Can someone explain OMalley as Mayor, zero tolerance and 1 in 6 citizens arrested per year?

[HereSince1628]

I just heard this on PBS evening news.

Not being from anywhere near that media market I don't know anything about OMalley, but 1 in 6 citizen arrested with most arrests never resulting in charges seem ... well unusual, and frankly not very people friendly.

[HereSince1628]

1. I did find this from wash'post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/as-mayor-of-baltimore-omalleys-policing-strategy-sowed-mistrust/2015/04/25/af81178a-ea9d-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html

Yet some civic leaders and community activists in Baltimore portray O’Malley’s policing policies in troubling terms. The say the “zero-tolerance” approach mistreated young black men even as it helped dramatically reduce crime, fueling a deep mistrust of law enforcement that flared anew last week when Gray died after suffering a spinal injury while in police custodyAlthough prosecutors declined to bring many of the cases, activists contend that those who were arrested often could not get their records expunged, making it harder for them to get jobs

“We still have men who are suffering from it today,” said Marvin “Doc” Cheathem, a past president of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP, which won a court settlement stemming from the city’s policing policies. “The guy is good at talking, but a lot of us know the real story of the harm he brought to our city.”

Bishop Douglas Miles, a community leader, said O’Malley’s department “set the tone for how the police department in Baltimore has reacted to poor and African American communities since then.”

“None of us are in favor of crime,” Miles said. “But we also recognized that you couldn’t correct the problem through wholesale arrests

[bigtree]

7. Rawlings-Blake's administration tried to blame O'Malley for her own police problems

Rawlings-Blake's administration — facing allegations of brutality in the city's police department — argued in a report last week that the O'Malley years "ignited a rift between the citizens and the police, which still exists today."

The report from Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts offers no evidence to back up the claim. O'Malley supporters note that the strategy — now 14 years old — has been rehashed through three elections during which O'Malley received overwhelming support in African-American communities often affected by zero-tolerance policing.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-police-omalley-politics-20141007-story.html#page=1

[HereSince1628]

8. Interesting, thanks for that...

things emerge and without any understanding sound bad, and they would be if they are true...

[brush]

11. FYI, as recently as 2013 O'Malley urged the new mayor to go back . . .

to the mass arrests policy. Here's a link:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/blog/bal-rawlingsblake-says-city-wont-return-to-days-of-mass-arrests-under-omalley-20130920-story.html

I've since adjusted my thinking on O'Malley as a progressive. I don't know if the people pushing O'Malley know that his policies affected the lives and future job prospects of thousands of black men who were latter exonerated.

That's not what I would call a progressive.

[HereSince1628]

12. Thanks, that sounds a lot more like the PBS story...

[JaneyVee]

2. Ugh.

[HereSince1628]

3. Well, maybe someone can explain this...doesn't seem much like a progressive alternative...

regardless of stands on TPP

[diabeticman]

4. I want to do more research about this but right now I am concern.

[bigtree]

5. ask the Maryland NAACP what they think today...

The American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP sued the city in 2006 on behalf of 14 people who alleged their arrests indicated a broad pattern of abuse. O'Malley was running for his first term as governor at the time.

The city settled four years later, and agreed to retrain officers and allow an outside auditor to monitor "quality of life" arrests.

"There was, I think, a recognition within the Police Department and eventually at the political level that these strategies were counterproductive, which is what we had said from day one," said David Rocah, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Maryland.

Leaders at the NAACP — the group that brought the 2006 lawsuit against the city — said they no longer believe O'Malley should be held responsible for the police strategy. Gerald Stansbury, president of the Maryland State Conference of the NAACP, said the organization has a solid relationship with the governor.

He pointed to O'Malley's effort last year to repeal the state's death penalty — an NAACP priority.

"Clearly, the police problems go well beyond Martin O'Malley," Stansbury said. "There's been ongoing mistrust for some time."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-police-omalley-politics-20141007-story.html#page=1

[HereSince1628]

6. Thanks for that.

[Kingofalldems]

9. So O'Malley gets some pub and the attacks begin.

[HereSince1628]

10. yes, it is what happens...to pretty much all of the candidates.

[Octafish]

13. Just the man to handle a federal caseload.

Halliburton cha-ching! Law-n-Order from the Democratic side! Imagine the possibilities, should he be connected to the Go-Along Set ?

From what I can see, he's got to demonstrate macho. Seeing how the military is an all-volunteer force, fewer politicians will have armed service in their resumes.

[FSogol]

14. O'Malley, as Mayor of Baltimore (Dec 1999-Nov 2007) followed that policy

of zero tolerance, also know as the broken windows policy as did almost every major city in the US. Every major city switched to that form of policing in the mid to late 90s because of the drop in NYC's crime rate. By the mid 00s, everyone was moving away from it due to over-policing, arresting innocent people, profiling, etc. He employed those policies when he arrived as Mayor, but moved away from them for the reasons stated. The number of arrests dropped each year in Baltimore as did the crime rate.

By the end of his Mayoral term he moved away from that policy. He did not employ those methods as Governor. Unlike say, Giuliani, O'Malley changed, evolved, and modified his approach until he got a fairer/more workable system.

From a 2010 article in the Baltimore Sun:

A lawsuit filed in 2006 on behalf of 14 people alleged that their arrests indicated a broad pattern of abuse in which thousands of people were routinely arrested without probable cause. The suit also alleged that the so-called "zero tolerance" system was endorsed and enforced by city officials under the tenure of then-mayor Martin O'Malley.

In a joint statement with the plaintiffs, the police department said it has agreed to institute policies that reject the "zero tolerance policing" and establish a range of appropriate officer responses to minor offenses. The department will issue written directives that spell out the elements of common minor offenses to ensure that officers are aware of the scope of their authority, and will train every officer on the new policies for offenses, the statement said.

Arrests in the city have fallen by the tens of thousands since O'Malley became governor, and the ACLU and NAACP said in the statement that they recognize that the current city leadership has taken steps to address the issue and "applaud those efforts."

The efforts to link a current police brutality case in Baltimore to a man who hasn't been the mayor there for 7-1/2 years is pretty ridiculous.