U.S.

Complaints in Baltimore About Law Offering Protections for Officers

By 
Police officers erecting a barricade in Baltimore on Tuesday. Even before protests about the death of Freddie Gray, complaints were made about a state law that gives special legal protections to officers suspected of abusing their power. Mark Makela/Getty Images 
As Justice Department officials began meeting with community leaders in Baltimore this week in the early stages of their civil rights inquiry into the death of Freddie Gray, they heard repeated complaints about a state law that gives special legal protections to police officers suspected of abusing their power.
The law is similar to at least a dozen across the country, commonly known as police officers’ bills of rights. But Maryland’s, enacted in the early 1970s, was the first and goes the furthest in offering layers of legal protection to police officers. Among its provisions is one that gives officers 10 days before they have to talk to investigators.
“There should be no reason why they should have 10 days to get their story together,” said Tré Murphy, coordinator for the Baltimore United for Change Coalition, who attended one of the meetings. “They are not being held accountable, and frankly, we need to do something about it.”
The law has been a concern of Baltimore’s mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, since even before her city was racked by protests after the death of Mr. Gray from spinal cord injuries he sustained while in police custody.
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“When I went down to Annapolis to try to fight for reform, simple reform of the enforcement bill of rights, people looked at me like I had three eyes,” Ms. Rawlings-Blake said at a news conference on Thursday, her latest of a string of complaints about the law this week.
Earlier this year, Jill P. Carter, a Democratic lawmaker in the Maryland House of Delegates, introduced a bill that would have eliminated the 10-day rule. The legislation never advanced out of committee in the face of intense opposition from police unions around the state.
“It sat in the drawer,” Ms. Carter said in an interview. “It was like I was screaming in a tunnel and no one was there and no one cared.”
Ms. Carter added that she would continue to press the issue.
“I absolutely will introduce law enforcement accountability and reform bills next session,” she said.
While the state laws protecting police officers vary, they generally allow officers a period of time — from 24 hours to several days — before requiring them to speak to investigators. The legislation also often provides other protections unavailable to civilians, including limiting the amount of time officers can be questioned and prohibiting investigators from lying to obtain an admission of wrongdoing.
In addition to the 10-day rule, the Maryland law also limits the time in which a complaint may be made against an officer to 90 days from the incident — even if the victim remains hospitalized with severe injuries or is otherwise incapacitated.
Rachelle Johnson, a 20-year-old junior at Towson College, who attended a protest in Baltimore on Wednesday, criticized the law in an interview. “The law needs to be harder on the cops,” she said. “We need answers right away.”
Despite the protections granted to them, five of the six officers involved in the arrest of Mr. Gray spoke to investigators within hours, said Michael Davey, a lawyer representing several of the officers, at a news briefing last week. But he said, “Had any of the five officers that did give statements contacted me or any competent attorney, defense attorney, prior to giving statements, they most likely would not have.”
Police say they need the special protections because while criminal defendants, including law enforcement officers, have the right to remain silent during the course of criminal investigations, officers are placed in the unusual position of facing dismissal if they refuse to answer questions from superiors.

Where the Police Van Carrying Freddie Gray Stopped 

The van transporting Freddie Gray after his April 12 arrest made four stops en route to the Western District police station. 
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Mr. Gray arrested
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Western District
police station
WEST BALTIMORE
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By The New York Times 
They also say the bill of rights laws are critical in safeguarding the constitutional rights of the police and point to studies that show officers and others involved in traumatic events have more reliable memories of the encounter after at least one night of sleep.
“Your initial recollections tend to be blurred and distorted, and so before an officer makes inaccurate statements, he has a chance to compose himself,” said James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, which says it represents more than 325,000 sworn law enforcement officers.
Mr. Pasco said social media and other new technologies had made the public accustomed to receiving information ever-faster, which has exerted pressure on investigators and by extension officers involved in high-profile cases in which they have used deadly force.
Maryland law enforcement groups released a statement in February, when the debate over amending the officers’ bill of rights was at its height.
“The law must both effectively respond to police misconduct and protect those dedicated law enforcement officers who are unfairly targeted,” said the statement from the Maryland Chiefs of Police Association and the Maryland Sheriffs’ Association. “Citizens and other public employees are entitled to due process before the government takes negative action against them, and our law enforcement officers deserve nothing less.”
But criminologists say the special legal protections for officers erodes public trust in the police during a time that public confidence in officers has fallen after a series of deaths of unarmed black men and boys around the country.
“These are rights that civilians are not entitled to,” said David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School and an expert on police accountability. “Don’t you think that two or 10 days is the perfect time to get your story straight, talk to other officers, get the forensics results to make sure you don’t make mistakes?”
In Baltimore, demonstrations and rioting that have occurred since the April 19 death of Mr. Gray, and weeks of unrest that occurred after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., last year, have been inflamed by a lack of information about the investigations, police officers and others say.
“People have an expectation that they’re going to have all the facts at the end of the business day,” Mr. Pasco said.
The United States Supreme Court in 1967 determined that because police officers had in some instances been deprived of their constitutional right against self-incrimination, officers could not be compelled to give evidence against themselves, including as part of administrative investigations.
Since then, the extra layer of legal protection for officers has expanded, in large part because of the power of police unions, which have had similar rules inserted in union contracts and have frequently paid for television advertisements that label politicians who disagree with them as antipolice. In Maryland, law enforcement unions have donated tens of thousands of dollars to state and local elected officials, including to Ms. Rawlings-Blake.
“Police unions are fairly powerful and pretty active politically, especially in local elections,” said Seth W. Stoughton, a law professor at the University of South Carolina. “It’s difficult to find a politician who doesn’t want to be on the side of crime-fighting. That gives unions a lot of sway.”
Reporting was contributed by Rebecca White and Alan Blinder from Baltimore, Richard Pérez-Peña from New York, and Matt Apuzzo from Washington.