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U.S. Justice Dept finds another major police forces biased against blacks

Xinhua, August 11, 2016 Adjust font size:

A U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) report said on Wednesday discriminatory practices against the African-American communities had long existed among police forces in Baltimore, Maryland.

According to the 163-page scathing report, after a year-long investigation into the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) following the death of a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody, the DOJ found "reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution or federal law."

In detailing its findings, the report depicted a bleak picture for local African-American communities which had long been complaining about excessive use of forces and racial profiling by local police force.

"Statistical evidence shows that the (Baltimore Police) Department intrudes disproportionately upon the lives of African Americans at every stage of its enforcement activities," said the report.

Between 2010 and 2015, though they comprised about 63 percent of the city's population, African Americans accounted for 84 percent of stops.

"The high rate of stopping African Americans persists across the City, even in districts where African Americans make up a small share of the population," said the report, adding that African Americans were also far more likely to be subjected to multiple stops within short periods of time.

Between 2010 and 2015, BPD stopped 34 African Americans at least 20 times and seven other African Americans at least 30 times, while no person of any other race was stopped more than 12 times, the report said.

In addition to the large racial disparities in stops, the BPD officers may also have used force against African Americans disproportionately.

"We found that African Americans accounted for roughly 88 percent of the subjects of non-deadly force used by BPD officers in a random sample of over 800 cases we reviewed," said the report.

The DOJ in recent years had launched similar civil rights investigations into police departments in Chicago, Cleveland, Ferguson, etc.

In another blistering report released in March, 2015, the DOJ said it had found a widespread discrimination against the black communities existed among law enforcement officials in Ferguson, Missouri. Enditem