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Today In Criminal Justice
DOJ, Baltimore Announce Police Reform Consent Decree
Baltimore To Send Low-Level Drug Offenders to Treatment
DOJ Probe of Chicago Police Due For Release Tomorrow
Caged In: The 'Devastating' Impact of Solitary on the Disabled
Controversial Collection of Arrestees’ DNA Solves Cases
Germany May Bar Indicted VW Officials from Trials in the U.S.
Race Issue Predominant at Sessions Hearing for AG
Texan Becomes First Death Row Inmate Executed This Year
Serious Crime Total Reported in Philly Lowest in Decades
FL Deputy Suspended in Leak of Airport Shooting Video
How Gun Control Debate Has Changed Since Election
Dylann Roof Formally Gets Death Sentence in Charleston
LA AG Sent Task Force to New Orleans, It Made 11 Arrests
Christie to Focus on Drug Addiction in His Last Year
Bryan Roach Named Indianapolis Police Chief
Top Story
DOJ, Baltimore Announce Police Reform Consent DecreeAfter five months of negotiation, Baltimore and the U.S. Department of Justice have agreed to the terms of a consent decree mandating reform of the city’s police department, The agreement was approved by top city officials at a special meeting today, the Baltimore Sun reports. It must also be approved by a U.S. District Court judge before becoming binding. Mayor Catherine Pugh and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the agreement this morning. “This agreement is binding and will live on,” Lynch said when she was asked if the administration of President-elect Donald Trump could undo it. She is scheduled to give a speech on community policing this afternoon at the University of Baltimore School of Law, and to meet with community groups and law enforcement officials.
The consent decree will require the police department to introduce new layers of oversight for officers, new methods of tracking misconduct and other data, new training, and major investments in modern technologies — including mobile computers in patrol vehicles — to streamline operations and enhance data retention and analysis. Pugh has said the agreement calls for civilians to serve on police trial boards that assess officer wrongdoing, but police union officials say the decree cannot supersede the union’s collective bargaining agreement with the city, which bars civilian participation. Baltimore Sun Baltimore To Send Low-Level Drug Offenders to TreatmentLong burdened by one of the nation’s worst heroin problems, Baltimore is joining a small but growing number of cities where police can divert low-level drug offenders to treatment, rather than take them to jail. The move toward a diversion program—before an offender is charged—signals a shift away from a punishment-centered response to illegal drug use, amid a growing view that the opioid crisis requires a public-health approach, the Wall Street Journal reports. Baltimore is the sixth city to adopt the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion approach since Seattle in 2011. In Baltimore, where police-community relations remain tense following the 2015 death of Freddie Gray from injuries sustained in police custody, the program is seen as one way to improve how people in parts of the city perceive the police.
“You feel defeated as a police officer that wants to help that person when you keep rearresting them,” said Ganesha Martin, external affairs chief of the Baltimore Police Department. “And they don’t get the services they need when they’re incarcerated.” Widespread abuse of opioids is worsening, fueled by the spread of fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller with up to 50 times the potency of heroin. The rising number of overdoses is driving law enforcement authorities to try new tactics. “We are not going to arrest ourselves out of this problem,” said Timothy Sini, police commissioner of Suffolk County, N.Y., who will roll out a diversion program in the next month. The programs also have drawn criticism from some law-enforcement officials and prosecutors, whose say people who are spared arrest and prosecution could commit serious crimes. Wall Street Journal DOJ Probe of Chicago Police Due For Release TomorrowThe U.S. Department of Justice is poised to announce tomorrow its findings of constitutional violations by the Chicago Police Department after a yearlong investigation, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. Sources say it is highly unlikely the DOJ investigation will conclude with a signed-and-completed consent decree outlining mandated changes in police practices. Rather, what is on the table is a deal for the city and the feds to sign an “agreement in principle.” Such a pact, made with community input, would create a federal court-enforceable path forward that addresses the feds’ findings.
Former Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said he is “disappointed” that federal investigators who have been probing the police department’s practices didn’t consult with him. “I was never interviewed, so I can only speculate what is in that report based on what I’ve seen in other cities,” he said. The feds are hustling to complete their probe before Donald Trump becomes president on Jan. 20. Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo said he would be surprised and extremely disappointed if Emanuel signed an agreement in principle with the Justice Department to negotiate anything before a “findings letter” summarizing the federal investigation is released. “No one should agree to anything,” Angelo said of talks between the city and the feds. “At this stage, it’s a report on their findings and their study. It’s not a mandate. It’s nothing that anyone should be jumping to agree to unless they already have it. And if they already have it, how do they have it when no one else has it? Where is the transparency and professionalism related to that? I don’t get it at all.” Chicago Sun-Times Caged In: The 'Devastating' Impact of Solitary on the DisabledSolitary confinement puts prisoners with physical disabilities at greater risk than inmates in the general population, says an ACLU study. Some statistics suggest the problem is increasing as the number of disabled individuals behind bars grows. The Crime Report Controversial Collection of Arrestees’ DNA Solves CasesBecause Ohio is one of at least 32 states that allow police to take DNA samples from people as soon as they are arrested for a felony and enter them into a national database, Indiana authorities were able to crack a big murder case recently, Stateline reports. “We had no leads,” said Todd Meyer, prosecutor for Boone County, In., where the murder occurred. “Without the DNA we were able to obtain from [a suspect’s] felony arrest in another state, I believe the case would continue to be unsolved. We had nothing to lead us in that direction.”
Advocates for swabbing people as soon as they’re arrested, like Meyer, say it helps solve hard-to-crack cases when other leads grow cold. And, prosecutors and law enforcement officials say, it can help prevent crime by catching repeat offenders earlier in their criminal careers. “We started back in the old days with mug shots, then people’s fingerprints,” Meyer said. “Now in the 21st century, we need to start using DNA to the fullest extent.” Opponents, including defense attorneys and civil rights groups, say that when people are swabbed for a DNA sample when they’re arrested, they are being treated as if they’re suspects in other crimes or even implicating themselves in crimes they may not be suspected of. And in cases in which a person is never charged, it can be expensive to get the record of their DNA expunged. “You can always collect DNA from someone convicted of a crime, so why do you need to frontload that and collect DNA from someone presumed innocent?” said Barry Pollack, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Stateline
Germany May Bar Indicted VW Officials from Trials in The U.S.
Six high-level Volkswagen employees from Germany have been indicted in the U.S. in the automaker’s emissions-cheating scandal, as prosecutors made good on efforts to charge individuals in a corporate corruption case, reports the Associated Press. Bringing them to trial in the U.S. is another matter. In announcing the charges and a corporate plea bargain by Volkswagen, Justice Department prosecutors detailed a large and elaborate scheme inside the German automaker to commit fraud and then cover it up, with at least 40 employees allegedly involved in destroying evidence. The company agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges and pay $4.3 billion, by far the largest fine ever levied by the government against an automaker. “Volkswagen obfuscated, they denied and they ultimately lied,” said Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Prosecutors may have trouble trying the executives in the U.S. because German law generally bars extradition of its citizens except within the European Union. Privately, DOJ officials expressed little optimism that the five VW executives still at large will be arrested, unless they surrender or travel outside Germany. The criminal charges are a major breakthrough for a Justice Department that been under pressure to hold individuals accountable for corporate misdeeds since the 2008 financial crisis. VW admitted installing software in diesel engines on nearly 600,000 VW, Porsche, and Audi vehicles in the U.S. that activated pollution controls during government tests and switched them off in real-world driving. The software allowed the cars to emit harmful nitrogen oxide at up to 40 times above the legal limit. Associated Press Race Issue Predominant at Sessions Hearing for AGThe issue of race dominated the second day of Jeff Sessions’ confirmation hearing for attorney general, as a black senator eviscerated Sessions’ civil rights record and the head of the Congressional Black Caucus accused the GOP chairman of forcing black lawmakers to “go to the back of the bus,” Politico reports. Three African-American men who worked personally with the nominee spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee vouching for Sessions’ character and defending him from racism accusations. The dramatic testimony underscored racial tensions surrounding the nomination of Sessions, whose bid for a federal judgeship in 1986 derailed amid allegations of racially improper behavior. Sessions Sessions testified that accusations of racism were “damnably false charges.”
Three influential black lawmakers — Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), and Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus — testified and raised concerns about Sessions’ stances on voting rights and a litany of other issues. Sessions was not present. Booker, one of three black members of the Senate, warned in unprecedented testimony that the Alabama Republican has shown a “hostility” toward civil rights that should disqualify him as attorney general. Breaking with norms in the clubby chamber, Booker argued he was “standing up for what my conscience tells me is best for our country” by speaking out against the conservative senator and his record on issues such as voting rights, women’s issues, immigration, and other topics. Booker’s remarks apparently were the first time a sitting senator has testified against another sitting senator up for a Cabinet job. Politico Texan Becomes First Death Row Inmate Executed This YearTexas yesterday put to death an inmate convicted of killing two men over a drug deal, the first U.S. execution of 2017, reports the Associated Press. Christopher Wilkins, 48, was declared dead 13 minutes after a lethal injection of pentobarbital. Before the drug was administered, he twice mouthed “I’m sorry,” to two relatives of one of the murder victims as they watched through a window. Wilkins had explained to jurors at his capital murder trial in 2008 how and why he killed his friends in Fort Worth three years earlier, saying he didn’t care if they sentenced him to death.
Wilkins was released from prison in 2005 after serving time for a federal gun possession conviction. He drove a stolen truck to Fort Worth, where he befriended Willie Freeman, 40, and Mike Silva, 33. Freeman and his drug supplier duped Wilkins into paying $20 for a piece of gravel that he thought was a rock of crack cocaine. Wilkins said he shot Freeman after Freeman laughed about the scam, then shot Silva because he was there. Twenty convicted killers were executed in the U.S. last year, the lowest number since the early 1980s. That tally includes seven executions in Texas — the fewest in the state since 1996. Wilkins is among nine Texas inmates already scheduled to die in the early months of 2017. Associated Press Serious Crime Total Reported in Philly Lowest in DecadesSerious crime reported in Philadelphia fell last year to levels unseen in decades, says the Philadelphia Inquirer. There were fewer violent crimes than in any other year since 1979, the fewest number of property crimes since 1971, and the fewest number of robberies since 1969. The numbers of burglaries were the lowest on record. Although homicides decreased only slightly compared with 2015, they remained below 300 – once considered a low-end benchmark for Philadelphia – for the fourth consecutive year. Police Commissioner Richard Ross described the results as a step in the right direction but said police would continue seeking to drive the numbers lower. “We’ve got a long way to go,” he said. “Nobody is suggesting anything other than that.”
Ross and criminologists said the decrease was likely driven by a variety of factors, such as increased use of technology in fighting crime, continuing successful deployment and patrol strategies, and an overall crime rate that is lower across the country today than it was 20 years ago. “It’s not a simple answer, and there are probably multiple factors that are interacting with each other,” said Jerry Ratcliffe, a professor of criminal justice at Temple University. Ross added, “We’re not happy with the level of gun violence across the city, period.” Year-end statistics provided by police showed that violent crime – which includes homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault – was down about 5 percent in 2016 compared with 2015. The total number of violent crimes was 15,385, the numbers show, the lowest total since 1979, when there were 14,537. The population of Philadelphia has shrunk during that time, meaning the violent crime rate has actually increased, from 849 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 1979, to about 981 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2016. Philadelphia Inquirer FL Deputy Suspended in Leak of Airport Shooting VideoMichael Dingman, a 21-year veteran of the Broward County, Fl., Sheriff’s Office assigned to the airport, was suspended with pay in connection with an investigation into who leaked the video of the shooting at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to TMZ.com, reports USA Today. County Sheriff Scott Israel said the leak was “despicable, repulsive.” The video, which surfaced Sunday, appeared to be a cellphone recording of the surveillance video that showed the first seconds of the shooting in the baggage claim area of Terminal 2.
A man wearing a long-sleeves shirt and black pants is seen in the video walking through the baggage claim area and pulling a gun from his waistband. He points the gun at people outside the frame, then disappears from the camera’s view. Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief said, “Everyone was disheartened. It was a heinous thing to do. For families to see the final moments of their loved ones, to see them killed or get hurt on a video is traumatic.” Sharief said she hopes criminal charges will be brought against whomever leaked the video. USA Today How Gun Control Debate Has Changed Since ElectionLast week’s mass shooting at the Fort Lauderdale airport shows how much the conversation about gun violence has changed since the presidential election, the New York Times reports. Five people were killed, and many others were injured; Such carnage formerly prompted new calls for more restrictions on guns. Republicans are preparing to control the White House along with Congress. Donald Trump has promised to roll back gun restrictions. The most prominent gun measure before Congress is one that would allow people with concealed-weapon permits from one state to carry their weapons to other states. The Times asked Morning Consult, a media and polling firm, to survey two groups: some of the country’s leading experts on gun violence, and a representative sample of the electorate. The survey asked dozens of social scientists, lawyers and public health officials how effective each of 29 policies would be in reducing firearm homicide deaths, regardless of their political feasibility or cost.
The newspaper published a matrix showing policies deemed both effective and popular appear. The two policies ranked most effective were those requiring all sellers to run background checks on anyone who buys a gun, and barring gun sales to people convicted of violent misdemeanors, including domestic assaults. The experts were more skeptical of other much-debated proposals, including a national gun registry and an assault weapons ban. Universal background checks and keeping guns from convicted stalkers were supported by more than 85 percent of registered voters. Even the least popular idea, a law that would limit gun sales to people who had to demonstrate a “genuine need” for the weapon, was favored by nearly 50 percent. Gun experts who were opposed to gun control tended to particularly oppose blanket policies. “The essence of a ban is it applies to everyone equally, at least theoretically,” said criminologist Gary Kleck of Florida State University. “But in practice, criminals, being criminals, don’t obey the law.” New York Times Dylann Roof Formally Gets Death Sentence in CharlestonClutching the blood-stained Bible she had with her when Dylann Roof executed nine family and friends around her, Felicia Sanders told the self-avowed white supremacist in court yesterday that she still forgives him for his actions. Addressing Roof the day after a jury sentenced him to death, Sanders said the mass shooting that killed nine black worshippers at Emanuel AME Church in 2015 has left her unable to hear a balloon pop or an acorn fall without being startled. reports the Charleston Post and Courier.
U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel formally imposed the death sentence. “His hate, his viciousness his moral depravity will not go unanswered,” Gergel said. “This proceeding will not give the families what they truly want, which is to bring their family members back. But it will give a measure of justice.” The 12-member panel — three black jurors, nine white — deliberated for a little less than three hours before unanimously deciding that Roof should die rather than spend his life in prison. The federal government has sought execution in trials involving hate crimes seven times before. Five resulted in guilty pleas; two received life sentences, according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project’s database. Charleston Post and Courier LA AG Sent Task Force to New Orleans, It Made 11 ArrestsLouisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry dispatched his Violent Crime Task Force to New Orleans, which he declares is “more dangerous than Chicago.” He sent in his special cops out of “respect” for the families who “lost loved ones to this epidemic.” He vows to “continue working with my dedicated team to protect lives and our economy.” The results do not quite match the rhetoric, reports The Advocate. In the last quarter of 2016, Landry’s special cops made just 11 arrests, all for fairly minor offenses. Their only exposure to violent crime came when they shared the credit with the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) for nabbing a couple of carjackers and three armed robbers.
Far from acknowledging that the returns for such efforts have been somewhat puny, Landry declares his officers are a godsend for New Orleans. Its regular police department operates under a federal consent decree and is thus in “virtual handcuffs.” Only with his unconstrained intervention, he claims, are we ever “going to take violent criminals off the street.” While Landry’s staffers were making their handful of arrests, NOPD, notwithstanding the rules it is required to observe, logged 5,463. Landry’s task force, which consists of a cadre of his own officers supplemented from the ranks of suburban agencies, was formed to help police the French Quarter around the Fourth of July last year. The Advocate Christie to Focus on Drug Addiction in His Last YearForcefully declaring “our neighbors are dying,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie used his State of the State address this week to promise he will fight drug addiction during his remaining time in office, reports NJ.com. Christie, limping into his last full year in office with an approval ranking him as one of the most unpopular governors in New Jersey’s modern history, called on lawmakers to join him in his push to “fight this fight more aggressively.”
He laid out his plans in a sometimes somber, heartfelt, and passionate address that lasted an hour and 15 minutes, with about an hour of it focused solely on the “crisis of drug addiction,” including a dozen new initiatives. “I will not have the blood of addicted New Jerseyans on my hands by waiting to act,” Christie said. He encouraged lawmakers to support legislation saying that nobody with health insurance can be denied coverage for the first six months of in-patient or outpatient treatment. He announced an additional $5 million for the statewide expansion of what he said was a successful pilot program on pediatric behavioral health. Christie also announced an initiative to press the state’s attorney general to try and limit the supply of opioid-based pain medications by health care providers from 30 days to five days. NJ.com
Bryan Roach Named Indianapolis Police Chief
By tapping Bryan Roach as the new leader of the Indianapolis police force, Mayor Joe Hogsett signaled at once both a continuation of current strategy and a change, reports the Indianapolis Star. Roach said he is a “firm believer” in the beat policing and data initiatives championed by former Chief Troy Riggs, and will, for the most part, stay the course. He has played a role in formulating Hogsett’s sweeping criminal justice reform plans and said he believes in that vision, too. Unlike two recent predecessors, Roach, 51, an assistant chief, is the consummate insider.
He was born in Indianapolis, graduated from Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis and has worked at the police department for 26 years. He rose through the ranks.
Hogsett announced the appointment at a news conference Wednesday afternoon, citing a need for a leader who was shaped by — and is committed to — the community. “Where one in three children live in poverty. Where our homicide rate is far too high. Where it is easier for many of our children to get their hands on a gun … than on a diploma,” Hogsett said. “Bryan Roach is best equipped to face those challenges.” The announcement came just weeks after Riggs’ surprise resignation after serving for less than a year, citing the job’s low pay of $117,187 per year. Indianapolis Star | |
| | On every business day, The Crime Report (TCR) and Criminal Justice Journalists (CJJ) provide a summary of the nation's top crime and justice news stories with Internet links commentary, and New & Notable research in the field. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the Langeloth Foundation and the Urban Institute. Today's report was prepared by Ted Gest and Alice Popovici. Please send comments or questions to alice@thecrimereport.org. | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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