u s department of justice

Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis says a made-over interview room at police headquarters sends a message to sexual assault survivors that "we believe you, you're safe, and we're here to help you." Here's a message for the commissioner: There's a better way to gain the trust of those who say they were raped — take their claims seriously.

Survivors of sexual assault who agree to be interviewed at Baltimore Police headquarters downtown used to sit in a metal-and-plastic chair, across a plain table from a detective, in a stark-white room resembling those reserved for criminal interrogations. Now, they will pick their own seat — a rocking chair, perhaps, or one of plush fabric — in a room designed from top to bottom with the science of trauma, and how the brain and body best handle it, in mind.

Robert Reich: Why should we expect Wells Fargo or any other big bank to stop commiting fraud when it's so lucrative?

Marylanders react to the first presidential debate between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump — an epic spectacle in a race that has become exceedingly close.

Lt. Gene Ryan, president of the local police union in Baltimore, has been elected to a second term by the organization's members.

Members also elected

A Baltimore Police officer will be on home detention for the next year after being convicted of assaulting a 14-year-old boy who was handcuffed at a Northwest Baltimore hospital last year.

Baltimore residents sounded off on police reform solutions at a forum Monday evening, and their input will be sent to the U.S. Department of Justice as it works with the city to reform Baltimore's policing practices.

Black men are being slaughtered across this country, but where's the outrage? Where are all the soldiers with automatic weapons? The policemen on every corner? Where are the health department officials calling for a cure to this crisis?

John James "Jack" Rooney Jr., a retired Immigration and Naturalization Service contracting official, died of pneumonia Sept. 16 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Columbia. The Ellicott City resident was 85.

Comptroller Franchot's complaint that lack of school air conditioning is a violation of civil rights is an insult to actual civil rights causes

Residents are invited to offer comments on the U.S. Department of Justice's investigation of the Baltimore police Monday at a listening session.

State auditors have found that Comptroller Peter Franchot's office distributed $8.7 million to the wrong towns in Montgomery County.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump called Wednesday for an expansion of stop-and-frisk encounters with police, a tactic that has been controversial in

Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot and the NAACP are asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the lack of air conditioning in public schools in Baltimore City and Baltimore County

Police shootings in Tulsa and Charlotte raise the specter of Freddie Gray and lessons not learned 17 months later

Should the U.S. Department of Justice investigate the lack of air conditioning in some Baltimore city and county schools as a civil rights issue?

Baltimore's high murder rate requires some fundamental changes in the relationship between police and community

Speaking to a predominantly white crowd in Dimondale, Mich., recently, Mr. Trump asked African Americans: "What do you have to lose by trying something new" like him. "You're living in poverty," he said. "Your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth are unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?" The short answer is stark: a lot.

Two months after dropping charges against police officers accused in the death of Freddie Gray, Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby told students Monday that "justice has still prevailed."

The Baltimore police officer who exchanged disparaging emails about an alleged sexual assault victim with a city prosecutor is the subject of a disciplinary investigation about it, a police spokesman said. The prosecutor no longer works for the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office, wrote State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby in a letter to The Baltimore Sun.

Almost a dozen community activists called for Baltimore residents to work with the police department to create positive changes after a U.S. Department of Justice report found Baltimore police routinely violated the civil and constitutional rights of the city's residents.

The first woman and first African-American to fill the post will be sworn in Wednesday as 14th Librarian of Congress

Just days before the Justice Department released its scathing indictment of the police force, Baltimore Sun reporter Catherine Rentz penned a 6,000-word

Days after the U.S. Department of Justice published a scathing 163-page report detailing the Baltimore Police Department’s pattern and practice of racially

A coalition of community groups in Baltimore is calling for greater transparency and community input in the process to reform the Baltimore Police Department, issuing a list of recommendations to U.S. Department of Justice officials working toward a consent decree with city officials.

City Councilman Brandon M. Scott is petitioning state lawmakers to create an oversight panel to steer Baltimore's community policing efforts.

Donald Trump has single-handedly smashed the moral compass of conservatism, says Jonah Goldberg.

In addressing the intense pace of violence in Baltimore in recent days, police commanders and city officials have lamented the near-constant ringing of gunfire but also the resounding silence they say has followed from witnesses and others they believe have information. They say that silence is hurting the city — leaving detectives with few leads and "trigger pullers" free to shoot again.

Gov. Larry Hogan's office on Thursday announced three appointments to the District Court in Baltimore.

A U.S. District Court Judge on Thursday dismissed fraud charges against the head of a local pharmacy chain after his attorneys argued federal prosecutors misinformed jurors, destroyed and presented false evidence at trial.

State lawmakers and civil liberties advocates are considering legislation that would regulate police surveillance programs — and require public disclosure — after the Baltimore Police Department ran a secret aerial surveillance program over the city for months.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis "apologized profusely" at a meeting with Rep. Elijah Cummings for failing to disclose a secret aerial surveillance program that has been operating for months above Baltimore, Cummings said Friday.

Baltimore Police have agreed to share complaints about officer misconduct with the Civilian Review Board, a beleaguered group created nearly two decades ago to help oversee law enforcement, after failing to forward hundreds of cases.

Our view: Baltimore police must immediately suspend a secret aerial surveillance program until it can be publicly vetted

Baltimore's Board of Estimates on Wednesday approved $1.1 million for Taser International to continue supplying Baltimore police with the company's stun guns and related equipment.

The future health care choice is a government-run single-payer system or a hugely expensive for-profit oligopoly, says Robert Reich.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake on Friday announced that City Solicitor George A. Nilson will no longer lead Baltimore's law department.

Police are coping with an impossible situation

Misbehaving school police

When Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced her decision to drop the remaining cases against the police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, she spoke of fighting for reform and equality in our justice system. As a city public defender, I'd like to offer a few suggestions. Continuing to pursue police misconduct is a given, but there are two other examples of injustice occurring in courts on a regular basis: the inequities of the cash bail system and the continuation of the

The Department of Justice report barely mentions Martin O'Malley, but his fingerprints are all over the practices it condemns.

Where does the buck stop after DOJ's report?

Baltimore police routinely violated the constitutional rights of residents by conducting unlawful stops and using excessive force, according to the findings of a long-anticipated Justice Department probe released Wednesday.

A Baltimore Sun investigation has found Baltimore Police's internal affairs investigations often take longer than they should, mostly conclude without proving or disproving the officer's alleged misconduct, and rarely find that officers used excessive force, according to an analysis of data from January 2013 through March 2016.

An independent review of Taser incidents in Montgomery County determined that police there are not overusing the electronic weapon — a finding that drew criticism from civil liberties activists and relatives of a Gaithersburg man who died in 2013 after being shot by Tasers far above safety limits.

By essentially telling local youth that their outcries of outrage over Freddie Gray's death were a primary reason for bringing charges, Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby started a political persecution under the pretense of a prosecution. Along the way, she withheld evidence, defamed police and brought such weak cases that the judge rivaled land speed records in issuing his acquittals.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Wednesday she would never use her position to give an "impression" that the public should not have confidence in police.

Prosecutors dropped all remaining charges against three Baltimore police officers charged in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray Wednesday, meaning none of the six police charged by Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby were convicted.

Amid ongoing criticism, the Baltimore Police Department issued a statement Tuesday defending its actions in the arrest of 65 people during protests Saturday near the Jones Falls Expressway and the city's annual Artscape festival.

Much is likely to be made of Alton Sterling's criminal past in the days ahead as various factions vilify or martyr him as one of the latest black men to be killed by police in America. And while most of his criminal history isn't relevant, there is something to learn from it, which I'll get to later. But here's what really counts: the fateful decisions two Baton Rouge, La., police officers made early Tuesday morning when they took Sterling's life in the line of duty, officially joining an