|
 The investigation will look into police practices such as frisks,
street stops of suspects and arrests to see if they violate the U.S.
Constitution, Rawlings-Blake said at a news conference.
The request follows the April 19 death of Freddie Gray, 25, who
sustained spinal injuries after being arrested. His death sparked
protests and a day of arson and looting in the largely black city.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan lifted a state of emergency for
Baltimore on Wednesday.
"We cannot be timid in addressing this problem and I am a mayor that
does not shy away from our city's big challenges," Rawlings-Blake
said.
Six officers were charged last week in the case, which involves the
latest in a series of U.S. deaths of unarmed black men involving
police officers.
The mayor said the city would seek to have its 3,200-member police
department equipped with body cameras by the end of the year.
Advocates see cameras as a way to monitor police encounters with
civilians.
 Attorney General Loretta Lynch is considering Rawlings-Blake's
request, the Justice Department said. Lynch met the mayor, police
officials and community leaders on Tuesday.
Rawlings-Blake, a Democrat who took office in 2010, said the request
was part of her years-long effort to reform police.
She said the department had made progress, with complaints last year
of excessive force down by 46 percent. But improvements had not gone
far enough, Rawlings-Blake said.
Gray's death provoked a day of rioting on April 27 in which a number
of businesses were looted and a CVS Health Corp <CVS.N> location was
burned. The pharmacy chain said on Wednesday that it would rebuild
the store.
[to top of second column] |
The Justice Department has conducted similar reviews of U.S. police
departments. An investigation of police in Ferguson, Missouri, where
an officer shot dead an unarmed black teenager last year, concluded
in March that the department routinely engaged in racially biased
practices.
The Justice Department is investigating possible civil rights
violations in Gray's death.
Last October, officials in Baltimore asked the Justice Department to
begin an informal collaborative review of the city's police
department after the Baltimore Sun reported that Baltimore had paid
almost $6 million since 2011 to settle lawsuits alleging police
brutality and other misconduct.
The American Civil Liberties Union said on Wednesday that it had
requested information about surveillance flights over Baltimore by
the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies that it said
may have improperly surveilled and targeted the public.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the
ACLU statement.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Bill Trott,
Doina Chiacu, Toni Reinhold)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
