BALTIMORE - Baltimore City's mayor
wants to make it easier to punish police officers who break the law.
She is calling on the General
Assembly to change the law, to allow the police commissioner to suspend --
without pay -- an officer charged with a misdemeanor that could lead to more than
a year in jail, that happened while the officer is on duty.
Police officers can face
serious criminal charges; in September, police say Ofc. Gualberto Diaz broke
into the apartment where his estranged wife was asleep with another man.
Investigators say Diaz
threatened them both with his service weapon, then went back to work at the
Northwestern District and asked for the rest of the day off.
Diaz was suspended without pay
-- and is scheduled to go on trial this month on felony charges including
first-degree assault and using a weapon during a violent crime.
But in June of last year, Ofc.
Vincent Cosom was caught a police city-watch camera punching 32-year-old Kollin
Truss, while another officer holds Truss's arm.
Cosom is charged with a
second-degree assault -- a misdemeanor, so he has been suspended with pay.
“What we've seen around the country
is while there is a tremendous amount of respect for the men and women of
police departments around the country, there is a growing frustration and
intolerance to the good cops putting up with the people they know shouldn't be
on the street,” said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, during a news conference
Monday afternoon.
The idea is likely to face
opposition in Annapolis. The mayor said
she is going by what she heard from city residents during community meetings,
and she has spoken with the police union about her plan.
“What I have said to them, the
officers, is that the status quo is not acceptable,” she said.
The head of Baltimore City FOP
Lodge #3 has not responded to calls from ABC2 News directly, but the union's
Twitter account indicated that the union would not comment until its officers
have read the actual wording of the mayor's proposal.
