In her letter to the Spy of June 5, Ms. Patricia Kirby does not propose any solutions to the problem of a brutal or corrupt police officer.

Here are some suggestions for your readers’ consideration:

Licensed and periodically re-certify all police officers;
Appropriated changes must be made to police departments’ continuum-of-force regulations and training curricula;
Peers and supervisors must be held responsible for reporting his bad conduct; and
After an officer is removed, he must be prevented from being employed as a police officer anywhere else.

Gren Whitman
Rock Hall

 

I’ve never personally met ex-police officer Derek Chauvin and I don’t care to. I already know him, far too well. For years, I spent eight hour shifts working beside him. I backed him up on the violent streets of Baltimore City. I watched as an entire squad of good cops tried to reign him in. I participated as we took his gun or pulled him off a handcuffed suspect. I witnessed it first hand. And it’s frightening. I watched as supervisors were informed of these actions and many did nothing. As citizens made complaints of brutality, and although investigated thoroughly, never yielded sufficient evidence to fire him. And, long after my work in the FBI, I studied and researched him throughout my doctoral years and beyond.

Derek Chauvin is not new to me. Nor is he unique to our society. Derek Chauvin is a bad cop and most of all, a bad person. A bully who uses his job for his own sick pleasures. A man defined by his need to be in charge. An entitled man, driven solely by self centered desires. The job is merely a vehicle to fulfill his need for power and control.

Derek Chauvin exists in every police department in our country. He also exists in every institution throughout the world. He’s the university medical doctor that abuses his patients.

He’s the business man or woman that finds pleasure threatening or firing colleagues or underlings, perceived to be a hinderance to his goal. Sure, he may be racist, homophobic and sexist, but most of all, he is a bully with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.

Life to Derek Chauvin is about fulfilling his own needs, not those of others. In his mind, he’s entitled to do whatever it takes to satisfy these needs. He didn’t join the police department to protect and serve. He joined to intimidate and harm vulnerable individuals, no matter their race, color, gender or creed. The job is about him. All about how he looks and what he wants.

It’s not about the safety and well being of society.

And with the greatest of sadness, on Monday, May 25, 2020, it was about an African American man, handcuffed and unable to fight back, named George Floyd.

Patricia Kirby
Kent County

Patricia Kirby is a former Baltimore City Parole and Probation Agent, Police Officer, Homicide Detective, FBI Agent, FBI Profiler and college professor. She holds a PH.D from American University in Sociology: Justice, Law and Society and lives in Kent County and Long Island, ME. 

Like other constituents, I received an email recently from Congressman Andy Harris concerning the coronavirus pandemic. While I appreciate his being in touch, several statements in his letter left me baffled.

First, while he concedes that using data to determine when it is safe to “reopen,” is important, his analysis of what data to use and when to use it seems entirely backwards. Harris says that “using total diagnosed case counts is not as valuable since we do not know how many people have or had COVID-19 and are asymptomatic and therefore not tested. But as more testing becomes available, we will be diagnosing people who up until now would not have been tested, thus artificially increasing the case count.” (Emphasis mine.) He goes on to argue that “tracking hospitalizations and ICU usage is the best way to determine the incidence of COVID-19 in the community.”

No. Testing more people tells us how many people are infected, who they are and where so that we know what to do to protect others. Those numbers are more accurate, not “artificial.” The virus is not going to disappear if you don’t test people for it. It will still be there, infecting more and more people until you can stop it. If you are standing on railroad tracks and you see an onrushing train, you cannot make it go away by closing your eyes and pretending it isn’t there.

Doing more testing tells us how serious the outbreak of the disease is so that we can control it. Until there is a safe and effective vaccine, the only way to protect everyone is to test widely to find out who is infected. Then you must isolate those people and do contact tracing to find others who may have been exposed and quarantine them as well. We know that infected people can infect others before they develop symptoms or even if they never develop symptoms at all. Waiting until people are sick enough to be admitted to the hospital or an ICU is far too late. Some people will go to the emergency room quickly. Other people may wait much longer. Still others will die at home, carrying the virus and spreading it for as long as four weeks. The only way to prevent people from spreading COVID-19 is to find out who they are as quickly as possible, and then isolate them.

Secondly, Harris tries to defend the indefensible: his support for and attendance at the so-called Reopen Maryland rally in Salisbury. Lending his support to this event was irresponsible.

No one likes stay-at-home orders. Everyone wants kids back in school, adults back at work. However, the truth is that statewide lockdowns have worked, and they would have worked better had they been implemented sooner. A study by researchers at Columbia University estimates that had the lockdowns occurred even one week sooner, 36,000 lives would have been saved. Two weeks earlier and 54,000 lives would have been saved. We can begin reopening slowly now only because Governor Hogan and other leaders made the difficult decision to order people to stay home when they did.

Harris argues for reopening businesses, churches etc. on the basis of two first amendment rights: freedom to worship and freedom of assembly. Those are indeed fundamental American rights that must be respected and defended.

That said, those rights, if exercised as they would be under normal circumstances, put people’s lives at risk during a pandemic. COVID -19 is a deadly, highly contagious disease that spreads from one person to others through close contact. As I write this, it has already killed over 90,000 Americans.  As noted above, people do not have to show symptoms to infect others. The only way to prevent this virus from spreading is to keep people from being in close contact with one another. Unfortunately, there is no way to keep people far enough apart when they gather for church services or protests. Several churches which have reopened, even with strict precautions, have had to close down again because a significant number of those who attended became infected. Several died.

In the meantime, many churches have used modern technology to give their members a way to worship safely. Religious leaders around Chestertown are offering both on-line services and drive-in services. Neither replaces the sense of community people feel when worshiping together, but right now the health and safety of their parishioners is much more important. No one is denying anyone freedom to worship, but they are trying to make sure those doing so stay safe.

As for freedom of assembly, those attending that rally in Salisbury put themselves at risk for COVID-19. Worse, driving from Frederick to Salisbury and then returning home, they put everyone they encountered, along the way and in their home communities, at risk too. Salisbury’s citizens did not need people from much more highly infected parts of Maryland coming to expose them to this virus. Did the protesters have a right to assemble? Yes, they did, but they had no right to put the lives of others in danger by doing so.

People attending the “Reopen Maryland” rally want life to get back to normal. So does everyone else, but this virus will be in our communities and a threat to everyone until we have a vaccine. In the meantime, our leaders have a responsibility to keep us informed about how we can best keep ourselves and everyone else safe. Their decisions must be based on science and data, not childish resentment and anger or wishful thinking.

Congressman Harris should understand his obligation to serve as a role model. That is both the privilege and the burden of leadership. If he is unwilling to shoulder that burden, he should step aside for someone else who will.

Linda Cades
Kennedyville

We are all doing our part to face the coronavirus enemy, whether isolating at home, sewing masks, or working on the front line. We are taking unprecedented, drastic action to “flatten the curve” and lower death rates, saving lives by accessing the best scientific data. Of course we are willing: We share the same planet, this crisis is worldwide, and we care for one another.

What if we took the same approach to the other coming global catastrophe science has clearly predicted, the climate crisis? We can and must be better prepared for the climate breakdown that threatens our economy, our democracy, our civil rights, and our very life support system. Let’s take advantage of ‘The Great Pause’ to create a better, more resilient world.

Here are a few ways to take action at home on the 50th Earth Day, April 22 – adapted for Chestertown from suggestions by Earth Day Network:
Switch to clean energy. In Maryland, you can access community solar power (with nothing on your roof). Sign up online for free, keep your utility provider, and save on your energy bills monthly. Check out ForeFront Power.

Make your yard a haven for biodiversity. Many of our local nurseries are delivering now! Native plants create essential habitat and help clean our waterways. Tips to transform your yard of any size are on the ShoreRivers website, and check out local plant expert Sabine Harvey’s daily Facebook posts.

Vote and demand fair, accessible elections.

Cook and eat more plants. Sign up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share. Shorten the supply chain, support a local farmer, and safely pick up fresh boxes of delicious veggies curbside all summer, no matter what the grocery store shelves have left. Oksana’s Produce Farm: An alternative to the Farmers’ Market: Farmers Wagon online.

Do something for our community. Humans are part of the Earth, not separate from it. A gift to the Social Action Committee for Racial Justice’s effort to get wholesome food to neighbors is a perfect way to celebrate Earth Day. We are all in this together

Reflect. What are the insights, recipes, conversations, and changes in routine you will carry forward from this time? What have you learned you can live without? What will you work to protect?

The Chestertown Environmental Committee