Problems and solutions in Baltimore.

[Vattel]

Problem: All too often unnecessary or excessive force is used by officers in the Baltimore PD.

Disturbing fact: "from 2012 through July, the department received 3,048 misconduct complaints against officers. Of those, officials sustained 1,203 complaints — 39 percent — meaning investigators could prove the claims were true."

Disturbing fact: "Since 2011, the city has been involved in 102 court judgments and settlements related to allegations of civil rights and constitutional violations such as assault, false arrest and false imprisonment, making payouts that ranged up to $500,000."

Solution: Work within the political system to bring about the necessary change in the Baltimore PD.

A big part of the solution is to hold police officers more accountable. Many steps have been taken and many more can be taken, but requiring body cams is, in my opinion, the single most important step that needs to be taken. Such cams effectively guarantee accountability. Freddy Gray would probably be alive today if the officers had been wearing body cams!

Believe it or not, Baltimore has been taking steps in the right direction. Many of the lawsuits mentioned above were a product of misconduct by the Violent Crimes Impact Section. That unit has been disbanded. Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Batts are trying to hold police officers more accountable. Since Batts came on board in 2012, misconduct investigations have led to 61 resignations and discipline for more than 850 officers.

Things are improving, but there is a long way to go. Rioting is not the answer. As DU member Egnever put it:

For violence to be effective it would need to be targeted correctly.

These riots enforce the idea that more police presence is necessary not less. Not to mention they destroy the meager infrastructure that is in place.

When the Jews were being exterminated in world War two we didn't start bombing our own cities to make them stop.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026581796#post43

http://data.baltimoresun.com/news/police-settlements/

[Vattel]

1. Why do my shitty posts do well, but the decent ones sink like rocks?

[Chathamization]

2. Yesterday we had a candidate strongly opposed to police brutality lose by 152 votes, with only 12%

turnout. In another race yesterday, the candidate opposed to brutality also lost, coming in second in a race with only 17% turnout.

Both went on the record for opposing jump-out units, while their opponents (party machine corporatist empty-suit types) didn't respond to the questionnaire asking them about it.

Yes, issues like these - body cameras, jump-out units, decriminalizing drugs, the treatment of those in jail - should get more attention and bring more people to the polls (a lot of other neglected issues as well, but that's a subject for another post). There's still a ton of work to be one on the political side; most people seem to be entirely disengaged.

[Vattel]

3. Maybe if the various groups fighting for change coalesced around the issue of body cams,

public opinion could be affected enough to bring about that crucial change. I mean, here is the rare issue where the solution is clear: body cams would change things radically for the better.

[Chathamization]

4. That'd certainly help, though I think we still face the huge problem of political disengagement

The vast majority of voters don't pay attention to who's running, their positions, and don't even bother to show up to vote. In many jurisdictions, we could put people in power who'd work to end a lot of these issues, but collectively we choose not to, for whatever reason. It's hard to get people to pay attention to solutions, even in a place filled with liberal Democrats - compare the amount of attention a thread like this talking about solutions has gotten to the ones where people are just yelling back and forth.

Which again, doesn't make your suggestion a bad one, and you could probably start working with some of the organizations now to push it forward. But it looks like when it comes to the actual implementation, it's going to take a lot of local work. I've found that the local groups on DU can be good for spreading the word about what's happening. Maybe those posts only get 150 views or so, but in order to reach that many people knocking on doors would take - well, an immense amount of time, and most would forget who I was after an hour.

Here we already have a body camera program that's going to expand. Still in question is whether the city can control the information (as the Mayor wants) or whether it will be available by FOIA (as activists are pushing for). We also have a host of other issues that need to be worked on (I mentioned a few above), but usually we have the problem of too few activists stretched over too many issues.