Editorial: A steep price for bad policing

Posted: 5:54 pm Wed, December 30, 2009
By Daily Record Staff

The City of Baltimore has made national news for the wrong reasons once again.

The Board of Estimates has agreed to pay $200,000 to a Cedonia man who said he was subjected to a humiliating strip search by officers of the now-disbanded Special Enforcement Team in April 2006.

Daryl A. Martin, a Navy veteran, claimed that officers stopped him near Johns Hopkins Hospital and — in front of onlookers — conducted a body search, including his rectum.

This is the second settlement of a lawsuit related to actions by the Special Enforcement Team in as many months. Several of the same officers accused of “rogue” police work were named in both suits. The earlier settlement was for $225,000.

That’s a lot of hard-earned taxpayers’ money going to pay for well-deserved settlements because of the actions of out-of-control police officers.

Although Martin had asked for $210 million in the federal lawsuit he filed in February, lawyers on both sides agreed that a settlement of less than 1 percent of that amount was substantial in a case without medical damages. Martin’s lawyer, Steven D. Silverman, said the biggest settlement he had seen in comparable cases nationally was $125,000.

To his credit, Baltimore City Solicitor George A. Nilson was straightforward about the police misconduct, calling the incident “pretty severe” and “pretty avoidable, I would have thought.”

Nilson said he did not believe that the Special Enforcement Team officers mistook Martin and his friend, who were on their way to the tailor, as criminals.

“Had that been the case, that would’ve been a mitigating circumstance that would have suggested a more modest amount,” Nilson said.

The city is morally obligated to compensate such police victims fully and fairly, and we applaud its actions in doing so. Likewise, it is morally obligated to reform its police practices so citizens can rely on protection, not abuse, from law enforcement officers sworn to serve and protect.