On Thursday, August 8, 2020, BALT testified before the Maryland House Policing Work Group. Our testimony is below.
My name is Iman Freeman, and I am the Executive Director of Baltimore Action Legal Team, a Baltimore-based organization that supports local community organizing that builds power for the Movement for Black Lives. In our capacity of operating a protest arrest hotline, maintaining a bail fund, helping citizens cover the extraordinary costs of private home detention, and combating police misconduct we have come to understand a few things about how policing is not working for our communities.
BALT believes that the General Assembly needs to repeal the Law Enforcement Officers Bill Of Rights to ensure meaningful investigation and accountability; officers should be treated the same as citizens and not given specialty status. Currently LEOBOR makes officers an elite class of citizens that can take extraordinary and violent measures beyond the bounds of their positions. We ask that investigations of officers move forward with speed and purpose. The state should also stop providing officers special privileges during investigations, such as letting them personally review evidence against them.
BALT also asks the General Assembly to mandate that police employee performance files be made open to review as investigatory files under the Public Information Act. We recognize the importance of privacy in employee records, but investigations should be disclosable. We regularly see that under current MPIA rules any investigation of misconduct is sealed as tightly as an employee’s social security number. Privacy concerns over this information are not the same; the public has the right to know the behavior of an officer who has the ability to deprive liberties, carry a deadly weapon, and cause serious bodily harm.
Finally, BALT asks that the General Assembly establish a system of independent prosecution for law enforcement. There is an inherent conflict of interest in a state’s attorney prosecuting police, as the police act as a state’s attorney’s “investigative arm.” Right now the state’s attorney has the discretion to turn a prosecution over to the Attorney General. However, in order to equally apply justice in Maryland, this discretion, and conflict of interest, should be removed and prosecution of law enforcement officers should begin directly within the Attorney General’s office
Thank you for your time and we look forward to seeing the new legislation this work group will produce for the 2021 legislative session.