Last week, the Department of Justice released its most expansive investigation of a troubled police department to date. It is the first of its kind to probe an issue that some academics and advocates have been researching and talking about for over a decade with little traction: sexual predators within the ranks of police officers.
In two pages of their scathing 163-page report on the Baltimore Police Department, federal investigators recount complaints from civilians that officers coerce sexual favors in exchange for avoiding arrest, or for cash or narcotics. The most frequent targets were sex workers, a population vulnerable for arrest if they did not comply. “This conduct is not only criminal, it is an abuse of power,” the investigators wrote. “Unfortunately, we not only found evidence of this conduct in BPD’s internal affairs files, it appeared that the Department failed to adequately investigate allegations of such conduct, allowing it to recur.”
Reports of sexual misconduct were filed against one BPD officer on three separate occasions between 2012 and 2015. One victim told investigators that she met with him every other week to engage in sexual activities in exchange for cash as well as immunity from arrest. Ultimately, with three open investigations on him, the officer was allowed to resign quietly. “It is unclear from BPD’s files whether any state authorities were notified of the officer’s sexual misconduct,” the investigators wrote.
[For more of this story, written by Maura Ewing, go to https://psmag.com/who-do-you-c...000d3a0ef#.ok51j47c1]
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