Baltimore's police brutality nightmare: Former officer tweets examples of corruption & misconduct he sawEnlarge

Police Baltimore’s police brutality nightmare: Former officer tweets examples of corruption & misconduct he saw

Ex-officer Michael A. Wood tells of horrifying mistreatment of suspects — and promises more exposés to come

  http://www.salon.com/2015/06/24/baltimores_police_brutality_nightmare_former_officer_tweets_examples_of_corruption_misconduct_he_saw/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Police

in riot gear

push back on media and a crowd gathering in the street after a 10 p.m. curfew went into effect Thursday in Baltimore. (Credit: AP Photo/David Goldman)

Twitter has served as mobilizing tool for marginalized activists who have used the social media platform to amplify isolated stories of police brutality until a clear narrative of systemic injustice has become undeniable (the #blacklivesmatter movement certainly was most helpful).

Now, one former police officer has taken to Twitter to tell his side of the story.

Michael A. Wood is a retired detective in the Baltimore Police Department’s violent crime division and founder of the Police Leadership Association, a group that publishes educational handbooks meant to serve as the “single resource for career development for law enforcement officers and supervisors.” He began tweeting Wednesday about things he had “seen & participated in, in policing that is corrupt, intentional or not.”

Wood previously alluded to much of the misconduct he claims to have witnessed during a May 2015 interview on the podcast Dogma Debate with David Smalley. During that interview, Wood called for an end to the war on drugs and cited a lack of empathy as one of the main drivers of police misconduct.

This morning, Wood took to Twitter to lay out some examples of the police corruption he witnessed in Baltimore: …

Michael A. Wood Jr.@MichaelAWoodJr Jun 24

So here we go. I’m going to start Tweeting the things I’ve seen & participated in, in policing that is corrupt, intentional or not.

5:00 PM – 24 Jun 2015