Chasing Justice – Addressing Police Violence and Corruption in Maryland

NOTE: In August 2021, the ACLU posted an updated report that clarifies how complaints are defined and calculated; lists officers involved in the highest number of incidents that resulted in complaints against them; and reflects officers who have not yet been identified from this analysis. 

Between 2015 and 2019, there were 13,392 complaints of misconduct filed against 1,826 Baltimore City police officers and 22,884 use of force incidents in Baltimore. Among the many disturbing facts that the report, Chasing Justice: Addressing Police Violence and Corruption in Maryland, uncovers are that 91 percent of those who the police targeted with use of force were Black residents and that six percent of Baltimore Police Department (BPD) officers received approximately 33 percent of all complaints.

Chasing Justice reviews and cross-analyzes data BPD provided to Code for America’s Project Comport, which includes with five years of information about misconduct complaints, use of force incidents, and officer-involved shootings, from 2015 through 2019. The purpose of the report is to examine:

1. Race disparities in different aspects of policing;
2. How police departments contribute to violence in the community and further distrust of both the legal justice system and internal disciplinary process; and
3. Consequences of failing to hold officers and departments accountable.

The facts exposed in Chasing Justice show why the five demands of a statewide coalition of more than 90 organizations in the Maryland Coalition for Justice and Police Accountability are so important, in particular why the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights (LEOBR) must be repealed, why the Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) must be reformed, why a statewide use of force bill is necessary, and why Baltimore must have local control of its police department.

Read the report