The report found that officers specifically targeted “members of a vulnerable population.”
Updated by Victoria M. Massie on August 10, 2016, 6:00 p.m. ET @vmmassie

Among the many damning findings within the Department of Justice report on the Baltimore Police Department is the revelation that some police officers allegedly coerced “members of a vulnerable population” into having sex, particularly those involved in sex work, in exchange for avoiding arrest, for cash, and even for narcotics.

“This conduct is not only criminal,” the report said, “it is an abuse of power.”

The report found that even though one officer had internal records with documented evidence of such conduct, no one — from BPD to the State’s Attorney’s Office — pursued criminal charges. Instead, he was allowed to resign (emphasis added):

For example, BPD investigators became aware of one officer’s alleged misconduct in March of 2012 when they conducted a “prostitution initiative” “for the purposes of gathering intelligence and obtaining confidential informants relating to police corruption.” One of the women interviewed informed BPD investigators that she met with a certain officer and engaged in sexual activities in the officer’s patrol car once every other week “in exchange for U.S. Currency or immunity from arrest.” The Department administratively closed the case nine months later, without, it appears, referring the matter for criminal prosecution or interviewing the accused officer, or any other potential witnesses.

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/10/12429214/baltimore-police-investigation-justice-department-sexual-misconduct

By Christopher Ingraham

"People, please stop making my job so difficult."

That's the opening of a discussion in "ProtectAndServe," reddit's community of law enforcement officers. The poster, who goes by the handle "sf7" and has been verified as a law enforcement officer by the forum's moderators, goes on:



Other forum users sympathize. One tells a story about someone asking the cops to investigate a middle-aged black man fishing in his own community. Another was asked to respond to a report of two Middle Eastern guys sitting in the same car. Another laments that "we frequently get calls about black men and woman and kids, yes [expletive] kids, walking. Like WWB (walking while black) was actually a crime and not a Twitter joke."

The stories pile on. A white security officer tells of the year he and his black wife lived in an apartment complex. "She got cops called a total of 9 times in the year we lived there I got zero," he says. A retired cop recalls the time a "lady called scared to death because some black guy was sitting in his truck across from her house" -- it was the water meter reader.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/06/these-cops-are-tired-of-white-people-getting-freaked-out-by-their-black-neighbors/

Baltimore police strip-searched a woman in public for a broken taillight

By Kate Irby

It started when the woman was pulled over for a routine traffic stop for a broken taillight. It ended with her strip-searched on the side of a road, with a female officer even searching her anal cavity in public.

While one of the worst examples of officer misconduct in the Department of Justice’s report on the Baltimore Police Department, it’s far from the only one. The report, released Wednesday after a 14-month investigation, concludes the BPD engages in a pattern of practice of unconstitutional stops, searches and arrests; unfairly targeting black people; excessive force; and retaliation.

“This pattern or practice is driven by systemic deficiencies in BPD’s policies, training, supervision and accountability structures that fail to equip officers with the tools they need to police effectively and within the bounds of the federal law,” the report concludes.

In the incident, the officers ordered the woman to exit her vehicle, stand on the side of the road and take her clothes off. The woman asked the officer in charge, “I really gotta take all my clothes off?”

The officer told her yes and says he had a female officer search the woman. The female officer put on latex gloves and searched the woman’s bra area before pulling down her underwear and searching her anal cavity.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article94829582.html#fmp#storylink=cpy

The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1965 made great strides toward racial equality. However, this legislation ― ending decades of government-sponsored racial oppression and intended to reverse the effects of hundreds of years of slavery ― by no means resolved racial inequality in the United States.

Racial differences in the United States are prevalent regardless of geography. While social and economic gaps are wider in some states than in others, the gaps exist across all areas, and we were unable to identify any states where black Americans are better off than white residents. For this reason, we expanded last year’s list of the 10 worst states for black Americans to include all 50 states.

Across virtually all social and economic measures, there are wide racial disparities. Compared to white people in the United States, African Americans are considerably less likely to own their homes, twice as likely to be unemployed, nearly three times as likely to live in poverty, and five times more likely to go to prison.

10. Iowa

9. Nebraska

8. Colorado

7. Louisiana

6. New Jersey

5. Illinois

4. Florida

3. Virginia

2. Minnesota

1. Wisconsin

See the reasoning for each state: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/worst-states-for-black-americans_us_57a50f9de4b0ccb0237249dd?