More join suit over false arrests

BALTIMORE, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- Nine people who were arrested and released without charge have joined a lawsuit against the Baltimore Police Department.

The federal lawsuit was filed in July 2006 by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The new plaintiffs are a cross-section of society, from an 18-year-old Baltimore resident to a visiting graduate student from Texas, and bring the total number of plaintiffs to 14, The Baltimore Sun reports.

David Rocah of the ACLU said the percentage of those arrested and released without charge has dropped from 25 percent to 20 percent since 2005. In 2005, police made 76,500 arrests in a city of just over 600,000 people.

"In every other city, this happening to one-fifth of the people arrested would be a scandal," he said. "Only in Baltimore is it considered a good thing."