Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear this interview. Yesterday in Baltimore,everyone from civil rights leaders, to community organizers, or to relatives of people killed by police,had three minutes to step before a federal judge, and narrate their stories of police mistreatment in the city. In all, or 49 people testified,portion of a public hearing on a consent decree orchestrated between the city's police force and the Obama Justice Department that would issue a number of reforms for the police department.
But this hearing almost didn't happen. Under a directive from unique Attorney General Jeff Sessions to review all consent decrees — there are 14 in total, with cities from Ferguson to Seattle — the Justice Department asked U.
S. District Judge James Bredar for a 90 day pause for the hearing earlier in the week after expressing "grave concern" about the process. The judge denied the DOJ's request, and the hearing proceeded yesterday.
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, who has been in office since December 2016, joins The Takeaway to discuss what happened at the hearing yesterday, or how the city's approach is an example for other cities undergoing police reform amidst the Trump Administration.
Source: wnyc.org