Somewhere along the line we will probably hear that they were ordered at some time to stop belting people in
Actually, this incident Is the first time I heard of a ‘paddy wagon’ having seatbelts.
None of them I have been in ever had any.
IIRC, the seat belts are a ‘new’ feature and available only on the latest vehicles(paddy wagons). That is to say, not all the paddy wagons in Baltimore have seat belts.
The same is probably true of most cities in the US.
“It is police policy that all arrestees must be buckled in during transport. The policy, updated just nine days before Freddie Gray was injured, states “all passengers, regardless of age and location, shall be restrained by seat belts or other authorized restraining devices.””