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Baltimore’s top law enforcement and political leaders on Wednesday vowed a sweeping overhaul of the city Police Department after a searing rebuke of the agency’s practices, which the Justice Department said regularly discriminated against black residents in poor communities. Officials promised improved community relations, a purge of race-based policing and a modernized department that better trains officers and holds them accountable. But they warned that reforming an agency entrenched in a culture of unconstitutional policing would be a slow process and could cost millions of dollars. “Police reform won’t happen overnight or by chance,” Vanita Gupta, principal deputy assistant attorney...

A US justice department report has accused police in the city of Baltimore of routinely discriminating against black people and using excessive force. An inquiry was ordered after a young black man, Freddie Gray, died in police custody in April of last year, sparking Baltimore's worst riots for decades. The report found African-Americans had been disproportionately targeted. Unjustified strip searches were conducted while in one arrest, a black man's weapon was listed as "his mouth". In recent years, the justice department has conducted similar investigations into the police in Chicago, Cleveland, Albuquerque and Ferguson, Missouri. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake responded...

Baltimore police officers routinely discriminate against blacks, repeatedly use excessive force and are not adequately held accountable for misconduct, according to a harshly critical Justice Department report being presented Wednesday. The report, the culmination of a yearlong investigation into one of the country’s largest police forces, also found that officers make large numbers of stops — mostly in poor, black neighborhoods — with dubious justification and unlawfully arrest citizens for speech deemed disrespectful. Physical force is used unnecessarily, including against the mentally disabled, and black pedestrians and drivers are disproportionately searched during stops, the report says. The Justice Department released...

Lawsuits filed by Baltimore police officers against Baltimore State Attorney Marilyn Mosby must be dismissed, according to the law. The United States Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors acting within the scope of their duties in pursuing criminal prosecution are immune from civil suits.The role of a prosecutor in a criminal case is to seek justice and represent the People of a given jurisdiction against a person charged with committing a criminal offense. This is exactly what Marilyn Mosby did when the officers involved in Freddie Gray’s death, which the medical examiner ruled a homicide, were indicted by a grand jury....

Authorities say a Thurmont, Maryland, man has been charged in a pipe bomb explosion that damaged a local police department vehicle. Officials said Saturday that 22-year-old Kyle Rutger Mueller is charged with four counts of possession of a destructive device, two counts of malicious destruction of property and one count of reckless endangerment. Officials say the pipe bomb with black powder residue and nails exploded about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, damaging a marked police SUV parked in front of an officer's home on Clark Avenue. No one was hurt. Police told News4 a Burger King receipt left in a bag of...

Helen Delich Bentley, the colorful and cantankerous former Maryland congresswoman whose fierce advocacy for the port of Baltimore led to its being named in her honor, died Saturday. Mrs. Bentley, who was 92, died at her home in Timonium, said longtime aide Key Kidder. She had brain cancer. She had a long and varied career that took her from The Baltimore Sun newsroom to the Federal Maritime Commission to the U.S. House of Representatives. She ran for governor in 1994 but lost in the Republican primary. "Congresswoman Bentley worked with tenacity, energy, and passion on behalf of her constituents, making...

The 5-year-old boy who was wounded during the Randallstown shootout Monday was accidentally shot by a Baltimore County Police officer, the department said Friday.

In a wide-ranging interview on the racial climate in America, Baltimore Ravens tight end Benjamin Watson brought up Planned Parenthood’s unscrupulous founding, saying the organization was created to “exterminate blacks.” Mr. Watson said black support for Planned Parenthood is “ironic,” given that the organization was founded by eugenicist Margaret Sanger in order to control “unfit” populations.

The mayor of Fairfax City has been arrested and charged in connection with what authorities say was a methamphetamine-for-sex scheme. Richard “Scott” Silverthorne, 50, was arrested as part of an undercover operation by police, authorities announced Friday. The scheme involved offers of meth in exchange for group sexual encounters with men, police allege.

THURMONT, Md. — A rural Maryland neighborhood was rattled early Wednesday morning when a pipe bomb placed on top of a police SUV exploded. A veteran Thurmont police officer had gotten home after midnight when the bomb went off outside his house just minutes later. The blast damaged the hood and windshield, and a side window of the marked town police vehicle. No one was hurt by the explosion. “If you attack my officers or anybody in this town, I take it personally,” Thurmont Police Chief Gregory Eyler told WTOP. The department, along with regional and federal partners, is analyzing...

Someone placed a pipe bomb on the hood of a police cruiser in a Thurmont neighborhood. The bomb exploded just 20 minutes or so after the officer parked it in front of his home and went inside. Police say the blast shook the entire neighborhood shortly after midnight

A Metro Transit police officer has been arrested and charged with attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State, marking the first time a U.S. law enforcement officer has been accused of trying to aid the terrorist group. Nicholas Young, 36, of Fairfax, Va., was arrested Wednesday morning at Metropolitan Police Headquarters in Washington and his employment was terminated. Young, at the request of an undercover federal agent, sent codes for mobile messaging cards that Young believed would be used by Islamic State fighters overseas to communicate, according to an indictment filed in federal court in Alexandria, Va.

CNN)A flash flood emergency has been issued for portions of the Baltimore, Maryland, area, with the National Weather Service citing "severe" flooding and warning people to get to higher ground. "Move to higher ground now. This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation," the weather service said in a warning issued at 10:40 p.m ET. "Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order."

Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby has dropped all charges against the remaining police officers (video below). All charges were dropped against all the officers who faced trial in connection with the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray April 2015. The decision was announced during pretrial motions for Officer Garrett Miller, who was the next to face charges of second-degree assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment.

The clock is counting down toward an important decision for Maryland’s economic future, namely whether to allow hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, to drill for natural gas in the state. Over a year ago, legislation that blocked fracking for another two years became law without Gov. Larry Hogan’s signature. That law barred the state from issuing drilling permits until October 2017 and required the Department of the Environment to adopt new regulations by October 2016. The passage of this law effectively delayed any decision on fracking until next year. To recap: the Marcellus Shale is a geological formation found...

(CNN) —Shortly after being elected nearly two years ago, Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby said prosecutors in her troubled city had the "toughest job in America."

Washington’s main railway terminal, Union Station, was evacuated on Wednesday because of a bomb threat, a police officer told Reuters. “We got a bomb threat,” the officer, who did not give his name, said as he urged people to leave Union Station in downtown Washington near the U.S. Capitol Building. …

Marilyn Mosby’s cases against six Baltimore police officers in the death of Freddie Gray has been by all accounts an utter failure, but the state’s attorney was nevertheless defiant on Wednesday when she announced her office is dropping charges against the three officers who still faced trial. The 36-year-old Mosby, who became a media darling last year when she announced charges against the officers for the arrest and death of Gray, complained during a press conference that the deck was stacked against her and her team of prosecutors. “While to this day we stand by the decisions, the legal theories,...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had a critical suggestion for State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby on Wednesday: "I think she ought to prosecute herself." Trump was speaking at a press conference in Florida at the same moment Mosby appeared in West Baltimore to explain her decision to drop three remaining cases against police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray. "I think it was disgraceful what she did and the way she did it, and the news conference that she had where they were guilty before anybody knew the facts," Trump said. In May 2015, Mosby charged six officers involved...

(CNN)Shortly after being elected last year, Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby said prosecutors like her in the troubled city had the "toughest job in America." It's not getting any easier. After three Baltimore police officers were acquitted in recent months of charges related to last year's high-profile death of Freddie Gray, prosecutors announced Wednesday they were dropping all charges against the three remaining officers facing trial in connection with Gray's death. The news was a defeat for Mosby, who had announced the charges against the six officers in May 2015 -- four months after she took the job as the...