8月10日公布的一份联邦报告指出，巴尔的摩警方使用过度武力并对黑人有惯常歧视行为。美国司法部和巴尔的摩市警察局据此一致认为，警方需要改革。

报告结果是基于对这个全国最大的警察部门之一进行的长达一年的调查。调查发现，警官有大量的在缺乏可信理由的情况下拦截人的行为——大多数发生在贫困的黑人社区，并且当“不喜欢那些人的说法”的时候非法逮捕公民。

巴尔的摩警察局局长凯文·戴维斯（Kevin Davis）说，今年已有六名犯有极严重违规行为的警官被解职。

戴维斯说，“打击犯罪和与社区发展更好、更尊重的关系并不矛盾。我们不需要非此即彼，而是要双管齐下。如今已是2016年了。”

巴尔的摩市警察局局长和市长斯蒂法妮·罗林斯-布莱克（Stephanie Rawlings-Blake）共同承诺，将把这份报告作为全面改革的蓝图。

联邦司法部民权处负责人瓦尼塔·古普塔（Vanita Gupta）说，具有法庭执行力的命令将责成警方机构必须落实程序改革，否则将面临起诉。

联邦司法部也对其他城市的警察部门展开了类似的深入调查，其中包括芝加哥（Chicago）、克里夫兰（Cleveland）、新墨西哥州的阿尔伯克基（Albuquerque, New Mexico）、以及密苏里州的弗格森（Ferguson, Missouri）等。

联邦调查员用了一年多时间对巴尔的摩居民、警察、检察官、公共辩护人、民选官员进行访谈，并同警官一道乘车巡逻以及审视了有关文件和申诉。

古普塔说，“几乎和我们交谈的所有人……都认为巴尔的摩警察局需要重大改革。”

州检察长、巴尔的摩市最高检察官马莉林·莫斯比（Marilyn Mosby）表示，她料到这份报告会“证实我们市里许多人已经知道或者亲身经历过的情况”。

她在一份声明中说：“虽然巴尔的摩市的绝大多数警官是好警官，但我们也知道有一些不良警官，而且警察局往往没有监督、培训或追究不良行为者的责任。”

这次联邦调查是在2015年4月发生了25岁的黑人青年弗雷迪·格雷（Freddie Gray）带着手铐脚镣没有保护地坐在警车后坐、随后因脊髓受伤而死亡的事件后展开的。格雷的死亡引发抗议行动，导致巴尔的摩市爆发了几十年来最大的骚乱。

六名警官，其中三名白人，三名黑人，因格雷之死受到指控。其中三人被判无罪，一人的诉案以无效审判告终，对其余两人的指控被撤销。


Baltimore police, under scrutiny for racial bias, promise changes

The U.S. Justice Department and the Baltimore Police Department agreed the police need to make reforms after a federal report released August 10 criticized police officers for using excessive force and routinely discriminating against blacks.

The report, the culmination of a yearlong investigation into one of the country’s largest police forces, found that officers made a large number of stops — mostly in poor black neighborhoods — with dubious justification and unlawfully arrested citizens when officers “did not like what those individuals said.”

Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said six officers who committed egregious violations have been fired this year.

“Fighting crime and having a better, more respectful relationship with the community are not mutually exclusive endeavors. We don’t have to choose one or the other. We’re choosing both. It’s 2016,” Davis said.

The commissioner and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake promised the report would serve as a blueprint for sweeping changes.

The court-enforceable directive will force the police agency to commit to improving its procedures to avoid a lawsuit. The decree likely will not be finalized for many months, said Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

The Justice Department has undertaken similar wide-reaching investigations into the police in Chicago; Cleveland; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Ferguson, Missouri, among other cities.

Federal investigators spent more than a year interviewing Baltimore residents, police officers, prosecutors, public defenders and elected officials, as well as riding along with officers on duty and reviewing documents and complaints.

“Nearly everyone who spoke to us … agreed the Baltimore Police Department needs sustainable reform,” Gupta said.

State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, the city’s top prosecutor, said she expected the report to “confirm what many in our city already know or have experienced firsthand.”

“While the vast majority of Baltimore city police officers are good officers, we also know that there are bad officers and that the department has routinely failed to oversee, train, or hold bad actors accountable,” she said in a statement.

The federal investigation was launched after the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man whose neck was broken while he was handcuffed and shackled but left unrestrained in the back of a police van. The death set off protests and the worst riots in the city in decades.

Six officers, three white and three black, were charged in Gray’s death. Three were acquitted, another officer’s trial ended in a mistrial, and the charges against the others were dropped.