Baltimore police seem to ignore injuries suffered by detainees by the hundreds.
That's according to a review of records by The Baltimore Sun.
According to a report published by the paper this weekend, from June 2012 through April 2015, the Baltimore City Detention Center refused 2,600 detainees brought in by police because they were injured.
"In those records, intake officers in Central Booking noted a wide variety of injuries, including fractured bones, facial trauma and hypertension. Of the detainees denied entry, 123 had visible head injuries, the third most common medical problem cited by jail officials, records show," the paper reports.
We'll let you click over to the full story, because it's worth a read. But here's a bit of the analysis about what all this might mean:
"Some critics say the data from the state-run jail show that city officers don't care about the condition of detainees.
"'It goes to demonstrate the callous indifference the officers show when they are involved with the public,' said attorney A. Dwight Pettit, who has sued dozens of city officers in the past 40 years. 'Why would they render medical care when they rendered many of the injuries on the people?'
"Criminologists and law enforcement experts say Gray's death shows that police lack adequate training to detect injuries. Many suspects fake injuries in an effort to avoid a jail cell, they add."
The Sun alsoconducted a review of the vans used to transport detainees to jails. It found that most of them were not equipped with seat belts.
Remember, authorities say Freddie Gray, the detainee who suffered a fatal spine injury in police custody, was never strapped into the transport van.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
