The Baltimore Police Department has improved how it handles First Amendment-protected activities, including how officers address protests and respond to citizens recording police or criticizing officers, the court-appointed monitor team found in a report released this week.

The team recommended the federal judge overseeing the agency’s progress toward meeting the demands under a federal consent decree find the police department in “full and effective compliance” in that section, a step toward exiting federal court oversight of that portion.

Should the judge agree, this First Amendment section could become the third of 17 substantive sections to reach that status. Federal Judge James K. Bredar found the department in full compliance this year with a section on the transportation of persons in custody and officer assistance and safety; the department is now working to sustain its compliance through January.

Several difficult areas remain, however, and some community advocates have stressed that work still needs to be done in reforming the police department and fully engaging residents in the process.

Ray Kelly, of the Citizens Policing Project, said Thursday that the section on First Amendment activity was “kind of low-hanging fruit,” and pointed out there had been relatively few widespread protests other than those in 2020 on which to judge BPD.

“I personally don’t think we’ll actually know until they are tested with something I pray never happens,” Kelly said.

Kelly added that, based on his count from his role on the city’s Administrative Charging Committee, which reviews police disciplinary cases involving the public, there have been more than 1,500 misconduct cases investigated since June 2023. That alone, he said, “says we have a ways to go.”

The monitor team report filed in court this week found that the Baltimore Police Department has done “thorough” training and implemented “first-rate” policies reflecting national best practices on speech-related activities. In its assessment of activities from 2020 through 2022, which included the nationwide racial justice protests following George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis, the team found the department handled protests properly and that officers largely did not violate the First Amendment.

In only one case reviewed by the monitor team in a random sample did an officer retaliate against someone exercising their First Amendment rights. That officer, Sgt. Welton Simpson, was convicted in 2021 for lying and misconduct in office for the same incident.

The report did identify three Public Integrity Bureau cases in which officers violated policy on First Amendment activities — two of which were not properly identified and handled by the department — but the monitor team said those were “isolated occurrences over thousands of interactions.”

The police department, in an emailed statement, called the monitor team’s finding a “significant milestone for our department and the communities we serve,” saying it had transformed policies, training, documentation, oversight and interactions with the public to protect First Amendment rights.

“As we continue to make strides toward full compliance and transformation, we remain committed to reforms that enhance accountability, build trust between law enforcement and the public, and make our city safer for everyone,” it said.

The statement, sent by police spokeswoman Lindsey Eldridge, acknowledged the monitor team’s concerns about the two Public Integrity Bureau cases, but said the team was comparing officer conduct to policies not yet in effect.

“Our accountability system is robust, and the monitors have recognized significant improvements in [internal] investigations and investigative findings,” it said.

The U.S. Department of Justice found in 2016 that the Baltimore Police Department was violating the First Amendment because officers detained, arrested and used force against people who said things officers perceived as critical or disrespectful. The Justice Department said it also had “serious concerns” that officers interfered with people attempting to record police actions.

A consent decree between the city and the Justice Department, reached in 2017, sought to remedy those violations by, among other things, requiring officers to refrain from retaliating against people exercising their First Amendment rights, to refrain from interfering with protests and to allow the public to record police officers’ actions.

The monitoring team found in a 2020 assessment that BPD had responded “admirably” to protests calling for police reform in 2020.

“Community organizers deserve substantial credit for keeping the protests peaceful, but BPD also deserves credit for diligently complying with law and policy,” the 2020 report said. “BPD performed more capably than most of its peer agencies around the country and, in fact, was hailed as a national model for honoring First Amendment rights while maintaining public safety.”

None of the three excessive force cases during the 2020 protests were in retaliation to protected speech activities, the monitor team said.

The three cases where the monitor team found First Amendment violations were identified in a review of Public Integrity Bureau investigations stemming from allegations of such violations. The bureau investigates potential misconduct and policy violations by police. There were 10 relevant investigations.

In one from 2018, BPD properly found a violation of First Amendment activity policies.

Police in that case arrested someone after warning them to keep their voice down, as they were criticizing a police stop and pat-down. Officers claimed the person had been harassing a “crowd” of observers, but no crowd was present, based on body camera footage.

“It was clear that the individual was only arguing with the officer,” the monitor team wrote.

In two others, which were undated and did not identify officers by name, the monitor team disagreed with Baltimore Police’s finding.

In the first, two people were recording a police interaction when a sergeant told them to step back. They did so and continued filming, when the sergeant told one who was not intoxicated, to take away the other, who was. The intoxicated person continued to argue and was subsequently arrested for “disorderly conduct.”

The monitor team wrote that the final event that precipitated the arrest was the arrestee “loudly accusing” the sergeant of ordering them to leave “only because of the intoxicated individual’s race.”

This week’s monitor team report said that the incident should have constituted a policy violation because policy bars officers from retaliating against people who exercise free speech rights or protest police activity by ordering them to disperse or arresting them. BPD instead concluded the case as “unfounded.”

The monitor team also said the sergeant’s report was inaccurate, concealing the First Amendment violation, and that the investigators’ report “inaccurately” presented what occurred and failed to analyze whether the sergeant violated policy on First Amendment activities.

In the other case, people were gathered in front of their houses as police conducted an unrelated investigation. One of the people outside said something to an officer, who responded, “since you are running your mouth, let me get your ID” and said the person had an open container of alcohol.

As the officer walked away, according to the monitor team, they said “before you open your mouth, know what you are talking about” and “mind your business before you go to jail for disorderly.”

The monitor team wrote that it was clear from the officer’s statements that they didn’t like what the person said and had issued a civil citation for open container in retaliation. Investigators, however, concluded the officer hadn’t violated policy because the person did have an open container.

Those three incidents and the case where an officer was later convicted weighed against compliance, the monitor team said. But the four cases of retaliation were “among thousands of police interactions,” it said, adding that the department made more than 25,000 adult arrests from April 2020 through June 2022.

“BPD has come a long way since DOJ’s findings of a pattern or practice of retaliation against the exercise of First Amendment rights,” the monitor team report said. “Given that, the severity of the offenses and BPD’s failure to remedy three of them is not significant enough to rebut the presumption of compliance.”

An evaluation of Baltimore Police’s misconduct investigations found this summer that BPD has “markedly” improved investigations’ quality but still had work to do to achieve compliance.

The police department and city are due back in federal court Oct. 24 for the next quarterly hearing on the consent decree.