All 2,300 officers in the Baltimore Police Department will receive a new, printed manual of the department's 26 "core operating policies" by the start of next month, to refer to while on the job and unable to access a computer, police officials said Friday.
The policies — governing things like the use of force and the standards for investigative stops — are the most important and most frequently used among the 208 policies that make up the department's full general orders, which are distributed to officers in digital format, said Police Commissioner Kevin Davis. Because of that, they "absolutely must be at the fingertips of all Baltimore police officers all the time," and officers must know them "backwards and forwards," he said.
"We want to do as much as we can to make this job as appealing as possible and to make opportunities for police officers to grow and to know their profession," Davis said. "We think this allows police officers to know their professions and the expectations, the organizational expectations, of leadership."
The announcement of the new COP manual, which Davis said should be fully distributed by July 1, appeared to be the department's latest response to the claims by some of the officers charged in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray that they were unaware of a department policy that required detainees to be restrained with a seat belt when placed in police transport vans.
Gray, 25, died a week after suffering a severe spinal cord injury in the back of a van last year. Gray was handcuffed and shackled in the van, but not restrained by a seat belt.
Six officers have been charged in the case. Two — Officers William Porter and Edward Nero — have gone to trial, where their attorneys claimed they were unaware of the seat belt policy. The jury was hung in Porter's trial, and he will be retried. Nero was acquitted of all charges.
A pre-trial hearing is scheduled in the case against Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., the van driver, on Monday, and jury selection is set to begin in his case Tuesday. All of the officers have pleaded not guilty.
Last week, the department announced a new software platform, PowerDMS, that it said will ensure officers receive and sign-off on all new policies or policy revisions. The relevant seat belt policy in Gray's death had been revised days before Gray's arrest.
Earlier this week, the department also announced the rollout of a new fleet of vans that have cameras and a redesigned interior geared toward improving the safety of detainees.
At both of those announcements, police refused to address Gray's death, the officers' trials, or their connection to the changes being announced. T.J. Smith, a department spokesman, cited a gag order in the officers' trials — which does not apply to the police department — as a reason not to comment on the connection.
On Friday, Davis again avoided addressing the Gray case by name, and suggested that there were other factors driving the changes.
"I understand the recency of current events and the dots that are connected with these announcements, I do understand that, but it's bigger than recent events. It's about doing the right thing," he said. The changes are about addressing the "culmination of deficiencies that have been observed over time."
Davis also said it is "inexcusable for leadership and rank and file" officers to claim that they or the officers beneath them are unaware of police policies. He said the manual is another step toward ensuring that is not an excuse in the future.
The manual will be posted publicly online once it has been dispersed to officers, Davis said. Reporters were able to look at a working draft of the manual Friday, but were not given copies.
"It's like having a groundbreaking," Smith said. "You can't go in the front door because it's not built yet."
In addition to receiving the manuals, officers will be retrained on a different core policy each pay period, of which there are 26 annually. Officials called it a "policy of the period" training approach.
"It's something else we did for cops — not to them, for them," Davis said.
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