The consent decree just approved on Thursday by the Baltimore City Council cements into place the next step toward a virtual federal takeover of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD).
The decree itself provides all the damning evidence. First, the incident: the death of Freddie Gray in 2015, followed by riots incited by a Marxist group funded by a billionaire. Those riots were followed by charges that the BPD used illegal measures to ensure public safety.
The U.S. government illegally and unconstitutionally investigated those charges, concluding that something must be done. Under implied threats, the consent decree was born, with obligations and mandates and changes to be enforced by a federal judge.
First, the incident. Freddie Gray, a young black punk with a long rap sheet was arrested for carrying an illegal knife. During transport to the station for booking, he became so violent that he broke his neck, which resulted in his death a week later. Three of the six officers involved in the incident were white.
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Second, the pressure from below, courtesy of Black Lives Matter, an anti-gun group largely funded by George Soros. Riots took over the city and lasted for two weeks, destroying property and proving to casual observers that the police had lost control. The National Guard was called in to quell the riots.
Third, the pressure from above: a pro-Marxist state attorney charges the six officers with manslaughter, among other things.
Next, the federal “investigation” into the matter, which concluded that, according to the consent decree:
The United States found reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution and federal law, including 1) making unconstitutional Stops, Searches, and Arrests; 2) using enforcement strategies that produce severe and unjustified disparities in the rates of Stops, Searches and Arrests of African Americans; 3) using excessive force; and 4) retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally-protected expression.
The Report additionally outlined areas in which the United States had serious concerns about the lawfulness of BPD’s police practices.
The Baltimore City Council caved in, aided and abetted by many on the council and in the city’s administration who favor federal control of local police. The council agreed in principal with the government’s conclusions and then, over many months of “negotiations,” came up with the consent decree with “the specific intent of the Parties [the Department of Justice, the Baltimore Police Department and the City Council] that this agreement shall control the obligations of the Parties with respect to the Findings Report.” (Emphasis added.)
Naturally, according to the consent decree, “The City and BPD deny the allegations in the Complaint [the federal investigation] and its [final] Report … [but] the City and BPD are … enjoined from engaging in the patterns or practices by law enforcement officers of the BPD that were the basis of the August 10, 2015 Findings Report.”
The City and the BPD, in other words, deny everything but are going along with the fixes. And those “fixes” touch every fundamental part of policing by the BPD from “Stops, Searches, Arrests and Voluntary Police-Community Interactions” to “Use of Force” to be employed under the new federal mandate.
And enforcement, predictably, is in the hands of an “Independent Monitor,” a federal judge.
Even though she leaves office next week, current Attorney General Loretta Lynch knows what the game plan is about, having been a party to the crime from the start. She said the “reforms” mandated by the consent decree “will live on” long after she is gone. She amplified her approval of the de facto takeover of the BPD:
Through this agreement we are moving forward [code for movement toward total federal control] together to heal the tension in the relationship between the city’s police department and the community it serves.
Reiterating the claim was Lynch’s deputy, Vanita Gupta, former legal director of the ACLU and its so-called Center for Justice:
I firmly believe that when focused, measurable and detailed reforms are implemented effectively, they restore community trust and advance officer and public safety.
Lynch is probably right about the decree staying place even after she is gone. Although incoming AG Senator Jeff Sessions expressed “skepticism” during his confirmation hearings about consent decrees in general, he said they are “not necessarily a bad thing.” And when pressed on the matter, Sessions wouldn’t commit to making any changes to the consent decree just approved by the Baltimore City Council. Instead, he waffled:
It is a difficult thing for a city to be sued by the Department of Justice and to be told that your police department is systematically failing to serve the people of the … city.
So they often feel forced to agree to a consent decree just to remove that stigma.
Such consent decrees have familiar precedents in history. The New American reviewed Jan Kozak’s book And Not a Shot Is Fired in 1999. Kozak explained how the people of Czechoslovakia were manipulated into voting themselves into slavery, using the strategy of “pressure from below, pressure from above.” Said the TNA review:
Communist and socialist elements within a parliament initiate “policies and legislation which strengthen the hand of grassroots revolutionaries.” They also connive to punish those who oppose the planned coup. “Meanwhile, grassroots revolutionaries whip up the appearance of popular support” for the revolutionary agenda “through strikes, rallies, petitions, threats, and — sometimes — sabotage. The ‘pressure from below’ by the small number of revolutionaries and their larger number of dupes is then used to ‘justify’ the centralization of power in the hands of the executive branch of the state. Wishy-washy politicians are intimidated, and the ‘pressure from above’ intensifies.
Each legislative victory results in new demands for even stronger legislation, which is relentlessly pursued by communists and their dupes in parliament — who claim that they are acting in the name of the popular will. The cycle continues until opposition is completely powerless, intimidated, or liquidated — and the revolution is a fait accompli.
During the Obama administration, similar consent decrees have been implemented in 15 cities, including New Orleans, Oakland, Los Angeles, and Albuquerque.
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
