By Jamie Stockwell, The Washington Post
The Prince George’s County Police Department has complied with less than one-third of the 67 requirements outlined in a federal agreement it signed almost a year ago, according to a progress report issued this week.
In its second evaluation of the department’s compliance with the agreement, an independent monitoring team found that while the department is working on 31 other requirements, 25 others have not yet been addressed. They include a request by the agreement to develop drafts of how police plan to deal with such issues as excessive force, training and officer accountability.
The evaluation says that although the 1,200-member department has “adopted some positive measures,” it has failed to resolve some concerns that the independent monitoring team noted in its first evaluation, including the need for a better way to track use-of-force reports.
Barbara Hamm, spokeswoman for Prince George’s County Police Chief Melvin C. High, said the police department intends to fulfill the monitoring team’s requirements.
“Each [evaluation] shows us the progress we’ve made, but it also shows us the areas that we need to focus on,” Hamm said, adding that when complete, the requirements “will make for a better and stronger police force.”
The evaluation, which was made public Monday, provided a second a look at the pace at which the county police department is working on the 67 requirements mandated by the federal agreement. The agreement came after a top-to-bottom probe of the department following allegations of excessive use of force by officers and alleged civil rights violations.
Compliance with the agreement over the next few years is to be monitored by U.S. Justice Department officials and the eight-member-independent monitoring team.
The team is responsible for issuing progress reports every three months.
The report also found that the department has continued to work on putting in place an early-warning system to flag potentially abusive officers.
Hamm said representatives from the police department traveled this fall to Cincinnati -- a city that also was investigated by the Justice Department after allegations of civil rights violations surfaced -- to learn about its early identification system. The early warning system used by the Cincinnati Police Department, which is no longer under investigation, has been touted as one that meets federal requirements.
The Justice Department probe of the Prince George’s Police Department, which also included an inquiry into its canine unit, was conducted under a 1994 law that allows the federal government to investigate any local police force suspected of a “pattern or practice” of excessive force or other misconduct.
The probe of the canine unit, which began in 1999, also concluded with an agreement that was signed by county and Justice officials. That agreement calls for better training of canine officers and limiting situations in which police dogs can be deployed.