In another disturbing development in ongoing human rights challenge of police abuse in the United States of America, a hooded group of Baltimore Police Department officers appeared on CNN. They stated that they do not plan to fully do their jobs as police officers, unless they can be sure they will not be arrested when they commit criminal acts. They called for the exoneration of 6 Baltimore Police officers indicted in death of Freddie Gray, whose neck and back were broken; the indicted Baltimore Police officers were charged with crimes ranging for depraved heart murder to assault.
The concept of a police force seeking blanket immunity from the law is nothing less than a blatant statement of contempt for the U.S. Constitution and our shared human rights. Any police force which no longer believes it is has any responsibility for the same law it has sworn to uphold – is no longer a police force.
Responsible for Equality And Liberty calls for our human rights activists to contact the Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts (anthony.batts@baltimorepolice.org, telephone 410-396-2020, fax 410-396-2023) and Baltimore Police Union FOP Lodge # 3 Lieutenant Gene Ryan (gene.ryan@baltimorepolice.org, telephone: 410- 243-9141, fax 410-487-1643) to call for the removal of such police officers from the Baltimore Police Department. Our justice community must be based on shared respect for the U.S. Constitution and our shared human rights. We urge the Police Commissioner and Lt. Gene Ryan to denounce the statements of these anonymous police officers. R.E.A.L. has already proactively reached out to Police Union leader Gene Ryan, after seeing no statement on the FOP # 3 website. We urge the Baltimore Police Commissioner and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (
Stephanie.Rawlings-Blake@baltimorecity.gov, 410-396-3835, fax 410-576-9425) to act to enforce the legal agreement with Baltimore FOP # 3, Article 23, to stop the illegal work stoppage by Baltimore Police. Our support for justice, the law, the U.S. Constitution, and our shared universal human rights must be consistent.
We have previously reported on Gene Ryan’s outrageous comments that Baltimore Police officers are more afraid of being arrested than being shot, while children were being shot. We hope that seeing his fellow police officers with hoods in shadows like cowardly criminals will help him realize the negative direction that will result from a failure to support the law and the Constitution. No one is above the law.
The interview took place with CNN’s Brooke Baldwin talking to two anonymous active members of the Baltimore Police Department. The police officers wore dark hoods and their identity was concealed by dark light and altering their voices. They defended the 6 Baltimore Police officers who were arrested in the death of Freddie Gray, whose spine and neck was broken, and said they would do the same thing. The 6 Baltimore Police officers were indicts on crimes ranging from “depraved heart” murder to assault.
Hooded Baltimore Police in shadows tell CNN that police indicted for Freddie Gray’s death “did nothing wrong,” and that they would “absolutely” do the same thing as the police officers indicted for crimes ranging from depraved heart murder to assault.
CNN interview also asked the hooded, Baltimore police officers about the police brutality in the death of Freddie Gray, whose spine and neck were broken. The interview pointed out how Freddie Gray was being dragged and did not have medical attention. She asked the hooded Baltimore police officers response if “you would have done the same thing.” The hooded officer stated: “Absolutely…. the officers did nothing wrong.” The other officer stated “there was no malice in the police officers,” including those arrested for depraved heart murder. The hooded Baltimore police officers stated that they should be exonerated. One of the hooded officers said “there was no physical violence” in the takedown arrest of Freddie Gray. They stated they wanted the trial for the police officers’ trial moved outside of Baltimore, because they didn’t believe they could get a fair jury of their peers in the city where their job was to enforce the law.
One of the anonymous hooded Baltimore Police officers stated that activists who objected to such police brutality in arrests were doing this “for their own personal gain.” In one sentence, the officer said their job is to “de-escalate things,” and in the next sentence he stated “we are trained to escalate things.” Basically, the interview came to the logical conclusion that the Baltimore Police officers simply want to do whatever they want with no accountability.
As a result of the 6 Baltimore Police being held accountable for their crimes, one hooded police officer in the shadows stated “pro-active, self-initiated policing has stopped… we’re now in a total reactive mode.” The hooded, shadowed police officer admitted that such a work stoppage “ultimately does a disservice to the whole body of citizens, to business owners, to everyone other than the criminal element.” But since the Baltimore Police were being held accountable for criminal actions, he felt that they had the right to the work stoppage and abandoning their jobs when it came to preventing crime.
A hooded police officer in the shadows stated that criminals “know that pretty much the whole police department has shifted all to a reactive side.” “Even though you have a reasonable suspicion, for a guy walking down the street and there’s a bulge from their waistband” (like an illegal GUN) that the police work stoppage has approach been to not take action. He indicated that the rise in violent crime in Baltimore is because of the Baltimore police work stoppage, stating: “the criminal element feels as though we are not going to run the risk of chasing them if they are armed with a gun.”
Hooded Baltimore Police tells CNN they are hesitant to fight crime, unless they can be certain they can be immune from any criminal prosecution if they commit crimes.
When the CNN interviewer directly asked the hooded Baltimore police officers if the criminal was right, that they would not chase them if they had a gun, he meandered an excuse that if the criminal got hit by a car, they wouldn’t want to be responsible. In a word, YES. The interviewed officers stated that since the public wanted a “softer police department” (that is one that obeyed the law), they will use their work stoppage until the public allows them to break the law.
When directly asked by the CNN interviewer, “But you took an oath to serve and protect?” The hooded, shadowed Baltimore Police Department officers ignored her question, just like they ignoring their oath. But their silence to her direct question is an answer, and that silence should concern every patriot who loves America and our justice system, as well as every human rights activist.
CNN Interview asks Hooded Baltimore Police in Shadows: “But didn’t take an Oath to Serve and Protect?” They refuse to answer. Their refusal IS an answer.
The Baltimore Police Commissioner and the Baltimore Mayor are responsible for legally acting to resolve this publicly announced work stoppage by the Baltimore Police. This illegal work stoppage is not only is a threat to public safety, but has led to the shooting of at least two children in Baltimore.
The Baltimore Police City Lodge #3 Fraternal Order of Police has a binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Baltimore Police Department. In that MOU, Article 23, page 28, there is a “No Strike, Secondary Boycott, or Lockout” clause, which states “The Lodge agrees that during the term of this Memorandum it shall not engage in, initiate, sponsor, support, or direct a strike or secondary boycott or directly or indirectly picket the Employer or any of its property in furtherance of a strike.” “If the Lodge shall violate any of the provisions hereof: Its designation as exclusive representative may be revoked by the Department.” “Nothing in this Memorandum shall deprive the Employer of remedies available to it under applicable law in the event of a strike.”
On the behalf of public safety, it is the responsibility of the Baltimore Police Commissioner and the Baltimore City Mayor to act on this issue, and enforce the Labor Union agreement with the Baltimore City Police and end the Baltimore Police work stoppage, designed to allow citizens to be at risk or killed, so that police can gain the “right” to break the law with impunity.
Maryland does not allow the police to strike. Maryland Governor Hogan and the Maryland Office of the Secretary of State (Fax 410-974-5527) also have similar responsibility to stop Maryland Police work stoppages. There is a Memorandum of Understanding between the State of Maryland and the State Law Enforcement Officers Labor Alliance (SLEOLA)
(July 1, 2012 – June 30,2015), Article XV. R.E.A.L. has also contacted Governor Hogan on this matter.
If we allowed the police to conduct work stoppages, unless the police were empowered to break the law and commit criminal acts, we would undermine the U.S. Constitution, as well as reject the international law agreed to by the United States of America under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This is not only an attack on the law, but also on our shared universal human rights.
In the United States of America, the federal government also has another method to take action toward organized groups which use violence outside the law as a means to extort protection from the public. A “protection racket” is a scheme whereby a group provides protection to people or businesses through violence outside the sanction of the law, and in violation of the law. Using the credible threat of violence, the protection racketeers deter people from harming their clients. Racketeering is a violation of U.S. Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 96, § 1961. Racketeering activities are punishable under range of laws under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (18 U.S.C. §§ 1961–1968), which was signed into law on October 15, 1970.
The U.S. Department of Justice an entire division simply to monitor and prosecute organized racketeers. Title 9 of the U.S. Attorney’s Manual provides details on 9-110.000 – Organized Crime And Racketeering guidelines, and the requirements to prosecute racketeers.
The population of Baltimore was 622,104 in 2013. That is a significant percent of the population of the United States of America to allow their safety and well-being to be at risk, by an organized group of armed individuals using function equivalents of “protection racket” tactics to seek extortion from the public so that they can be held harmless from criminal prosecutions involving illegal violence. While this case may seem unusual, the concept behind the RICO statutes is to prevent groups from extorting the public in protection racket schemes. If the Baltimore Police Commission will not act, if the Baltimore Mayor will not act, if the State of Maryland will not act, it is the responsibility of the U.S. Department of Justice to act to support and defend the Constitution and the Constitutional rights of Baltimore citizens. Days have passed since this CNN interview. The Baltimore Police Commissioner and the Baltimore Mayor have not announced any action.
Therefore, it is reasonable to assume the U.S. Department of Justice needs to start planning for the use of RICO laws to protect the citizens of Baltimore from the rogues in the Baltimore City Police and Baltimore Police Union FOP Lodge #3, which clearly are in violation of their MOU.
R.E.A.L. is contacting the U.S. Department of Justice Organized Crime and Gang Section (OCGS), Julie Wuslich, (Julie.Wuslich@usdoj.gov, 202-514-1214), as well as the DOJ Civil Rights Divison’s Vanita Gupta (Vanita.Gupta@usdoj.gov, 202-514-4609). The U.S. DOJ Civil Rights division will be conducting an investigation of the Baltimore Police operations. We urge the DOJ Civil Rights division to add this interview to their research and findings.
Hooded shadowed figures in the Baltimore Police who threaten not to do their job, unless they are allowed to be criminals, represent nothing less than an attempted protection racketeering. The U.S. Department of Justice needs to investigate, and racketeers need to prosecuted under federal law. The law is the law for everyone. No one is above the law. No one has a “right” to commit criminal acts.
Our shared universal human rights are not constrained to any border or any organization, and those who defy those human rights are not limited to any area or organization. Our world has many problems. But if we work together we can solve our problems as one human race. Unlike the cynical and mocking comments of the hooded Baltimore Police Officers, our defense of our shared human rights is for anything BUT “our personal gain.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The volunteer human rights community’s support is completely at our own expense, financially, personally, and professionally. To reply to the hooded cowards, we do this for one reason: it is the right thing to do. That’s the only reason we need. It is sad that there are those in law enforcement so detached from reality that they can’t understand such fundamentals in our society.
It reminds me of the white supremacist groups we challenge, who always have an explanation as to why a white male like me would challenge them. I must be getting paid by someone, the government, Israel, the ZOG, the Illumanti, the SPLC, etc. You name it. Those who have lost their conscience about what is right can always find a way to find excuses for why they have a “right” to oppress others.
It is not right to break someone’s spine and neck. It is not right to crush their vocal cords. It doesn’t matter if it is Freddie Gray or anyone else. People who respect human rights and the law have to understand the difference between right and wrong. We urge the Baltimore Police to end the denial, and do some deep soul-searching about the oath they took.
It is always a good day to be Responsible for Equality And Liberty.
If we can’t stand in public for that, then we are not free men and women. We are not afraid.
God Bless the United States of America.
Jeffrey Imm, Founder, Responsible for Equality And Liberty
usa@realcourage.org, 301-613-8789