The Consent Decree is a court-approved agreement resolving a lawsuit that the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) brought against the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) and the City of Baltimore.  That lawsuit alleged that BPD had engaged in a pattern or practice of constitutional violations.  The Consent Decree requires BPD and the City to adopt a comprehensive set of reforms designed to promote fair and constitutional policing, rebuild BPD’s relationships with Baltimore’s communities, and ensure public safety.  The federal judge who approved the Consent Decree is James K. Bredar, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.  Because the Consent Decree is a court order, Judge Bredar has the power to enforce its provisions. 

At the request of former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) conducted an investigation of BPD.  The investigation, completed in 2016, found that BPD had engaged in a pattern-or-practice of constitutional violations, including using excessive force, infringing on the First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly, and stopping, searching, and arresting people without probable cause and based on their race.  After making these findings, DOJ entered into negotiations with BPD and the City in an effort to resolve the parties’ differences.  Those negotiations resulted in the Consent Decree, which has the support of current Baltimore Catherine Pugh.

The Monitoring Team plays several roles under the Consent Decree:  arbiter, technical advisor, and facilitator.

The Monitoring Team’s authority is restricted to what the Consent Decree authorizes. The Monitoring Team does not do anything that the Consent Decree does not authorize.  In other words, we do not have the authority or the ability to weigh in on all police-related matters.  Rather, our authority extends only to the issues addressed in the Consent Decree.

If a citizen seeks to report officer misconduct to the Monitoring Team, the Monitoring Team will do the following:

At the outset, BPD is presumed not to be in compliance with any of the provisions of the Consent Decree. The whole purpose of the Consent Decree is to establish goals that BPD must achieve over time. The requirements for the first year of the Consent Decree are now set forth in a detailed Monitoring Plan. The Monitoring Plan establishes compliance deadlines for meeting those requirements. If BPD fails to satisfy a Consent Decree provision by the established deadline, the Monitoring Team will report such non-compliance to the public in written submissions to the Court-either in the biannual reports we are required to issue or, if necessary, in separate reports. The Court has the power to require BPD to comply. Judge Bredar can order BPD and City officials to appear in court and require them to show cause why they are not in compliance. If BPD continues not to comply, the Court can exercise its powers to enforce compliance. Judge Bredar can, for instance, fine BPD and the City until they achieve compliance.

To assess BPD's practices, the Monitoring Team engages in certain "real-time monitoring," as long as we do not interfere with officer job performance. For instance, we participate in officer ride-alongs. Under protocols that have been developed, we also will respond to, and observe BPD handling of, critical officer-involved incidents, and periodically we will attend and observe officer training sessions and disciplinary hearings. Additionally, because of the requirement that BPD officers activate their body-worn cameras during interactions with civilians, we will review body-worn camera video footage in our assessment of BPD's compliance with certain Consent Decree provisions.

The Monitoring Team, the Civilian Review Board, and the Community Oversight Task Force are different entities that serve different functions.

The overarching goal of the Consent Decree is to build trust between BPD and the communities it serves. That is why certain sections of the Consent Decree focus on the need for BPD to engage the community. The Monitoring Team intends to facilitate that process so that when our job is done, BPD and Baltimore's citizens will have built a self-sustaining relationship that does not require the aid of an outside facilitator, like a court-appointed monitor.

We will engage stakeholders from each of these communities like we are engaging stakeholders from throughout the City: by reaching out to leaders and organizations in those communities to discuss with them their experiences, views, concerns, and vision for policing in Baltimore.

To ensure BPD achieves meaningful and lasting reform, the Monitoring Team must engage BPD members in the reform process-from command staff to first-line supervisors to rank-and-file officers. We regularly meet with BPD members responsible for addressing and implementing Consent Decree requirements. In our community surveys, we will include BPD officers to ascertain their views on reform. We meet periodically with police union officials to obtain their input. And we convene focus groups of rank-and-file officers and first-line supervisors to hear their honest, unfiltered feedback about what BPD does right, what BPD does wrong, and how BPD can most effectively achieve the Consent Decree's goals.

The Monitoring Team will publicize community meetings, Court hearings, and all other public events on this website, on our Facebook and Twitter accounts, and, where appropriate, through press releases to local media outlets.

The amount of time budgeted for each member's work during the first year of monitoring is reflected in our First-Year Budget, which can be found on this website's Reports & Resources page.

To assess where BPD stands at the outset, the Monitoring Team is reviewing certain events pre-dating the Consent Decree-e.g., incident reports and video footage on stops, searches and arrests; use of force reports and video footage of use of force incidents; and internal investigation and disciplinary records. An examination of the records of these historical events will help determine the changes BPD must make to achieve compliance with the requirements of the Consent Decree.

The Monitoring Team will make preliminary assessments of BPD performance prior to the adoption of the new policies required by the Consent Decree in order to determine the extent of the improvements that must be made to achieve compliance with the Consent Decree. For instance, to ascertain the progress BPD must make, we will review certain stops, searches and arrests that are made, certain use of force incidents that occur, and certain misconduct investigations that are performed in the initial stages of the monitoring process.

Yes. There are certain provisions of the Consent Decree that either directly or indirectly require BPD to make reforms aimed at eliminating racial inequities. For instance, the Consent Decree contains sections on stop/search/arrest practices and impartial policing that are directly intended to eliminate the practice of racial profiling-i.e., stopping, searching, and arresting people based on their race. Another section involving interactions with youth directs BPD to use alternatives to arrest where warranted. This is a directive indirectly intended to address the school-to-prison pipeline that adversely affects minority youth. We will be monitoring BPD's compliance with these provisions.

The Monitoring Team will assess whether BPD itself is appropriately disciplining officers who violate BPD policies. It will also help BPD develop, and ultimately assess whether BPD properly utilizes, a robust Early Intervention System, which is a system designed to identify officers who repeatedly violate agency rules. The Monitoring Team does not have the authority to single out and publicly identify individual officers who violate BPD policy.

The Consent Decree has certain requirements relating to BPD interactions with both youth and Baltimore City School Police. We will seek to ensure that BPD complies with them. While the Consent Decree does not directly address the school-to-prison pipeline, it recommends use of alternatives to arrest and prosecution where appropriate. We will be evaluating BPD's compliance with those provisions.

Members of the community may give the Court their views about our work as they see fit. Judge Bredar's chambers at the United States Courthouse in Baltimore have a publicly available address and telephone number.