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Sidebar: Too much force? Too little?



Criticism of Baltimore Police Department response to the initial



Others said the response to what were initially high school rumors was too severe, with heavily clad officers amping up a situation that could have ended calmly. Mother Jones ran an article the day after the Monday disturbance describing some of these complaints. An except from that article: When school let out that afternoon, police were in the area equipped with full riot gear. According to eyewitnesses in the Mondawmin neighborhood, the police were stopping busses and forcing riders, including many students who were trying to get home, to disembark. Cops shut down the local subway stop. They also blockaded roads near the Mondawmin Mall and Frederick Douglass High School, which is across the street from the mall, and essentially corralled young people in the area. That is, they did not allow the after-school crowd to disperse.



Full article: Eyewitnesses: The Baltimore Riots Didn't Start the Way You Think Declaration Philly co-editor Dustin Slaughter was more succinct on twitter the night of the events: 1) @BaltimorePolice monitor social media; 2) escalate the situation by showing up outside high school in riot gear; 3) and off we go. — Dustin Slaughter (@DustinSlaughter) 28. April 2015 BPD Commissioner on Tuesday, April 28:

At Mondawmin, there is also a hub for about -- I believe it's about eight different schools. So on a daily basis, we have big numbers of kids that drop off there on a constant basis. That wasn't just one high school that was there. When we started making mobile field force movements there, there was buses in line, and we started to let the kids off the buses. So we have even greater numbers that grew out there. BPD Spokesman on Wednesday, April 28, appearing to respond to a question about a set of closures that day:

I would refer you to MTA to speak on the specifics -- what I can tell you is that those are open right now. That was the latest information that I had coming out. MTA police, in turn, have stated that BPD staffers were responsible for the request to empty buses at Mondawmin.



{{ Close sidebar }} Criticism of Baltimore Police Department response to the initial purge rumors at Mondawmin went both directions on the spectrum. Some critics accused the mayor and police force of taking too long to act.Others said the response to what were initially high school rumors was too severe, with heavily clad officers amping up a situation that could have ended calmly. Mother Jones ran an article the day after the Monday disturbance describing some of these complaints. An except from that article:Declaration Philly co-editor Dustin Slaughter was more succinct on twitter the night of the events:A Baltimore Police Department spokesperson declined to comment on the Mother Jones allegations, beyond directing The Sun to view previous press conferences on the BPD YouTube channel. As of the day after that direction was issued, the closest those conferences got to addressing the issue as far as Sun staff could tell, were these two statements:MTA police, in turn, have stated that BPD staffers were responsible for the request to empty buses at Mondawmin.{{}}

Baltimore -- like many other localities -- has obtained rifles, shotguns and other items from federal programs that provide military equipment to law enforcement agencies. President Obama recently called for a stop to some parts of the process, while leaving others in place.In late April, police in Baltimore donned helmets, shields and other riot gear to confront students and others near Mondawmin Mall, recalling images of the militarized response from law enforcement in Ferguson, Mo.By the time an observer in Baltimore tweeted on Monday, April 27 about "Amor trucks & big ... guns I haven't seen since Ferguson", state legislatures in New Jersey and Montana had already worked to stave off what author Radley Balko calls the "rise of the warrior cop."That is Balko's term for what's labeled by critics as police militarization. Balko argues in his book of the same title that this style of aggressive policing draws too much on military techniques, at the expense of citizens' constitutional rights and the judicial process.For his part, a Pentagon official has critiqued the term "police militarization" as being inaccurate. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has stated that she considered Baltimore's police response to have been relatively restrained and " much different " from those in Ferguson and other places.In April, the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency updated a quarterly data set describing equipment donations under its 1033 program, which gives police departments access to military equipment.This sortable list comprises the materials given through the program to police and sheriffs' stockpiles within the city of Baltimore over the last 10 years.This list may omit other equipment procurements done via funds outside the 1033 program, (such as procurements under the Army's 1122 program ). It should be viewed solely as a snapshot of the recent output of that specific program.For other batches of 1033 procurement data from the previous decade, please click a link. (This batch is Baltimore-only; yearly batches are state-wide).