Lessons Learned from the 2015 Civil Unrest in Baltimore. September 2015 Police Executive Research Forum.
“The Baltimore Police Department contracted with the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) to conduct this study and produce this report. PERF is a Washington, DC-based research organization that specializes in identifying best practices and policies in the field of policing. This report provides a review of the police response to the civil unrest that took place in Baltimore from April 25 through May 3, 2015. It is based on reports from the Baltimore Police Department (BPD), interviews with key individuals from BPD and other agencies involved in the response, and a day-long debriefing session held on July 8, 2015 that included the entire BPD command staff and representatives of outside agencies. The goal of this report is to identify problems and issues that BPD faced during the demonstrations and riots in April-May,and to make recommendations for how the department can be better prepared for major incidents in the future. The scope of this review did not allow for a moment-by-moment assessment of every action taken throughout the period of civil unrest. The report does address major shortcomings in BPD’s response and provides guidance on how to resolve the issues that led to those weaknesses. It also highlights actions that went well and promising practices that BPD can build upon. While this report is focused on the events in Baltimore, it also has national implications, to the extent that other police agencies across the country would be well-advised to check that they have kept up with training their officers and otherwise preparing for large – scale critical incidents, such as demonstrations that turn violent. Many police agencies routinely conduct tabletop exercises and training to ensure that their response to a crisis will be systematic and orderly. However, most cities have not experienced large-scale riots for many years or even decades, so there may be a tendency to let more immediate concerns, such as increasing violent crime rates, take priority over planning for the types of incidents that occur rarely and without warning. The Baltimore Police Department’s experience demonstrates that agencies must be prepared for all types of incidents..”