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  • “A small glimpse into the lazy, egotistical, dysfunctional world of key players in criminal justice system”

    Page Croyder spent two decades with the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office. A few weeks ago I discovered her blog (thanks to a comment). The prosecutor’s office — the State’s Attorney in Maryland — and the court system in general is a big Skinner box of unknown for most people. Croyder offers insight.

    People get arrested and somehow they end up in jail or prison. Even if the courts have the power, the prosecutors may be the puppet masters of the system. They shape police behavior and tactics. They determine who walks and who doesn’t. And all this in an elected underfunded office not represented by any union. The courts have no constituency to fight for dollars. Most people don’t really care what happens in the courts as long as they don’t get called for jury duty.

    Croyder was never the most prolific blogger, which makes it all the more readable as small glimpse, “a small glimpse into the lazy, egotistical, dysfunctional world of key players in criminal justice system.”

    I assume Croyder is to the right of me politically. Or maybe not. She’s no fan of O’Malley, but then, who is?

    Funny thing is, if liberals read my blog with open minds they would see that I am no Attila-the-Hun. I support improved prisoner re-entry programs, bail reform, effective alternatives to incarceration, a radically new approach to drug crimes, reducing the barrier of criminal records to employment, and so forth.

    But I do believe that there are people who need to be locked up for the public’s safety and well-being. Not forever (for most), but until the period of their greatest dangerousness passes. This makes liberals scream. They want more rehabilitation and prevention programs.

    Fine. There’s no conflict there. But the existing criminal justice system still needs to improve its focus, prioritization and performance right now with the resources at hand.

    I see her writing as refreshingly untainted by ideology.

    Here are some highlights in chronological order. From 2012:

    And the city doesn’t need such quick turnover. Having four different police commissioners in the O’Malley mayoral years wrecked the Police Department. We need stability… to conceive a plan, develop it, and achieve significant results with violent criminals over the past six and a half years.

    We had plenty of stability at the top of the prosecutor’s office before Bernstein [under Jessemy], but insufficient competence. Now we’ve got competence. Add stability, and we achieve long term success.

    From 2013:

    The problem between police officers and judges over warrants has been going on a long time and should have been resolved ages ago.

    …

    Baltimore city judges are supposed to take turns being “on duty” for one week at a time. Since there are about 60 of them, this means they should have this duty less frequently than once a year….

    But judges and police have fussed about this ever since I can remember. Judges feel that police bother them after hours for non-emergencies.

    …

    To minimize their own inconvenience, individual judges often make their own rules for reviewing warrants. Many, for example, refuse to sign any “narcotics” warrants after hours, which they regard as routine.

    …

    To me the solution is simple: police officers should do their best to present their warrants during reasonable hours, while judges should resign themselves to the fact that for one week out of every 60 they will be reviewing warrants after they leave the courthouse. They should just go home and be mentally prepared for the police to come over, not whining about officers interrupting them while they are out at dinner or the mall.

    From 2014:

    Marilyn Mosby, who just defeated Bernstein in the primary election, lacks the experience to fully comprehend the enormity of the task in front of her, let alone be able to hit the ground running. And the state’s attorney’s office will hemorrhage experienced people these next six lame-duck months, making the task that much harder. It doesn’t mean that Mosby, should she win in November, can’t eventually succeed. But her learning curve will be very steep and at public expense.

    That’s some foreshadowing.

    Next postI’ll highlight Crowder’s take on the current prosecutions related to Freddie Gray.

  • Useful lessons from Scotland on less-lethal policing

    In the New York Times.

  • Longo testifies it’s OK to violate the rules, if you can defend your actions

    I don’t personally remember Timothy Longo, but I do remember his name. Was he in the E&T chain of command in 2000?

    Londo testified in Porter’s trial today. Longo said that the van driver, Goodson:

    was ultimately responsible for Gray’s care, and that Porter had notified a supervisor that Gray needed help. He said Goodson and the supervisor, Sgt. Alicia D. White — not Porter — had the responsibility to take further action.

    “I believe [Porter’s] actions were objectively reasonable under the circumstances he was confronted with.”

    Well said.

    But what is more interesting to me is that Longo said officers can violate general orders, “with the understanding that they could face administrative scrutiny.” Of course that is exactly the way the police world works, but I’ve never heard it expressed exactly that way: go ahead and violate the rules; just be able to defend you actions. Rules aren’t laws.

    Of course the average cop doesn’t trust their boss enough to do the right thing. But it’s still nice to hear such standards articulated by Longo.

    Update: “Reynolds saysgeneral orders are acceptably violated all the time. Officers asked to use common sense and good judgment”

  • “Put yourself in William Porter’s shoes”

    Great column by Tricia Bishop, if you still have free Sun articles in the bank (you could always subscribe).

  • Porter trial: Dec 7.

    The prosecution rested. Judgment of Acquittal did not happen, alas.

    Judge Williams did rule that prosecutors failed to disclose that Freddie Gray had allegedly told a police officer the month before he died that he suffered from back problems. From the Sun:

    Porter’s attorneys asked that Williams dismiss the charges against Porter, grant a mistrial, or strike the testimony of the medical experts who had testified. Williams did not grant those requests but said the defense could use the information.

  • Backdated seatbelt memo?

    The Sun on that BPD seat belt policy:

    Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Michael Schatzow said Porter showed a “callous indifference for life” when he deviated from department policies. Defense attorneys have said other police officers routinely break such policies, but Schatzow said those officers should not be considered “reasonable.”

    What’s interesting is that the “new” policy, says the department, came out on April 3. Yet a source, a person I trust, says that policy didn’t actually come out till after Freddie Gray’s arrest, on April 12. The department backdated the memo. I wouldn’t put that past them. According to reports, the April 3 memo “went out on April 9, just three days before Porter’s encounter with Gray in Sandtown-Winchester.” Wouldn’t that be convenient. But it was never read in roll call. Nobody seems to have seen it until after Freddie Gray died. There should at least be an email trail, that 80 page attachment. When did that arrive in the in-boxes?

    Of course even if there were no 2015 update, the 1999 memo should still be in effect. Or maybe there was another update in policy between 1999 and 2015? I don’t know. How could anybody know? The whole damn system is messed up. I suspect the department didn’t know about the 1999 memo and assumed the 1997 policy was still valid. (Which I can’t find but nobody seems to doubt.)

    So it’s possible that in 2015 somebody in the Baltimore City Police Department backdated a new policy to screw the officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray, unaware that the policy they were updating was actually identical to what the new memo said. (The 2015 memo might say the year of the policy it is updating, right? I’d be curious to see it.)

    Either way, based on 1999 general orders or 2015 policy, all prisoners should be seatbelted. And also no police officer: “while riding gratis on any type of public conveyance, [is] permitted to be seated while other passengers are standing.” One questions at hand (the other is about delayed medical care) is whether violating the seat belt policy can be a crime (because Freddie Grey died) It seems like a reasonable person might have doubts.

  • $700,000+ for 1 shooting

    $700,000+ for 1 shooting

    Ashley Luthern of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel looks at the direct costs of a shooting. It adds up to more than $700,000. $400,000 on prison.

  • Fiddlesticks!

    @PeterMoskos wins the “Most Profanity in One Quote” Award. https://t.co/Rt22OJRYjy

    — Jeffrey Butts (@JeffreyButts) December 5, 2015

    I’m humbled and honored to win the Golden Middle Finger award. I’d like to thank all the sailors and pirates who taught me everything I know, gosh darnit.

    In all seriousness, this Guardian piece by Baynard Woods might be the first fair thing The Guardianhas written about police since the Coldbath Fields Riot of 1833:

    “I can imagine for Porter it’s difficult,” said Leon Taylor, an African American who served as a Baltimore City police officer for over a decade. “It’s more difficult when you feel that you’re part of the community and the community is willing to negate all of the positive things that you’ve done and all the greater things you could have accomplished because of this incident.”

    …

    “If he’s convicted then his lawyer is under an ethical duty to present Porter with other alternatives to being sentenced for the crime or crimes for which he was convicted,” Colbert [a professor of law at the University of Maryland] said. “That’s where he’ll be faced with being offered a negotiation that would likely require his testimony against other officers in exchange for leniency in his ultimate sentence.”

    …

    Peter Moskos, a former member of the Baltimore police department who is now an author and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, acknowledged that there is a blue wall but said it only goes so far.

    “The general rule of thumb is: No, cops will not go out of their way to say bad things about another cop certainly,” he said. “But cops also aren’t willing to go to jail for the misdeeds of another cop. ‘Why am I going to risk my pension and my job for your fuck up’ is the general attitude … To some extent, when the shit hits the fan, all bets are off. You do have to cover your ass first.”

    “It seems like they’ve adopted a divide and conquer strategy to get the desired outcome of the case,” Taylor said of the prosecution, but noted that ultimately it depends on the outcome.

    Moskos was a bit more fatalistic.

    “I mean the problem is, even in the best case scenario for cops, they’re still fucked because Freddie Gray went into the van alive and came out dead,” he said. “That can’t happen.”

    Yeah, I got four bad boys and two f-bombs in there, thank you very much. Just for the record, we chatted for half an hour and there were long stretches without single a curse word.

    As a side note, it always cracks me up when people who don’t know policing talk confidently about the “Blue Wall of Silence”: “There’s a very strong police culture that values and enforces a code of silence,” Colbert says. How the hell would he know?

    Cops testify against cops all the time. Cops are testifying against cops right now. And right now people will insist it never happens. I mean, I bet Colbert knows a few professors, maybe some lawyers, who haven’t always been on the level. What has he said? How many of you would go out of their way to rat out a colleague? Do students tell on other students who cheats? Not in my experience. Hell I know of a married sociologist who slept with a student. Have I said anything? No. And this isn’t out of some academic “wall of silence.” I don’t even like the guy. But what can I do? It’s not a crime. And I can’t prove it. Policing is no different.

    But one thing Colbert said does make perfect sense. Mosby needs to get a conviction against Portor. She needs to. Because if she does, she can leverage the sentence over him. “Reckless endangerment” can get up to five years (though it’s a misdemeanor… how is that possible?). Five years would mean three years with good time. Or, they tell him, you can walk free if you testify enough against Ceasar Goodson to get a felony conviction (Goodson is the only one of the six who might be found guilty of anything real). Such proscutorial games are standard practice, of course. But that doesn’t make it right. Still, if Portor is acquitted of everything, which he will be if he does well on the stand (which is not a given), this whole “charge everybody who was there” is going to come crashing down on Mosby, as it should.

  • Looking forward in Baltimore

    On a slightly more positive note (than the last post), Mark Puente has a good story on Baltimore Commissioner Kevin Davis and the US DOJ report due in 2016. This articleis worth one of your monthly free Sun articles, assuming you don’t subscribe:

    In other cities, such investigations have exposed problems such as brutality and outdated training, leading to federal oversight that can last for years and cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

    …

    Davis said large groups of officers might attend a lecture at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture to learn about African-American history. Local experts will teach the courses for free, not out-of-state consultants.

    “If we do that right, we will achieve cultural sensitivity, Davis said.

    …

    Ordering officers out of cars, Davis said, doesn’t work if they aren’t properly trained.

    …

    Johnson said the agency needs to improve record-keeping and the analysis of what leads to those arrests, adding: “That’s a major problem.”

    Many of the arrests come from hard-charging, aggressive officers looking to clean up the streets, officials have said.

    Baltimore is no different from other cities where police leaders identify “super cops” based on monthly arrests, Davis said. It’s important to examine the outcomes of those arrests with prosecutors and public defenders, he added.

    “If I’m a superstar cop in the Western District making 40 arrests a month, where did [the arrests] end up in court?” Davis said. “Did those arrests make society better, or did you just leave the community pissed off in the wake of your apprehension?”

    …

    Most patrol cars don’t have computers, radar equipment or license-plate readers. Officers must wait to communicate with dispatchers for the information and complete nearly all paperwork by hand.

    “The inside of Baltimore police car looks like mine from 1992,” Davis said, noting that expected federal reforms will be costly — but mandatory.

    That’s all well and good, I suppose. Things can be made better. They need to be made better. Cops shouldn’t hate the city and those who live in it. Too many do. Cops and church-goers should like each other. Maybe it is an essential first step. But meanwhile nothing is being said about the criminal class killing each other.

  • Dying in Baltimore? Blame the Police.

    Dying in Baltimore? Blame the Police.

    I saw a Tweet about something I already knew, and it still shocked me.

    This year 1 in every 2,000 Baltimoreans will be murdered.

    I know this number is true. I’ve done math. But I still needed to double check. And in many ways it’s even worse. Because we know most people in Baltimore aren’t going to get murdered. 86 percent of those killed in Baltimore are black men. Collectively, you can group together all whites, all black women, all hispanics, and all asians. Together they account for just 11 percent of Baltimore homicide victims. (Race is unknown 3 percent of time.)

    Lethal violence doubled after riots.

    I still want an apology from those idiots who went on national radio and TV with me saying police were the main problem and violence wasn’t even up in Baltimore the riots (they used, “uprising”). Bet I’m not going to get one. I don’t know if anybody still claims that, but nobody ever admitted they were wrong.

    I spend my Saturday night playing with Excel and SPSS. I made three charts that all say the same thing in slightly different ways. I’m not certain which one is the best. Here they all are.

    There are about 180,000 black men in Baltimore. To date 273 have been murdered. Yes. This year, one in every 660 black men in Baltimore has been murdered.

    [Update: 304 black men were killed in Baltimore in 2015. One in every 600 black men was murdered in 2015.]

    And it gets worse. There are only about 45,000 18- to 35-year-old black men in Baltimore. By year’s end, more than 200 will have been killed and another 500 will be shot but live. 45,000 divided by 700 is 64. One in 64 black men 18 to 35 will be shot or killed. One in 225 will be murdered. One year. Think of those odds. Officer William Porter, a black guy from Baltimore who survived those odds, he was working to save lives. He was trying to make his city a safer place. Now Portor is on trial for basically doing his job. Who are the only people who see every bloody crime scene? Who do we send in to deal with this literal and figurative bloody mess? Police officers. “Do something!” we order them.

    And the mayor and State’s Attorney? They’re using their precious resources to lock up the same exact cops they told to “do something” about the drug corner Freddie Gray was on when he ran from police. And poor Freddie Gray? The lead-poisoned drug-addicted barely-literate low-level habitual criminal? He’s a victim, too. But he’s not a hero. They’ve name a “Youth Empowerment Centers” after him? If you can’t find a better role model for black youth in Baltimore, you’re not looking hard enough.

    Maybe if we can keep the focus on the police, nobody will ever get around to noticing the who real is to blame. No need to blame Freddie’s mom, the drugs, lead paint, the schools, the city, the neighborhood, the corrupt politicians, the self-serving religious leaders, the violence, the racism, the criminals, the blight, the lack of jobs, or even Freddie himself. Nope. None of them’s on trial. Only the PO-leece.

    Pa-leeze.