This Is How Badly Police Abuse Has Scarred One Baltimore Neighborhood

For the black residents of West Baltimore, just hanging out with friends can draw unwanted police attention.

One young resident, identified in a new report as Mr. P., recalled how eight police officers in unmarked cars decided to search his group of friends in "vulgar" and invasive ways. He said officers ordered the students, who were chatting on a corner, onto the ground, and one officer allegedly put his hand into Mr. P's underwear, groped him and slapped him. Mr. P's friends were also searched. No one was charged with any crime.

Mr. P's experience is among the hundreds of accounts that shape "The People's Findings Regarding Police Misconduct in West Baltimore," a just-released report from the privately run West Baltimore Commission on Police Misconduct and the No Boundaries Coalition , a local advocacy group.

Interviewers for the report found some 450 residents of the largely black neighborhood who were willing to speak about police misconduct, but only 39 who were willing to be quoted, even using a pseudonym. An overwhelming number of respondents feared retaliation from police, the report said.

"I understand we need to speak up on the way the police treat the community," one individual said, according to the commission. "But certain things ain't nobody going to talk about."

The commission collected West Baltimore's stories to present to the U.S. Department of Justice, which launched a civil rights probe into the Baltimore Police Department last year.

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Freddie Gray didn't live to tell his tale. By age 25, the Baltimore resident had been arrested multiple times for everything from drug possession to playing dice at a public housing development, according to a BuzzFeed investigation. Charges were almost always dismissed.

Then came his final brush with police. In April 2015, Gray died as a result of a severe spinal injury that occurred while he was in police custody. Prosecutors said Gray was taken on a "rough ride" in the back of a police van, where he was handcuffed but not secured by a seatbelt.

Massive protests erupted in the wake of Grays death, and soon after, DOJ began looking at the Baltimore police.

DOJ should consider the West Baltimore Commission on Police Misconduct's findings before reaching any agreement with the city on police department reforms, said Charles Cange, a visiting lecturer at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County who worked on the report.

Formed a month after Gray's death, the commission set out to document patterns and practices of police misconduct through residents' stories, said Rebecca Nagle, a member of the No Boundaries Coalition who helped conduct the interviews. But its main goal, according to Nagle, is to advocate for policy change.

The commission began with a public hearing in May at which residents of Sandtown-Winchester, Gray's mostly black neighborhood in West Baltimore, testified about the police violence they had experienced. Over the succeeding months, the commission also distributed fliers, set up a hotline and knocked on doors to speak with hundreds of people.