A federal civil rights agency is asking a U.S. District Court judge to force the Baltimore Police Department to turn over records related to what they say were department violations of black officers' civil rights.
Wilma Scott, an enforcement officer with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said yesterday that the Police Department has not complied with the agency's requests for information related to an EEOC ruling from a year ago that is needed to work out a settlement.
In December 1998, the agency determined that city police violated federal civil rights by disciplining black officers more harshly than whites. The agency also determined that officers who complained about the practice were retaliated against.
The EEOC filed a civil action Friday asking U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg to enforce the subpoena, Scott said. "They had time to comply," Scott said. "They did not."
Police Department leaders could not be reached for comment yesterday. A call placed to the administrative offices was not returned.
The EEOC case involves Sgt. Louis Hopson, who was recently reinstated on the city force after winning a wrongful-termination lawsuit in state court. Hopson was fired for allegedly lying on the witness stand in a rape case filed against a colleague. In July, a circuit judge ordered him back on the force.
The EEOC investigates complaints, usually in anticipation of a civil lawsuit, issuing a finding that may be used as a basis for the suit.
Former city Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier revamped the department's disciplinary process after Hopson and other officers testified about racism at two 1997 City Council hearings. Although Frazier acknowledged disparities in how black and white officers were treated, he said it was because white officers were not disciplined.
Frazier contended that the black officers were dismissed properly. The EEOC, he said, wanted every black officer who was fired in the past six years to be reinstated, which the department refused to do. Frazier said he offered to reduce the length of suspensions and review the terminations on "a case-by-case basis."
