I am wondering if the Freddie Gray trial would be better served as a class action by including the others that have died and been injured in the back of a police van. Not that the other trials should be cancelled. The other trials and rehearing of this trial should go forward, but, the idea Freddie Gray is an unusual death is not correct.
I doubt the average taxpayer in Baltimore knows they are paying off wrongful conduct by police lawsuits.
April 23, 2015
By Doug Donovan and Mark Puente
When a handcuffed Freddie Gray (click here) was placed in a Baltimore police van on April 12, he was talking and breathing. When the 25-year-old emerged, "he could not talk and he could not breathe," according to one police official, and he died a week later of a spinal injury.
But Gray is not the first person to come out of a Baltimore police wagon with serious injuries.
Relatives of Dondi Johnson Sr., who was left a paraplegic after a 2005 police van ride, won a $7.4 million verdict against police officers. A year earlier, Jeffrey Alston was awarded $39 million by a jury after he became paralyzed from the neck down as the result of a van ride. Others have also received payouts after filing lawsuits.
For some, such injuries have been inflicted by what is known as a "rough ride" — an "unsanctioned technique" in which police vans are driven to cause "injury or pain" to unbuckled, handcuffed detainees, former city police officer Charles J. Key testified as an expert five years ago in a lawsuit over Johnson's subsequent death.
As daily protests continue in the streets of Baltimore, authorities are trying to determine how Gray was injured, and their focus is on the 30-minute van ride that followed his arrest. "It's clear what happened, happened inside the van," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Monday at a news conference....
... Christine Abbott, a 27-year-old assistant librarian at the Johns Hopkins University...stated, "It felt like a roller coaster. Except a roller coaster ride is more secure because you're strapped in...."
I think there needs to be further hearings or investigation to this practice. It is a practice within the Balitmore Police Force.
We, as a country, have witnessed how victims come forward when others are making a stand against their mistreatment. Maybe Baltimore needs a larger movement to bring the brevity of mistreatment of citizens to the average Baltimore taxpayer.
Baltimore City (non-owner-occupied)*: $2.248 for every $100 of assessed property value.
To her credit Mayor Rawlings-Blake has asked for a property tax reduction by 20 percent to encourage affordable housing ownership.
In an effort to reduce the city property tax rate "20 cents by 2020," (a strategy outlined by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s administration in 2012) Baltimore City Council passed legislation approving the "Targeted Homeowners Property Tax Credit." This credit reduces the property taxes for owner-occupants. Each year, the board of estimates approves a new credit amount, which is then applied against the "improved value" of owner-occupied properties. (Property assessments are comprised of two parts: the "land" and the "improved value.") The city budget includes $20,900,000 for the "Targeted Homeowners Tax Credit" in Fiscal Year 2016, which runs from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016. In Fiscal Year 2016, the estimated average tax rate for homeowners in owner-occupied properties has been reduced by nearly 14 cents. This tax credit is on track to reduce the effective tax rate 20 cents by 2020.
Part of the property tax is because Baltimore has had to pay lawsuits due to extreme mistreatment of the citizens of Baltimore by their own police department. This is not funny. At what point does a police department stop being a liability?
I doubt the average taxpayer in Baltimore knows they are paying off wrongful conduct by police lawsuits.
April 23, 2015
By Doug Donovan and Mark Puente
When a handcuffed Freddie Gray (click here) was placed in a Baltimore police van on April 12, he was talking and breathing. When the 25-year-old emerged, "he could not talk and he could not breathe," according to one police official, and he died a week later of a spinal injury.
But Gray is not the first person to come out of a Baltimore police wagon with serious injuries.
Relatives of Dondi Johnson Sr., who was left a paraplegic after a 2005 police van ride, won a $7.4 million verdict against police officers. A year earlier, Jeffrey Alston was awarded $39 million by a jury after he became paralyzed from the neck down as the result of a van ride. Others have also received payouts after filing lawsuits.
For some, such injuries have been inflicted by what is known as a "rough ride" — an "unsanctioned technique" in which police vans are driven to cause "injury or pain" to unbuckled, handcuffed detainees, former city police officer Charles J. Key testified as an expert five years ago in a lawsuit over Johnson's subsequent death.
As daily protests continue in the streets of Baltimore, authorities are trying to determine how Gray was injured, and their focus is on the 30-minute van ride that followed his arrest. "It's clear what happened, happened inside the van," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Monday at a news conference....
I think there needs to be further hearings or investigation to this practice. It is a practice within the Balitmore Police Force.
We, as a country, have witnessed how victims come forward when others are making a stand against their mistreatment. Maybe Baltimore needs a larger movement to bring the brevity of mistreatment of citizens to the average Baltimore taxpayer.
Baltimore City (non-owner-occupied)*: $2.248 for every $100 of assessed property value.
To her credit Mayor Rawlings-Blake has asked for a property tax reduction by 20 percent to encourage affordable housing ownership.
In an effort to reduce the city property tax rate "20 cents by 2020," (a strategy outlined by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s administration in 2012) Baltimore City Council passed legislation approving the "Targeted Homeowners Property Tax Credit." This credit reduces the property taxes for owner-occupants. Each year, the board of estimates approves a new credit amount, which is then applied against the "improved value" of owner-occupied properties. (Property assessments are comprised of two parts: the "land" and the "improved value.") The city budget includes $20,900,000 for the "Targeted Homeowners Tax Credit" in Fiscal Year 2016, which runs from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016. In Fiscal Year 2016, the estimated average tax rate for homeowners in owner-occupied properties has been reduced by nearly 14 cents. This tax credit is on track to reduce the effective tax rate 20 cents by 2020.
Part of the property tax is because Baltimore has had to pay lawsuits due to extreme mistreatment of the citizens of Baltimore by their own police department. This is not funny. At what point does a police department stop being a liability?
