IC–052 | Hasan Says the N Word
Transcript. Timestamps are stored-video seconds.

[0:00] Freddie Gray was 25 when he died in April 2015 from a spinal cord injury he sustained
[0:05] while in police custody.
[0:06] His death sparked outrage among black Americans who felt that Gray's death reflected the
[0:11] reality about urban police departments across the country, that they don't serve and protect
[0:16] black communities, but rather operate as occupying forces tasked with controlling, harassing,
[0:21] and threatening African-American residents.
[0:24] Surprisingly, prosecutors brought a case against the six officers implicated in Freddie Gray's
[0:27] death.
[0:28] Surprisingly, the result was the same as if no case had been brought, with zero convictions,
[0:34] with three officers acquitted before prosecutors dropped all charges against the three remaining
[0:38] officers before trials even took place.
[0:41] On Tuesday, the Justice Department released a report on police activity in Baltimore.
[0:45] This report was not about Freddie Gray's death, but covered general police conduct in
[0:50] Baltimore.
[0:51] The report which spans more than 160 pages details the clear evidence of bias and disproportionate
[0:56] discrimination against black people that is pervaded in the city for decades.
[1:01] Baltimore is 63 percent black, yet 91 percent of those arrested for minor discretionary offenses
[1:06] like trespassing or failure to obey or loitering were African-American.
[1:12] Black people also accounted for 95 percent of the 410 people stopped at least 10 times by
[1:18] officers between 2010 and 2015.
[1:20] Officers would also routinely make illegal stops and perform unconstitutional searches, even
[1:25] of those who weren't under arrest.
[1:28] They even went as far as to perform strip searches in public.
[1:31] These are some of the ugly remnants of a legacy of zero tolerance policing policy that dates
[1:36] back to 1999 that officially ended a decade ago after a settlement with the NAACP, yet they
[1:43] still influence the city's policing strategy.
[1:46] For example, most of the unconstitutional stops occurred in predominantly black neighborhoods,
[1:51] the department actually encouraged these illegal stops as a crime suppression technique even
[1:56] though no charges were filed in 26 of every 27 pedestrian stops.
[2:01] These practices, instituted by then mayor Martin O'Malley, resulted in more than 100,000
[2:07] arrests a year filling up jails but having no real impact on curbing crime.
[2:13] So why did Baltimore PD continue to follow these policies?
[2:17] Well, there are a few reasons. In the report's most damning finding, the BPD routinely taught
[2:23] officers to use unnecessarily aggressive tactics.
[2:27] Officers frequently employed excessive force and situations that did not call for such violent
[2:31] escalations, not only violating Fourth Amendment rights of citizens, but also their right to
[2:36] free speech by routinely arresting individuals who merely said something that offended officers.
[2:44] Ironically, then the 60 instances of citizen complaints that alleged Baltimore officers
[2:49] use of the racial slur nigger were misclassified as a lesser offense.
[2:54] Now the training that encouraged these types of police practices fuelled on us versus
[2:59] them mentality and officers that wound up alienating the community they were meant to serve.
[3:04] The report also described a cultural resistance to accountability within the Baltimore PD that
[3:09] let serious cases of misconduct go unpunished.
[3:13] So these problems were allowed to fester because the department lacked systems to deter and
[3:17] detect improper conduct and did not collect or analyze data to identify frequent abuses
[3:23] or abusers.
[3:24] Now this is not the end of the story.
[3:27] The Justice Department has undertaken similar investigations into police departments in
[3:30] Chicago, Cleveland, Albuquerque, and Ferguson as well as other cities where longstanding practices
[3:36] of police brutality and discriminatory policing have been alleged.
[3:39] High profile cases like Freddie Gray's have led to more investigations across the nation
[3:44] fueling the Black Lives Matter movement that emerged in the wake of Trayvon Martin's murder
[3:49] in 2013.
[3:51] Without movements like these shining a light on widespread police abuses, millions of Americans,
[3:56] particularly Black Americans, would continue to live under oppression without any hope for
[4:02] institutional change.
[4:03] That is why Black Lives Matter matters.
[4:07] For many years, civil rights activists who challenged the city over unconstitutional and discriminatory
[4:12] police practices were met with backlash and accused of besmirching the reputations of
[4:17] the hardworking and honorable men and women of the Baltimore police force.
[4:20] And there are hardworking honorable men and women in the Baltimore police force.
[4:23] But this isn't just the case of a few bad apples.
[4:26] This is institutionalized racism within a police force that's meant to protect the community.
[4:31] And because of all of these movements, the rhetoric is now changing and these serious
[4:36] issues that affect communities are coming to light.
[4:38] Even Maryland State's attorney, Marilyn Mosby, said she expected this report to confirm
[4:43] what many in our city already know or have experienced firsthand.
[4:47] The Baltimore investigation does confirm what activists have been saying.