Public Trust

I applaud Sen. Ben Cardin's efforts to end racial profiling: Nothing is more divisive than to bring an "us against them" mentality into law enforcement ("Candidates make final push before Tuesday," April 2). What could be more demoralizing and dehumanizing than being judged by the color of your skin or the clothes you wear? Racial profiling, by definition, is incompatible with the guarantee of equal protection under the law contained in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Yet, many of the same people who claim to be strict constructionists with regard to the Constitution are in favor of denigrating one of its most basic tenets.

Congress passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act in 2012 in response to the public outcry over members' self-serving insider trading scandal last year. As with most laws, what is a crime for citizens was not illegal or unethical for members of Congress and their staffs. The STOCK Act addressed this loophole by requiring lawmakers and government officials to post their financial transactions online. It was a fleeting moment of transparency and accountability.

James W. Brinkley, president and chief operating officer of Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc., was elected chairman of the Securities Industry Association yesterday at the trade group's annual convention in Boca Raton, Fla.Brinkley succeeds Roy J. Zuckerberger, advisory director of New York-based Goldman Sachs & Co.In an address to the Washington-based trade group's members, Brinkley said the industry must focus on several issues, including promoting public trust...

The Baltimore Police Department's internal affairs chief is leaving the agency, a little more than a year after being brought on to reassure the public that a scandal-weary agency would get tougher policing itself, a spokesman confirmed. Grayling Williams, who joined the department last January from the Department of Homeland Security's counter narcotics office, resigned Thursday to pursue another opportunity, chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. Williams referred a reporter's questions to the spokesman.

With one of New Jersey's state colleges named for his family, it is only natural that former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, now the president of Drew University, should be more sensitive than most university officials to the public's image of higher education.Mr. Kean recently addressed 400 educators in Philadelphia and leveled with them about how colleges and universities, including Kean College of New Jersey, are now perceived by the public."Here is the reality, plain and simple," he told his audience.

THE cost of justice is extremely high," lamented State's Attorney Jerry F. Barnes, who faces the likely prospect of as many as 100 pending drug cases being tossed out of court. He has dismissed a half-dozen pending cases last week. They are among the cases under investigation by the state attorney general because a Westminster police detective is accused of planting drugs on suspects. The officer's alleged actions have tainted any number of drug charges made by Westminster police over the past year or so. Even charges that might be proven without the officer's direct involvement are in jeopardy.

COMPTROLLER Joan M. Pratt needs to dump her very personal friend, Julius Henson, as a well-paid aide in her office if she is to have any hope of regaining the public trust that she has so perversely forfeited. Until she does, Ms. Pratt's usefulness as a public servant and her future as an aspiring politician will be moot.Baltimore citizens depend on the comptroller to tell the City Council or mayor or anyone who thinks he can buy influence at City Hall where to get off when it comes to spending the public's dollar.

EVEN THE people who opposed the passage of Question B in Howard County 19 months ago -- and we were among them -- can see the logic in the straw vote the County Council took this week not to weaken the law.Question B might have made a bad law, but "big brother" government would be a worse "B." Had the council voted to weaken this law after voters created it by referendum, the county might have won the battle but lost the war in terms of public trust.Question B was a very emotional issue. It allowed citizens the right to challenge county land-use decisions of the zoning board through referendum.

Some clerics admonish their congregants: Hate the sin, love the sinner. So what's the media corollary: Mistrust the news, love the anchor? A study released this week by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that levels of public trust toward the media have largely dipped to the uneasy levels found before last September's terrorist attacks. After the attacks, public faith in the media rose with admiration for government officials, religious institutions and other major parts of the establishment.

THE ANNE ARUNDEL County Police Department, which has been relatively free of controversy in recent months, had a bad week last week.Within two days, two officers had been charged with crimes, both betrayals of public trust, one an example of mind-numbing stupidity. One officer is accused of sexually assaulting women; the other of shoplifting 10 packs of baseball cards from a Glen Burnie Wal-Mart while in uniform. Like any police wrongdoing, these incidents damage the department's reputation, each in its own way.In terms of seriousness, of course, the two allegations do not compare.

When Baltimore County Councilman Todd Huff was stopped for drunken driving in a country vehicle at 2:30 a.m. Feb. 23 he indigently asked the police officer: "Don't you know who I am?" ("Council member faces DUI charge," Feb. 24). Taxpayers are asking: "Who do you think you are, Mr. Huff?" This is not his first brush with the law, but it should be his last as an elected official. It is time for him to resign. Public office is a public trust, and abusing it is inexcusable. If Mr. Huff hasn't figured that out, he should call his fellow Republican John Leopold in Anne Arundel County.

Baltimore police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts announced Friday the creation of a new unit to oversee internal affairs, audits and the writing of police procedures, a move he hopes will strengthen public confidence in his agency. Jeronimo "Jerry" Rodriguez, a 26-year Los Angeles Police Department veteran, was named deputy commissioner in charge of the new Bureau of Professional Standards. Rodriguez will report directly to Batts and joins Deputy Commissioner John Skinner at the top level of Batts' staff.

Your series of articles on the speed camera fiasco prompts me to make the following comments. Since I started teaching political science in 1964 with my first assignment at Ridgely Junior High School, I have developed a good idea of what constitutes good or bad behavior on the part of our politicians. Thus, on Jan. 6, I filed a formal complaint with the Baltimore City Board of Ethics concerning the behavior of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake with regard to the speed camera mess. I stated in my complaint that Mayor Rawlings-Blake violated the sacred public trust by approving a speed camera program which allowed the Department of Transportation to issue tickets to citizens with the understanding that the company, Xerox State and Local Solutions, would receive a portion of every $40 ticket issued.

The replacement of all of Baltimore's speed cameras and the police department's decision to beef up the review process for the tickets they generate are welcome signs that Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's administration is taking seriously the need to correct problems with the system. Those steps hold the promise of eliminating many of the technical and human errors that have led to some motorists getting tickets they clearly did not deserve. But they do not eliminate the need for the General Assembly to enact reforms to the state's speed camera law to correct other flaws in how they are used in the city and other jurisdictions.

It's time for Baltimore to shut its speed cameras down. On Friday, the vendor that runs the city's program reported that several cameras have error rates as high as 5 percent, and it doesn't know exactly why. Those cameras are no longer issuing tickets. That's a positive step, and so are several others city officials are making or considering in response to questions about the cameras. But the only way the city is going to restore trust that its intention is to foster public safety, not to generate millions in revenue, is to turn the cameras off until it thoroughly reviews the program and makes whatever changes are necessary to ensure the tickets are accurate and fair.

I applaud Sen. Ben Cardin's efforts to end racial profiling: Nothing is more divisive than to bring an "us against them" mentality into law enforcement ("Candidates make final push before Tuesday," April 2). What could be more demoralizing and dehumanizing than being judged by the color of your skin or the clothes you wear? Racial profiling, by definition, is incompatible with the guarantee of equal protection under the law contained in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Yet, many of the same people who claim to be strict constructionists with regard to the Constitution are in favor of denigrating one of its most basic tenets.

Congress passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act in 2012 in response to the public outcry over members' self-serving insider trading scandal last year. As with most laws, what is a crime for citizens was not illegal or unethical for members of Congress and their staffs. The STOCK Act addressed this loophole by requiring lawmakers and government officials to post their financial transactions online. It was a fleeting moment of transparency and accountability.

The Baltimore Police Department's internal affairs chief is leaving the agency, a little more than a year after being brought on to reassure the public that a scandal-weary agency would get tougher policing itself, a spokesman confirmed. Grayling Williams, who joined the department last January from the Department of Homeland Security's counter narcotics office, resigned Thursday to pursue another opportunity, chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. Williams referred a reporter's questions to the spokesman.

Wall Street is its own worst enemy. It should have welcomed new financial regulation as a means of restoring public trust. Instead, it's busily shredding new regulations and making the public more distrustful than ever. The Street's biggest lobbying groups have just filed a lawsuit against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, seeking to overturn its new rule limiting speculative trading in food, oil and other commodities. The Street makes bundles from these bets, but they have raised costs for consumers.

The Baltimore Police Department's announcement that Maj. Nathan Warfield has been removed from his post as commander of the internal affairs division doesn't quite add up. The department issued a news release about the move last night, after The Sun's Justin Fenton had asked questions about photos on Mr. Warfield's Facebook page showing him at a party and at a basketball tournament with Officer Daniel G. Redd, who is under indictment on drug...