Both lengthy and honest, from 2011, when Batts was “between jobs.” Post-Oakland. Pre-Baltimore.
[thanks to a commenter]
Tag: Baltimore
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Pray for rain
The good news from Baltimore, best I understand it — and this is based on my non-knowledge from 220-miles away (ie: twitter and social media, a friend watching a live feed at TV studio, and a few police friends) — is that things seems to be calmer downtown.
I do not mean things are over. Certainly not for police officers working all night. It’s going to be a long night. I mean calmer in the sense I’m going to go to bed (unlike the BPD) and feel confident that police are in control, that the city won’t burn down overnight. It’s a good sign when social media posts go from describing violence and chaos to complaining about “Wildly disproportionate police presence for a couple dozen protesters.” That’s a very good sign.
When things get ugly, when it’s not about protest but violence, then you gotta go in there and make sure things do not explode. As a friend’s dad told him, don’t get in fight with police because they’re not in the habit of losing. The important thing is that everybody gets to go home alive.
Let’s hope the worst is over. Police used both force and restraint tonight. It’s a tough night to be BPD. To those I worked with and those I do not know: stay safe.
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Things getting ugly in Baltimore
Battles are going in Baltimore. Link to tweets from the Sun. In the long run, police are going to win this. It’s just a question of how many people get hurt in the process.
This breaks my heart. Not just for the people I know at risk, but also for Baltimore. I love Baltimore.
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Well done, hon!
Things went well in Baltimore last night. So far, knock on wood, nobody else has gotten seriously hurt.
Compare this with police tactics in Ferguson. But Baltimore is better than Ferguson. And the BPD is better than the FPD. What we have not seen are flash-bang grenades. No tear gas. No gun shots (except for the “normal” Baltimore homicides). No riots. No fires. No looting.
Nothing is easy. But a bit of police restraint has gone a long way to keeping the peace. So kudos to all the brave Baltimore City police officers for a job well done.
Seeing all those cops lined up last night at the Western District WITHOUT riot gear — looking like human beings, not being provocative, taking shit (and a few bottles), looking bored, and being professional about it — it made me proud to have been a Baltimore cop.
[photo from CNN]The whole no riot gear thing is interesting. I heard former commissioner Hammsay on CNN that he he didn’t like that, tactically. “Somebody may get hurt.” He was right. But in this case it worked. Yes, it was just luck. I’m saying this in hindsight. But luck matters.
So what if police had been decked out in riot gear?Sure shields and helmets give you needed protection against rocks and bottles. They also dehumanize police officers and provide a target for people throwing things. What if some SWAT-like team was there, looking bad-ass? (Is it still “QRT” or have they have they been rebranded?) Throw in an armored personnel carrier with a turreted machine parked right out front. Well, think of the message that would send! Now we’ve got a party!
[not Baltimore]And then somebody throws a bottle. Or maybe lights a fire. And police respond with tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash grenades (the latter makes no sense at all, but anyway)? And then there’s a baton charge. What if in that melee police get hurt? Seriously hurt. Well then those injuries would justify the military-like action.
But that’s not what happened. Give credit where credit is due. And the Baltimore police last night deserve credit. Everybody went home. This didn’t “just happen.” These are choices made.
Look, it’s not easy to say, “Men, women, go out there and stand there like targets. If anybody throws anything at you, duck and dodge. Pray for the best.” But sometimes that is the job of police. Sometimes that is what you have to do to make sure nobody else, officers include, get seriously hurt. Also, ranking officers were there. That matters. (I did not see the mayor. Where was she? Was she at a more pressing meeting?)
Police exercised restraint. Police respected the right of people to protest. The police were professional and brave. Nobody knew how this was going to turn out. Imagine kissing your family goodbye that night before going to work, to stand in a line, in front of a police station, facing angry protesters throwing things at you. Shit is going down. “See you later, honey”! [smooch] It’s not just another day at the office.
I didn’t post this last night because I didn’t want to sound foolish if the Western burnt down and people were killed. One guy with a gun even a rock and good aim could have changed (and still could change) everything. But so far so good.
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Baltimore Police Wagon (circa 2001)
BPD says they can’t make a wagon availableto reporters? (Not the wagon but any wagon?) I hope this baby has been retired, but you never know. What you can’t see are the middle-facing bench seats fitted with seat belts.
Officers arrest somebody and call for a wagon (90 or 91). Sector cars in Baltimore City are not “cage cars” so you can’t transport prisoners in them. The wagon (perhaps driven by a paunchy officer with a few decades on the job) shows up. You give your prisoner to the wagonman (or woman). If you used metal cuffs (as you would unless you planned on making an arrest and brought plastic flex cuffs), you get your cuffs back. The prisoner gets re-cuffed and re-searched by the wagonman taking custody. Every time custody of a prisoner changes hands, the prisoner is searched.
The prisoner is then put in the wagon, selt-belted in, and taken to the district for questioning or to (state-run) central booking. Other prisoners may be picked up en-route by the wagon, as needed. On all transports, mileage of the vehicle is called into KGA at the start and end of trip (with a time stamp given by dispatch).
If the suspect is injured, you would call for an ambo to take the prisoner to the hospital. Central booking won’t take people in need of medical care. If I thought a prisoner wasn’t really hurt but said they wanted to go to the hospital (happens a lot), I would informs them of how we’d both be stuck at Hopkins Hospital for hours and how this would only delay their processing and eventual release from CBIF (all of which is true).
There is no “fast track” at the hospital for police and their prisoners. Often they’d say, “fuck it; take me to jail.” Sometimes I would give a little primer about what not to say to the intake person at CBIF (“my head hurts” “my chest hurts”) because CBIF could decide not accept a person without a doctor’s note. You certain might negotiate their need for hospital attention (read: sitting in the ER waiting room for hours for a 5-minute cursory exam). But if a prisoners insisted on going to a hospital, you don’t refuse medical treatment. You take him there. In the end it was their call.
[Apparently there’s now a metal barrier in the middle of the van.]
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The latest from Baltimore: Freddie Gray
Things are tense for police after the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore Police custody.
I got no clue what happened. And I’m not going to say much till I do.
Keep in mind that Baltimore cops don’t know what happened. But boy is this turning into quote a jackpot. A man died in police custody. Of a broken spine. Shit is hitting the fan. Six cops have been suspended (with pay).
It’s slowly becoming national news (which is rare, when it comes to Baltimore police issues).
What we do know is that last Sunday morning police in the Western approached a group of people. A guy takes off running. Cops chase. Bike cops catch and arrest the guy, Freddie Gray for carrying a small knife. He gets put in a wagon. When Gray comes out of the wagon, he’s seriously injured. He dies a week later.
From the New York Times:
“We have no evidence — physical, video or statements — of any use of force,” the deputy police commissioner, Jerry Rodriguez, said at the news conference. “He did suffer a very tragic injury to his spinal cord, which resulted in his death. What we don’t know, and what we need to get to, is how that injury occurred.”
Mr. Gray died Sunday, a week after his arrest. Witnesses captured parts of his encounter with the police on a cellphone video, in which screams can be heard as officers drag him into a transport van. An autopsy showed no wounds, except for the severed spinal cord, and the videos do not show the police acting forcefully.
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On the way to the station, the van made at least two stops — including one in which Mr. Gray was taken out and placed in leg shackles after the driver complained he was “acting irate in the back,” Mr. Rodriguez said. After Mr. Gray arrived at Baltimore’s Western District station, police officers called medics, who took him to a hospital.
From the Sun:
“When he was placed inside that van, he was able to talk, he was upset,” Deputy Police Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez said. “And when Mr. Gray was taken out of the van, he could not talk, he could not breathe.”
Police said they used no undue force when arresting Gray and can find no evidence from cellphone and city surveillance videos that officers brutalized Gray. They said an autopsy shows no indication that force was used.
But you need force from somewhere to be injured the way Gray was fatally injured. It is the responsibility of the wagonman (or woman) to make sure prisoners are safe and strapped down during transport.
It seems we have what started as a case of “felony running.” Running from police is not a a crime. But fleeing from police does give police reasonable suspicion to stop (Illinois v. Wardlow, 2000). We used to make fun of cops who caught a “felony runner.” That would happen when somebody takes off. You chase them! It’s natural. You’re a cop. You catch them… and then you realize they haven’t actually committed a crime. You search (I mean frisk) them hoping to find something. Anything. But if you don’t, you have to let them go. You can’t even get them for loitering. They weren’t loitering if they ran. Now I wouldn’t chase people just for running. But I could have, if I liked running more.
The court vague said you need something other than running, but that something can be almost anything including “high crime area” or “drug corner.” So I’m willing to say the approach, the chase, the stop, the frisk, the search, and the arrest were all legal.
I’m not saying this is the case here, but just FYI, it is not uncommon in Baltimore for corner boys to assign one person to be a “runner,” just to get police off on a wild goose chase. That could be some young kid. It could be a junkie.
Police pull up. Somebody runs. You can chase him. Or you can let him run. Personally, I’d prefer to grab the second guy who tried to get away, figuring he would be more likely to have the stash or a gun.
Now in this case Gray did have a small knife, for which he was arrested. (If you make cops chase you, they can be damn sure they will, as they should, lock you up for any legal reason.)
Meanwhile angry people think the police and politicians are covering things up. And yet most police officers also don’t trust the department and politicians. I wrote about race and police attitudes towards the discipline process back in 2008 in “Two Shades of Blue.” The idea is that the powers-that-be — and Baltimore has a black mayor and black police commissioner — will punish police officers, guilty or not, to placate the public. I assume that among the six suspended officers are those who made the arrest (I don’t know if that’s true). And yet the department has already said that things were OK when they handed off the prisoner. I hope they enjoy their paid days off.
Personally, it’s worth noting my surprise that these Western officers were doing any work at all on a Sunday morning. That is not generally how we rolled in the Eastern. Maybe it’s just because it’s spring. And you it’s spring in Baltimore because the bikes are in bloom.
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Baltimore Officer Down
From the Baltimore Sun:
Groman and another officer approached the car from the driver’s side
and another officer approached from the passenger’s side, police say in
charging documents. Officers directed the driver, Tavon Sullivan, to get
out of the car, police say, and he sat on the sidewalk.Police say Jones, sitting in the back seat, refused Groman’s orders to exit.
Groman told Jones to show his hands, which were in his jacket pocket and
waistband, according to Maj. Stanley Branford, commander of the
Homicide division, but Jones did not.Police say Groman told Jones
he would be tased if he didn’t comply. Groman pulled out his Taser just
as Jones pulled out a black Rossi .357-caliber revolver, police say in
charging documents.Detectives said Monday they do not know who fired first. No officers fired a gun, police said.
After Groman was struck, police said, Jones ran out of the car and was chased by two officers.Police say Jones ran into a backyard and was scaling a fence when an officer
hit him with his Taser, allowing police to arrest him.
…“We’ve had marches nationwide over the fact that we have lost lives in
police custody,” [Commissioner] Batts said. “I wonder if we’ll have those same marches
as officers are shot, too.”It’s worth noting that 1) Yes, cops get shot at even in situation where the shooter has no realistic chance of getting away with it. 2) No officer fired a shot. And this includes even after the suspect shot an officer and was trying to run away. I mention this because if cops really were out there to murder black people, this would have been a fine chance to get away with a freebie. But that’s not the way police officers think. 3) Had the officer drawn his gun instead of a the less-lethal Taser, well, who knows what would have happened? But the Taser didn’t help keep Groman from being shot. 4) Had the officer drawn his gun, no doubt some people would be complaining about an officer drawing his gun for no good reason.
Officer Groman is expected to “recover.” But as I’ve said before, you don’t ever completely recover from something like this. My thoughts are with him
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Thomas Frazier directs the Oakland Police Department to comply
I was just spell checking Thomas Frazier’s last name for something I’m writing and learned, though the wonders of google, that Frazier is now running the Oakland Police Department. And he’s running it in a way I’ve never heard of:
The former Baltimore police commissioner, who rose up the ranks in San Jose, is accountable only to the federal judge who last week appointed him to ram through reforms that Oakland police were supposed to have completed five years ago.
Despite the modest title of compliance director, Frazier, 68, will have authority to overrule top commanders, spend city funds and even oust Chief Howard Jordan and demote his deputies if he determines they are obstacles to the decade-old reform drive.
Damn…
Frazier is the guy who originally approved my Baltimore research, though he was gone before I got there. He and Kurt Schmoke were universally disliked by the time I got to Baltimore in late 1999. Among the rank-and-file, Frazier was never able to live down his line about police being “social workers with guns.”
“He won’t be intimidated by any outcry from the rank-and-file or the public,” said Gary McLhinney, the former head of Baltimore’s police union and a staunch Frazier critic. “When he gets an idea in his head, he’ll run with it. He doesn’t care if it’s popular.”
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“Academics loved Tom; rank-and-file cops despised him” McLhinney said. “Tom was into the community policing model really to the extreme. He wasn’t really interested in locking up bad guys. That wasn’t his focus.”
Between 1995 and 2000, murders in Baltimore dropped from 325 to 261.
There’s some irony that Frazier is now trying to clean up the mess in Oakland that Anthony Batts, now the Baltimore police commissioner, couldn’t fix.
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Baltimore police commissioner disarms man at gunpoint, with punch to face
I had a dream last night that I was back walking foot patrol in the Eastern District, south of Monument St. It was hip and happening! There were cool restaurants and clubs and even a nice museum. Everybody on the street was telling me, and I quote, “It’s like the next Berlin.” I was loving my job.
And then I woke up. Oh, Baltimore. Oh, Eastern District.
Good on Batts and his three-person detail for taking action. From the Sun:
Police Commissioner Batts responded and removed his service weapon and placed it against Mr. Moultrie’s head,” Diener wrote. “Mr. Moultrie would not release the gun from his grip, so Police Commissioner Batts also attempted to pull the gun from Mr. Moultrie’s hand. Police Commissioner Batts then hit Mr. Moultrie with a closed fist in the face.
The Commissioner was leaving the scene of a police-involved shooting. But I can’t help but wonder if Batts would be willing to charge another officer who used these same tactics, which, best I remember, were not taught in the police academy.
Moultrie, according to the article, was convicted in October 2013 for drug dealing and received a sentence of 20 years. So what is he doing out on the street in May, 2014? “All but two days of the sentence was suspended.” Twenty years becomes two-days time-served?! Oh, Baltimore. “The new arrest has triggered a violation of his probation.” I should hope so.
Meanwhile I give a Cop in the Hood “Bad-Mother Award” to Lisa Moultrie and Aunt Michelle Davis, whose only problem with the whole situation seems to be that their armed drug-dealing baby was hit and threatened. Said the aunt, “I wasn’t there… I know he was armed, but once they had him retrained, what was the point of the commissioner coming over there putting a gun to his head?!” I mean, can’t an armed man walk around in peace? Or at least be gently encouraged to disarm while at the same time maintaining his dignity and respect?
This happened at 2300 Monument, which google street view now tells me is Hernandez Grocery. Back when I was a cop, if I remember correctly, this joint was rather surprisingly owned by a cop’s family. What I do remember is that it was robbed on Christmas Day, 2000, by a man with a gun who got away with $900. At first I didn’t understand what the robbed people were telling me because they kept saying the robber “climbed over the bullet-proof glass.” I had been in this place many times and I didn’t understand how you could climb over bullet-proof glass. And then I finally saw that there was an “over,” like a foot, 12 feet above the ground, between the top of the glass and the ceiling.
I remember this night because it was my only Christmas policing and everybody was busy, fussing, and getting in their last minute Christmas robbing. An hour before the store got robbed, at the same location, I had caught two 13-years-old kids for armed robbery. They were like 4-feet tall and looked even younger than their age.
But what really struck me from that night wasn’t spider-man with a gun or 13-year-olds robbing people at knife point. It was the fact that these two 13-year-olds had serious rap sheets for offenses including crack dealing, attempted rape (1st degree sexual assault), and successful rape (2nd degree sex assault). And they had started (or at least started getting caught) were 11-years-old.