That time when the NAACP and ACLU sued Martin O'Malley over thousands of illegal arrests

[Cheese Sandwich]

Last edited Tue Jul 7, 2015, 12:11 AM - Edit history (1)

16 June 2006

The Maryland American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People filed a class action lawsuit in Baltimore Circuit Court Thursday alleging that Baltimore police systematically arrest people and hold them for hours without charge. The lawsuit - which names Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, present and past police officials, state corrections officials and individual police officers as defendants - also alleges that officials at the Maryland Central Booking and Intake Center often perform strip searches and body cavity searches on people arrested for minor offenses such as loitering, impeding or obstructing pedestrian traffic and disturbing the peace, as well as detain them in dirty and overcrowded jail cells.

The suit claims that policed arrested more than 76,000 people last year, and that 30 percent of those cases were dismissed after a preliminary review. The ACLU-MD believes that the Baltimore police department rewards its officers for the quantity of arrests, and tends to make unreasonable and unconstitutional arrests as a result. City Solicitor Ralph Tyler called the allegations "truly wild," adding that the plaintiffs will not be able to prove them. ACLU attorney David Rocah said that the lawsuit aims to change police policy and offers a remedy proposal [PDF text], including creating an incentive program for police officers to make arrests that are likely to be prosecuted and expunging the record of arrestees when they are not prosecuted. AP has more. The Baltimore Sun has local coverage.

http://jurist.org/paperchase/2006/06/aclu-naacp-sue-baltimore-police-over.php


Editing post to add ACLU Source: http://www.aclu-md.org/uploaded_files/0000/0199/pr-_naacp_v_bcpd.pdf

Edit again, I just want to add this one more court document: http://www.aclu-md.org/uploaded_files/0000/0204/bcpd_complaint.pdf

[swilton]

1. Good research and it doesn't surprise me

[bigdarryl]

2. O'Mally is a fraud he's going nowhere but down

[Cheese Sandwich]

12. Good call.

[FSogol]

13. You are kicking this lame thread? Change thousands to 14 and you might

be correct. The facts:

ACLU's announcement of the Settlement:

https://www.aclu.org/news/plaintiffs-win-justice-illegal-arrests-lawsuit-settlement-baltimore-city-police-department

and the Baltimore Sun's reporting on it:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-06-23/news/bs-md-ci-naacp-lawsuit-20100622_1_arrests-settlement-naacp-and-aclu

Note that the settlement was for 14 people wrongly arrested, not thousands.

[Cheese Sandwich]

14. NAACP & ACLU cited thousands of false arrests and systemic police abuse as the reason for suing

The ACLU and NAACP cited the thousands of false arrests and abusive policing policies as their reason for suing O'Malley and his cops.

Source: http://www.aclu-md.org/uploaded_files/0000/0199/pr-_naacp_v_bcpd.pdf

Calling the Baltimore City Police Department’s pattern and practice of illegally arresting tens of
thousands of individuals each year who are not and cannot be prosecuted a gross violation of rights, the
American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and the NAACP today filed a class-action lawsuit
challenging the practice and offering concrete proposals for reform. The lawsuit, filed in Baltimore City
Circuit Court, targets both city and state officials for their roles in making illegal arrests and mistreating
arrestees taken into custody at Central Booking.

Along with the legal filing, ACLU-MD, NAACP, and co-counsel Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP are
releasing a remedy plan to help ensure effective law enforcement for residents without violating their
rights.

“Despite the patently unconstitutional and illegal nature of this conduct and its detrimental effects on the
Baltimore residents whom the laws are supposed to protect, city officials have refused to end this practice,
and the rights violations are continuing in the state’s central booking facility,” said Deborah Jeon, Legal
Director of the ACLU of Maryland. “The time has come to rein in this abuse of power and stop these
unconstitutional and illegal acts. The ACLU and NAACP offer solutions and seek to work with the City
and State to remedy these serious violations of rights.”

Plaintiffs in the case include the State NAACP Conference, the City NAACP, and several individuals who
have had their rights violated when they were illegally arrested by Baltimore City police officers, detained
for as long as 54 hours, and then released without any charges being pursued against them.

“The NAACP is all for aggressive law enforcement,” said Jenkins Odoms, president of the Maryland
State Conference of NAACP Branches. “But last year nearly a third of the 76,000 individuals arrested in
Baltimore City – more than 25,000 people -- were released without charge. This is not effective law
enforcement.”

Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, president of the Baltimore City Branch of the NAACP, said: “Innocent people
are getting caught in the dragnet and their arrest records will follow them for the rest of their lives. An arrest record seriously affects your ability to get jobs and housing, which already is a big challenge for so many people here in the City of Baltimore.”

READ MORE: http://www.aclu-md.org/uploaded_files/0000/0199/pr-_naacp_v_bcpd.pdf

[FSogol]

17. 14 people, not thousands

A lawsuit filed in 2006 on behalf of 14 people alleged that their arrests indicated a broad pattern of abuse in which thousands of people were routinely arrested without probable cause. The suit also alleged that the so-called "zero tolerance" system was endorsed and enforced by city officials under the tenure of then-mayor Martin O'Malley.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-06-23/news/bs-md-ci-naacp-lawsuit-20100622_1_arrests-settlement-naacp-and-aclu

You can find that in every major city in this country. Get some new material.

[Cheese Sandwich]

18. Are you able to read these words:

Calling the Baltimore City Police Department’s pattern and practice of illegally arresting tens of
thousands of individuals each year who are not and cannot be prosecuted a gross violation of rights, the
American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and the NAACP today filed a class-action lawsuit
challenging the practice and offering concrete proposals for reform. The lawsuit, filed in Baltimore City
Circuit Court, targets both city and state officials for their roles in making illegal arrests and mistreating
arrestees taken into custody at Central Booking.

http://www.aclu-md.org/uploaded_files/0000/0199/pr-_naacp_v_bcpd.pdf

Why are you casually dismissing this as 14 people? Thousands were falsely imprisoned and thousands others got criminal records, damaging their whole lives, and had their dignity assaulted including being strip searched in jail.

This was the result of O'Malley's police policies. And you are repeatedly dismissing it as "14 people". 14 plaintiffs were named on the lawsuit, but the NAACP and ACLU named thousands of illegal arrests as the reason for the suit.

Why do you dismiss that fact as if those lives don't matter? I have a hard time imagining you would so callously dismiss all these lives if this happened to thousands of white people. Or that you would say they don't count if this happened to someone in your own family.

[FSogol]

19. The case you keep harping about concerned 14 people, not thousands.

And while you pretend I don't care about lives in Baltimore, you don't seem to care that high crime and a drug war impacted lives more than over-policing. After the crime rate came down, policies changed to address the over-policing. A good analogy would be firemen rush to put out a fire before worrying whether they wiped their feet on the entrance mat.

What was changed?

Increased minority hiring of officers.
A civilian review board over the police
Legislation to wipe arrests without convictions from citizen's records
Allowing felons to regain the right to vote following their sentences
Not allowing the State to question job applicants over arrests.
Decriminalizing marijuana
Targeted community policing in lieu of zero tolerance

What did the citizens of Baltimore (predominately African American) think about what was happening at the time?

They approved of O'Malley and his methods and reelected him with 87% of the vote.

From a recent Washington Post article:

“What was positive was that there was zero-tolerance for criminals and drug dealers locking down neighborhoods and taking neighborhoods hostage,” said the Rev. Franklin Madison Reid, a Baltimore pastor. “Does that mean there was no down side? No. But the bottom line was that the city was in a lot stronger position as a city after he became mayor.”

Benjamin T. Jealous, a former president of the national NAACP who worked with O’Malley when Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, credited him for supporting a civilian review board as mayor and for a sharp drop in police shootings that occurred during that time. Jealous said O’Malley’s “mass incarceration” police strategy is “a separate issue” than police brutality, and “a conversation for a different day.”“It was a period where a lot of mayors were doing whatever they could to try to reduce crime,” Jealous said.

[Cheese Sandwich]

20. There you go again with the dismissive attitude, as if the lives of thousands of people don't matter

You say I "keep harping" on it, as if it doesn't deserve attention.

You keep saying the case only affected 14 people, even though I have shown you direct evidence in a statement from the NAACP and ACLU saying the motive for the case was the false arrests and brutalization of tens of thousands of people, overwhelmingly American American.

There were 14 plaintiffs chosen for the law suit.

Claiming these 14 people were the only ones affected is either a lie or stupid beyond belief, or racist because you think thousands of black lives don't count, or possibly just an honest mistake on your part.

[FSogol]

21. Not dimissive at all. How many lives improved by O'Malley's actions of

getting rid of open air drug markets, doubled the dollars going to drug treatment, decriminalizing marijuana, and bringing crime down to historic lows? How about when he moved away from zero tolerance instead using citistat to target problem crime areas and increase police where they counted? How about switching to more of community based policing, a civilian review board to oversee the cops, and reducing police shootings to their lowest level? How about increasing minority hiring on the police force? He did all those things and more to improve Baltimore.

From Washington Post articles:

Benjamin T. Jealous, a former president of the national NAACP who worked with O’Malley when Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, credited him for supporting a civilian review board as mayor and for a sharp drop in police shootings that occurred during that time. Jealous said O’Malley’s “mass incarceration” police strategy is “a separate issue” than police brutality, and “a conversation for a different day.”“It was a period where a lot of mayors were doing whatever they could to try to reduce crime,” Jealous said.


and

Earlier this month, at a civil rights event convened by the Rev. Al Sharpton, O’Malley said his crime-reduction efforts as mayor saved many lives. “There are a thousand fewer black men in Baltimore who died violent deaths over the last 15 years than otherwise would have died had we not come together.”

PS. I've replied to you with the same response 3 times, but you keep up this ridiculous attack on me. Lame to the nth degree. You also get minus 100 points for quoting the puke Reagan.

[Cheese Sandwich]

22. You get negative a billion for ignoring tens of thousands of black lives destroyed by

Martin O'Malley's Baltimore PD. The direct result of his official policies of mass arrest and civil rights abuse, overwhelmingly targeted at black men.

It's not an attack. It's a fact. You keep quoting this bullshit lie that O'Malley's policies only affected 14 people, or that the NAACP-ACLU joint law suit only affected 14 people. That is in fact a god damn lie.

It's amazing to me that in the middle of this serious subject you would actually bring up some childish shit like somebody "quoting Reagan", and then throw a puke symbol after it.

There is something else much more puke-worthy that has gone on here: You repeatedly ignoring how O'Malley's policies unfairly damaged or even destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of black men.

And that was even after being shown facts and statements from the NAACP, ACLU, and local leaders stating their reason for suing O'Malley was because his policies were affecting tens of thousands, mostly African American.

[FSogol]

23. I never ignored it. I've posted actual facts on what O'Malley did to improve

the city and to save lives. Just because you ignore it doesn't mean I have ignored it. Here it is again:

Not dismissive at all. How many lives improved by O'Malley's actions of getting rid of open air drug markets, doubled the dollars going to drug treatment, decriminalizing marijuana, and bringing crime down to historic lows? How about when he moved away from zero tolerance instead using citistat to target problem crime areas and increase police where they counted? How about switching to more of community based policing, a civilian review board to oversee the cops, and reducing police shootings to their lowest level? How about increasing minority hiring on the police force? He did all those things and more to improve Baltimore.

From Washington Post articles:

Benjamin T. Jealous, a former president of the national NAACP who worked with O’Malley when Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, credited him for supporting a civilian review board as mayor and for a sharp drop in police shootings that occurred during that time. Jealous said O’Malley’s “mass incarceration” police strategy is “a separate issue” than police brutality, and “a conversation for a different day.”“It was a period where a lot of mayors were doing whatever they could to try to reduce crime,” Jealous said.

and

Earlier this month, at a civil rights event convened by the Rev. Al Sharpton, O’Malley said his crime-reduction efforts as mayor saved many lives. “There are a thousand fewer black men in Baltimore who died violent deaths over the last 15 years than otherwise would have died had we not come together.”

If you bothered to read it any of the 4 times, I have posted it, you might realize that the quote supporting O'Malley came from the NAACP.

Don't like puke symbols? Don't quote Reagan on DU.

[Cheese Sandwich]

24. Anybody can read through here and judge for themselves

whether or not you tried to brush off O'Malley's mass abuse of the black community as no big deal, even lying about the numbers of people affected, trying to change the subject to the death penalty.

The people who had to live under O'Malley's abusive policing know the true story.

I didn't even know that was a Reagan quote. In any case bringing that up shows you're trying to distract from a serious issue with trivial political bullshit.

Actually sir or ma'am, you are still being fraudulent because here's the rest of that Al Sharpton quote you posted. I can see why you didn't post the link because anyone who clicked on it would find you cherry picked one quote out of the article and ignored all the parts about where Sharpton says O'Malley's policies led to racial profiling and harassment of black men and bred mistrust throughout the community.

Sharpton — who said he invited O’Malley to speak at the convention because he is a potential presidential candidate -- still recalls O’Malley’s police strategies when he was mayor, which he criticized at the time for leading “to a lot of racial profiling and harassment of black men.”

“It breeds mistrust when you have everyone stopped two or three times,” Sharpton said. “It permeates throughout the community.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/as-mayor-of-baltimore-omalleys-policing-strategy-sowed-mistrust/2015/04/25/af81178a-ea9d-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html

Wow. Do you even realize that were talking about the lives of thousands of black men damaged with arrest records? And you're completely comfortable picking that one sentence from Al Sharpton while excluding the next two sentences? Why would you do something like that?

[FSogol]

25. O'Malley was reelected with 87% of the vote by the people you are claiming hated him

and his policies. They are the people that were affected by his policies. O'Malley also signed into law a bill that expunged the records of people arrested but not charged.

Dishonest? You are ignoring the people in charge of Baltimore since O'Malley left in 2007 to blame someone from 7.5 years ago. You are also ignoring all of the things he did to improve the city, which I have posted 4 times in this thread.



Also, LOL at the idea that I am obligated to post criticism of my preferred candidate. I'll leave that job to various internet disruptors, trolls, and sock puppets. Most Democrats on DU can promote their candidate without constantly attacking everything and everyone. Drink some water, heat exhaustion can be a serious problem this time of year.

[Cheese Sandwich]

26. I don't recall saying people hated him.

You must have made that up.

Of course after lying, misleading, and trying to distract, there's really nothing left except claiming anybody posting inconvenient facts about Martin O'Malley must be a troll or sock puppet.

Sometimes it's easier just to admit our mistakes and move on

You're not obligated to post criticism of your preferred candidate. But if you try to trivialize and minimize the thousands of lives wrecked by his crappy policies you show people something.

[FSogol]

27. Does that mean you are giving this thread up? It didn't really turn out the way you wanted.

[Cheese Sandwich]

15. Why so casually dismissive toward the thousands whose lives were destroyed by O'Malley's policies?

Do you realize their lives matter just as much as your own?

[FSogol]

16. Not dimissive at all. How many lives improved by O'Malley's actions of

getting rid of open air drug markets, doubled the dollars going to drug treatment, decriminalizing marijuana, and bringing crime down to historic lows? How about when he moved away from zero tolerance instead using citistat to target problem crime areas and increase police where they counted? How about switching to more of community based policing, a civilian review board to oversee the cops, and reducing police shootings to their lowest level? How about increasing minority hiring on the police force? He did all those things and more to improve Baltimore.

From Washington Post articles:

Benjamin T. Jealous, a former president of the national NAACP who worked with O’Malley when Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, credited him for supporting a civilian review board as mayor and for a sharp drop in police shootings that occurred during that time. Jealous said O’Malley’s “mass incarceration” police strategy is “a separate issue” than police brutality, and “a conversation for a different day.”“It was a period where a lot of mayors were doing whatever they could to try to reduce crime,” Jealous said.

and

Earlier this month, at a civil rights event convened by the Rev. Al Sharpton, O’Malley said his crime-reduction efforts as mayor saved many lives. “There are a thousand fewer black men in Baltimore who died violent deaths over the last 15 years than otherwise would have died had we not come together.”

[4139]

3. Results of the lawsuit? I couldn't find BUT...

I did find a thesis someone wrote on the subject
PDF]Justice Undone: Examining Arrests Ending in Release without ...
http://www.abell.org/sites/default/files/files/2007%20Brannen.pdf

I did look high and low but could not find anything about the lawsuit except that it was announced

[FSogol]

5. Settled by the city out of court. It would be impossible to find a major city in

the US where this hasn't happened. If I can find the results of the settlement, I'll post it for you.

[FSogol]

9. As promised

ACLU's announcement of the Settlement:

https://www.aclu.org/news/plaintiffs-win-justice-illegal-arrests-lawsuit-settlement-baltimore-city-police-department

and the Baltimore Sun's reporting on it:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-06-23/news/bs-md-ci-naacp-lawsuit-20100622_1_arrests-settlement-naacp-and-aclu

Note that the settlement was for 14 people wrongly arrested, not thousands.

[4139]

10. Thanks, I had narrowed then time search too much... Didn't think it would take 4 years

[Cheese Sandwich]

58. But note the NAACP & ACLU said their motive for suing was the effects on tens of thousands of people

http://www.aclu-md.org/uploaded_files/0000/0199/pr-_naacp_v_bcpd.pdf

Calling the Baltimore City Police Department’s pattern and practice of illegally arresting tens of
thousands of individuals each year who are not and cannot be prosecuted a gross violation of rights, the
American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and the NAACP today filed a class-action lawsuit
challenging the practice and offering concrete proposals for reform. The lawsuit, filed in Baltimore City
Circuit Court, targets both city and state officials for their roles in making illegal arrests and mistreating
arrestees taken into custody at Central Booking.

You can the statement here:
http://www.aclu-md.org/uploaded_files/0000/0199/pr-_naacp_v_bcpd.pdf

Please be informed by the entire statement here and don't be fooled by misleading claims throughout the thread that only 14 people were affected by this.

[FSogol]

4. You have Martin O'Malley all wrong

From 2000-2010, the incidents of crime in Baltimore dropped 43 percent, outpacing by a stretch the 11 percent drop that the nation saw during that period. The crime rate dropped by 40 percent. Graduation rates rose. Median home prices doubled. A new biotech park was built on the city’s east side. A new performing arts center was built on the west side. O’Malley was obsessed with numbers and metrics, and set up a 311 call center to track citizen complaints. A program called Project 5000 enlisted volunteer attorneys to help deal with the city’s massive vacant home problem as titles to those homes was eventually transferred to individuals and non-profits for redevelopment. The school system was pulled back from the fiscal brink. CitiStat, designed to track crime, helped bring the crime rate down and created a budget surplus of $54 million that was then reinvested in schools and programs for children. At last, the population stabilized. It was no longer necessary to flee, if you could. The number of college educated 25-to-34-year-olds living within three miles of downtown Baltimore increased 92 percent in the ten years after O’Malley became mayor, fourth among the nation’s 51st largest metro areas.

Time Magazine named O’Malley one of the five best big city mayors in America. Esquire named him the best young mayor in America. CitiStat won Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government “Innovations in American Government Award.”

Drawing a bright red line between the Clinton and Bush years, O’Malley said, “We haven’t had an agenda for our cities in thirty years. It is not something you solve with a nifty pilot program. It is not something you solve with philanthropy or with a thousand points of light. When you create an economy where you subsidize corporate profits through a welfare program and food stamps in order to keep wages low in some perverse pursuit of ‘competiveness,’ than you reap the fruits of the anger that you sow. And that is what is happening in our country today.”

Tying O’Malley to Baltimore is an old political saw. When you tried to run for governor of Maryland, Republicans ran ads with flashing police lights, talked about how O’Malley would do for Baltimore what he did for Maryland. O’Malley won statewide twice though, boosted by those same Baltimore neighborhoods that he is now blamed for turning into powder kegs.

read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/06/you-have-martin-o-malley-all-wrong.html …

[Cheese Sandwich]

7. How many people died resulting from O'Malley's abusive "zero-tolerance" policing?

How many innocent lives wrecked?

Maybe you should look into that instead of harassing me personally.

Sanders and Clinton both receive criticism aplenty on the site. O'Malley's record is not off limits. He's no saint.

[FSogol]

8. And how many lives improved when he got rid of open air drug markets, doubled the dollars

going to drug treatment, decriminalized marijuana, and brought crime down to historic lows? How about when he moved away from zero tolerance instead using citistat to target problem crime areas and increase police where they counted? How about switching to more of community based policing, a civilian review board to oversee the cops, and reducing police shooting to their lowest level? How about increasing minority hiring on the police force? He did all those things and more to improve Baltimore.

He might not be a Saint, but we definitely need more of him.

[Cheese Sandwich]

11. That's interesting

[Koinos]

28. Baltimore, a majority African American city, reelected him mayor with 87% of the vote.

The majority of black people in Baltimore were relieved to see drug deals off the streets and murders reduced.

O'Malley's policies saved numerous lives of young black people. Baltimore citizens approved of the way he handled crime. If they hadn't, they never would have reelected him by such a huge margin.

What crime rate and racial tension did Bernie face as mayor of Burlington? I'm happy for him that he had it easier than O'Malley.

O'Malley faced a huge challenge, made things better for the people of Baltimore, and pissed off some people. Every successful executive pisses off some people and pleases others. It goes with the territory of trying to get something done and not lobbing purist ideology grenades from an ivory tower.

He did the best he could in a very difficult situation. Does the OP really know what it was like in Baltimore before O'Malley became mayor? Does he know about the family that was murdered because they reported a drug deal going on in their neighborhood? It is better and fairer to research all sides of every issue and not just to pick and choose.

Baltimore's problems started a long time before O'Malley's tenure. Why not blame the present mayor for the rise in murders in the last several months? But she too is doing her best. Would the OP want her job?

[Cheese Sandwich]

29. But who is responsible for the abuses of the police against the citizens?

Aren't the mayor and stuff like that responsible for that?

[Koinos]

30. Not sure what you mean by "stuff like that."

Would you advocate that every mayor in every major city of the United States should be charged with the crimes committed by their police officers?

In O'Malley's case, he worked with community leaders to monitor the conduct of police. What more can a mayor do? In the case of the present mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, should she be held responsible for every abuse committed by Baltimore police officers?

How much tolerance of criminal activity should a mayor exercise? How do you bring down alarming murder and crime rates? Should you exercise "zero tolerance," as many mayors did? Should you have "high tolerance" and let criminals get away with certain crimes?

Both have been tried. In Baltimore, the rate of violent crime has been rising since the "protests" and "riots." This is because police officers are exercising a hands-off approach. Some are afraid of being charged; others are angry with the mayor.

Arrest too many persons, and there is backlash. Arrest too few persons, and lack of enforcement leads to more violent crime and deaths.

In the end, the poor training and poor judgment of police officers (protected by strong police unions) has more to do with trends toward police abuse than any one mayor or public official.

O'Malley ran for mayor and won because he promised to reduce murder and other crimes in a city where citizens feared for their lives. Loving Baltimore, he could not stand by while so many people were dying in his city.

While some people were treated unjustly during that period, many more were saved from violent death. It is hard to be a mayor in a major city with a high crime rate. O'Malley faced the challenge courageously and received many awards for his achievements as mayor.

If you only focus on what went wrong and ignore these achievements, including monitoring his police force and walking the streets with African American community leaders, you do an injustice not just to O'Malley, but to every big city mayor faced with the repercussions of high unemployment, poverty, gangs, and despair.

Once again, I am happy for Bernie and other mayors who have not had to put up with that crap.

[Cheese Sandwich]

31. Except in this case it was his policies that created a pattern of false arrests and abuse

Would you advocate that every mayor in every major city of the United States should be charged with the crimes committed by their police officers?

Not necessarily but in this case it was his policies that led to a pattern of false arrests and abuse. It wasn't just crimes of police, it was the Mayor's policies that lead to rampant civil rights abuses. Or it made it worse.

Wouldn't the mayor be responsible for that?

I guess I'm not buying this either:

While some people were treated unjustly during that period, many more were saved from violent death.

That there wasn't a better way than creating a system of mass false arrest and civil rights violations. There is a better way to handle crime actually.

You're giving a very thoughtful response and I do respect and appreciate that.

But I just disagree that mass civil rights violations were called for. His policies lead to thousands of illegal arrests. I'm not giving the guy a lot of credit for stopping a very abusive program that he never should have started in the first place.

Edit to add this. You say

It is hard to be a mayor in a major city with a high crime rate.

Really? It's hard to be a president too. Is he going to have the same ideas as president, thinking it's ok to escalate a wave of civil rights abuses to crack down on crime or terrorism, or whatever the threat of the day may be?

[Koinos]

32. And other mayors all over the country (including New York) who tried the same strategies?

Many mayors were dealing with the same sorts of problems that O'Malley had to deal with.

The situation in many cities was abominable.

Look at the real numbers: Murders and violent crimes went down in number during O'Malley's tenure.

That there wasn't a better way than creating a system of mass false arrest and civil rights violations. There is a way better to handle crime actually.

So, Mr. Mayor of Baltimore, I challenge you. Inform yourself about the real situation in Baltimore beginning in 1971 (and earlier). When you have done that, please come back and tell us what you would have done to stop the homicide epidemic. And explain to us why the vast majority of Baltimore citizens approved of O'Malley as their mayor.

African Americans in Baltimore voted overwhelmingly for O'Malley twice. The majority minority population approved of the reductions in crime on their street corners, their backyards, their places of business, and in their homes. In some neighborhoods, people had to enter their homes though their back door, to avoid gangs in their front yards. If the voting numbers in two mayoral elections don't convince you, then nothing will ever convince you. The important thing is that the people of Baltimore were convinced. They felt safer; they were safer; fewer of them died needlessly.

So learn about the history of Baltimore, and then tell the people of Baltimore they were wrong for supporting and approving of the mayor of their city. I think the majority of the people of Baltimore have more right than you to decide what is and was best for themselves. O'Malley received 91% of the vote the first time, because he promised to reduce crime. O'Malley received 88% of the vote the second time, because he did what he had promised.

Of course, you could say that 9% of the people did not like him and voted against him the first time. And you could say that 12% of the population resented his policies and even hated him for that reason. Maybe this is the 12% (including some republicans by the way) that you get your talking points from. Try listening to the 91% and the 88% for a change. Actually, they probably don't make as much noise as the naysayers and hecklers; so you might not even hear them.

[Cheese Sandwich]

33. ok be real...

You speculate maybe I'm getting talking points from Republicans, but if you look at the OP, it's just ACLU and NAACP. Those are not Republicans. I found that with google.

I don't disagree with any of the facts you presented. I appreciate you seem sincere and you're making me think about the issue.

Still, tens of thousands of innocent people, overwhelmingly black men, were swept up in illegal mass arrests, humiliated, strip searched, some ending up with arrest records that stick with you for life, making hard to ever get a good job.

This is not OK with me. And this type of policing does not get at the root causes of crime. It only breeds distrust and contempt for the cops.

I understand you're saying he was re-elected by a wide margin. But in my view that does not excuse what he did. Not anymore than Reagan or Thatcher are excused for their crimes simply because they were re-elected. You say other cities were doing it. Some were, but I'm still against it.

I know right from wrong according to my values and that is not it. You ask what I would have done? Basically give power to the people who live in target neighborhoods to have democratic control over their police and over local businesses. Use eminent domain to seize unused properties and convert them into community owned factory production shops. Give jobs and equal ownership shares to everyone who lives there. Create a grass roots community police force, governed by a newly created citizens assembly. Obviously you can't make these things without political co-operation from the others in city government, but this is the type of thing a big city mayor could fight for if they chose to.

[Koinos]

34. Incorrect Data

It wasn't thousands of people. It was thousands of arrest. Many of the same people were arrested over and over again. Check the facts.

Arrest records were purged later.

You write:

You ask what I would have done? Basically give power to the people who live in target neighborhoods to have democratic control over their police and over local businesses. Use eminent domain to seize unused properties and convert them into community owned factory production shops. Give jobs and equal ownership shares to everyone who lives there. Create a grass roots community police force, governed by a newly created citizens assembly. Obviously you can't make these things without political co-operation from the others in city government, but this is the type of thing a big city mayor could fight for if they chose to.

O'Malley did work with community leaders and walked with these folks through some of the most troubled neighborhoods. You forgot to mention that.

Democratic control over their police and local businesses? Vigilantes or what? Again, do some research about the troubled Baltimore neighborhoods with 50% unemployment.

Give jobs and equal ownership shares to the people who live there? What jobs? Visit some of the neighborhoods you are prescribing this for, and then get back to me.

A grass roots community police force? Maybe recruit them from gang members? Do you know anything about Baltimore's gang history?

Newly created citizens assembly? What you don't know about Baltimore would fill the Library of Congress.

Actually O'Malley did provide for communication with the community and a feedback reporting system that allowed citizens to file complaints about police and report neighborhood crimes.

You need grounding in reality, my friend. You also need to read what O'Malley did in fact do to improve community relations.

But you have to stop the killing first, and there is no perfect way to do that.

I believe you sank your own ship with your notion of the equivalent of neighborhood militias in the city of Baltimore.

I will quit the thread now, so that you can move to a troubled neighborhood in Baltimore and start up a grassroots police force.

[Cheese Sandwich]

35. It says here "tens of thousands of individuals each year "

Calling the Baltimore City Police Department’s pattern and practice of illegally arresting tens of
thousands of individuals each year who are not and cannot be prosecuted a gross violation of rights, the
American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and the NAACP today filed a class-action lawsuit

http://www.aclu-md.org/uploaded_files/0000/0199/pr-_naacp_v_bcpd.pdf

[FSogol]

36. Maybe your proposed militias could have done a better job?

Cheese Toast!

[Cheese Sandwich]

38. Yes black neighborhoods should have control of their own police

Community control of police. Especially when there is a long record of police abuse and harassment.

[FSogol]

40. They do. Thanks to O'Malley. They have a civilian review board and community offiicers.

Thanks for getting it right for a change. That's a big step.

[Cheese Sandwich]

43. No they don't. Citizen review board is not community control

You laugh my ideas for black neighborhoods being in control of their own police, but reforms like citizen review, community officers, that stuff has already been tried and it doesn't work.

The problem comes from above, from the entire criminal justice system, attorneys, judges, politicians.

The police should be accountable to the people they serve. We should change it so cops are accountable to the people below.

[FSogol]

45. Why not just admit that you have no idea how the board works or what it does?

Blather on! Let the nonsense flow, Toast. blah-blah-blah.....

[Cheese Sandwich]

46. You said black neighborhoods in Baltimore have community control of their police, thanks to O'Malley

[FSogol]

47. No I didn't, they have a civilian review board that gives them oversight over the police.

If you don't know what a review board does, just ask.

[Cheese Sandwich]

49. Actually this is too sad to even laugh at.

You don't seem to appreciate the level of police terror that some neighborhoods deal with.

There is not community control.

[FSogol]

50. Didn't Baltimore charge 6 police officers in Gray's death?

In Ferguson, Missouri there was no path for citizens to have any oversight over the police. That is not true in Baltimore.

[Cheese Sandwich]

37. Also you say arrest records were purged later but

Some people claim they were not able to get their records expunged and that people are still suffering from it today.

Although prosecutors declined to bring many of the cases, activists contend that those who were arrested often could not get their records expunged, making it harder for them to get jobs.


“We still have men who are suffering from it today,” said Marvin “Doc” Cheathem, a past president of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP, which won a court settlement stemming from the city’s policing policies. “The guy is good at talking, but a lot of us know the real story of the harm he brought to our city.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/as-mayor-of-baltimore-omalleys-policing-strategy-sowed-mistrust/2015/04/25/af81178a-ea9d-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html


Personally I do have fairly radical ideas about how to restructure local economies, and you asked what I would do, so I gave a radical answer. But you wouldn't need to accept that particular solution to understand it's not OK to mass arrest a bunch of guys standing around a park, strip search them, hold them for days in dirty jail cells, and then release them without charges, or on trumped up charges. Treating people like their lives don't matter is how you end up with riots.

[FSogol]

39. From Ben Casselman at 538

O’Malley has defended his record. At the time of the settlement, O’Malley said there was “never, ever a policy that asked police officers to go beyond the Constitution or engage in illegal arrests,” according to the Baltimore Sun. In an email on Saturday, a spokeswoman for O’Malley pointed to statistics showing that during his time as mayor, fatal and non-fatal police shootings fell, minority hiring in the department rose and complaints of misconduct declined. Violent crime, meanwhile, fell by more than in any other large city in the country, according to FBI data.

Almost none of Baltimore’s leaders at the time of the suit are still in power, and local advocates say they’ve seen some signs of change. The number of arrests has fallen sharply, from more than 100,000 in 2005 to less than 40,000 last year, as crime has generally continued to decline. But Paul DeWolfe, Maryland’s state public defender, said the protests following Gray’s death show the city hasn’t restored trust between residents and their police force.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/baltimore-has-a-history-of-improper-arrests/

Also, the records of people wrongfully arrested were expunged. Denying it over and over doesn't change the fact.

I'm surprised you haven't left yet to form militias to save Baltimore? Why not?

[Cheese Sandwich]

41. Anyone swept up in a mass arrest was wrongfully arrested.

I believe people are actually defending that because they think its a good way to fight crime.

Also, the records of people wrongfully arrested were expunged. Denying it over and over doesn't change the fact.

Link Source? Saying it over and over again doesn't make it true.

[FSogol]

42. Come on, Cheese Toast, your militia awaits.

PS, No one defends it. It did happen. It caused problems and that style of policing was moved away from for better/fairer methods. Need a link? Try reading the ones in this thread.

PPS, Still doing it poorly.

[Cheese Sandwich]

44. You're doing it poorly. You make claims but don't back them up.

I already checked the links in the thread.

[Vattel]

62. The arrests from the O'Malley era were not expunged.

When O'Malley was mayor one could within three years of an arrest without a charge apply in writing to have the arrest expunged from one's record. But there was a bullshit requirement to sign an agreement not to sue the city for the arrest. Later in 2007, when O'Malley was governor, he signed into law a bill that automatically expunged such arrests, but it was not retroactive. So for all those shitty arrests under Mayor O'Malley, the victim still had to apply in writing to get their record expunged. The good thing for those subjected to an arrest without charge in the O'Malley era is that the new law eliminated the requirement that the person seeking to have the record of an arrest expunged sign an agreement not to sue the city for the arrest.

http://www.jotf.org/Portals/0/11-23-07%20-%20Sun%20-%20It%20is%20the%20law.pdf

[Cheese Sandwich]

63. Thanks for this great information

[Vattel]

64. You are welcome.

I am a Maryland resident who lives about 15 minutes from downtown Baltimore. I have a pretty good idea of what went on with the police when O'Malley was mayor, and it was no ordinary "broken windows" policy. David Simon's description is much closer to the truth than what you get from O'Malley's supporters. Here are a couple more questionable claims that have been thrown at you in this thread:

1. The claim by supporters that O'Malley changed his policies once crime went down is false: it was the mayor after O'Malley that brought arrests way down.

2. The claim that his mass arrests brought the crime rate down by 43% from 2000-2010 is clearly false. The mayor after O'Malley stopped the mass arrests and only then did the murder rate plummet. The murder rate went down just a little under O'Malley. The murder rate is probably the best indicator of the rate of violent crime since it is hard to mess with the stats when you have a dead body. The substantial drop in the rape rate, on the other hand, is highly questionable, and indeed some police have said that the stats were being messed with. Furthermore that 43% figure is for years 2000-2010. The last four years of that time frame (2007-2010) O'Malley wasn't even mayor and the mass arrests had stopped.

3. I would need to see a link before I would believe the claim made in a post above that O'Malley apologized for his mass arrest policy. It's possible that I missed that apology, but I wouldn't take the word of his supporters that there was an apology for his policies. O'Malley has generally chosen to defend his mass arrest policy in Baltimore.

[lovemydog]

48. Why do you bring this up

when O'Malley himself apologized publicly, helped change those awful policies, was reelected by the people of Baltimore after that suit was settled, and by all accounts the situation there has dramatically improved?

I watched a lot of local television during the recent disturbances there. What I saw was community leaders and activists pointing out that Baltimore is a fantastic city with a lot of great things happening. The district attorney and her staff being a prime example, but many many others as well. Most of our Maryland friends here at DU seem to like him a lot. That's why I'm considering him. I'll watch him in the debates. I'm most interested in how he stands on policy proposals vis a vis Sanders.

[Cheese Sandwich]

51. Just so we can talk about O'Malley's record with abusive policing

I watched a lot of local television during the recent disturbances there. What I saw was community leaders and activists pointing out that Baltimore is a fantastic city with a lot of great things happening.

We must have been watching different channels.

I'm glad if he apologized and changed his policies. But that's kind of like punching someone in the face and then apologizing. You don't get a reward for apologizing after you break somebody's life.

[JustAnotherGen]

52. Because he left his ham at home?

[lovemydog]

54. 'Order in the court!'

'I'll have a ham and cheese on rye!'

[JustAnotherGen]

55. I'm having grilled cheddar

On gluten free bread for lunch!

[lovemydog]

57. That's change

I can believe in. Enjoy!

[bigtree]

53. it's just a cheap way of providing noise in the way of more positive O'Malley posts

...we used to say 'let it fall'

This amateurish spam disappears without the back and forth kicking it up to the top of the page. I'm tired of seeing his kicked up with the juvenile, oh so innocent defenses of this post from cheesy. There's much more substantive material to highlight and discuss. This is old news here being used as smoke.

Let it fall.

[Cheese Sandwich]

56. Cheap?! Sorry but O'Malley's cops harassed, abused and falsely arrested thousands of people

You don't think that's a significant issue for discussion? Thousands of people falsely arrested, strip searched, humiliated, held in dirty jail cells for days and then released without charge? O'Malley's policies led to this.

If this had happened to thousands of white people, they never could have have gotten away with it.

And nobody would be defending it or dismissing it as an insignificant or irrelevant bit of history. It would be a national scandal.

It's sad some people think this issue is not important. At the least O'Malley needs to make a public statement apologizing for this, and explaining he has learned from his mistakes. No one should accept the apology, but he should still at least offer it.

[Vattel]

61. O'Malley didn't change his policies as mayor. The next mayor changed those policies

and the murder rate finally dropped significantly.

[Vattel]

59. Cheese, I appreciate your efforts to get the truth out.

I find it amazing that so many supporters of O'Malley actually defend his mass arrest policies.

[Cheese Sandwich]

60. Thanks.

Everyone should know how O'Malley's policies escalated a wave of police abuse in Baltimore.

People should give O'Malley the same type of scrutiny we give to Clinton and Sanders on a daily basis around here.