It's not every day you get an honest first-person perspective about the kind of corruption that goes on behind the scenes in police departments nationwide. The blue wall of silence is a notorious institution in the United States.
However, on Wednesday on Twitter, one former Baltimore police officer cracked the seal of that code, opening up about some of the things he's "seen and participated in," while promising more to come in the days to follow.
In a series of tweets, Michael A. Wood Jr. tells of a detective "slapping a completely innocent female in the face for bumping into him," and how officers randomly "jacked up" and illegally searched thousands of people with no legal justification.
Here are some of the tweets that can be found on Wood's timeline:
https://twitter.com/MichaelAWoodJr/status/613723501116190720https://twitter.com/MichaelAWoodJr/status/613724032157003777https://twitter.com/MichaelAWoodJr/status/613726152310435840https://twitter.com/MichaelAWoodJr/status/613755422156136448
Wood said that this was not the first time he's spoken out about the corruption in the force. He did an interview last month on the podcast Dogma Debate and spoke about police misconduct. He's also tweeted about the issue in the past, he said.
After a handful of tweets, Wood promised to tweet more later in order to give time for "questions, reflections and improvement." He stated that "the light of transparency will clean us up."