Baltimore police brutality cases potentially number in the thousands, the department’s internal records indicate -- and that’s just since 2012.
According to the Baltimore Sun, which obtained BPD’s detainee reports via Maryland’s Public Information Act, nearly 2600 individuals were so injured at the time of their arrests they were required to be hospitalized before corrections officers would jail them.
It’s not clear what percentage of these suspects were harmed while being taken into custody, but it is more than obvious that, as in the Freddie Gray debacle, they weren’t voluntarily provided the medical attention they were constitutionally entitled to receive before booking.
Following Gray’s in-custody death from a damaged spine in April, and the subsequent rioting weeks afterward, Baltimore’s finest have been under intense public scrutiny for allegations of widespread use of excessive force.
In fact, public records show that over the years the city has awarded millions of dollars in out-of-court settlements with roughed up arrestees, and even with families whose loved ones wrongfully died at the hands of arresting officers.
And, like Freddie Gray, a disproportionate number of those victim plaintiffs were people of color -- this, whilst oddly enough a surprisingly high percent of BPD lawmen are African American themselves.
This month, on invitation by Baltimore’s embroiled and embarrassed city leaders, the U.S. Department of Justice agreed to formally investigate the Baltimore Police Department for a possible pattern of civil rights violations.
