U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski said Thursday that she and other members of Maryland’s congressional delegation support Baltimore’s mayor in asking for a broad federal investigation of whether city police engage in discriminatory patterns or practices — a request sparked by the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered a fatal spinal injury in police custody last month.
The Democratic senator told U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch during a Senate subcommittee hearing that Lynch would get a letter later Thursday from the Maryland delegation supporting Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s request, made Wednesday.
“In many cities throughout the country, including my own city of Baltimore, the trust between community and police is broken. We must do all we can to restore that trust,” Mikulski said in a written statement.
Rawlings-Blake has won support from other public officials and praise from legal experts for requesting the investigation after previously saying she was determined to fix the Baltimore Police Department’s problems herself.
Lynch said in written testimony prepared for the Senate hearing that her agency is considering the request and she intends to have a decision “in the coming days.”
She said the city has made significant strides in a voluntary, collaborative reform effort with the Justice Department that began last fall, but “I have not ruled out the possibility that more may need to be done.”
The mayor’s announcement Wednesday came a day after her closed-door meeting at City Hall with Lynch.
The broad investigation, if undertaken by the federal agency, could eventually force the city to make changes under the oversight of an outside monitor.
Rawlings-Blake said she would accept outside intervention to repair fractured relations between the police and the public in a city that was torn by riots over Gray’s death.
Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, Baltimore City Council President Jack Young and the president of the city’s police union were among the public officials saying they welcomed the development.
Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, brought in by the mayor 2 1/2 years ago to reform the department, said Thursday that he also welcomed Rawlings-Blake’s request “with open arms.”
“We have never shied away from scrutiny or assistance. Our work is ongoing and anyone who wishes to be a part of helping the department better connect with the community will always be welcome,” Batts wrote in a statement.
A similar investigation followed the shooting of an unarmed, 18-year-old black man by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. The Justice Department ultimately concluded that Ferguson’s police and courts engaged in patterns of racial profiling, bigotry and profit-driven law enforcement, and directed local authorities to make changes.
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