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That’s from the Sun. The FOP riot report is good. Well done. And based on everything I’ve heard from police officers, true. It’s proofread and a surprisingly well put together package (the whole “issue” and “recommendation” and “references” thing).

Keep in mind this is coming from a local FOP chapter that misspelled my name on my membership card…

It’s actually rare I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with police unions. (See, for instance, here and here and here.) But this isn’t the first time I’ve been impressed with the minds and writing ability of Baltimore’s FOP Lodge 3.

I’m not going to summarize their report. (If you care enough, just read it.) Overall, it’s a very damning report of poor police leadership and a police organization that let down both its workers and the citizens of Baltimore. But I will say this: if you instinctively don’t believe anything coming from a police officers’ union, just pretend the report was written by the local chapter of the ACLU or something. You’d be surprised how much of this report can pass that test.

Here’s what the Sun has to say [I’ve added selective bolding]:

The FOP has had a legacy of tension with Mayor Rawlings-Blake…. It is in that sense not necessarily the ideal entity to take on the task of analyzing how she and her police commissioner, Anthony Batts, handled an event that left many officers literally and figuratively wounded. The mayor pounced on that history to discredit the report as “a trumped up political document full of baseless allegations, finger pointing and personal attacks.” (Speaking of personal attacks, the statement accuses the FOP of “choosing to be their lesser selves.”) But the assertions the union makes about what instructions officers were given and how they were trained and equipped are too specific and detailed to be dismissed so easily.

And this (keep in mind this is from the Sun and not the FOP):

The FOP’s report is based on interviews with police who were on the front lines, focus groups and surveys…. But it is rich for the mayor’s spokesman to tut-tut that “the FOP continues to issue baseless and false information instead of working with us to find solutions that will protect our officers.” The FOP filed a Public Information Act request for reams of information that could have shed some objective light on the situation — tapes of radio transmissions, emails, text messages and the like — but the city has handed over very little of it.

This report has its limitations and biases, but more than two months after the fact, it’s the only report we’ve got. Neither the police nor the mayor’s administration have issued anything like a comprehensive assessment of what happened on those nights of violence, and a third-party review by the Police Executive Research Forum is only slated to begin today. If what the FOP reported is wrong, Mayor Rawlings-Blake and Commissioner Batts need to prove it.

Oh…. did I hear the Sun just go “snap”?

But seriously, bad leadership has consequences. There are problems with the whole Rawlings-Blake administration. She is not up to the job of running Baltimore.

It’s also worth reading this Baltimore Sun editorial in its entirety. (Note the story of the stolen bike and the closed station. In covering all these events, kudos to the Sun and their soon-to-be Pulitzer-winning ace reporters for living up to the paper’s “Light For All” motto.)

[Update: I just learned the FOP report was put together by a consultant firm. That makes sense. Still though, kudos to the FOP for knowing their limitations and not trying to do it in-house.]

The BBC has a story about Michael Wood and his reporting of police wrong doing.

I still don’t doubt the truth of what he says he say and participated in. That’s important. As to his character or motives, nobody outside of policing really gives a damn what they are or if Wood was a good police officer or not.

Wood makes some very good points. Points that need to be made. So good on him for making them! These are all from his twitter feed:

Guess what will happen if police act super courteous while being filmed? Would get boring huh? Kill em w/ kindness, duh.

…

Of importance is that, because of the culture, nearly any BPD officer could have been involved in Freddie Gray, that’s the shock they have.

…

PC Batts has been feeding you BS from day one, research what he says. Is it true? Does he carry out?

…

7pm-3am shifts with 9am court, destroy your sanity, your family, your life.

…

[It’s wrong to place] people in a situation where they can choose either a 6 month guilty plea or face 20+years in prison.

These things need to be heard more. And right now people are listening to Wood.

But people are most interested in the bad and illegal things Wood saw and did.

It’s one thing, as a young cop, to go along with the flow or not report on bad behavior. I’m not saying it’s good. But it’s understandable. It’s one thing to decide six years after your last arrest that something needs to be said. That’s even understandable.

But at some point you can’t just admit that bad things you did and hold your head high. Wood says this in the BBC story:

I was a shift commander [VCID, I would guess, known as “Impact” in my days] and I told the shift that when you go out there doing car stops: “I don’t want to see you stopping an old lady – this is Baltimore! You stop 16-24 year old black males.” Why? Because 16-24 black males are the ones who commit all the crime.

Seriously? What the fuck?!

You’re not some great whistleblower if you blow the whistle against yourself. That’s called confessing to your crimes. Look, I’m glad Wood if has matured and no longer says racist or anti-semetic comments. But as Chris Rock once said, you don’t get credit for shit you’re supposed to do!

To be clear, I don’t mean this as a personal attack on Wood. If Wood is using himself as Exhibit A for a messed-up system, more power to him. There is a problem not just with individual people but with a system that allows a supervisor to issue such racist illegal commands. There’s a problem with a system that allows people to get through the academy no matter what they do. There’s a problem in a system that thinks their way is the only way. But when you want to change and improve that system, attack the system. Attack those who do wrong. But you shouldn’t besmirch others by thinking your own malfeasance is typical.

My shift supervisors never told us to stop black men. I was never encouraged to conduct an illegal search. I didn’t conduct illegal searches. Though like Wood, I saw many cops’ hands unconstitutionally empty pockets. Also like Wood, I wrote about this (in Cop in the Hood) and mentioned it whenever I could. (“But do they call me Pierre the Great Whistleblower? Non.”)

Now I and those in my squad were not angels. But I never heard of a cop taking a dump in a home. Nor did I witness cops slapping anybody. I didn’t see a handcuffed man get beat by police (I did see that happen once in CBIF, but that’s another story). There is a pretty hard and fast rule that once the cuffs are on, the fight is over. That said, if you are going to criminally assault a prisoner, you would certainly want to assault somebody else’s prisoner!)

So what’s different about Wood? Best I can tell:

1) Wood was a cop longer than I was;

2) Wood was in a specialized drug squad that did more bad stuff;

3) Wood actually did more bad stuff. And like attracts like.

Kind of related, and this is one of the few good things I’ve heard Batts has done as chief, but the worst offenders were demoted from specialized units. Rumor has it that complaints against police dropped 40 percent. Of course what happened to these obnoxious cops? Most were just sent back to patrol to be bitter and pissed off at even less criminal citizens.

My sergeant (who never went to college) could articulate the legal distinctions between a stop and an arrest, between a frisk and search, and between reasonable suspicion and probable cause. Why can’t others? Also, he never took a day of medical.

Update here:

What if the messenger actually is a bit to blame?