An unredacted copy of a report investigating racism in the Prince George’s County Police Department was released this week, shedding public light on allegations of discrimination and retaliation in the department.

The report is part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by current and former police officers against the department. It was produced by Michael Graham, a policing expert and former assistant sheriff with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department who was retained by the officers.

Then Prince George’s County Police Chief Hank Stawinski resigned after 94 pages of the report were released in June, but they contained only a few unredacted details. The full 265-page report was released this week following a district court judge’s order.

Graham found that the department’s policies for handling racial and discriminatory harassment complaints are “inadequate” and county police leadership failed to discipline officers for racial profiling. It also detailed inequities between officers of color and their white counterparts in disciplinary actions.

A spokesperson for the Prince George’s County Police Report did not immediately respond to DCist/WAMU’s request for comment.

Rhonda Weaver, the county’s attorney, called the lawsuit “without merit” in an emailed statement to DCist on Tuesday, adding that the “county will continue to vigorously defend” itself.

Graham’s report alleges that several command officers — including majors, captains, and lieutenants — made racist and discriminatory statements both in person and online. He also found that officers with a series of complaints weren’t seriously disciplined.

In one instance, a corporal identified as S-1 received at least eight complaints from Black male civilians that the officer inappropriately touched their genitalia during traffic stops. These complaints were referred to his commanding officers, Major Kathleen Mills and Lieutenant Scott Finn, but the report states that “none of these matters was sustained, and [the Corporal] was not disciplined in any way.”

Complaints from multiple county and state officials, including allegations of racist comments by white officers, also went uninvestigated by the department, according to Graham.

Based on department data, 19 officers are responsible for 685 use-of-force complaints – 10% of the total 6,800 incidents found between 2016 and 2019 — according to the report. The officer with the most use-of-force complaints, according to the report, had a total of 48 complaints: 46 from Black civilians, and one each from a white and Hispanic civilian.

However, Graham alleges that it’s unclear the exact number of administrative charges because Major Mills worked with the local Fraternal Order of Police to expunge officers’ disciplinary records in 2017. Graham wrote in the report that Mills’s actions were inconsistent with department policy to investigate charges in a “fair and impartial manner.”

The county has also commissioned its own independent expert report which refutes many of Graham’s findings.

Thomas Manger, a former police chief in Montgomery and Fairfax counties, said he found “no deficiencies” in the department’s harassment and discrimination policies. He alleged that Graham failed to take into consideration the wide array of the department’s policies and procedures “which severely undermined his conclusions that the Department’s policies for handling complaints about racial harassment and discrimination are inadequate.”

Manger’s report, which was filed with the court in October, also alleges that Graham misrepresented the number of use of force incidents and finds that the officers who filed the lawsuit weren’t discriminated against when they were transferred or failed to receive promotions.

On Wednesday, the officers who filed the lawsuit outlined five demands they’re making of the department, which include removing the recently installed Acting Police Chief Hector Velez.

They also seek to empower the Prince George’s County Citizen Complaint Oversight Panel to impose discipline and allow officers to be nominated through a community-based process, terminate and prosecute officers that have committed perjury or have a record of abuse against Black and Brown officers, and make administrative trial board hearings available for public viewing online.

“I want the public to understand that these officers [that filed the lawsuit] in the Graham report had a lot to lose to speak out about the abuse they were experiencing,” said Nikki Owens, whose cousin was shot and killed by a police officer while handcuffed in the front passenger seat of a police cruiser in January 2020, at a press conference on Tuesday. “That took a lot for them to go against the grain…and no one listened to them.”

The lawsuit is still in discovery and the judge will determine whether or not it goes to trial. Meanwhile, both county and state lawmakers are working on a series of police reform measures.