Over the past 14 months, federal attorneys and investigators have collected three years of internal Baltimore Police Department emails and 10,000 reports on citizen stops, conducted 110 interviews and ridden with officers on patrol three dozen times.

A number of Baltimore Police Department staffers and lawyers were assigned to facilitate the U.S. Department of Justice in its civil rights investigation. The 163-page report, released Wednesday, found that Baltimore police routinely violated the constitutional rights of residents, particularly those in poor, black neighborhoods.

Ganesha Martin, chief of the department's DOJ compliance division, was the behind-the-scenes point person. She has been charged with facilitating the federal probe and trying to solve some of the Baltimore Police Department's most intractable problems.

“If you change the culture of the Police Department, you can't help but change the trajectory of a city,” Martin said. “We're willing to take our lumps. We're willing to say, ‘We really jacked this thing up for X, Y and Z reasons.' But we're also resilient, and we're also dedicated to getting this right.”

The Justice Department investigation, one of two dozen federal probes of local police departments by President Barack Obama's administration, included extensive data research into arrests, use of force and citizen stops. The report also concluded in sweeping language that Baltimore police failed to prevent discrimination against black residents.

Martin started revising the “early intervention system” for identifying officers who have a history of misconduct. The Justice Department concluded that more needs to be done, calling the department's system “an early intervention system in name only” that commanders acknowledged is “effectively nonfunctional.”

Martin also helped lead an effort to install a new software system for tracking the dissemination of new police policies and whether officers understand them. The Justice Department credited the department for realizing that was a “significant problem,” but noted that the application had not yet been rolled out as of June. It has been done since then, she said.

In addition, Martin pushed to update the department's use-of-force policy, and in June the department unveiled the first full revision of the policy since 2003. It stresses de-escalation and requires officers to intervene if they see a fellow cop crossing the line.

Martin has begun to examine how to train officers in de-escalation, and how to handle individuals with disabilities — two issues the Justice Department identified in its report. And she has sought to improve the department's technology, which she said remains a major hindrance to improving standards overall.

The federal investigation has represented an exercise in humility, a sharp learning curve and a lot of work, Martin said.

Martin has been studying consent decrees reached in other cities to see how they managed reforms.

Apprehension among officers has been high, given the scrutiny of policing here and nationally, Martin said. “There's been a lot of tension,” she said. “But a lot of that comes from not knowing.”

krector@baltsun.com

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