Ten years ago, Freddie Gray’s death in police custody triggered fiery protests on the streets of Baltimore and a cooler yet no less harsh condemnation from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Federal investigators found Baltimore police had routinely used excessive force and conducted unlawful stops and searches, predominantly of Black residents, leading the city to agree to a sweeping and still ongoing process of reforming its police department.

The consent decree Baltimore signed to overhaul police practices is the most tangible legacy of the unrest that broke out after Gray’s death.

“While Freddie Gray’s name is not in the consent decree document itself, the significance of his death and the uprising that followed is undeniably linked to [Baltimore Police’s] reform efforts,” city lawyers wrote in a recent court filing.

But how much progress has the city made toward righting the wrongs that Gray’s death came to symbolize? Views tend to diverge, typically at the intersection where policy meets practice and words are translated into action.

Deborah Katz Levi, a Baltimore public defender, is among critics who say that real, street-level change —how police interact with the public or handle misconduct complaints —lags behind the consent decree’s promise of transformation.

“When does the change in culture happen?” Levi asks. “We haven’t yet seen that.”

City officials said that while the process of reform may be slow, the department has improved on multiple metrics, such as decreasing use-of-force incidents.

“Absolutely, no doubt,” said Mayor Brandon Scott. “That was never going to happen overnight. But what I see in real time every day is that the staff is changing.”

Eight years have passed since the city signed the consent decree on Jan. 12, 2017, and Baltimore is now on its fifth police commissioner and third mayor. “Third and final,” Scott said, promising to reach full compliance by the time his term ends in December 2028.

A dense and often eye-glazing document, the decree runs more than 200 pages and outlines 17 broad areas of reforms, including how police stop and search residents, use of force, addressing officer misconduct complaints, responding to those having mental health crises, investigating sexual assaults and generally engaging with the public.

Cities can remain under consent decrees for years and even decades as they work through the required changes while under the monitoring of a federal judge, in Baltimore’s case, U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar.

On Thursday, Bredar terminated two of its sections, finding the city has fulfilled their requirements. Exiting from federal oversight on one of them — the safe transport of persons in custody — is particularly meaningful given its role in Gray’s death. Gray died after his neck was nearly severed during a ride in the back of a police van, where he was placed handcuffed and shackled but wasn’t seat-belted. The other area the city has achieved compliance is officer assistance and support.

The Justice Department’s investigation and resulting consent decree were not welcomed in all quarters. Some police officers have said the decree’s requirements have been burdensome, harmful to morale and make them fear being disciplined for using even necessary force on the streets.

Six officers were charged with a range of offenses in connection with Gray’s death, including murder, manslaughter and reckless endangerment; three were acquitted and charges were dropped against the other three.

Police Commissioner Richard Worley, who was named to that post by Scott in 2023, said he initially “wasn’t a fan” of the consent decree, but after reading it, realized it was “just a blueprint” for reform — a process that he wants to see continue even after Baltimore is found to be in total compliance with its requirements.

“I used to say that I wanted to get out of the consent decree by the time I left, but that’s not really correct,” Worley said. “I want to satisfy … the consent decree so the Department of Justice oversight is no longer there, but we’re by far and by no means going to stop reforming.

“We’re not going to revert back to the past,” he said. “We are at a really good place.”

‘Street level’ view

For some of those who have followed the long and painstaking process, the checking off of boxes in the consent decree is welcome, but not the entire picture.

“It’s without question that the policies themselves are more community-informed,” said Ray Kelly, a longtime West Baltimore activist. “There have been a lot of procedural corrections. There’s been minute change on the street level.”

Kelly, who directs the accountability group, Citizens Policing Project, sees both progress and lingering problems, such as a continuing lack of trust of police among some community members.

He also said it can be frustrating that, often, when police haven’t complied with various consent decree requirements, “the reason is always staffing.” And indeed, the monitoring team that reports to Bredar on the city’s progress notes that a “severe” shortage of officers is “perhaps the biggest impediment” to police fully complying with the decree. As of August of last year, the department had more than 600 fewer officers than the 2,600 called for by its staffing plan.

Still, Kelly points to areas of progress: There is now a citizens board that reviews misconduct and decides on discipline, he said. And the complaint process has been streamlined, Kelly said, unlike in the past when a citizen had to gather information such as the officer’s badge number, get the form notarized and submit it in person.

Others note that police accountability has been aided by policies like officers wearing body cameras to record interactions with the public. The city had begun the process that would lead to equipping police with the devices before the Freddie Gray unrest.

“Body cameras do change things a lot,” said Natalie Finegar, a defense attorney.

Finegar, a former public defender, said that while she believes policing has improved in the years since Freddie Gray, that can be cyclical.

‘Proactive policing’ returns

“Post-Freddie Gray, officers were afraid to do anything,” she said. She recalled driving through West Baltimore in the weeks after the unrest and seeing officers “hiding out in their vehicles,” as if thinking, “I’m not getting out of my car, I’m not going to be accused of that.”

Eventually, Finegar said, officers resumed arrests, in an almost “hyper-technical” way, making sure their body cams were on and that they filled out all necessary reports.

“Now I see a return to more hands-on policing, doing proactive policing,” she said, especially when it comes to police trying to get guns off the streets.

Levi said the style of pro-active policing can be all too reminiscent of the corrupt Gun Trace Task Force that they were meant to replace.

GTTF members were convicted of racketeering, robbing people, filing false reports and stealing and selling drugs, including those looted from pharmacies during the Freddie Gray rioting. Called District Action Teams, the current units have been investigated hundreds of times for excessive force, misconduct and other allegations, she said.

“We’re not past that,” she said of the style of policing that leads to “baseless stops, racial profiling and targeting of individuals.”

Worley defended the units, saying they will tend to get citizen complaints because they “go after the most violent criminals in our city,” the drug dealers and those carrying guns. “Criminals don’t like to be caught, so they will file fictitious complaints,” he said.

Worley said that police have improved in how they handle misconduct complaints, even if they continue to take longer than the decree allows. And he points to how police much better managed the mostly peaceful 2020 protests in Baltimore over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis than those following Freddie Gray’s death.

“The way we were able to do that, it was a partnership we built with the community, and we built it with the protesters,” Worley said. “And when we did have a few incidents, the people who were actually doing protesting brought the culprit to us, who was throwing the bottles at us.

“That was the turning point where you they realized we aren’t the same Police Department, right?”

He and other city leaders say real change has to go beyond the consent decree and the police department.

“One of the biggest problems is we were putting everything on the shoulders of police,” Scott said, noting investments the city has made in improving neighborhoods.

Melvin Russell has heard the talk of community policing for years, and in fact was one of the police department’s most forceful proponents of it during 40 years on the force before retiring in 2019 as an acting deputy commissioner.

But, he said, funding for it could get diverted to other purposes, making him skeptical if that will ever change.

He points to how the supposedly community-focused police force was caught unaware and unprepared for the mostly annual Brooklyn Day party that in July 2023 erupted in a chaotic mass shooting that left two people dead.

“If this is your post and you didn’t know this was happening, I’m having your behind,” said Russell, a former Eastern District commander. “It’s a huge red flag for me.”

Ten years past the “heartbreaking” unrest over Freddie Gray’s death, Russell pins any hope for repair not on the consent decree but on police and the community themselves. Russell recalled how he used to keep money in his pocket in case he saw a kid who wanted something in a corner store that their mother couldn’t afford.

“Pick out what you want,” he would tell the kid, paying for it and asking for a hug in return. “The mother’s whole countenance would change, ‘Maybe there are good cops out here,'” he said. “My community and my cops fell into a lovefest.”

Have a news tip? Contact Jean Marbella at jmarbella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6060, or @jeanmarbella.bsky.social.