Another US city faces a Justice Department investigation into police brutality. As the “New York Times” reports, Cleveland, Ohio, is now the focus of investigators from Washington. Earlier, the Cleveland Attorney’s Office decided not to prosecute a police officer who shot and killed two unarmed black people in their car. There were protests from outraged citizens. The Cleveland police force is now under the scrutiny of independent observers from the Justice Department, similar to what is happening in Baltimore, Maryland.
Meanwhile, the murder rate there has soared to a record high. In May alone there were 35 murders in Baltimore – the highest level in 16 years. This is due to a kind of go-slow by the police, a police officer said anonymously to the news channel CNN.
“In my view, this is the direct result of police officers holding back on crime-fighting. They stop patrolling and are passive.”
Two-thirds more shootings
Police morale has hit rock bottom following six officers were charged in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray. Freddie Gray was arrested by police on April 12. He was dragged into a police van. Investigators assume that the young man broke his neck while driving. A police officer has to answer for murder with conditional intent. Three officers are accused of manslaughter, two other assault in office and grossly negligent behavior.
Since then, the number of shootings has increased by 66 percent and the number of murders by 47 percent, according to the Baltimore Sun. Violent crime is not just limited to the problem areas of West Baltimore, where protests and riots erupted in April. Meanwhile, Baltimore City Police Superintendent Anthony Batts admitted there was a problem with officers in West Baltimore.
“We continue to make a lot of arrests, all over the city. But we have a problem with the police in West Baltimore, where the riots took place.”
arrests as a deterrent
The anonymous policeman wants to look for another job. His involvement in the riots is one of the low points of his professional career, he says. He sees that the concerns of the demonstrators are justified.
“The Baltimore Police Department has a mentality all of its own. It’s driven by statistics: Arrest as much as possible. They don’t care too much regarding violations of the rules. The police leadership believes that more arrests deter crime.”
The US Department of Justice had already announced in early May that it would investigate suspected systematic civil rights violations by the police in Baltimore. A similar investigation had found systematic discrimination and routine harassment of black citizens following the fatal police shooting of black teenager Michael Brown in August 2014 in the small town of Ferguson.
