Two weeks ago, Baltimore police arrested 7-year-old Gerard Mungo for the crime of sitting on a dirt bike. The engine wasn’t running. He was handcuffed, arrested, and booked at the police station. The incident sparked national media attention, and Mungo received support from no less than Baltimore’s mayor, Sheila Dixon. The boy’s mother, Lakisa Dinkins, was irate. She spent the next week criticizing Baltimore police and prosecutors, with some help from the NAACP.

On Saturday, Lisa Dinkins was arrested during a drug bust on her sister’s home. Police claim they were chasing an 18-year-old nephew, whom they suspected of drug activity. They say he ran into the home, that they followed him, and that they then arrested Dinkins when she refused to cooperate with the officers inside.

Dinkins says the police were retaliating against her for the fuss she raised over the arrest of her son. She makes a pretty good case. There were no drugs in the home. Nor where there any drugs on Dinkins’ nephew. Of the eleven people in the home, only Dinkins was arrested. She was later released without charge. Dinkins’ sister claims that she was the one who was argumentative, not Dinkins. And with good reason:

“I was irate because they charged into my home without a warrant. When I told them I was going to call the supervisor, they got angry,” she said. “I was the one yelling at them because they came in my house and broke down my door.”

The police also neglected to mention in their initial report they they had broken down the family’s door. They later amended the report, after Dinkins and her sister went to the press.

All links courtesy of the Baltimore Crime Blog.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 at 11:08 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Militarization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.