Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 4036 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: JULY 2016 he became uncooperative in the van. He was not seat belted. Later he was shack- led and placed on the floor, where he was fatally in- jured. Accidents are typically a civil matter. The city paid Gray’s family over $6 mil- lion. That’s why we have a tort system. Mr. Nero wasn’t the ar- resting officer and didn’t transport Gray. The case against Mr. Nero was fuzzy at best and mali- cious prosecution at worst. In his acquittal, Judge Barry Williams said the prosecution’s main argu- ment of accomplice liability was not “an appropriate ap- plication of the law.” Consider patients who die in surgery. Sometimes it’s even the doctor’s fault. But never would you see an entire operating room arrested. What started as a case of police brutality and murder will come down to a ques- tion of timely medical care and negligence related to failure to seat belt a prisoner. Should Gray have been re- strained better? Of course. But transport wagons are so cramped that there is no way to safely seat belt a non-compliant prisoner. Let us prevent the next prisoner’s death. There are safe, modern, camera- equipped prisoner transport vehicles. Replacing Baltimore’s entire prisoner transport fleet would cost less than the payout to Gray’s family. But Baltimore either lacks the money or leadership to invest in them. The trouble is, the politi- cal leadership in Baltimore is more interested in votes than addressing the deeper issues of the poorest Ameri- cans. While much focus on policing concerns race, the issue in Baltimore — majority black and with a black po- litical leadership — is more about class. Unfortunately, class, unlike race, doesn’t stir people to action. The mayor taps anger fueled by failed social pol- icy and malign neglect. But we’ve never seen her or any Baltimore politician ride in a police car to see what of- ficers see every day. Freddie Gray was born premature to a single moth- er. Living in poverty, their lead-infested house some- times lacked for food and electricity. Gray, an occasional drug dealer, dropped out of school and never held a steady job. We don’t bring up these facts to tarnish his memory but to point out that nobody cared about Freddie Gray until police placed him in custody. Only after more than 18 arrests and multiple convic- tions did he become the un- witting symbol of societal ills that put him in cuffs instead of college. Politics and policy put Freddie on that drug corner and also gave police the task of moving him off of it. The failure of Freddie Gray is a collective failure. So why does “justice” depend on convicted police officers? Baltimore elected officials need to focus on the city’s real problems, which do not take legal acrobatics to explain. After the April riots, the murder rate doubled. Last year in Baltimore 304 black men — 131 more than in 2014 — were murdered. That’s roughly one in every 220 black men aged 15 to 35 murdered in one year. Think of those odds. Americans shouldn’t have live and die like this. There are actual criminals in Baltimore like those who pick up an illegal gun and pull the trigger to kill a fel- low man. Police deal with them ev- ery day. So when criminals are seen as the victims and police are made out to be the problem, it’s as if the inmates have taken over the asylum. Peter Moskos (@petermoskos), a former Baltimore police of- ficer, is an associate professor of law, police science and criminal justice administratio,n at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the author of Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Bal- timore’s Eastern District. Leon Taylor is a recently retired Baltimore City police officer. Freddie Gray, a failure of politics and policy in Baltimore Continued from page 27 S ometimes a raise really isn’t a raise at all. In North Carolina, a new budget proposal would give city employees a 3 to 3.5 percent “merit pay” increases. But for the majority of those thousands of employ- ees, including cops, who make less than $55,000 a year, the pay increase is wiped out by the ever- increasing costs of health insurance. As a matter of fact, the increase in health care insur- ance costs actually means many officers with the Ra- leigh P.D. will be getting less money than they were earning before the raises. Raleigh will pay 82 per- cent of the health plan in- crease for the next fiscal year and employees will make up the rest through higher premiums and copays. Family insurance plans will cost an extra $60 per month. If city employees are married and their spouses have access to health in- surance through their jobs, those employees will have to pay a $50 monthly sur- charge for choosing to take the city’s coverage for the spouse. “It won’t be across the board, but some officers will take a pay cut depending on their circumstances,” says Rick Armstrong, vice presi- dent of Teamsters Local 391, Raleigh’s police union. “That is the overall prob- lem,” Armstrong says. “We believe Raleigh officers are paid substantially less than officers at other departments in Wake County.” Armstrong says the agency has lost at least a dozen offi- cers who have gone to work for more money elsewhere just in the last year. He says Raleigh cops’ pay should be raised to a starting salary of $40,000 a year, a 15 percent increase from current levels. “We understand that the city manager is conducting a pay study, but right now we are losing a lot of police of- ficers on a regular basis, and we think something more substantial should be done,” Armstrong told reporters with IndieWeek.com. Costs eat raises Health care costs means cops getting less