The Justice Department is launching a federal civil rights probe of the entire Baltimore Police Department, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced this morning.
"The department’s investigation ... will seek to determine whether there are systemic violations of the Constitution or federal law by officers of [the Baltimore Police Department," the Justice Department said. "The investigation will focus on BPD’s use of force, including deadly force, and its stops, searches and arrests, as well as whether there is a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing."
The decision comes just days after top Justice Department officials, including Lynch, visited Baltimore and the family of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who died in police custody last month after suffering a spinal injury during his arrest.
Though the Justice Department launched its own criminal probe into the case, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called for a federal civil rights probe of the whole department. And now investigators from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division will determine whether the Baltimore police department engages in a “pattern or practice” of discriminatory policing.
“Our goal is to work with the community, public officials, and law enforcement alike to create a stronger, better Baltimore,” Lynch said. "Ultimately, this process is meant to ensure that officers are being provided with the tools they need – including training, policy guidance and equipment -- to be more effective, to partner with civilians, and to strengthen public safety."
The Justice Department said it will "consider all relevant information" and conduct interviews with police officers, prosecutors and local officials as part of its investigation into the Baltimore Police Department.
If the Justice Department finds that there was a "pattern or practice" of discriminatory policing, it will ask that the police department make sweeping changes. But if the police department declines to do so, the matter could land in front of a federal judge, who could force changes within the department.
Meanwhile, the department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing will continue to work with Baltimore police on a "collaborative reform process" initiated late last year, according to the Justice Department.
In the days after Gray’s death on April 12, violent protests broke out in Baltimore. Tensions eased somewhat on the streets of Baltimore when the city’s prosecutors announced charges against the six officers involved in Gray’s.
With some facing charges of involuntary manslaughter, they are accused of failing to properly secure Gray when they placed him face down in a van, and failing to respond to Gray's repeated pleas for medical help.
Michael Davey, an attorney hired by one of the officers who spoke on behalf of all six, said Friday after charges were filed, “These officers will be vindicated because they have done nothing wrong.”
He added, “No officer injured Mr. Gray, caused harm to Mr. Gray, and [they] are truly saddened by his death.”
On Wednesday, when calling for the broader federal probe, Rawlings-Blake said the police force in her city has made strides in recent years, but “continues to have a fractured” relationship with some of the communities it serves.
The federal investigation announced Friday is similar to the probe of the Ferguson, Mo., Police Department, launched last year unarmed teenager Michael Brown was killed in a confrontation with officer Darren Wilson.
After a seven-month review, the Justice Department determined the Ferguson Police Department had in fact developed a “pattern or practice” of discriminatory policing.
In what then-Attorney General Eric Holder called a “searing report” on the findings, the Justice Department detailed racist emails sent by officers and cited 161 use-of-force complaints against Ferguson police from 2010 to 2014.
The investigation found “racial bias” often led to policing practices that “disproportionately harm[ed] African American residents and “created an intensely charged atmosphere where people feel under assault and under siege by those charged to serve and protect them,” Holder said.
After the report’s release, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said the city was already making changes and, “That type of behavior will not be tolerated."
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