Excessive Force

MAYOR Kurt L. Schmoke defended the city police department's handling of excessive-force complaints and said he has seen no evidence that valid complaints are increasing significantly."

CITIZEN oversight of local police is essential. However, establishing an independent civilian review board to oversee discipline of Baltimore police officers is not.Independent civilian review boards have merit in some cities where they help restore the public's willingness to file complaints once police officials have demonstrated that they are unable or unwilling to discipline officers.This is not the case in Baltimore. The vast majority of police officers are committed to protecting individual rights, adhering to law and policy and providing a high degree of service.

Baltimore police launched an investigation yesterday into the arrest of a state senator who used the Senate floor in Annapolis to defend herself against accusations she blocked paramedics trying to help an injured child.Joan Carter Conway, a Northeast Baltimore Democrat and potential mayoral candidate, said an officer used excessive force when he handcuffed her and forced her to sit on the curb.The 47-year-old senator was in a crowd that had gathered after a 6-year-old girl was hit by a car at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the 2300 block of E. Monument St. in East Baltimore.

A citizens task force that examined allegations of police brutality in Frederick has found no pattern of excessive force or racial bias in arrests.But in its report to the city's police chief yesterday, the panel concluded that citizens have no good recourse in making complaints and called for an overhaul.The eight-month review was prompted by accusations by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and community groups that Frederick police officers had beaten black suspects.

Baltimore has settled a civil suit brought by relatives of a South Baltimore man who died in 1994 of injuries he received while being arrested by two city police officers.Survivors of George T. Hite, 31, sued the city in 1995, charging that the officers used excessive force in arresting him in June 1994, Hite struck his head in a fall during the arrest. He died two months later of complications from the head injury and pneumonia.The case had been expected to go to a jury Thursday after a trial of more than two weeks, said Thomas Cordaro, the Washington attorney who represented Hite's parents.

A Prince George's County officer used excessive force when he jammed his knee into the back of a prostrate bystander ordered to lie on the ground by police who were pursuing two drug suspects, a federal jury has found.Richard Wilson, formerly of Hyattsville, was awarded $40,000 in damages last week after the jury determined that Prince George's police Cpl. Henry Norris III violated his civil rights.Wilson was standing in his front yard in Hyattsville on Jan. 6, 1992, when a police officer pursuing two black drug suspects ordered him to lie on the ground.

IT'S UP TO State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy to seek indictment of a policeman captured on videotape as he shot a knife-wielding man outside Lexington Market. The numerous opportunities for the public to view the tape purchased by a local TV station have, as expected, elicited various opinions as to whether Officer Charles M. Smothers needed to fire his gun. Killed Saturday was James Quarles, 22, a "quiet guy" facing a drug charge who had been selling socks outside the market.Whether or not a grand jury gets the case, it again raises serious questions about the use of deadly force by Baltimore police.

Taking two sides on pollution and building highwaySince I have been concerned about the Pfiesteria crisis in the Pocomoke River, I was pleased to read The Sun's Aug. 29 editorial, ''Bigger problem than Pfiesteria.''The problem of pollution, says the editorial, cannot be solved by any scientist or government.Readers are asked if we are all willing to support environmental regulations to reduce agricultural runoff, to let dandelions grow in our yards, to take mass transit once a week, and to make other personal choices to reduce pollution.

A Baltimore police lieutenant was arrested at his home Thursday night on a charge of beating his live-in girlfriend, police said.Officers responding to a 911 call arrested Lt. Charles Milland, 52, at his residence in the 6100 block of Green Meadow Parkway in Northwest Baltimore, police said. He was charged with assaulting Cathy Layne, 36, who was found with facial injuries.A Nov. 19 trial date was set yesterday at a bail hearing. Milland was released after posting $5,000 bail, according to his attorney, Edward A. Eshmont.

A Baltimore man who was critically injured in the back of a police van after a traffic stop has filed a $20 million lawsuit against the arresting officer and the city Police Department claiming negligence and use of excessive force.Jeffrey Adrian Alston, 32, of the 2500 block of N. Hollins St. has been in Sinai Hospital since the incident Nov. 3. Police had arrested Alston on suspicion of drunken driving.In the lawsuit, filed Friday in Baltimore Circuit Court, Alston alleges that he was beaten and thrown into the back of the police van, causing him to hit his head on an interior wall.

Once a month in a conference room on the ninth floor of the Equitable Building on North Calvert Street, a small group of regular citizens from around Baltimore huddles over piles of complaints filed against Baltimore police officers. The public is invited, though the public rarely attends. No one did at the meeting Thursday evening. Discussions are intentionally vague; the agenda is cryptic, with only an occasional hint of what a case is about, who was involved and where it occurred. Board members appointed by the mayor and approved by the City Council review internal affairs reports, but those documents don't get distributed beyond the board's inner circle.

Three correctional officers assigned to the Roxbury Correctional Institution at Hagerstown in Western Maryland could face termination amid allegations of using excessive force against inmates, the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services said yesterday. The names of and specific allegations against the officers were withheld because of the continuing investigation. The disciplinary action stemmed from an incident last week, said spokesman Rick Binetti. He declined to describe what happened.

Saying that a jury's verdict was not based on the law, a federal judge in Baltimore tossed out a rare, $45,001 award yesterday against two correctional officers who were accused of using excessive force against a state inmate. Jurors found in October that correctional officers Gary A. Knight and Robert Huff were personally liable for mistreating inmate Norman R. Willis at the Western Correctional Institution in Cresaptown in Allegany County two years earlier. But yesterday, U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett vacated the civil rights verdict, saying "it is quite evident that with respect to the Defendants Knight and Huff and the events of October 3, 2002, there is absolutely no evidence of any injury to support Willis' claim of excessive use of force."

An alleged white supremacist who spent four months in jail for the arsenal of weapons and mounds of gunpowder he kept in his home was released yesterday after a hearing in which he broke into an angry rant, warning the judge of the destruction of the United States, and complaining of being the subject of a "witch hunt." Lovell "Artie" Wheeler, 61, received a suspended five-year sentence, and three years of probation, in exchange for pleading guilty in Baltimore Circuit Court to reckless endangerment, possession of more than 5 pounds of gunpowder and improper storage of gunpowder.

MAYBE YOU don't have the right to remain silent. Or to have an attorney present during police questioning. And maybe police can aggressively press you to talk even if you're gravely wounded or on your death bed. Of course, in nondemocratic nations, that's standard operating procedure. Police are in charge -- and citizens are at their mercy. But for the second time in three years, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a challenge to its landmark Miranda decision, which protects people in this country from unbridled coercive interrogation by the police.

A former Baltimore police officer was found not liable yesterday in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit alleging assault and battery, unlawful seizure and violating the due process rights of a Pikesville man he fatally shot in 1998. Shane C. Stufft, 29, now a patrol officer for Baltimore County police, fatally shot Derek Robert McIntosh, 25, on Jan. 13, 1998. McIntosh was shot once in the chest and once in the neck in a scuffle as Stufft attempted to arrest him on a narcotics charge. The six-woman city Circuit Court jury deliberated for slightly more than 4 1/2 hours.

A statement by a former Baltimore police officer, made a month after he fatally shot a Pikesville man, differs from his testimony this week on the incident. Asked yesterday by attorney A. Dwight Pettit to read aloud a Feb. 26, 1998, account he gave police, Shane C. Stufft, 29, said nothing about Derek Robert McIntosh's having been on his back. Stufft testified Tuesday that McIntosh, whom Stufft shot once in the chest and once in the neck Jan. 13, 1998, had jumped on his back during a struggle and was trying to grab his gun from its holster.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court has made it harder to sue police officers for the use of excessive force, ruling that judges must automatically dismiss such lawsuits unless a "reasonable officer" would have known that the force used was unlawful. In a 6-3 decision yesterday, the justices reversed a lower court ruling that trial judges should let juries decide whether an officer acted reasonably. If a judge determines that a police officer acted reasonably in light of the circumstances, the Supreme Court ruled, the officer should not have to defend against a lawsuit.

The Justice Department and the District of Columbia Police Department released an agreement yesterday to prevent the use of excessive force by district police. Here is a partial transcript of the news conference: U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL JOHN ASHCROFT: Good afternoon. It's a privilege for me to join Mayor Williams and Metropolitan Police Chief Ramsey to announce an agreement between the Department of Justice, the District of Columbia and the Metropolitan Police Department. It's an agreement to enhance law enforcement, it's an agreement to prevent the excessive use of force by those that we trust to enforce the law. We are gathered here today at a time of great grief for the District law enforcement community and for all residents of Washington, D.C. And as a person who maintains a home on 3rd Street, I put myself in that population.

Balto. Co. officials just tried to resolve neighborhood dispute The Sun's article on development approval processes in Baltimore County paints a cynical and misleading picture of elected officials' involvement ("Community rift shines light on county methods," May 8). Our responsibility as elected officials and government employees is to serve the public -- and that includes helping neighbors resolve their differences. Virtually every time elected officials or one of their staff get involved in a zoning, permitting or development issue, it is at the request of the community, a citizen or a developer.