Lawyer with alleged 'neo-Nazi ties' is defending Baltimore police department

One of the lawyers defending the Baltimore police department against claims of racial discrimination has ties to a neo-Nazi group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Centre.

Glen Keith Allen, 65, is a reported donor to extreme right-wing party National Alliance, as shown by public documents.

He is now defending the Baltimore City Law Department in a lawsuit which alleges that police officers “withheld and fabricated evidence” to wrongfully arrest African-American man, Sabein Burgess, who spent 19 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit.

The news of Mr Allen’s alleged background comes as Baltimore is grappling with the results of a Justice Department report, which shows that black residents have been routinely discriminated against for years.

“Our investigation found that Baltimore is a city where the bonds of trust have been broken, and that the Baltimore Police Department engaged in a pattern or practise of unlawful and unconstitutional conduct, ranging from the use of excessive force to unjustified stops, seizures and arrests,” said Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Mr Burgess was freed from prison in 2014 and his conviction was dropped, but Mr Allen denied that he was innocent, as found the SPLC.

His case is just one of three that alleges wrongful incarceration before the courts in Baltimore.

Records obtained by the SPLC show that Mr Allen paid membership fees to the National Alliance for years, and was a subscribed to its publications.

He also allegedly bought a ticket and DVD relating to a Holocaust denial conference, receipts show.

Mr Allen’s employer, the Baltimore’s Litigation and Claims Practice Group, could not be immediately reached for comment.

“The Group also asserts and aggressively attempts to preserve the damage limits established by the State,” read the Law Department’s annual report.

Mr Allen could also not be reached at the time of writing.

According to public records, Mr Allen donated to the American Eagle Party, run by a man called Merlin Miller who claimed during an interview that the Israeli intelligence service was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Out of the 109 people who were killed in Maryland, Baltimore, between 2010 and 2014, only two officers were charged, and one was acquitted by a jury, found the American Civil Liberties Union.

In the city where Freddie Gray was killed, the Justice Department report showed that black people accounted for 95 per cent of those individuals who were stopped by police more than ten times over the last five and a half years, and in a city where blacks make up just 63 per cent of the overall population.

In another headache to the Law Department, a complaint has been filed this week by various human rights groups that alleges the Baltimore police’s unlicensed use of a mobile phone surveillance tool called “Stingray” was a violation of civil rights. The tool, they say, allows police to track communication between residents without their knowing.