Photo: Baltimore Militarization. Patrick Semansky/AP
A former Baltimore police sergeant took to Twitter Wednesday to air a stunning list of acts he said he participated in and witnessed during his 11 years on the city’s force.
Michael Wood gave a no-holds barred look at his career in a previous radio interview, but his tweets gained traction for their brazen admissions that officers lied to get overtime, illegally searched “thousands of people” and committed gross acts during raids, like urinating and defecating on suspects’ beds.
A spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department confirmed that Wood left the force in 2014. In subsequent tweets, Wood promised to reveal more and expressed surprise at the attention paid to his commentary.
After Freddie Gray died in April from a spinal cord injury he sustained while in police custody, thousands in Baltimore protested against police brutality. Wood told theSecular News Network in May that the “BPD started the riots.”
In that interview, Wood, who is white, said that Gray’s death clearly showed that officers treat black and white people differently.
“The officers don’t see it as being so egregious, because people like Freddie Gray are so ingrained as ‘thems,'” he said. Officers said they arrested Gray for carrying a switchblade, but the city’s chief prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, ruled it was a legal knife.
“Even if the police feel as though they did nothing wrong. How many residents were arrested in the white neighborhoods with spring-assisted pocket knives?” Wood said to SNN. “I have a suspicion that the number is right around zero.”
Wood did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The police spokesman did not respond to questions about Wood’s allegations.