Baltimore officials to judge: Don’t delay police overhaul

The city and justice department reached the agreement, known as a consent decree, in January, nearly two years after the death of a black man, Freddie Gray, of injuries sustained while in police custody sparked a day of rioting and arson in the majority-black city.

Baltimore solicitor David Ralph said that when the city, police department and federal government negotiated the plan, it was created to fight crime, protect civil rights and fix community trust with officers. But he told U.S. District Judge Kevin K. Bredar – who denied his request earlier this week to postpone Thursday’s hearing for three months – that his office still wants to reevaluate the consent agreement. Soon after, the Justice Department and the city of Baltimore negotiated a consent decree, whereby the city agreed to a federal court order requiring a detailed police reform process. But after a damning report from the Department of Justice chronicling the department’s decades of abuses, the city and the feds entered into a consent decree that put into place a series of reforms.

Because the Baltimore decree has not yet been formally adopted, Sessions asked a federal judge to delay the legal proceedings surrounding its adoption for 90 days, presumably with the eventual aim of finding a way to scuttle it altogether.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions now proposes meddling with a cooperative formula that’s working.

“I do not feel the memo sent out by Jeff Sessions would have any effect on our progress because we are so far along in the process”, Hicks said. “Not sure if Sessions knows this”, Polite said on Twitter, “but he can’t stop Judges Africk and Morgan from ensuring that our NOLA consent decrees move forward”.

David Ralph, the interim city solicitor of Baltimore, said the agreement would both protect civil rights and help fight against crime. Sessions suggests that it is not the responsibility of the federal government to manage non-federal police departments which is his entire basis for this review (aka his attempt to undo) of the DOJ agreements with certain police departments.

But Justice Department lawyer John Gore said Attorney General Jeff Sessions is anxious about whether the agreement “will achieve the goals of public safety and law enforcement while at the same time protecting civil rights”.

The Justice Department’s agreements to overhaul troubled police departments around the US have been popular in some places, but they have also delivered mixed results.

FILE – In this April 23, 2015 file photo, members of the Baltimore Police Department stand guard outside the department’s Western District police station during a protest in response to Freddie Gray’s death in Baltimore.

“Recently, I have been comparing the arrest-to-courtroom procedures of multiple United States law enforcement agencies to assist District Attorney Candidate Beth Grossman (R-Philadelphia) with her policy to streamline inefficient procedures to keep more police officers on the street”.

The review of the consent decree is being conducted as the result of a March 31 memo from Sessions that ordered a closer look at whether the agreement would meet administration goals such as promoting officer morale and boosting recruitment and training of officers. “We’re going to continue to work with the Department of Justice and with the monitor and move ahead”, said Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose. A binding agreement with the court, he said, would ensure that crucial reforms to the department, such as technology updates, increased resources and expanded training, can be implemented quickly and efficiently. But regardless of the federal government’s participation, she said, the city and police will continue work to fix shattered trust between law enforcement and the community.