Judge talks rising violence at consent decree hearing, BPD provides $5k new recruitment bonus,

BALTIMORE -- At an oversight hearing for the Baltimore police consent decree, Judge James Bredar said violence in the city "does remain at an appalling an unacceptable level" while he praised BPD's leadership as the most stable in a decade.

"While there's a long way to go, I'm confident the city will get there provided they stay the course," Judge Bredar said.

He also acknowledged there will be changes coming to the state's attorney's office after Marilyn Mosby lost her primary bid for re-election, and he noted the new top prosecutor will be re-evaluating policies including the current policy not to prosecute some low-level offenses.

Commissioner Michael Harrison addressed the judge and said, "The consent decree does not take away an officer's discretion." 

He also said the department is working with other city resources to get squeegee workers off of street corners. The squeegee issue became a flashpoint after the shooting death of a motorist who left his vehicle with a bat. A 15-year-old has been charged in his death.

"We want to make sure we can prevent crimes in furtherance of squeegeeing, not necessarily the act of squeegeeing," Harrison told WJZ In an interview outside the federal courthouse Thursday. "Certainly, any other crimes carrying guns, committing damage, committing assaults, committing deaths, those are things we want to enforce. But we want to prevent them from happening in the very first place."  

The hearing also addressed what the judge called a "crisis" in staffing as more officers leave the department. Police have worked to add more civilians to mitigate the shortage of sworn officers.

Police said they have the highest starting pay in Maryland and are offering thousands in incentives for officer candidates, including extra money for those who live in Baltimore City. 

"Our best recruiters are our own members, and we want our people to have some skin in the game," Harrison said.  

Officers paying off student debt will be provided $5,000. Police will also provide a $5,000 incentive to current officers for every recruit they bring to the department who goes through the academy and becomes an office4. There is no cap on the referral bonus.

The previous amount was $1,000 for the first referral and $500 for each additional referral. 

Also Thursday, police released video of an in-custody death involving 57-year-old Eugene Douglas on August 4th. The attorney general's office said police initially restrained Douglas' hands and feet while he was in distress in the middle of Sherwood Avenue. 

Those restraints were removed when Douglas was placed in an ambulance. He was pronounced dead at a hospital. 

"No comment other than we follow our policy about critical incident body camera release," Harrison said. "That was one of the very first if not the first policy we built when I was hired here, and we followed our policy."

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• Baltimore Police Department