Reply to Jesus Christ, Baltimore....

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "Jesus Christ, Baltimore...."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Officer Momodu Gondo of the now defunct Baltimore Elite Gun Trace Task Force had choices in life. Lots of them. And he made bad choices. Lots of them.

The last bad choice was to help some drug dealers avoid charges leading to an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration which caught Gondo in an intercepted phone call admitting, “I sell drugs” — the scope of the corruption and abuse they uncovered widened over time eventually engulfing most of the Gun Trace Task Force.

Had Momodu and his fellow officers chosen to respect the citizens in the community they were assigned to serve and protect and been the upstanding responsible citizens themselves that we expect police to be and not used their badges as cover to commit crimes they’d probably still have jobs and not be facing jail time.

Eight people in the nine-member task force have been charged with crimes that amount to massive abuses of power and repeated violations of locals’ constitutional rights.  Six have pleaded guilty: Thomas Allers, Momodu Gondo, Evodio Hendrix, Wayne Jenkins, Jemell Rayam, and Maurice Ward. Two have pleaded not guilty and are standing trial: Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor. Only one — John Clewell — has not been charged with a crime, because he reportedly wasn’t very involved with the team.

They knew the consequences of their criminal acts.  They’d arrested hundreds of people for breaking the law and they knew all too well that when you break the law eventually you’re going to get caught, but they thought the law didn’t apply to them.  They were wrong.  Now the nearly 3,000 cases that the eight indicted officers were involved in have now been called into question, potentially allowing people previously convicted of crimes to be let free because the evidence is no longer reliable.

Additional investigations by the US Department of Justice found that the entire Baltimore Police Department was abusive and corrupt on multiple levels — riddled with racially disparate impact “at every stage of [its] enforcement actions” and a constant source of constitutional rights violations. The Justice Department explained that these practices have “erode[d] the community trust that is critical to effective policing.”

The Baltimore Police Department and the city of Baltimore itself are in shambles because corrupt cops made bad choices and as a result people are less able to turn to the Police Department for help, they’re more likely to lose trust in the law and take matters into their own hands, even if it means resorting to violence to settle disputes.

If the people sworn to protect you will actually rob you for their own profits, why should you trust them? And if you can’t trust them, what are you going to do the next time you have a serious problem — with a family member, friend, neighbor, whomever — that would normally require the criminal justice system? The result is perhaps more violence that a better police force could have prevented.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics