BALTIMORE _ Six years after Baltimore established a review team to oversee sexual assault investigation reforms, the Justice Department found evidence of continuing bias and failure to properly look into cases.
Department of Justice investigators found that Baltimore police "persistently neglect" to test rape kits or gather forensic evidence, and were quick to disregard claims from sex workers or follow up on indications of serial suspects. In general, detectives made "minimal to no effort" to locate, interrogate or investigate suspects.
"We found this to be true even in cases where the suspects had been identified or were easily identifiable on the basis of the victim's testimony," the report says.
In one case, a woman said she was intoxicated when a taxi driver took her to his home and raped her. The taxi driver admitted taking the woman to his home, and a rape kit tested positive for semen. But police made no attempt to get a DNA sample from the driver, the report said.
Investigators said they were told by advocates and victims of a dismissive attitude, and found an email exchange between a city prosecutor and a detective saying a victim "seems like a conniving little whore."
"I feel the same," the detective responded.
In 2010, The Baltimore Sun reported that city police were discarding rape complaints at the highest rate in the nation and five times the national average. The city responded by creating a Sexual Assault Response Team, comprised of victim advocates, police and prosecutors to oversee how cases were being investigated and classified. The rate of cases classified as "unfounded" plummetted in the years that followed.
But the DOJ expressed concern that the lower rate masks a continuing problem, saying they believe the unit may be simply letting cases linger as "open" rather than marking them "unfounded," and creating an illusion that they are not continuing to disregard cases it believes are without merit.
"BPD's failure to remedy its procedures for collecting and reviewing data about sexual assault represents a signficant weakeness in the department's handling of sexual assault," the report said.
