicted the sergeant of misconduct and the off-duty officer of assault and obstruction of justice.
The detective faced significant retaliation for exposing this misconduct. The detective recounted that, after reporting the incident to prosecutors, fellow officers frequently called him a “rat.” A sergeant left pictures of cheese on the detective’s desk. The detective also told us that a lieutenant denied his transfer request to a violent repeat offender squad because the detective “snitched.” The lieutenant allegedly said that the detective was “not the right fit” for the unit because they “have to do things in the gray area.” And on two occasions, no one in the detective’s
132 See Justin Fenton, Whistle-blower officer files lawsuit against Batts, BPD, The Baltimore Sun (Dec. 23, 2014, 6:55 PM), http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-crystal-whistleblower-ratgate-lawsuit20141223-story.html; Albert Samaha, Breaking Baltimore’s Blue Wall of Silence, Buzzfeed (May 14, 2015, 9:09 PM), https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertsamaha/breaking-baltimores-blue-wall-of-silence?; Luke Broadwater, Baltimore to pay $42K to whistle-blower former officer who found rat on car, The Baltimore Sun (June 1, 2016, 7:14 PM), http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-crystal-settlement-20160601-story.html.
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unit responded to his calls for backup. The retaliation intensified as the officers’ trials approached. In November 2012, the detective found a dead rat on his car with its head severed under his wiper blades. Shortly thereafter, a BPD sergeant allegedly told the detective “you better pray to God you’re not the star witness” against the officers. The detective reported the dead rat incident to internal affairs, but stated that investigators did not contact him until May 2014, after the incident received substantial media coverage. The detective ultimately resigned from the Department in September 2014 and now works at a different law enforcement agency. The Department settled a lawsuit brought by the former detective in the spring of 2016.
The alleged retaliation against the detective received significant publicity and has had a chilling effect on other officers in the Department who witness misconduct. In one case, an officer in a specialized drug unit observed one of his fellow officers plant drugs on a suspect after a foot chase. The officer decided not to report the misconduct because he did not want BPD officers to “do me” the way they treated the detective.
Officers also told us that they have faced retaliation for raising concerns about the constitutionality of certain BPD enforcement practices. In 2015, a sergeant banned a patrol officer from working overtime for 30 days after the officer objected to the sergeant’s frequent requests to “clear corners,” which the officer believed required her to violate constitutional standards by making stops without reasonable suspicion. When the officer raised her concerns with the major in charge of the district, he allegedly defended the punishment by stating that the officer “hadn’t made stats for six days.” At the time supervisors banned her from working overtime, the officer was a single parent who was known to work overtime frequently to support her family. In a similar incident, detailed in Section II.B.2, supra, a sergeant reported that she was transferred and given a poor performance review after objecting to a lieutenant’s instruction to target “black hoodies” for enforcement.
In short, resistance to internal accountability persists within BPD. The Department has failed to take adequate steps to ensure that officers feel comfortable reporting misconduct and make clear that it will not tolerate retaliation against officers who do so.
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D. BPD DOES NOT COORDINATE WITH OTHER AGENCIES APPROPRIATELY
BPD also fails to appropriately coordinate its efforts with other law enforcement agencies that it has granted authority to exercise concurrent jurisdiction, creating gaps in the reporting of stops, searches, and in the reporting and investigation of the use of force. These gaps impede BPD’s ability to ensure that it is appropriately supervising its own enforcement activities and those of agencies exercising concurrent jurisdiction.
The Department has entered into a number of agreements with law enforcement agencies in and around Baltimore City, including the Baltimore School Police Force, and police forces serving the University of Baltimore and Morgan State University. For example, BPD has entered into an agreement with the Baltimore City Public School System, which operates the Baltimore School Police. This agreement considerably expands the school police force’s jurisdiction, which otherwise would be limited to school property. Md. Code Ann., Educ. §§4–318 (c) and (d)(1)(2015) (limiting BSP’s jurisdiction, in most circumstances, to “property operated or controlled by the school system”). Under the school police force’s agreement with the Department, however, the Baltimore School Police are given “concurrent jurisdiction”: school police may act with lawful authority— including with the power of arrest—throughout the City of Baltimore. According to the agreement, school police may “exercise full police power anywhere within the jurisdiction of the City of Baltimore” and assist in investigations and follow-up in criminal cases. School police must notify BPD when its officers act outside of school property and within the territorial jurisdiction of BPD. If school police officers make an arrest while exercising concurrent jurisdiction, they must write an official police report, and they must also use BPD field reports or identical forms for incidents occurring in areas of concurrent jurisdictions.
Early in our investigation, we learned that the City has essentially used the Baltimore School Police as an auxiliary force to BPD. During our ride-alongs with BPD officers, we frequently observed school police officers patrolling neighborhoods and responding to calls along with BPD officers. This was particularly true in districts that were understaffed. The files BPD produced to us confirmed that school police are often present with BPD officers during enforcement activities. School police were present, for example, at the scene of several incidents in which BPD officers used force, and school police officers were also mentioned in our review of BPD’s internal affairs files.
We have several concerns with the City’s use of the school police as an auxiliary force to BPD. First, based on our review of the agreement between BPD and the Baltimore City Public School System, the agreement does not clearly delineate which agency is in charge of an incident when officers from both agencies respond, as we observed numerous times during our ride-alongs. It is unclear whether this responsibility falls to the senior officer on the scene, regardless of that officer’s agency, or to BPD officers because BPD is the agency granting concurrent jurisdiction to the school police (regardless of rank), or if the decision is based on other factors. When officers were questioned about it during our ride-alongs, they were also unclear about who would be in control in those circumstances. This creates considerable risks for both the officers and members of the public, because lines of authority are not clear if a crisis of some kind arises.
Second, the agreement is likewise silent on which agency’s policies control decisions made during and after an incident, such as an incident involving the use of force. When use of force
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policies for each agency set different standards for when force may be used, BPD risks having a school police officer, acting under the concurrent jurisdiction granted by BPD, use force in circumstances that BPD would deem out of policy. Similarly, after the use of force occurs, the agreement does not make clear which agency—or both—would investigate the use of force if it involved officers from both agencies, or how that investigation would be conducted. This failure could lead to gaps in accountability for both agencies.
Third, the agreement does not set forth a process for how complaints about alleged officer misconduct will be handled, even if those complaints arise out of incidents where officers from both agencies are present. When we questioned commanders in BPD’s Internal Investigation Division about this, they informed us that the Department’s practice was to refer complaints received about school police officers to the school police force itself. We found incidents, however, where it appears BPD officers refused to take complaints about school police—and did not refer them to other agencies—without making any effort to ascertain whether the school police were acting with authority granted to them by BPD, or pursuant to the direction of BPD commanders. This failure similarly undermines accountability and community confidence in both BPD and the school police.
Finally, although the agreement requires school police officers to file arrest and field reports, we are concerned that the data from these reports, as well as from other reports on activities such as stops and searches that do not appear to be required by the agreement, are not being properly collected and analyzed. This impacts the ability of BPD and the school police to effectively supervise officer activities. Particularly where BPD is using the school police as an auxiliary force to aid in patrol and other activities when BPD is itself short-staffed, the failure to coordinate efforts to collect and analyze this data can lead to a skewed view of BPD’s enforcement activities. As mentioned previously, reliable and accurate data about BPD’s enforcement efforts is critical to effective supervision and prevention of unlawful stops, searches, arrests, and use of force.
BPD should take immediate steps to strengthen its agreements with agencies to which it has granted concurrent jurisdiction to remedy these deficiencies.
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E. BPD FAILS TO ENGAGE IN EFFECTIVE COMMUNITY POLICING
From participation in grassroots organization meetings to police department interviews, our investigation revealed a significant divide between the police and members of the Baltimore community. Both community members and police officers expressed that the Department has overly focused on narcotics enforcement, gun recovery, and “clearing corners,” even when such strategies are ineffective at addressing the community’s desire to combat drug crimes and other enforcement priorities. Many officers openly admitted that community relations are BPD’s weakest attribute. Some supervisors noted that it is “sad to see” how many of the city’s residents, especially those in low-income, predominantly African-American neighborhoods, hate the police. This divide is a significant impediment to constitutional and effective policing in the City of Baltimore.
Central to this divide is the perception that there are “two Baltimores” receiving dissimilar policing services. One is affluent and predominately white, while the other is impoverished and largely black. The notion that residents in more affluent neighborhoods receive better policing services than residents in poor neighborhoods was evident in many of our conversations with community members. The disparities described to us go beyond aggressive behavior and misconduct; some residents spoke about a police non-response to poor, minority areas as well as a lack of thorough investigation into crimes committed in these communities. Many point to the police response following the unrest in April 2015 as an example. We heard from an AfricanAmerican resident who told us that “during the unrest in Baltimore the rich white people’s neighborhoods were protected but stores in the black neighborhoods were left unguarded.” In another account, residents in a minority neighborhood at the center of the unrest described their frustration upon hearing that Bolton Hill, an affluent, majority-white area, was granted an increase in officer deployment while their request for foot patrol following a dramatic spike in drug trafficking was denied due to a lack of resources. One resident commented, “The city was pretty much saying Sandtown doesn’t matter; the black neighborhood can burn. They were protecting the white people, the richer people.” See, e.g., Over-Policed, Yet Underserved: The People’s Findings Regarding Police Misconduct in West Baltimore, West Baltimore Commission on Police Misconduct and the No Boundaries Coalition (March 8, 2016) at 11.
Our investigation found that, through all levels of the Baltimore Police Department, from members of command staff down to officers on the street, the Department has not implemented fundamental principles of community policing. Community policing involves building partnerships between law enforcement and the people and organizations within its jurisdiction; engaging in problem-solving together with the community; and managing the police agency to support this community partnership and community problem-solving. See, e.g., Community Policing Defined 1–16 (U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2014). Community policing is inherently proactive; it involves identifying leaders within a community that can aid the police in preventing and investigating crime, particularly among those groups that are most alienated from the police, and creating relationships with those leaders that allow the police and the community to work together to make the community safe. This strategy enables law enforcement agencies and the individuals and organizations they serve to develop solutions to problems and increase trust in the police. See, e.g., Effective Policing and Crime Prevention: A Problem Oriented Guide for Mayors, City Managers, and County Executives 1–62 (U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2009); The Collaboration Toolkit for Law Enforcement: Effective Strategies to Partner with the Community 1–92
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(U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2011). To be effective, it must include all ranks, sectors, and units of a police department. See, e.g., Community Policing Explained: A Guide for Local Government 1–54 (U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2003). This approach is currently not being implemented by the Baltimore Police Department, although leadership in the Department has made efforts to change this over the last few years. To remedy the constitutional violations we found in our investigation, a comprehensive community policing strategy must be a central component of police reform in Baltimore.
1. The Relationship Between the Police and the Community in Baltimore Is Broken
The relationship between the Baltimore Police Department and many of the communities it serves is broken. During our investigation, we participated in or observed dozens of community meetings, reviewed thousands of documents, including letters and complaints from Baltimore residents, and interviewed hundreds of additional Baltimore residents. Many residents throughout the City of Baltimore, and particularly in impoverished, primarily minority, neighborhoods, described being belittled, disbelieved, and disrespected by officers, spurring some groups to submit detailed accounts, documentation, and even formal reports to us about their experiences with the Department. See, e.g., Over-Policed, Yet Underserved: The People’s Findings Regarding Police Misconduct in West Baltimore, West Baltimore Commission on Police Misconduct and the No Boundaries Coalition (March 8, 2016). These accounts included reports of verbal abuse during routine interactions and often involved cursing or threats. In one account, during a traffic stop, a resident politely asked an officer why he had been pulled over. The officer simply told him to get out of the car and, when asked again, began cursing at the resident, even threatening to tow his “fucking car.” In another account, a woman asked police officers the reason for conducting a search of her home. She was told to “shut the fuck up bitch and sit the fuck down” because they were “the fucking law.” Strikingly, the vast majority of the individuals we spoke with do not want the police to be less involved in their communities; they want police engagement, and they want this engagement to be respectful and collaborative, so they can feel safe in their own communities.
Our interactions with BPD officers and review of the Department’s documents confirmed many of the accounts we heard from members of the public. Our review of the Department’s own incident reports, for example, revealed numerous instances in which officers spoke in an unnecessarily rude or aggressive manner when interacting with suspects, witnesses, and the general public. And, as described previously supra, these aggressive interactions frequently escalated situations and, at times, led to the unnecessary use of force. Interviews with BPD officers throughout the chain of command also revealed that officers openly harbor antagonistic feelings towards community members. We found a prevalent “us-versus-them” mentality that is incompatible with community policing principles. When asked about community-oriented problem solving, for example, one supervisor responded, “I don’t pander to the public.” Another supervisor conveyed to us that he approaches policing in Baltimore like it is a war zone. A patrol officer, when describing his approach to policing, voiced similar views, commenting, “You’ve got to be the baddest motherfucker out there,” which often requires that one “own the block.” Officers seemed to view themselves as controlling the city rather than as a part of the city. Many others, including high ranking officers in the Department, view themselves as enforcing the will of the “silent majority.”
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Many BPD discretionary enforcement actions increase distrust and significantly decrease the likelihood that individuals will cooperate with the police to solve or prevent other crimes, as described in numerous incidents and statistics throughout this letter. In one report, an officer described telling two individuals, a mother and her son, who were standing in the block to leave. They refused, noting that were standing outside of their own home, but eventually moved to the steps of their front stoop. Ultimately, the son, a juvenile with no prior criminal record, was arrested for loitering outside his own home. Supervisors raised no issues with respect to the incident. Similarly, groups of people are often dispersed unless they have a clear reason for gathering in that location. In one internal report, a supervisor describes the actions of an officer, stating, “Officer approached the group to ascertain the reason for the crowd and if there was no legal reason they were going to disperse the crowd.” The interaction concluded with an officer using OC spray on the entire group of people. These enforcement activities for behavior that is, at most, a minor offense if even unlawful, alienate community members and decrease their willingness to work with police.
Indeed, our review of documents and our conversations with Baltimore residents confirm that distrust is causing individuals to be reluctant to cooperate with police. It was not uncommon to see marked on incident reports that witnesses were hostile and unwilling to share basic information with police officers. And in many instances, BPD imposed unnecessary negative consequences for optional interactions. For example, a case manager requested that the police reach out to a juvenile who was friends with victims of a homicide case because she was concerned for his safety and wanted to check if he desired to be relocated. Detectives in the Homicide Unit arrived at his house, and the juvenile invited them inside his home to speak about the murder of his friend. During the course of the conversation, the detectives decided that they wanted a formal statement from the juvenile. However, after telephoning his grandmother, who advised him not to speak to investigators, he refused. The detectives insisted that he come downtown, which caused the juvenile to allegedly scream and ball his fists. Ultimately, officers placed him in handcuffs and transported him downtown. We also read numerous incident reports where the person who originally called the police or was in need of assistance refused to cooperate after becoming upset with the manner in which the police responded.
2. BPD Has Failed to Implement Community Policing Principles
Our investigation revealed that one of the fundamental causes of the breakdown in the relationship between the Department and the community it serves is that, throughout much of the Department, community policing principles are not being implemented. During our interviews with command staff, district commanders, and other supervisors, we observed that, in the vast majority of these interviews, the person was unable to accurately describe what community policing is or how BPD implements community policing efforts. Some district commanders had not even considered enlisting the community to help combat crime problems. Most could not identify community organizations willing to do violence prevention work or other partners for community policing on an ongoing basis. And none of the BPD majors we talked with had relationships with community groups who were able to put pressure on violent members of the community to stop the violence. These coalitions can be an effective tool in not only stopping the violence but also building important community relationships. Notably, when a district commander or member of command staff did have a stronger grasp of community policing principles, their description of the specific
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actions BPD is taking often differed widely from that shared with us by other Department leaders. The Department lacks a common vision for how it is engaging and working with its community.
The Department leadership’s lack of vision for community policing has repercussions for the officers they supervise. Most of the officers we encountered during our investigation care deeply about doing a good job, but their approaches are narrowly aimed at enforcement, with an almost exclusive focus on offenders, and lack community-oriented problem-solving. Many officers described little interaction with the communities they patrol, noting that those on patrol simply handle calls for service. Supervisors confirmed this notion. One noted, “Officers basically just handle calls for service.” Another described patrol officers by stating that they “go from call to call, so they have no time for community interaction . . . they’re controlled mostly by the radio.” Many police personnel openly admitted that officers do not regularly attend community meetings—that street cops focus on enforcement with little outreach to or investment in community needs.
Community policing efforts are ad hoc and officer- or major-specific. Those officers we saw interacting with the community in a positive manner did so due to their own interest, noting that such actions were not mandated by command staff. At the command level, one district commander described prioritizing sector officers and sergeants having as many “designed intentional moments” as possible with the community and tracking officers’ foot patrol time to encourage such interactions. The same district has been involved in numerous outreach efforts, including listening campaigns, “Cocoa with a Cop,” a shoe giveaway, and community walks. However, this district commander’s efforts again appear to be an exception to BPD’s overall policing strategy. The commander confirmed this, telling us, “I know it needs to happen—so I don’t wait for someone to tell me to do it.” Furthermore, although this district commander and some others focus on community policing, many patrol officers are receiving conflicting messages. For example, one officer told us, “Commanders say they want community policing, but then they come back around and ask ‘How many arrests you made?’” As this question suggests, from command staff to officers, the Department struggles to embrace true community policing and fails to understand how community policing strategies can make it better and more effective at reducing crime and social disorder.
3. BPD Recognizes that It Must Improve Its Relationship with the Communities It Serves, But Much Work Remains
Over the past few years, leaders within the City and within Baltimore Police Department have recognized that the Department needs to do significant work to improve its relationship with the communities it serves throughout Baltimore, particularly those in impoverished and minority neighborhoods. During our investigation and before it, the Department began to make changes to the way it polices to better embrace community policing principles and more effective serve its community. Unfortunately, community policing is still not a philosophy that permeates all aspects of BPD’s activities; rather, it currently is a single program that is not integrated with BPD’s other law enforcement functions. Indeed, most officers think of community policing as distinct from their regular policing duties.
Currently, the Department’s community policing efforts are undertaken exclusively by the Community Collaboration Division (CCD), except for the ad hoc efforts of certain officers and
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commanders described above. CCD is led by a Lieutenant Colonel, and its philosophy is based on four pillars: community-oriented policing, faith-based involvement, youth engagement, and re-entry programs. Structurally, CCD aims to have one sergeant and four officers per district—with each officer responsible for a “pillar” and the sergeants responsible for supervision. These officers are not under district command; instead, they work out of their own unit downtown.
While it is too early to conclusively evaluate these efforts, we are concerned that these new initiatives will not be successful without substantial changes in the Department’s approach. First, the Department’s community policing plan is currently too limited in scope, and does not embrace all aspects of the work of the Department. As currently understood by many members of the Department, community policing is the responsibility of the CCD, not the Department as a whole. To be effective, however, community collaboration and engagement has to be practiced by every member of the organization, especially by the uniformed patrol officers who are assigned to neighborhoods. At present, patrol officers largely view the policing strategy as someone else’s job. This limited version of community policing will not be effective, particularly given the relatively small number of individuals dedicated to undertake these efforts.
Second, and relatedly, the Department’s community policing efforts are not well-integrated with the work of the districts. We express no view on whether community policing efforts need to be led out of the districts or centralized, as they currently are in Baltimore in the CCD. Regardless of where these efforts are led, however, they must be closely coordinated and integrated with patrol and specialized units, and that integration is not yet occurring. This problem is exacerbated by the distinct nature of each district in Baltimore. According to some people throughout the Department, districts work as if they are a separate “kingdom,” with distinctly different practices and approaches. This is consistent with our observations. Evidence of the difficulties this poses is already apparent. In some districts, the district commanders were appreciative of the help and support they received from the CCD; other commanders, however, were concerned that they were not aware when the unit was actually working in their area. A few also voiced frustration that they lack control of community engagement in their district, given their experience in the area. One commander noted that it can be difficult to engage and build relationships with some community groups, most notably the faith-based contacts, since this responsibility falls under the CCD. “It’s harder for district commanders to have access to these folks,” noted one. The major described how the district developed its own initiatives to facilitate community policing and engagement because of the difficulties in coordinating with the CCD.
Third, the Department is not building effective partnerships with existing community groups dedicated to serving their communities, and instead is trying to establish new programs that are led by the Department. During the course of our investigation, we observed a surprising lack of BPD representation at community meetings of grass-roots organizations throughout the City. At the majority of community meetings we attended, we found that members of the BPD—even the CCD—were not present. Often, the community and religious leaders hosting the meeting told us that they had personally reached out to the police department to invite officers to the meeting, but received no response. According to some participants, police officials used to attend their meetings but have not done so since the unrest following the death of Freddie Gray. By not participating in these meetings, the Department is missing valuable opportunities. Attending these meetings would allow officers to build partnerships, gain information, and solve problems that would facilitate
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effective policing. Notably, during our interviews with them, CCD leadership did not speak to the importance of partnering with grass-root organizations that are not traditional supporters of the police. Instead, the approach to police-community relations is primarily focused on establishing programs to support CCD’s four pillars, which are police-led rather than partnering with others who have already established themselves in the community. It is perhaps unsurprising that community activists have described the Department’s efforts to improve police-community relations as troubling—that the police are seeking “a ‘community rubber stamp’ to normalize ‘problematic policing practices’” rather than working with the community to find an approach to policing that can gain buy-in.133
Fourth, the Department is not consistently enforcing its own requirements for officer community engagement. For example, the Department recently implemented a 30-minute foot patrol requirement, but this obligation is not uniformly enforced by command staff. Although we engaged in numerous ride-alongs with patrol officers, only a handful of the officers completed their foot patrol. Additional interviews confirmed that this requirement is not readily enforced across BPD. It is, therefore, unsurprising that some officers fail to integrate community policing efforts into their time on patrol. There are few incentives and little encouragement to do so.
Finally, BPD’s policies and training do not consistently embrace community policing principles. BPD’s community policing strategy involves few training modules on community policing and communication. We attended one of these in-service trainings, which focused on community policing and foot patrol. The segment on officers’ role as “warriors versus guardians” focused primarily on the benefits of being a warrior. Indeed, it seemed that principles of community policing and the role of a police officer as a “guardian” is not yet well understood by the instructors, who emphasized the drawbacks of this approach, making it unlikely that officers will understand how to embrace such principles in their interactions. Better training is needed if the Department wants to teach officers effective community policing practices, and this training needs to be provided and tailored to personnel throughout all levels of the Department.
***
Community policing and engagement provide a promising route for ensuring officers act in accord with the Constitution and for repairing BPD’s relationship with the community. A proactive community policing strategy has the potential to overcome divisive dynamics that disconnect residents and police forces, dynamics ranging from a dearth of positive interactions to racial stereotyping and racial violence. See, e.g., Jack Glaser, Suspect Race: Causes and Consequence of Racial Profiling 207–11 (2015) (discussing research showing that community policing and similar approaches can help reduce racial bias and stereotypes and improve community relations); L. Song Richardson & Phillip Atiba Goff, Interrogating Racial Violence, 12 Ohio St. J. of Crim. L. 115, 143–47 (2014) (describing how fully implemented and inclusive community policing can help avoid racial stereotyping and violence); Strengthening the Relationship Between Law Enforcement and Communities of Color: Developing an Agenda for Action 1–20 (U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2014). Thus, as the Department strives to correct the problems our investigation
133 Maggie Ybarra, A conversation with Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, City Paper, April 27, 2016, http://www.citypaper.com/news/features/bcp-042716-feature-commissioner-davis-interview-20160427-story.html.
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identified and to engender trust within Baltimore’s diverse communities, a community policing strategy should be a central component of its approach moving forward.
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CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Department of Justice concludes that there is reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution or federal law. The pattern or practice includes: (1) making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests; (2) using enforcement strategies that produce severe and unjustified disparities in the rates of stops, searches and arrests of African Americans; (3) using excessive force; and (4) retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally-protected expression. We also identified concerns regarding BPD’s transport of individuals and investigation of sexual assaults. BPD’s failings result from deficient policies, training, oversight, and accountability, and policing strategies that do not engage effectively with the community the Department serves. We are heartened to find both widespread recognition of these challenges and strong interest in reform. We look forward to working with the Department, City leadership, and Baltimore’s diverse communities to create lasting reforms that rebuild trust in BPD and ensure that it provides effective, constitutional police services to the people of Baltimore.
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 Agreement in Principle Between
The United States and the City of Baltimore Regarding the Baltimore City Police Department
This Agreement in Principle (“Agreement”) between the United States and the City of Baltimore (the “City”) (collectively, “the Parties”) reflects the Parties’ commitment to work together and with the many communities that make up the City to ensure that the Baltimore City Police Department (“BPD”) delivers services in a manner that respects the rights of residents, increases trust between officers and the communities they serve, and promotes public and officer safety. Through this Agreement, the Parties commit to negotiate reforms to ensure sustainable, constitutional, and effective policing. The Parties will seek input on these reforms from the various constituencies that make up Baltimore, including residents, community groups, City leaders, local businesses, and BPD officers, to inform the negotiations.
The United States Department of Justice conducted an investigation pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141 (“Section 14141”), Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”), the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. § 3789d (“Safe Streets Act”), and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131-12134. The City of Baltimore requested the Department of Justice’s investigation, and the investigation was conducted with the full and open cooperation of the City and BPD. The United States has concluded its investigation, finding reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution and federal law, including: (1) making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests; (2) using enforcement strategies that produce severe and unjustified disparities in the rates of stops, searches and arrests of African Americans; (3) using excessive force; and (4) retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally-protected expression. The details of its findings are set forth in a separate findings letter to the City.
The City and BPD recognize that the findings raise issues of great importance to the City and the community. By entering into this Agreement, the City and BPD do not necessarily admit or agree with the findings, which they have only recently received. However, the City and BPD fully agree there is a long road ahead and additional reforms are necessary. The City and BPD fully agree to continue and redouble their efforts to make improvements in the areas set forth below in order to achieve long-lasting, sustainable change.
The United States commends the City and BPD for working cooperatively with the Department of Justice, recognizing the need for reform, and taking the initiative to begin the reform process. Some reforms started before the Department of Justice announced its investigation, while others began or accelerated while the investigation was ongoing. In October 2014, for example, the City began a collaborative effort with the United States Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services to make changes to BPD’s policies and practices. Since that time, BPD has overhauled its use of force and other policies in an effort to incorporate best practices and will continue strengthening them as part of this Agreement.
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BPD’s reforms have included, but are not limited to, providing additional trainings in crucial areas including fair and impartial policing; committing resources to enhance BPD’s crisis intervention program; retrofitting prisoner transport vehicles; and committing additional officers to the Community Collaboration Division to enhance BPD’s community policing efforts. BPD is taking initial steps toward enhancing accountability and transparency throughout the Department, including implementing a comprehensive plan to equip all officers with body-worn cameras. BPD has begun to take steps toward improving and expanding its community outreach to better engage its officers with the community they serve, with a specific emphasis on working with youth. BPD has started investing in technology and infrastructure in order to provide support for these and other reforms. The United States recognizes that these efforts reflect the City and BPD’s commitment to making the reforms necessary for its officers to police constitutionally, safely, and effectively.
Despite this progress, the Parties recognize there is still much work to do. Going forward, the Parties commit to negotiate in good faith to reach a comprehensive settlement in the form of a consent decree, with independent monitoring, to be entered by the United States District Court for the District of Maryland (“Consent Decree”). The Parties will seek input from the City’s residents, stakeholders and BPD officers regarding necessary reforms and engage in good faith negotiations to reach a settlement.
The Parties are committed to working together to negotiate and seek court approval of a Consent Decree in as expeditious a manner as possible, so that the important work of implementing reforms can proceed to this next level. The Parties intend to have completed negotiations by November 1, 2016.
The Parties know that the development and implementation of police reform helps rebuild trust between a community and its police, and ensures appropriate accountability and transparency. The Parties recognize that BPD officers and employees are BPD’s greatest resource and that the vast majority of officers are committed to upholding the Constitution with honor and distinction while carrying out their important duties to ensure public safety. The Parties recognize that the process of reform is complex and requires continued sustained effort. Reform does not occur overnight and requires clear goals and objectives. The Parties also are committed to implementing reforms in a cost-effective manner.
To these ends, the Parties commit to work collaboratively, earnestly, and with necessary urgency to ensure that they have achieved their mutual goal of sustainable reform. The Parties anticipate that these reform measures will enhance public safety and make the work of police officers more effective and safer.
I. Community Input on Reforms
The Parties have engaged with community stakeholders in Baltimore, and recognize that recommendations and suggestions received through the community engagement process are critical in order to craft a comprehensive and effective plan for BPD. The Parties additionally recognize that the successful implementation and sustainability of reforms will depend, in part,
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on the active participation of, and input from, the Baltimore community. Accordingly, the Parties commit to engage with community members and seek ideas from the City’s residents, stakeholders, and BPD officers regarding recommendations to continue BPD’s reform efforts. A detailed report of the Justice Department’s investigative findings may be found at: https://www.justice.gov/crt. Any person or group who wishes to provide recommendations or ideas for reforms to be included in the Consent Decree may do so by submitting ideas and recommendations in writing to Community.Baltimore@usdoj.gov, communityfeedback@baltimorepolice.org, or by speaking with representatives of the Parties at a series of meetings to be held in various parts of the City in the coming weeks. To provide the Parties as much time to consider the recommendations as possible as they negotiate the Consent Decree, the Parties request that all written submissions be submitted by September 9, 2016. In the interest of transparency, the Parties request that written submissions be sent to both Parties, although the Parties understand that some individuals or groups may be more comfortable making submissions to only one of the Parties, and those will also be considered.
This initial period for community input will not be the last. The Parties commit to creating mechanisms through the Consent Decree to ensure that community members will continue to be able to provide input to the Parties, the court, and an Independent Monitor throughout the reform process. The successful implementation and sustainability of reforms will require the active participation of, and input from, Baltimore’s diverse communities.
II. Areas of Reform
The Parties agree that additional reforms are necessary in at least the areas set forth below, and seek community input on the ways to implement the reforms.
A. Policies, Training, and Data Collection and Analysis
The Parties agree that, although BPD has made improvements in its policies, training, investigations, data collection, and analysis, further reforms are needed. The City commits to continue improving its policies, training, data collection and analysis to permit the assessment of officer activity and ensure that officers’ actions conform to legal and constitutional requirements. The City commits to ensuring that input from community members and officers is considered in revising or implementing its policies and training.
1. Stops, Searches, and Seizures
BPD will ensure that all policies and training materials on stops, searches, and arrests are consistent with current law, and will revise any policies or training materials as needed to ensure that stops, searches, and arrests by BPD officers are conducted in accordance with constitutional standards. BPD will incentivize officers to conduct stops, searches, and arrests in a manner that promotes community confidence and legitimacy.
BPD will collect data on all stops, searches, and arrests and maintain it in a manner that can be analyzed in a meaningful way to ensure that officers’ enforcement activities promote public safety and are consistent with constitutional and legal standards. BPD will analyze the data regularly to identify trends and issues that may lead to violations of law or policy.
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2. Discriminatory Policing
BPD will continue improving and implementing policies and training on implicit bias in policing to ensure that officers do not improperly use race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, or sexual orientation as a factor in enforcement decisions. BPD will analyze data on stops, searches, arrests, and uses of force to identify trends and issues that may indicate biased policing or lead to violations of law or policy.
3. Use of Force
BPD will ensure that all policies and training on use of force provide officers and supervisors with clear guidance on when force is appropriate in accordance with legal and constitutional policing. BPD will revise any policies and create new policies as necessary to meet constitutional standards. BPD will ensure its policies train and incentivize officers to use community policing and problem-solving techniques, including de-escalation, to decrease the need for officers to resort to force. BPD will continue to revise its policies and training to improve its force investigations and reviews of force incidents to ensure proper oversight for officers’ force and tactics leading to force, and to promote accountability.
BPD will also ensure that its policies and training conform with legal and constitutional standards for law enforcement interactions with individuals with disabilities, individuals in behavioral health crisis, and juveniles. BPD will seek to partner with community organizations to explore practices to lower the number of incidents involving force, and the amount of force, used against persons with disabilities and in behavioral health crisis. BPD will expand its behavioral health crisis intervention program and seek to work with disability organizations and mental health care providers in the community to increase its ability to divert individuals from the criminal justice system to community resources. BPD will ensure that its policies and training conform with legal and constitutional standards for law enforcement interactions with youth and divert youth from the criminal justice system, where possible.
BPD will ensure that its policies and training on transport practices conform with legal and constitutional standards to protect people in BPD custody from harm. It will implement increased auditing mechanisms to ensure that BPD policies and training on transport practices are being followed.
4. First Amendment
After considering guidance from DOJ, in 2012 BPD adopted a policy on the right to record interactions with police officers. BPD will continue to expand and strengthen its policies and training on individuals’ First Amendment rights to ensure that they are consistent with current law, and will revise any policies or training materials as needed to ensure that individuals’ First Amendment rights are protected. BPD will train officers regarding the prohibition against retaliating against individuals for exercising their First Amendment rights and will ensure timely investigation and discipline of officers who retaliate against citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights.
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5. Response to Sexual Assaults
BPD will ensure that its policies and training on responding to reports of sexual assault are consistent with constitutional and legal requirements and the Parties will negotiate provisions to ensure that law enforcement actions do not reflect explicit or implicit gender bias, including in cases involving reports of sexual assault or coercion of sexual acts by BPD officers. BPD will ensure that all officers responsible for responding to and investigating sexual assault are provided with specialized training about sexual assault, including legal and constitutional standards for responding to and investigating reports of sexual assault, interviewing victims of sexual assault, and investigating reports of sexual assault or coercion of sexual acts by BPD officers.
6. Supervision, Accountability, and Coordination
BPD will ensure that supervisors at all levels receive supervisory or leadership training appropriate for their rank that provides them with the skills to implement reforms and promote community policing and problem-solving strategies. BPD will ensure that supervisors have tools to supervise officer activity, such as an effective and flexible early intervention system.
BPD will implement policies and training to improve oversight for all officers and supervisors involved in the complaint intake, complaint investigation, or disciplinary process. It will ensure that policies provide guidance on how to properly classify complaints and ensure that there is oversight over the classification of complaints. BPD will take measures to be transparent about the complaints it receives, as well as its process for investigating complaints and disciplining officers for violations of policy, including considering publishing on its website the numbers of complaints it received in various categories of offenses, the number which were sustained, and an explanation of each step of the process for disciplining an officer from the time a complaint is received until discipline is implemented.
BPD will strengthen its accountability measures, which may include audits, integrity checks, or using anonymous testers to assess whether officers are complying with policies. It will regularly audit samples of stops, searches, arrests, uses of force, and sexual assault investigations, use of force reports and incident reports to ensure that officers’ actions comply with constitutional standards.
The City and BPD will work to improve their coordination with other law enforcement agencies with concurrent jurisdiction so that officers conducting joint enforcement activities have clear guidance regarding governing policies and chains of command, including the Baltimore School Police Force.
B. Technology and Infrastructure
The City will ensure that BPD’s technology infrastructure is capable of effectively monitoring officer activity by collecting and analyzing data.
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C. Officer Support
The City and BPD will build on the resources they have already invested to ensure that officers are provided with the equipment and technology required to perform their jobs effectively and constitutionally. The City and BPD also commit to developing effective strategies for recruitment, retention, and staffing patterns.
D. Judicial Enforceability, Independent Monitoring, and Outcome Measures
The Parties agree that the settlement will be in the form of a Consent Decree to be entered and enforced as a court order of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. The Consent Decree will include the appointment of an Independent Monitor who will act as an agent of the Court, monitor and assess the City’s compliance with the Consent Decree, and be paid for by the City. The Parties will develop a set of objective outcome measures to be used by the Parties, the Independent Monitor, and the Court to assess whether the Consent Decree is promoting constitutional policing and increasing community trust.
E. Community Policing and Engagement
1. Community Policing Strategies
The City and BPD will ensure that the fundamental principles of community policing guide all aspects of BPD’s operations, including its patrol activities, investigations, and enforcement activities conducted by specialized units. The Parties recognize that rebuilding the relationship between BPD and the various communities it serves is essential to constitutional and effective policing. Although BPD, with the assistance of the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, has been working on implementing community policing principles, the Parties agree that more work remains to be done. BPD will explore community policing strategies for Baltimore’s neighborhoods, including developing micro-community policing plans.
2. Strengthen Community Oversight
The City commits to continue to strengthen community oversight of BPD, including entities or mechanisms to inform BPD’s policies and practices consistent with community values and confidence in BPD. The City agrees that it will ensure that any community and civilian oversight entities or mechanisms created through this process have the resources and access to data and information they need to effectively fulfill their mandate.
3. Increase Transparency
The Parties recognize that increased transparency about BPD’s activities is critical to rebuilding trust between BPD and the people of Baltimore. The City commits to improve its collection and analysis of data and making this information publicly available.
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4. Community Engagement in the Reform Process
The Parties agree that community input is essential throughout the reform process, and they will include mechanisms in the Consent Decree to receive that input and update the community about the implementation of the Consent Decree. These mechanisms may include written submissions directly to the Independent Monitor and the Parties, periodic public meetings attended by representatives of the Parties and the Independent Monitor, or other mechanisms suggested by the community.
The Parties also agree that the input of BPD officers and their representatives is a critical factor to consider in ensuring that the Consent Decree provides officers with the practical guidance, tools, and support they need to effectively and efficiently carry out the Consent Decree’s requirements and enhance safety for both officers and the community they serve.
Once a Consent Decree is reached, the Parties commit to engage with community stakeholders, including BPD officers, to ensure a broad understanding of the terms of the Consent Decree. The Consent Decree will not substitute or foreclose other initiatives by the community or the City to promote reform and oversight of, or partnerships with, BPD.
F. Timing and Process
The Department of Justice agrees to defer filing a lawsuit against the City while the Parties seek input from the City’s residents, stakeholders and BPD officers regarding necessary reforms and engage in good-faith negotiations to reach a settlement. This Agreement does not otherwise limit or restrict the Department of Justice’s ability to initiate a civil action under Section 14141, the Safe Streets Act, Title VI, or the ADA or to conduct any investigation or bring any criminal charge, or to seek other enforcement action to protect the rights, privileges, or immunities of individuals that are secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. Nor does this Agreement waive any defenses that the City or the BPD may have to any civil action initiated by the Department of Justice under Section 14141, the Safe Streets Act, Title VI, or the ADA.
The Department of Justice acknowledges that the City and BPD are subject to state law and collective bargaining obligations. While negotiations are pending, the Parties will, with community input, identify qualified candidates who will provide objective, cost-effective, and thorough assessments of compliance with the Consent Decree. The Consent Decree will specify the selection and appointment process for the Independent Monitor.
Once the Parties reach a mutual settlement that provides for reform that addresses the Department of Justice’s findings, the proposed Consent Decree will be presented to the City Council. Subsequently, the Parties will seek to have the proposed Consent Decree approved by and entered as a court order by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland to ensure that the terms of the settlement are implemented fully and faithfully.
This Agreement shall not be construed as an admission or evidence of liability by or against the City or the BPD under any federal, state or municipal law including, but not limited to, 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This Agreement is not intended to limit or expand the right of any person
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