IT WILL TAKE more than a little show-and-tell to erase the lingering vestiges of at least 50 years of police misconduct in Prince George's County. Yet fresh, promising scrutiny is on the way. After two lengthy federal investigations of the Police Department's use of officers and dogs, the Justice Department announced that the county has agreed to make many changes and submit to close, continuing monitoring. The moves ought to come as relief for the county's residents as well as the majority of caring, hard-working officers on the force.
The changes that the department has agreed to are not novel; they have been talked about or tried over the years but somehow neither sufficiently nor openly enforced: a more detailed policy on use of force, a permanent panel to review all police shootings, improved handling of civilian complaints, restrictions on the use of pepper spray and changes in the training and use of police dogs. In addition, a computer database to store information about all facets of officers' performances will be established.
Though the agreements contain no acknowledgement by the county of wrongdoing, the consent decree on the canine unit states that federal investigators found "a pattern and practice" of misconduct by officers in the unit. A probe of the unit led to the 2001 conviction of a former canine unit officer who was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for loosing a police dog on an unarmed homeless man.
Police Chief Melvin C. High, who took office in May, said some reforms in the agreements have been adopted already, including a computer system to identify problem officers and the installation of video cameras in patrol cars and interrogation rooms. How these and other measures yet to come are put into practice must be open to public as well as federal scrutiny.
That has been a big part of the trouble all along: Past officials have said they were on top of things, but they either did not have or refused to open up records to prove it. It took a 15-month investigation by The Post to find out that county police officers shot and killed more people per officer from 1990 to 2000 than the 50 largest city and county forces in the nation. Another Post series described coercive interrogation-room tactics that produced false confessions to murder. Reporters also turned up internal police records revealing that dogs handled by eight officers had bitten 60 civilians in an 11-month period in 1998.
Then and now, many officers involved in such incidents have remained on the force, cleared by internal reviews. In the last three years, the department has paid nearly $10 million in damages and jury awards to settle misconduct lawsuits. For now, at least, federal pressure is on for evidence of progress and regular reports from the county. Efforts to build trust in the police department can succeed only if the chief and County Executive Jack B. Johnson stay on the case.
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