Police Union Leaders Say Harrison Mis-Characterized Report; Mosby Denies Claim She Never Reached Out

The leaders of Baltimore's police union on Wednesday continued their criticism of Baltimore Police Department leadership, a day after issuing a scathing report on department management.

Speaking to C4, Sgt. Mike Mancuso, president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 3, and Lt. Ken Butler, the union's first vice president, also said State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby has made no attempt to reach out to them, a claim Mosby denied.

Mancuso and Butler said Police Commissioner Michael Harrison mischaracterized their report when he said Tuesday it echoed much of what was in his own crime plan.

"It was a great deflection in him saying that we virtually agreed with it," Butler said. "Nothing could be further from the truth. In our report, we were just highlighting the certain things that should be done and certain things that were not being done within the agency."

The report cited poor upkeep of personnel records. Two former police commissioners are listed as active employees in a key database, while Harrison and more than 200 officers are not. The report found the department has 500 fewer sworn officers than it is budgeted for. The union has maintained the force does not have enough officers to carry out the objectives of Harrison's crime plan. Harrison's plan called for targeted enforcement of microzones, places where violent crime is known to occur. Mancuso and Butler said the manpower is simply not there and officers have other concerns at play.

"[Officers] will adjust to handling 20, 25 calls a night. They'll just adjust to that," Butler said. "The one thing they cannot adjust to is if I make a mistake and look we all make mistakes and it's not with malicious intent, why is there a potential that I may be facing prosecution, criminal prosecution? And this has really drained some guys."

Butler called for Mosby's office to train officers on the consent decree, a document the union's report argued a number of officers did not understand.

For her part, Mosby told C4 her office is not a party to the consent decree, which was reached between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice. The police department's progress under the consent decree is overseen by a court-appointed monitor and the decree is implemented by a team within the police department.

"The fact of the matter is in that report one of the things that they talk about is there's a confusion as to why there's a need for the consent decree and they're attributing that confusion to myself, " Mosby said. "The federal government found a pattern and practice of discriminatory enforcement."

Mosby said she reached out to Mancuso several times, including after he was elected in September 2018. She said she even called Mancuso's cellphone. She objected to being blamed by the union and instead highlighted misconduct by officers.

"This political, divisive rhetoric has been existent since I charged six officers for the untimely death of a 25-year-old black man by the name of Freddie Carlos Gray Jr. and they didn't agree with that decision," Mosby said. "The officers that I've subsequently charged and have convicted were officers shooting unarmed, nonresistant individuals for no reason; officers that go what I would call MMA on citizens in broad daylight; officers stealing overtime; officers assaulting women on camera; and, unfortunately to the dismay of the police department, as a prosecutor, I will continue to apply one standard of justice for everyone, regardless of one's race, sex, religion and occupation."

In a review of 2,500 cases, Mosby's office recently started asking judges either to dismiss current charges or vacate past convictions in 790 cases linked to 25 officers prosecutors have a reason to distrust. Most of the officers were either convicted in or linked to the Gun Trace Task Force scandal. Some officers have remained unnamed, Mosby said, because her office has reason to believe they are under federal investigation.

"So what's placing us in jeopardy is when you have police officers involved in egregious and longstanding criminal activity," Mosby said. "You can't allow that to take place. And so, as a prosecutor, we have a legal and ethical sort of obligation in the pursuit of justice over convictions and to right those wrongs."

She suggested more dismissals may follow.