Nearly two years after the in-custody death of Anton Black, a black Eastern Shore teen, family members and advocates are pushing lawmakers on a newly formed police accountability work group for comprehensive police reform legislation.
“What occurred to my brother can easily happen to anyone else’s child,” Black’s sister La Toya Holley said on an Aug. 6 Zoom workgroup meeting call. “The entire incident was escalated and ultimately my brother lost his life in front of my mother. It took four months to find out how my brother died.”
The workgroup to Address Police Reform and Accountability in Maryland formed in late May under the leadership of Democratic lawmaker Adrienne Jones (Baltimore County), Maryland’s first black and first female Speaker of the House of Delegates. Jones created the work group on the heels of George Floyd’s death, a Minnesota resident who died during a police stop for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin wedged his knee in Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes, until the black father of one took his last breath.
Black, 19, died Sept. 15, 2018 in the small, rural town of Greensboro, Md., on a wooden ramp leading to his mother’s front door. The teen went into cardiac arrest after being placed in handcuffs and ankle shackles by three white police officers and a white civilian who helped hold him down.
A 911 caller reported an older teen, Black, forcefully dragging a younger boy down the road. It turned out the two boys were related by marriage.
At the initial police stop, after a brief conversation with former Greensboro Police Officer Thomas Webster – an expelled cop from a neighboring jurisdiction on probation in Greensboro – Black took off in a slow jog when Webster instructed Black to put his hands behind his back.
Black, who at the time was believed to be experiencing a mental health episode, repeatedly told Webster he loved him. Moments earlier the boy told Webster Black was schizophrenic.
Only part of the initial scene was recorded on Webster’s body camera. A former Greensboro police official said there was a recording delay with Webster’s camera after he turned it on when it was booting up.
Holley is pushing for policing reforms through Anton’s Law, a bill named after her brother.
“The entire incident was escalated and ultimately he lost his life in front of my mother,” Holly said during her testimony. “We don’t want other families to go through what we went through.”
The bill, Law Enforcement – Complaints and Investigations and Use of Force, calls for updated use-of-force policies that focuses on justification, the disclosure of formal misconduct complaints made against law enforcement officers through Maryland Public Information Act requests, repealing part of the Law Enforcement Officer Bill of Rights (LEOBR) law that only allows sworn law enforcement officers to investigate serious police misconduct allegations, and the release of certain investigatory files to complainants alleging misconduct.
Webster came from Dover City, Del., where he was expelled as a law enforcement officer. Under a legal agreement, Webster agreed never to pursue policing work again in Dover following a trial stemming from second-degree assault charges against Webster by a black man in his custody.
While Webster had a significant history of use-of-force citations in Delaware, including warnings from superiors and probationary periods, requests from Black’s family to obtain Webster’s employment personnel records were denied.
“The officer’s use-of-force records actually came from Delaware,” Holley said. “I did not get any of that information from Maryland.”
Under current state law, Maryland classifies police disciplinary records as personnel matters, which are exempt from the Maryland Public Information Act.
It took Black’s family four months to learn the cause of death of Black, and that was only after Republican Gov. Larry Hogan made a public plea for the Maryland State Police and the state medical examiner to finish up their investigations.
Police body camera footage was released shortly after Hogan entered the picture in January. At the same time, Caroline County State’s Attorney Joe Riley wrapped up the investigation, declining to call up a seated grand jury to probe the role of the officers involved in Black’s death.
31 In-Custody Deaths In 2018
In 2018, there were 31 officer-involved deaths in Maryland originating from 14 different law enforcement agencies, according to the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention.
The state medical examiner’s office classified 14 as homicide, eight as accidental, seven as suicide, one as natural cause, and one from overdose. All 14 homicides by law enforcement involved the fatal shooting of an individual.
In Black’s case, the medical examiner ruled the police struggle contributed to his death, but not significantly.
“It is likely that the stress of his struggle contributed to his death. However, no evidence was found that restraint by law enforcement directly caused or significantly contributed to the decedent’s death; in particular, no evidence was found that restraint led to the decedent being asphyxiated. The manner of of death is best certified as accident.”
The chief medical examiner, David R. Fowler, ruled that Black died of cardiac arrest due to an underlying heart condition and stated Black’s bipolar diagnosis significantly contributed to the teen’s death.
Black attended North Caroline High School in Caroline County where he was known as a track star and football player. Holley said her family was unaware of any heart condition her brother may have had, and that he had never been diagnosed with one.
In 2020, Anton’s Law died in both House and Senate committees weeks before the legislative session was cut short due to the coronavirus epidemic.
Another police reform bill, Public Information Act – Personnel and Investigatory Records – Complaints Against Law Enforcement Officers, sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chair Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City), also died in the 2020 legislative session.
Clippinger’s bill, HB1221, advanced to a second round of voting with approved amendments, but the bill never resurfaced in the remaining days of the shortened legislative session.
Only bills considered to have high priority, including the state budget and education-related bills, were acted upon in the remaining days of session.
NAACP president Willie Flowers, representing a contingency of police reform advocates, said at the Aug. 6 meeting, the informal coalition had five “demands” for consideration:
- Police misconduct investigation records are to be disclosed under the Maryland Public Information Act;
- The Lawmakers create statutory limits on police use-of-force policies and guidelines;
- Repeal LEOBR;
- Grant the people of Baltimore City the right to govern the city’s police department; and
- Take law enforcement officers out of school.
A 6th informal request by Flowers included lawmakers act on legislation in a timely fashion in the 2021 legislative session so there is time to override a potential veto by Hogan.
Witnesses included representation from the NAACP, the ACLU, Amnesty International USA, the Public Justice Center and Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle.
Kristina Roth of Amnesty International said there is no statutory force behind Maryland’s policing guidelines on use-of-force standards and training.
“It’s reasonable to expect an officer to de-escalate an interaction,” Roth said. “Currently Maryland is one of nine states and Washington, D.C., nationwide, that does not have a use-of-force statutory law.”
Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming also do not, Roth said.
ACLU of Maryland senior staff attorney David Rocah was there was no transparency in police investigations.
“There is no transparency,” Rocah said. “Being told that everything is fine and that the agency is doing everything correctly and we should simply trust them is not acceptable in a Democracy, period, and especially not now.”
Republican Del. Michael Malone (Anne Arundel), a member on the work group, did not respond to comments requests for this article.
The House workgroup on police reform and accountability is scheduled to next meet Aug. 27 at 1:00 p.m. where law enforcement leaders from the The Maryland Chiefs of Police Association, the Sheriff’s Maryland Sheriff’s Association and the Fraternal Order of Police are expected to testify.
Glynis Kazanjian is a freelance writer who has reported for Maryland Matters, Maryland Reporter and the Baltimore Post-Examiner
Editor’s note: The Spy interviewed Glynis Kazanjian on her reporting of the Anton Black case here in early August.