Baltimore Police have long used department vehicles to inflict serious injuries on suspects, a recently filed lawsuit alleges. The suit attributes the “pattern and practice” to “a lack of supervision, oversight and the tacit condonation of the use of excessive force by the BPD and its supervising officers.”

The allegation is included in an excessive force complaint filed by Devonte Jett, a Baltimore man who was fleeing from officers responding to a reported carjacking in June 2021 when he was run over by a Baltimore Police officer driving a Ford Explorer SUV.

Video of the incident captured by a police helicopter shows Jett, then 16, running through an open grassy area in the Harlem Park neighborhood from an officer on foot who is pointing his weapon at him.

As Jett runs, another Baltimore Police officer, whom the lawsuit identifies as Steven Reed, drives his SUV directly at the suspect and runs him over, knocking him unconscious and causing a “likely” concussion as well as injuries to his lungs and pelvis, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court on Monday.

In response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for the city’s law office said it would “reserve comment for the appropriate judicial forum.” Baltimore Police spokesperson Lindsey Eldridge said an internal investigation into Reed had “concluded,” but she did not immediately specify the result. Reed, who is still a member of the department, is now assigned to juvenile bookings, Eldridge said.

The lawsuit says Reed “either maliciously, intentionally grossly negligently or negligently accelerated and steered the SUV directly toward Mr. Jett, running him over from behind.” It adds that Jett was running in a straight line and “at no point turned toward the SUV or otherwise caused contact with the SUV to occur — it was all Defendant Reed’s doing."

“Mr. Jett described his head as feeling like it was ‘swimming’ once he regained consciousness at Shock Trauma,” the lawsuit says. “For several months after the incident, Mr. Jett experienced severe pain in his lower extremities and had to attend physical therapy, and he continues to experience lasting mental and emotional distress.”

To support the claim that what happened to Jett was part of a larger pattern of Baltimore Police officers using their vehicles to inflict excessive force, attorneys representing Jett cited a litany of examples dating back many years, drawing from a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the Police Department.

The attorneys also pointed to a recent incident that went viral in October thanks to footage that shows Officer Robert A. Parks driving his vehicle at a young man and nearly striking him with it. That incident prompted city prosecutors to file attempted murder charges against Parks the following month.

Zeroing in on the department’s investigation into the use of force against Jett, the lawsuit details and contests written reports by responding officers.

Though officers reported after the incident that Jett had reached into his waistband and had an airsoft BB gun tucked in his pants near his ankle, attorneys wrote that both of those claims are debunked by the aerial video footage.

The lawsuit also cites a police report that describes Jett as running “on foot until he ran into a marked patrol vehicle.”

But the lawsuit says the video “clearly and undoubtedly shows Defendant Reed increases the speed of his vehicle as he aims the front bumper directly towards Mr. Jett and does not attempt to slow or stop until after running over Mr. Jett with his vehicle.”

Kristen Mack, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit, described the video as “horrific” and said Jett is “lucky to be alive.”

“Nearly five years later, and we have not been provided with anything or seen anything in the media that leads us to believe that the officer ever faced any consequences for using his vehicle as a weapon against a child,” Mack said in a text message.