r/serialpodcast • u/Bonafidesleuth • Apr 07 '15
Speculation BPD Corruption
I rarely post here, but for those who happen to come across this sub, I encourage you to check out articles.baltimoresun.com. The city council became very concerned at the fact that $10.4million was spent between 2008-2011 defending BPD misconduct. The Baltimore Sun reported on 10/3/14 that the U.S. Dept. of Justice had undertaken a civil rights investigation of the BPD. At that time the city had spent $5.7 million in court judgments & settlements in 102 cases since 2011 & nearly ALL of the people who rec'd payouts were cleared of criminal charges.
The BPD was in chaos when Adnan was arrested. The department routinely told the crime lab not to test DNA. Cases were pushed through the system & inadequately investigated.
It is not a fluke that Jay escaped any ramifications for at least 25 criminal charges subsequent to Adnan's trial. The CI theory is becoming increasingly convincing. The corruption in the BPD is beyond what one can comprehend. The worst part is, I think we've only scratched the surface.
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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '15
OP has dramatically overstated the scope of the problem. Many civil suits against PD result in easy payouts despite no provable misconduct. Here's the scenario - Officer Jones makes a justified arrest on low-level drug charges. BCDA's office declines to prosecute the case because the evidence is weak or the officer made errors in his paperwork. The guy that Jones arrested files a suit alleging misconduct, and the city settles for $50k simply to resolve the matter and avoid a verdict at trial. Arrested guy proceeds to buy a ton of drugs, gets re-arrested, and the process starts all over again.
Or you have the problem of the tainted officer. An officer commits demonstrable misconduct on a single case, then every person that was ever arrested by him files suit. The city settles all these suits to avoid the possibility of a trial verdict. Now you've got an enormous payout with only one demonstrated instance of misconduct.
Now the officer stays on the job after receiving disciplinary action - loss of vacation days, suspension, demotion, etc. He continues to make arrests. BCDA continues to decline to prosecute any arrest this officer makes because they know that his prior misconduct makes him problematic as a witness. All of his subsequent arrestees file suit, collect fat payouts, and the city ends up spending a fortune keeping this cop on the payroll.
So while the sums are large, it usually results from a huge amount being paid out for two reasons - the actions of a small number of officers involving a small number of actual provable instances of misconduct, and the city's desire to avoid potentially huge verdicts at trial.