Former Police Commissioner Wanted To Make Police Vans Safer
BALTIMORE (WJZ) --In newly obtained documents by our media partner The Baltimore Sun, records show the Baltimore Police Department had long urged for seat belt use in side vans.
Five years before Freddie Gray's death, then-police Commissioner Fred Bealefeld grew concerned about detainees being injured in police vans and started a campaign to educate officers.
The Sun says seven months before Gray was put in a police van unsecured, the department did an audit of 17 vans and found all prisoners were buckled in.
However, the results of a May 2012 audit were shocking. Inspectors check 18 vehicles transporting 34 detainees and not a single one was put in seat belts.
Six officers were charged in Gray's death. They will be tried separately; the first is scheduled for late November.