Federal agents sent to Baltimore to bolster local police - World Socialist Web Site

12.8.15

Federal agents sent to Baltimore to bolster local police - World Socialist Web Site: Together with 20 agents from the ATF already in Baltimore, they will form the newly created B-FED Task Force, whose mission, according to BPD, will be to develop “creative approaches to building cases” against murder suspects. “If we can’t bring state charges against a particular suspect for whatever reason, then there may be an opportunity to look at what that criminal is doing otherwise in his life that would warrant a federal charge,” interim police commissioner Kevin Davis told a press conference on Monday in front of BPD Headquarters.

The move is unusual because it is the reverse of normal collaboration between federal and local police, in which the latter cooperate with federal investigations carried out by the former. A press release by BPD headquarters expressed its hope that “this unique approach to homicide investigations will become a permanent fixture of local law enforcement.”