Justice Department alleges racial discrimination by Baltimore police

[Valin]

Power Line:

Paul Mirengoff

August 9, 2016

 

The Obama-Lynch Justice Department is about to release a report on policing practices by the Baltimore police department. The Baltimore Sun apparently got a sneak preview. It says DOJ found that Baltimore police officers have routinely violated the constitutional rights of residents by conducting unlawful stops and using excessive force.

 

As noted, the report isn’t out yet, and I don’t want to prejudge it. However, a few observations come to mind after reading the Sun’s account.

 

First, half of the Baltimore police force consists minority group members, with African-Americans being by far the biggest such group. Is there a disparity between the extent to which white officers and black officers stop blacks and/or use force on them? I can’t tell from the Sun’s account whether DOJ studied this.

 

If black officers are stopping blacks and using force on them to a disproportionate degree, it’s difficult to attribute the DOJ’s findings to racial animus. To do so would assume that black officers are prejudiced against black citizens.

 

This isn’t out of the question, but it is counter-intuitive. One would want an explanation.

 

(Snip)

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

One answer might be Cops are Blue....Us vs Them and Cops are Us'es

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Justice Department alleges racial discrimination by Baltimore police, Part Two
Paul Mirengoff
August 11, 2016
The day before the Department of Justice released its report condemning the Baltimore Police Department for alleged racially biased policing, the Baltimore Sun wrote a story about the report. Apparently, the DOJ gave it and other big media outlets a sneak preview. It understood that the MSM would tout the indictment before the rest of us had the opportunity to review it.

From the Baltimore Sun’s reporting, it seemed clear to me that the DOJ’s real beef was with proactive policing of two high crime areas of Baltimore that are mostly black. The DOJ built its indictment of the Baltimore police on statistics purporting to show that the police treats blacks worse than whites when it comes to stops, arrests, and use of force. But these statistics, I suspected, are the product of the police force’s proper decision to concentrate its efforts in high crime neighborhoods, not evidence of racially biased treatment of those who encounter the police.

If you concentrate on policing neighborhoods with lots of blacks (because crime is prevalent there) you’re going to stop lots of blacks. And if you police these neighborhoods aggressively, many of these stops won’t result in finding contraband because, among reasons, criminals will be deterred from carrying it around.

Now, the DOJ report has been made public and my suspicions about it are confirmed. Heather Mac Donald has the details.

 

(Snip)

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David Horowitz's Wednesday Morning Club. July 20, 2016

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Guess who’s pushing back on the DOJ’s condemnation of Baltimore policing
Paul Mirengoff
August 12, 2016

If you guessed Martin O’Malley — former Democratic presidential hopeful, Baltimore mayor, and Maryland governor — you are right. O’Malley incurred the wrath of the left during his unsuccessful presidential bid by daring to say “all lives matter.” Now, he’s advancing another proposition the left doesn’t want to hear: vigorous policing reduces crime.

O’Malley’s comments respond to a flawed Justice Department report that rips the Baltimore police department for alleged racist policing. I’ll have more to say about O’Malley’s push back in a moment, but first let’s take a look at the response of Baltimore’s current administration.

It is, as one would expect, craven. Baltimore’s mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake — who last year wanted to give rioters “space to destroy” — hails the DOJ report. She says it creates a “crucial foundation” for allowing the city to change the police department.

(Snip)

How does O’Malley respond to the Justice Department’s report? Unapologetically:

Make no make mistake about it — enforcement levels rose when we started closing down the open air drug markets that had been plaguing our poorest neighborhoods for years. But after peaking in 2003, arrest levels declined as violent crime was driven down.

O’Malley focuses, naturally, on policing during his time as mayor, a period not included in the data DOJ relied. Did policing take a turn for the worse after O’Malley left office? Conceivably.

 

(Snip)