A Baltimore police officer now waits on a judge's verdict for attempted murder — his crime was chasing a man with an open warrant — while ordinary citizens in the region keep dying from the kind of violence those officers are supposed to stop.
Officer Robert Parks, a five-year BPD veteran, was hit with second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, and multiple misconduct charges after a bystander's cell phone video went viral last fall. The video showed Parks driving his patrol car onto a sidewalk and across a grassy field in pursuit of a suspect before crashing into a fence. The man he was chasing had an open warrant, according to investigators. Parks was trying to take him into custody. For that, State's Attorney Ivan Bates took him to a grand jury, and Parks has been suspended without pay since October.
Baltimore News reported that Parks' personnel file includes nearly a dozen complaints or infractions over five years, with about three sustained — mostly related to his body-worn camera. That's a personnel matter. Instead, Bates escalated a pursuit incident into an attempted murder prosecution.
Meanwhile, the violence doesn't pause for show trials. The same week the verdict loomed in Baltimore, Norfolk police reported that 22-year-old Romeo C. Bates Johnson died after a shooting on West Liberty Street, near the Berkley Community Center, according to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. Officers responded around 10 p.m. to a gunshot wound call; Johnson arrived at Sentara Leigh Hospital with life-threatening injuries and didn't survive.
That's the trade the public is forced to make. A cop who chased a wanted man faces the possibility of decades in prison. A 22-year-old is dead in the street. The prosecutor who brought the case against Parks, Ivan Bates, campaigned as a reformer — the kind of progressive prosecutor who turns police into targets and wonders why the criminals grow bold. Baltimore has been awash in violent crime for years, and the solution from City Hall and the State's Attorney's office always seems to be more accountability for cops, less for the repeat offenders terrorizing neighborhoods.
Because Parks opted for a bench trial, a judge — not a jury — will decide his fate. The verdict was reached Thursday afternoon, according to Baltimore News, though the specific finding had not been publicly released at time of reporting.
The question isn't whether Officer Parks drove recklessly. It's whether a system that throws the book at a cop for pursuing a wanted man — while bodies pile up in neighboring cities — is serving the public or serving a narrative.
