Martin O'Malley answers questions on his qualifications to change the culture of law enforcement

[bigtree]

jamilah ‏@JamilahLemieux (for EBONY Magazine)
I spoke with @MartinOMalley on his criminal justice reform plan and addressing racism and engaging activists: http://ebony.com/news-views/omalley-debuts-criminal-justice-reform-plan-interview-503#.Vbtw_0uEz1o …

The former mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland spoke exclusively to EBONY about why he’s ready to challenge structural racism and how his record of service makes him more qualified than both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders to change the culture of American law enforcement...

EBONY: Do you think that the nation is ready for this type of criminal justice reform plan?

MO: I absolutely do and one of the very important things that we can establish right off the bat is to require data to be recorded that measures police-involved shootings, custodial death [and] excessive use of force… we should require every department to monitor as courtesy excessive force complaints because the things that get measured are the things that get management attention and in the past we haven’t had that standard recording in our country. And I think we especially need it now, so that all of us as citizens will know whether our departments are doing any better this week, or this year, or this month than we were before in terms of reducing excessive force, reducing discourtesy complaints and police involved shootings.

EBONY: Are you ready to tell the entire country—not just the National Urban League or the NAACP—that you are ready to make addressing racism an important part of your campaign for presidency and, if elected, your presidency?

MO: Yes, I am and it’s been an important part of my entire calling to public service throughout my life. I think Dr. King summed it up when he said that one day, this generation of Americans will be called [to respond] not only for the evil acts of bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good. I think it’s irresponsible for us as citizens not to find ways to talk about this and I think that’s especially important in the public forum of selecting the next president of the United States. And that’s something that, as the mayor of Baltimore elected when our city had become the most violent in America that I’ve had a lot of experience with. And as governor, we reduced our incarceration rate. It was at a 20 year low and we did it by reducing recidivism by 15%. We restored voting rights to 52,000 people, we eliminated the death penalty and we decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana. So I’ve had a long trajectory over 15 years in a very diverse space of talking about [these things]. And I tend to talk about them in the course of this campaign because this is part of the work we need to do to address what all of us share which is a pretty brutal racial legacy of injustice in our country that’s not limited to crime and punishment. It’s everything in America whether its’ education or housing or other things and I don’t know that we can address it together unless we do find ways to talk about it with one another.

EBONY: In terms of your law enforcement policy as mayor of Baltimore, is there anything you would do differently?

MO: I wish that we had been leaders in the newer technology, both in our state and as mayor, [such as] the body cameras and the cameras [in] police cruisers. We were early implementers of putting up public safety cameras to keep public spaces safe. I wish we had been just as early and proactive in the body cameras and cameras in cruisers...I also wish that I had done a better job of institutionalizing some of the practices in terms of policing the police that were implemented during my time, that I wasn’t able to institutionalize to carry on after my time as much as I would have liked…we promised three things: to improve policing, including how we police the police, and we also promised to greatly increase drug treatment funding, which we also did and to greatly improve our interventions in the lives of our most vulnerable young people…I committed to doing 100 reverse integrity screens a year, I committed to increasing the internal affairs division, I committed to a tracking and monitoring with an early warning system that is courtesy and brutality complaints. And I assigned independent detectives for the first time to a civilian review board so they’d had the power to investigate any case independently with the police department’s internal affairs division. And under the pressure of budgets not all of those things continued at the level that they had during our time…we reduced police involved shootings to their lowest levels in modern history. The three years where the lowest level of police involved shootings were during my time as mayor.

EBONY: Many Black voters feel taken for granted by the Democratic Party. How do you think that you can make people feel enthusiastic about casting that vote, or compel those who may otherwise stay home on Election Day?

MO: I think we have to have an honest discussion about the actions we need to take in our own times to make our entire criminal justice system more just for all people. I think that was the point of the Black Lives Matter [action] at that Netroots function. That’s what we need to do as a party. We can’t campaign a large and diverse coalition if we’re not able to speak to the concerns of everyone within that coalition. As a party, we have to be able to speak and put forward the proposals and the actions that aren’t just a matter of lip service but an actual commitment to new actions base on the facts and based on what we know now about our circumstances so that we can create and application of law that is much more fair and much more equal and colorblind.

read entire interview: http://www.ebony.com/news-views/omalley-debuts-criminal-justice-reform-plan-interview-503#.Vbtw_0uEz1o

read O'Malley's Comprehensive Law Enforcement Reform Plan: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251484008

[Raine1967]

1. Good stuff. I like this response regarding challenging HRC:

EBONY: There’s some in your party who believe that you and Bernie Sanders are challenging the woman who should be the heir apparent.

MO: Well, I’m definitely a challenger. In our party, there’s usually an inevitable front-runner right up until the very first contest. Then, in our party, usually, the voice of a new generation emerges. Then the contest narrows. I am running to be president of the United States and, like many other candidates who are not very well known until the first contest, I am very focused on those three contests and making my case to our fellow Americans who live in those states of Iowa and New Hampshire, and then, after that, South Carolina and Nevada. That’s my focus. I’m clearly a challenger and she’s clearly the inevitable front-runner of the year. I believe that if we continue to run a campaign of ideas, offering the truthful and honest and bold actions we need to take in order to make our country better, I believe the people will respond to that message, as well as to the vulnerability. That’s what I intend to do. I think the challenging campaigns that succeed are those that offer the ideas that serve our country. That’s what I intend to do.

[Vattel]

2. He reamins unwilling to admit that his mass arrest policy was abusive.

Of course, the interviewer was not very informed about O'Malley's record and didn't even raise the issue specifically. But when asked what he would do differently in terms of law enforcement policy as mayor of Baltimore, he didn't even mention the mass arrest policy. I guess he still embraces it. That is sad.

[bigtree]

3. he doesn't characterize them as his critics do, but he has spoken to these questions several times

....in this campaign.

What critics fail to acknowledge is the 'abusive' impact on communities which resulted from unabated violent criminal activity in those communities as a consequence of open-air drug markets and the categories of crimes which plagued residents. Most of those arrests under 'zero-tolerance' were for petty offenses and mostly un-prosecuted.

Conflating those with the issues of violent crime and police brutality, as critics seek to do, misrepresents the challenges those communities faced and the impact of those arrests for loitering, public drunkenness, and other petty offenses which were found unconstitutional by courts. Little attention is given to sharp reductions in violent crime during his term, or the lives saved by policing efforts related to THOSE violent offenses.

There should be an equal and fair concern for the lives impacted by the criminality and killings which made Baltimore one of the most violent and deadly cities in America before he took office. In that effort to reclaim communities from the open-air drug markets which plagued the lives of citizens forced to work, school, and live there, the totality of O'Malley's administration's policing efforts reduced violent crime by over 40% -well above the national average decrease at the time of 11%. That represents 100's of lives saved. He oversaw and fought for the ending of the death penalty, commuting sentences still on death row; signed into law the decriminalization of small amounts of pot; increased drug treatment, reclaiming lives in the process...

His police dept. changed the way incidents of police misconduct was reported and handled by establishing an active review board and a hotline for reporting police abuse or misconduct. Under his term there were over 100 'reverse integrity' stings of police conducted a year. They fully staffed the civilian review board including detectives on the board to investigate claims against police. They used technology to flag abusive officers who racked up complaints.

Also the numbers of arrests under zero-tolerance is skewed because it reflects repeat offenders, not new cases. What was happening during his term was an effort to clear the open-air drug markets which had been plaguing black majority neighborhoods. As O'Malley said in a response to criticisms, if those had been white-majority communities, there would be no question of the swift and thorough response to drug-related crime and violence which threatened and cost black lives, many young black lives. During his time as governor, recidivism was cut significantly, and incarceration rates were actually REDUCED in his terms to 20 year lows; and voting rights were restored to 52,000 individuals with felonies.

All of that says 'black lives matter,' at least to those black lives which were granted safe streets, prevention of violent crimes and killings and other opportunities to improve on their way of life. I've lived in Maryland for 45 years. These issues aren't just an abstraction to me, and neither are they to other members of the black community who are affected by these issues - communities, whose residents, not coincidentally, voted repeatedly for Martin O'Malley in overwhelming numbers throughout his several, successive roles serving in public service in Maryland.

[Vattel]

4. Yes, I have seen your set of talking points before, and I am not saying that all of his

law enforcement policies were bad. I know you are sincere in your defense of O'Malley, and I won't make the same points all over again that I have tried to make in past exchanges with you on this. Having looked at the crime data, having heard what police officers who worked in the O'Malley era have to say, having read the available news reports, my conclusion is that O'Malley's mass arrest policy was a disaster. I guess we will have to agree to disagree about that.

[bigtree]

6. somehow, my opinions are just 'talking points' to you, but you want yours to be respected

...I'm flesh and blood Md. citizen, working class black. My opinions aren't talking points.

here's another Md./ Baltimore resident...

deray mckesson ‏@deray 12h12 hours ago
Now, O'Malley was my Mayor & Governor -- I get the skepticism. He's also the only candidate w/ a criminal justice platform to-date.

[Vattel]

7. Without a deeper discussion of the points you raise, yes, they are just talking points.

In a brief post, that's often the only thing anyone has time for. I do it too. Some of your longer OPs about war that I used to enjoy so much were not just sets of talking points because they did go quite deep into the issue. Sorry if I offended you.

[bigtree]

8. not offended at all

...I do think there should be some appreciation that I bothered to respond to your criticisms with every defense and explanation I could muster. There's nothing succinct at all about my response to you. O'Malley has addressed the issue of the arrests and he's not going to characterize them as you or other critics have done. I don't think the policy represents the totality of his policing efforts, nor do I believe the policy represented any significant portion of that effort.

It makes no sense at all to me to highlight that policy to the exclusion of his department's other crime reduction and police reform efforts. That policy didn't negate those other initiatives and practices. That policy doesn't account for the sharp reduction in crime chronicled by the FBI and other sources. Focus on that policy alone, as 'abusive,' without mentioning the abusive nature of the criminal activity in those neighborhoods which were affected is more than just an oversight, it's a misleading and subjective criticism which implies that there was no beneficial result of O'Malley's administration's policing practices in those communities.

That's why I bothered to highlight the effects and consequences of the record violent crime in Baltimore at the time, and why I bothered to highlight the other measures, initiatives, policies, and results which more fully represent the totality of his policing policies than just a focus on the one policy of arrests for petty crimes which you appear to believe is the only source of 'abuse' in the community worth discussing.

If there's a 'talking point' in this discussion of ours, surely your singular focus on the one policy of arrests for petty crimes fits that description, rather than my effort to discuss the totality of his policing efforts in those violent and often deadly streets wracked by open drug trafficking and the violent crimes associated with that illegal activity.

[Vattel]

9. I appreciate your point that it is unfair to mention the bad parts of his

police policies without mentioning the good stuff he did too.

But let me give an example of what I mean when I suggest that you didn't go into enough depth to get beyond mere talking points. No criminologist worthy of the name would think that the available statistics on violent crime in Baltimore under O'Malley show that the changes he made in police policy there actually caused a reduction in crime. The statistics themselves are in dispute. Some police officers who served under O'Malley have claimed that the numbers were distorted due to the pressure put on the police to reduce crime. Indeed, some criminologists think that the most reliable indicator of levels of violent crime is the rate of unlawful homicides because it is hard "juke the stats" on that rate. And quite notably, O'Malley failed to bring down the murder rate very much. (After the next mayor took office and abandoned O'Malley's mass arrest policy, the murder rate did fall sharply.) And even if there was really a sharp reduction in violent crime under O'Malley, identifying the cause of that is a complicated issue due to the number of variables that can affect levels of violent crime.

[bigtree]

11. criminologists? Where are these experts you speak of panning his crime record?

You can't produce one officer criticizing the policing record whose own service record isn't itself in dispute.

We've been through the statistics before. This is round robin. I've expanded my argument to include not just 'good stuff' but relevant policies, initiatives, and practices, as well as results which you still fail to acknowledge.

Moreover, you're making a separate argument which has little to do with the zero-tolerance policy of arrests for petty crimes. You're disputing the drop in violent crime, but you can't credibly conflate that zero-tolerance policy with those efforts. It's interesting how you make broad accusations about the effects and consequences of the policy of arrests for loitering, public drunkenness, and other minor offenses, and insist that policy represents the totality of the O'Malley administration's policing efforts.

It's unbelievable on its face and the logic and understanding of what it takes to bring violent crimes under control. No 'criminologist' is going to agree that the only policy the O'Malley police commission pursued was making arrests for petty crimes. It's absurd to present that as his only approach to crime, and it's unsupportable by the facts. It makes good rhetoric for anyone unconcerned or uninterested in the actual consequences of the record violence Baltimore was experiencing when he took office, but it's slippery politics which is familiar to anyone in Md. who witnessed these political attacks on his crime record - pablum for the brain numb - which came, not from the communities you're so concerned about, but from his republican opposition. In fact, you can still find those same republican political forces feigning concern for the communities by focusing on those arrests for petty crimes and dismissing other important policies and practices that I outlined above and the resulting drop in crime which exceeded the national average DURING HIS TERM as mayor, and continued throughout his governorship.

You claim O'Malley inflated or 'cooked' the crime statistics, but O'Malley uses FBI numbers and is mostly correct in his statistics on murders:

Fact Check:

One of O'Malley's favorite stump speech lines is about the drop in crime rates in Baltimore when he was the city's mayor. Frequently in speeches, interviews and even his Reddit Ask Me Anything Q&A, he touts that for a 10-year period after he became mayor, the city achieved the "biggest reduction" in crimes (which he sometimes specifies as Part 1 crimes) in any major city in America.

O'Malley served as mayor of Baltimore from 1999 through 2006, and was Maryland governor from 2007 to 2015.

O'Malley is referring to 1999-2009 data from the FBI, which tracks crimes reported to law enforcement agencies. Part 1 crimes are serious crimes that are likely to be reported to police, and are divided into violent and property crimes. These crimes include criminal homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, arson and motor vehicle theft.

At The Fact Checker, we often are critical of politicians bragging about successes during their term — such as job gains and drops in crime — that can result from numerous factors out of their control. But O'Malley uses a specific measurement of FBI data, and his claim about Part 1 crime rates from 1999-2009 check out. It is to his credit that he references this wonky measurement most of the time in his statements, when most politicians would be tempted to drop that caveat.

FBI data confirm his calculation. The overall crime rate (the number of crimes per 100,000 people) fell by 48 percent during that decade, more than any other large police agency in the country. Specifically for violent crimes, the Baltimore City Police Department saw the third highest drop (behind Los Angeles and New York City) during the period.

'DURING THAT DECADE'

That's what's reported as fact. During the period from 1999-2009, the crime rate fell by 48%. You really expect to sustain your argument against that by disputing the FBI's figures with absolutely nothing at all in evidence to support your claim? Or, you actually believe you can make a credible argument that 2 out of the 10 years O'Malley was out of the mayor's office represent all of that decrease in violent crime?

You have an empty hand full of rhetoric claiming the numbers I provided are somehow 'juked'. That's why this argument of yours isn't being actively promoted by 'criminologists worthy of the name.' It's a bogus one and not something which is carrying the day.

[Vattel]

12. Good lord, what a ridiculous reply. You need to have a beer and relax.

You put so many words into my mouth and make so many faulty assumptions that I won't even bother replying. I am doen trying to have a civil conversation with you about this.

[bigtree]

13. hey, I'm not just sitting here talking to myself

...I've taken more guff from you about his record since he announced than I've deserved and I think you've made so many evidence-free arguments that I'm not bothering to try and track what you're rattling off verbatim. For what it's worth to anyone, there's a complete and evidence-based defense of his policing record offered by me (and O'Malley) and a shitload of unsupported rhetoric from you. I frankly don't care as much about impressing your opinion of what I'm responding with than people here who might be inclined to take what you're accusing O'Malley of at face value. So, take that for what it's worth to you. 'Ridiculous' is responding with evidential fact to baseless and unsupported rhetoric and you posturing like you have some lock on the truth. Continue to make your summary accusations and I'll rest on the evidential defenses I've taken my valuable time to offer here.


btw, I've lived in MD. since 1970, currently residing about 30 minutes from Baltimore.

[elleng]

5. Ready to make addressing racism an important part of your campaign for presidency and, if elected?

MO: Yes, I am and it’s been an important part of my entire calling to public service throughout my life. I think Dr. King summed it up when he said that one day, this generation of Americans will be called not only for the evil acts of bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good. I think it’s irresponsible for us as citizens not to find ways to talk about this and I think that’s especially important in the public forum of selecting the next president of the United States. And that’s something that, as the mayor of Baltimore elected when our city had become the most violent in America that I’ve had a lot of experience with. And as governor, we reduced our incarceration rate. It was at a 20 year low and we did it by reducing recidivism by 15%. We restored voting rights to 52,000 people, we eliminated the death penalty and we decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana. So I’ve had a long trajectory over 15 years in a very diverse space of talking about . And I tend to talk about them in the course of this campaign because this is part of the work we need to do to address what all of us share which is a pretty brutal racial legacy of injustice in our country that’s not limited to crime and punishment. It’s everything in America whether its’ education or housing or other things and I don’t know that we can address it together unless we do find ways to talk about it with one another.

THANKS

[lovemydog]

10. k & r

[FSogol]

14. K&R. n/t