Police Brutality: Not Just a Baltimore Problem
Michael E. Busch
Baltimore Sun
On Tuesday, House Speaker Michael E. Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller announced the formation of a task force of lawmakers assigned to study issues related to public safety and police practices to "strengthen the trust and mutual respect that must exist between the law enforcement community and the citizens they serve." It came a week after riots erupted in Baltimore, sparked by the death of a young black man while in police custody. But it has been in the works already, as something of a sop to Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake whose package of police reform bills — inspired themselves by previous instances of police brutality in the city — was summarily killed by the legislature. The House and Senate chairs of the task force are from Baltimore, and so are five of the group's 18 other members.
As such, residents of Maryland's 23 other jurisdictions — not to mention their elected representatives in the legislature — might well conclude that this is a Baltimore problem that does not require a state-wide solution; indeed, that's largely why the mayor's proposed reforms went nowhere in the legislature this year. But that's a mistake. Baltimore has gotten the lion's share of the publicity surrounding police brutality in the last year — thanks in no small part to the excellent reporting on the issue by The Sun's Mark Puente long before Freddie Gray became a household name — but that doesn't mean it isn't an issue elsewhere in the state.
In 2012, a District Heights police sergeant shot a handcuffed suspect in the back after he got out of a police cruiser and started to run. The man, Riley Kyle, was paralyzed as a result. In July, Sgt. Johnnie Riley was convicted of first- and second-degree assault, among other offenses. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
In 2011, a pair of Prince George's County police officers were caught on video apparently beating a University of Maryland student during a raucous celebration after a basketball game. One of them was convicted of second-degree assault, and the county agreed to pay $3.6 million in settlements stemming from the incident.
That same year, Anne Arundel County agreed to a $200,000 settlement in a police brutality case in which a deaf man summoned police to his house to investigate an apparent burglary. He said he was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed in a way that aggravated a previous neck injury. The police involved claimed that the man, Stephen Pyles, had punched one of the officers for no reason, but a witness said Mr. Pyles had placed a note on one of the officers' chests in an effort to communicate.
In 2013, Robert Ethan Saylor, a 26-year-old man with Down syndrome, tried to stay to watch a movie a second time in a Frederick County theater. County sheriff's deputies, moonlighting as security guards, forcibly removed him, despite warnings from an aide that he would resist if touched by strangers. The deputies held him down and handcuffed him behind his back, and he suffered a fractured larynx in the process. He died of asphyxiation. The sheriff's department's internal affairs division cleared the deputies, and a grand jury declined to charge them criminally, but in October, a federal judge ruled that a wrongful death suit can move forward.
In 2014, law enforcement officers in Wicomico County shot three men, two of them fatally, in two months, all in incidents that authorities deemed justified. One that has particularly rankled the community is the case of Winfield Fisher III. The 32-year-old man had gone to a state police barracks to verify that he had complied with a repair order on his car, and an officer smelled marijuana. After he and another trooper confronted Fisher, he ran and attempted to drive away. The county state's attorney's office found that one of the officers who was trying to stop Fisher had been dragged by the car and sustained injuries, making the shooting justified. But the head of the local NAACP says many are unsatisfied because of the lack of a truly independent investigation into the incident.
This year, the ACLU of Maryland issued a report documenting 109 cases of police involved deaths in Maryland during the last five years. The group found cases in 17 jurisdictions besides Baltimore, accounting for about three-quarters of the total.
Baltimore is already undergoing a "collaborative review" of its police practices with the Department of Justice, and today Mayor Rawlings-Blake said she has asked federal authorities to conduct even more scrutiny of the city's department. We certainly hope that process will lead to substantive reforms, but it's not good enough. This isn't just a Baltimore problem, and state lawmakers can't be satisfied with just a Baltimore solution.
Baltimore Sun
On Tuesday, House Speaker Michael E. Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller announced the formation of a task force of lawmakers assigned to study issues related to public safety and police practices to "strengthen the trust and mutual respect that must exist between the law enforcement community and the citizens they serve." It came a week after riots erupted in Baltimore, sparked by the death of a young black man while in police custody. But it has been in the works already, as something of a sop to Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake whose package of police reform bills — inspired themselves by previous instances of police brutality in the city — was summarily killed by the legislature. The House and Senate chairs of the task force are from Baltimore, and so are five of the group's 18 other members.
As such, residents of Maryland's 23 other jurisdictions — not to mention their elected representatives in the legislature — might well conclude that this is a Baltimore problem that does not require a state-wide solution; indeed, that's largely why the mayor's proposed reforms went nowhere in the legislature this year. But that's a mistake. Baltimore has gotten the lion's share of the publicity surrounding police brutality in the last year — thanks in no small part to the excellent reporting on the issue by The Sun's Mark Puente long before Freddie Gray became a household name — but that doesn't mean it isn't an issue elsewhere in the state.
In 2012, a District Heights police sergeant shot a handcuffed suspect in the back after he got out of a police cruiser and started to run. The man, Riley Kyle, was paralyzed as a result. In July, Sgt. Johnnie Riley was convicted of first- and second-degree assault, among other offenses. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
In 2011, a pair of Prince George's County police officers were caught on video apparently beating a University of Maryland student during a raucous celebration after a basketball game. One of them was convicted of second-degree assault, and the county agreed to pay $3.6 million in settlements stemming from the incident.
That same year, Anne Arundel County agreed to a $200,000 settlement in a police brutality case in which a deaf man summoned police to his house to investigate an apparent burglary. He said he was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed in a way that aggravated a previous neck injury. The police involved claimed that the man, Stephen Pyles, had punched one of the officers for no reason, but a witness said Mr. Pyles had placed a note on one of the officers' chests in an effort to communicate.
In 2013, Robert Ethan Saylor, a 26-year-old man with Down syndrome, tried to stay to watch a movie a second time in a Frederick County theater. County sheriff's deputies, moonlighting as security guards, forcibly removed him, despite warnings from an aide that he would resist if touched by strangers. The deputies held him down and handcuffed him behind his back, and he suffered a fractured larynx in the process. He died of asphyxiation. The sheriff's department's internal affairs division cleared the deputies, and a grand jury declined to charge them criminally, but in October, a federal judge ruled that a wrongful death suit can move forward.
In 2014, law enforcement officers in Wicomico County shot three men, two of them fatally, in two months, all in incidents that authorities deemed justified. One that has particularly rankled the community is the case of Winfield Fisher III. The 32-year-old man had gone to a state police barracks to verify that he had complied with a repair order on his car, and an officer smelled marijuana. After he and another trooper confronted Fisher, he ran and attempted to drive away. The county state's attorney's office found that one of the officers who was trying to stop Fisher had been dragged by the car and sustained injuries, making the shooting justified. But the head of the local NAACP says many are unsatisfied because of the lack of a truly independent investigation into the incident.
This year, the ACLU of Maryland issued a report documenting 109 cases of police involved deaths in Maryland during the last five years. The group found cases in 17 jurisdictions besides Baltimore, accounting for about three-quarters of the total.
Baltimore is already undergoing a "collaborative review" of its police practices with the Department of Justice, and today Mayor Rawlings-Blake said she has asked federal authorities to conduct even more scrutiny of the city's department. We certainly hope that process will lead to substantive reforms, but it's not good enough. This isn't just a Baltimore problem, and state lawmakers can't be satisfied with just a Baltimore solution.
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