On May 1, 2020, Seth Rosenthal was quoted in the Baltimore Sun on the spread of COVID-19 causing delays to the Baltimore Police Department’s reform efforts.
According to the article, among the delays is the completion of in-service training, or training for existing officers on how they handle stops, searches, and arrests. The training is crucial to the department fulfilling the demands of the consent decree it entered with the U.S. Justice Department after a DOJ investigation found Baltimore police officers routinely violated residents’ civil rights.
"Stops, searches, and arrests [reforms] lie at the heart of the consent decree," Rosenthal, a member of the Baltimore Consent Decree Monitoring Team assisting the department on reforms, said during a recent public forum on progress implementing the changes. The regularly scheduled meeting was held virtually over a videoconferencing app.
Rosenthal said several of the core findings by the Justice Department involved how and when officers choose to stop, search, and arrest individuals. The investigation that led to the consent decree several years ago found officers routinely stopped people without a reasonable suspicion, and officers discriminated based on race.
Click here to access the article.