Thread by @AoDespair

A thread on the legislation that would repeal the Police Bill of Rights in Maryland, why Governor Larry Hogan is no defender of good and honorable police work when he attempts to veto that legislation, and why the General Assembly should override the veto:

First, and this is based on an observed year inside the Baltimore Police Department's homicide unit and about two decades of covering the issue in that city: Even without the advantage of the existing Bill of RIghts, law enrforcement officers....

...operate with two incredible advantages in any attempt by the public to regulate or oversee their use of force against citizens. The first and greatest advantage is the legal hole -- so large you can drive a jail van through it and not scrape a lawyer on either side --

that makes it impossible to criminally indict or even administratively punish a police officer for the use of even potentially lethal force should they be able to argue in any credible way that they THOUGHT or PERCEIVED that they or others were in harm's way...

...at the moment they employed that force. Understand, they do not have to prove in any empirical way that the threat to them was real, or that the risk to their own safety or that of others was actually at stake, only that there are sufficient facts to argue that they COULD...

...HAVE reasonably perceived or even misperceived such a threat. In practice, this means that any police officer who can write a halfway coherent supplemental indictment report -- or who has a supervisor to help him do so -- needs to simply construct a scenario by which...

...they had some means of belief that they or others were in danger at the moment they decided to use lethal force against a civilian. They need not prove that they were at risk, only that it was reasonable for them to think so. Having done so, all but the most egregious...

...brutalities or excesses become either unindictible or, certainly, untenable as a court prosecution before any judge who knows the standing law. That is ADVANTAGE #1. The second distinct advantage is that in all but the most controversial cases, the officer using force will...

...be investigated by his own police agency, meaning that the shooting team of detectives that undertakes the investigation of a police-involved death of a citizen is being asked to simultaneously probe the incident as independent investigators while....

...sharing a basic allegiance with the officer in question and the law enforcement agency as a whole. I have seen professional reports prepared by Baltimore homicide detectives that carefully and comprehensively justified many legitimate and necessary police-involved shootings...

...and I also witnessed a select few in which legitimate questions about the scenarios that resulted in the use of lethal force by an officer were buried or downplayed in the shooting reports that were delivered to prosecutors. To be clear, I did not witness any detective...

...ignoring fundamental evidence of criminal intent, but there were many times when writing critical moments of narrative omitted facts that did not fit cleanly in the best possible version of a justifiable police shooting. In short, for an officer involved...

...in such a shooting, he or she can already be assured that they are being overseen by the most sympathetic and protective cohort of investigators possible. That is ADVANTAGE #2. You would think that armed with ADVANTAGES #1 and #2, any Maryland officer worth his badge would...

...be confident enough to do their job, answer basic questions about how they did it, and not require additional protection from oversight. But no, we have ADVANTAGE #3 -- the Police Bill of Rights, as foul and cynical a law as has ever been foisted on any society...

...that has any pretense of accounting for the actions of those who are granted the authority to use lethal force in service of the state. On the surface, the claim is that this law merely grants officers the same 5th Amendment protections as any other citizens...

...but of course, the lie inherent in this claim is that it ignores the basic truth that law officers already have that same right under the U.S. Constitution. Regardless of their status as officers, they can always invoke a right to silence, or a refusal to testify before...

...a grand jury by asserting their 5A right. They can already demand the presence of an attorney. What they cannot do without the Police Bill of Rights is the following: They cannot assert their rights against self-incrimination and at the same time continue to police...

...other citizens with a gun on their hip and the legitimate standing as a peace officer that allows them to continue to use force as an agent of our government. Get it? They cannot simply refuse to answer immediately and directly for their performance on the street...

...up to and including using lethal force on civilians, and in the same breath REFUSE to report to their police agency -- and by extension, the citizens of Baltimore or Maryland -- what they did on the street when engaging with civilians or using lethal force against civilians...

This is the ridiculous, even fascistic ADVANTAGE #3 that the Police Bill of Rights has provided in Maryland. It allows an officer involved in a police shooting to refuse to cooperate in the oversight and investigation of that shooting, to give no evidence or justification...

...for his actions to superiors, to deny his own police agency a supplemental investigative report -- a written Form 95 in the parlance of the BPD -- that says, "I went on the street on this day and date and I used my police powers in this way and for this reason." And fuck it...

if a police officer can't perform his duties, as essential and important as they are, and -- with the extant ADVANTAGES #1 and #2 buttressing him -- come back to the district or precinct and give a sworn accounting of what he did and why, then he should be entitled to...

...continue to police the Maryland citizenry on those terms. Standing by the actions you took in a timely, credible way is the most basic and obvious act of police accountability we have and when it is thwarted -- as it is directly by the Police Bill of Rights --

...then something ugly and shameful has happened in our state. This was awful legislation, ill-conceived and oblivious to the very basic fundamentals of ethical accountability in policing. It was passed by politicians consumed with a desire to seem supportive of police...

...and tough on criminals, but in fact, it has debased good policing, impaired the legitimate investigation and oversight of police-involved force, and driven a cynical wedge between police agencies and the communities they are supposed to serve. Now, when a police-involved...

...shooting occurs, an officer has every opportunity to deny his agency a basic accounting of his actions, and further, to delay providing such an accounting indefinitely, allowing them to do the very sorts of things that good criminal investigators would NEVER allow other...

...shooters or witnesses to do -- to speak to other involved officers, to stream their every statement past attorneys, to collate and collapse everyones recollections into the cleanest possible account, to get "their stories straight" before answering for their activity while...

...on the street and carrying a gun and the legal standing to use in service of the state. ADVANTAGE #3 is too vile an assault on accountability, especially given all the advantages accorded to police without it. And any officer who can't shoot or injure a civilian, return...

...immediately to his precinct, write up and then submit an account of his actions simply doesn't have any right to expect that his agency or jurisdiction could or should return him to the street armed with the same police powers for which he refuses...

...basic accountability. If he can't do that much, then yes, he needs to invoke the 5th Amendment, shut up, accept a suspension without pay from duty, and wait on the criminal justice system to render its judgment. He still has that right regardless....

...but he cannot expect to continue policing Maryland on less terms than basic accountability -- as he can now under the Police Bill of Rights. Governor Hogan's veto of that legislation needs to be overridden if there is any basic justice or accountability in our state.

Apologies, but in take 22 of this thread, it should read “shouldn’t” nor “should.” The lack of a Twitter corrective at such moments is exasperating.