When Jennifer Bartley stopped her car next to the Pratt Street pavilion in the spring of 2014, what she saw stunned her.
On the sidewalk of Baltimore’s premier tourist spot 25-year-old Calvin Wilkes was bleeding from the mouth as a police officer pinned him to the ground.
“There was no way to describe this other than a brutal attack,” Bartley told the AFRO.
Wilkes had been thrown to the pavement after a friend got into a verbal dispute with an employee of a nearby business. But the violence of the arrest so troubled the resident of the Ritz Carlton, one of the city’s toniest addresses, that she filed a complaint with the Baltimore Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division.
“I also know without any doubt that Calvin and his friends did not deserve to be arrested that day, not to mention beat up,” she added.
Internal affairs investigators concluded the officers on the scene did nothing wrong. A finding which prompted the pair to turn to the newly constituted Civilian Review Board. And there, the outcome was different.
“I was happy, it was a relief they took my case seriously,” Wilkes said after the board released its findings that two officers involved in his arrest used excessive force. Wilkes was charged with several crimes connected to the arrest and found not guilty on all of the charges except the least serious charge of, “failure to obey a lawful order.”
“It gave me some sense of justice which I did not have before.”
But what happens next, and what effect if any the independent body has on Wilke’s case and policing in the city in general is a question both say concerns them.
For the full story visit: http://afro.com/inner-harbor-arrest-still-haunts-baltimore-resident/