Never Warm! Never Fuzzy! Never Trusted!!!

Never Warm! Never Fuzzy!

Never Trusted!!!

By Matthews W. Wright, M. ED. - Precisely Wright & Associates

At a recent news conference the Mayor stated that she wanted to restore the trust of the police department.  By all accounts of news reporting, historical facts, police records or personal observations has the Baltimore City Police Department ever been noted for being warm, fuzzy or trusted by minority citizens of Baltimore City!  Since the 19^th century, Baltimore has been known as the “Wickedest City in the Nation” and as late as 1857 Baltimore was recognized as “Mob Town” when 9,000 citizens were arrested in one year!

Personal early accounts of my elders informed me of the manner in which people of color had to move about the city. As a Grand Lodge Historian and Prince Hall Mason, my great uncle chronicled the fact that when Masons attended their lodge meetings during the middle 1840’s after dusk they would have to remain housed in the lodge room until the next morning because if you had no permission slip one could not travel safely or freely after dark without the permission of a white person!

As a 13-year-old 8^th grader, I was confronted by police officers while putting the night’s trash out in my Sandtown neighborhood. I was approached, apprehended and placed in a police wagon for suspicion of robbing a company on Fulton Avenue. Ordered by the officers, I was told to place my hands out with palms upward. They placed discarded peanut shells in them and commanded me not to drop them! At the same time dirt was scrapped from my pants (I played football for the Police Boy’s Club on Gold Street) to supposedly be matched with the break-in site. Never was I informed of my Miranda Rights, at no point were my parents informed of my being held by police. They simply held me, went into my parent’s home through the back door left open by me and began searching our home for supposed objects related to the robbery.  My mother came downstairs from her bedroom, put an end to their illegal search, removed them from our home and fetched me from the police wagon!

That was a simple accounting of my first experience with the Baltimore City Police Department.  Since then several hundreds of thousands of youth, if not more have experienced that and the majority have been much worse!  Know that during the 1970’s tens of thousands juveniles were being adjudicated as adults and were housed in Baltimore City Jail to await trial. Police history reflects a department that was (is) among the nations vilest.

If we were only to look in the recent past we would come upon a department that was stated as being “antiquated and corrupt".  It was found to be a department that practiced excessive force and operated with a non-existing relationship to engage the “large Negro community of the City of Baltimore”.  Whoa!! Hold your wheedling batons! Those are not my quotes!  In 1965 a consultant was brought in to assess the department and they were his words. Who was this consultant you ask? His name was Donald Pomerleau. Does that sound familiar? Of course it does, he became the long standing Police Commissioner of Baltimore City from approximately 1965 to 1980.  As a citizen observer I saw several aspects of his command. During his tenure minority recruits still remained limited. Prior to his tenure, there were job descriptions limiting appointed minority officers. They were not allowed to patrol white neighborhoods nor ride in vehicles. As officers, those who were minority were quarantined from other officers and promotions remained low and did not dramatically rise until late in the 80’s.

Under Pomerleau’s command the Baltimore City Police Department declared war on African American citizens.  With unimpeded power and an ego lacking restraint, Commissioner Pomerleau lashed out against them after the Veney Brothers robbed a liquor store killing one officer and wounding another.  Without warrant or pretext police officers illegally broke into hundreds of homes. Yes, actions of the Veney brothers placed on display the police department and its manner of brutal and racist treatment of African American citizens.  And let us not speak of the illegal spying methods (i.e. wire taps surveillance and illicit acquisition of credit reports) according the Maryland State Legislative Senate report. When a white newspaper reporter questioning his tactics of gathering illegal documentation the Police Commissioner leaned towards the reporter to say “Just the Blacks, Just the Blacks, Just the Blacks”!

Yet, even still today, we are faced with another unnecessary death of a 24-year old man in Baltimore City.  What will the autopsy reveal? Will the police report align with it? How will the City’s States Attorney find the officers? Will they be charged? What results will the inquiry of the Department of Justice reflect?  Will any of this bring about positive changes in just not the actions of a police department but reflect on an unrelenting change in attitude and actions of a city that insists on in living in the past!