Baltimore's Breach Between Police and Community

Ruth Marcus on Apr 29, 2015

But the reaction to Gray's death is not just about assigning personal responsibility. It's about dealing with the entrenched legacy of institutional mistakes by a city and police department that, whatever the race of those in charge, failed to treat African-American residents with adequate respect and, indeed, too often abused them.

Commissioner Batts, for example, last year described taking over a department "skilled at catching bad guys" but "disconnected from the community." Rawlings-Blake, at a news conference last week, cited "decades of mistrust."

A Baltimore Sun investigation last year revealed that the city had paid $5.7 million in legal settlements since 2011 involving 102 instances of excessive force. It spurred city officials to ask the U.S. Justice Department to review complaints about excessive force and other misconduct by Baltimore police.

One important question is whether the zero-tolerance policing strategy, pioneered by former Baltimore mayor and prospective Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley, exacerbated those tensions, with its program to make arrests for offenses as minor as loitering and littering. These tactics "ignited a rift between the citizens and the police, which still exists today," a city report on police brutality concluded last year.

Yet efforts to make it easier to identify and punish rogue officers foundered in the Maryland General Assembly. "We've made a lot of progress in repairing the breach between the police and the community," Rawlings-Blake said in announcing the package in February.

Sadly, that assessment proved far too optimistic.

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Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.