misconduct

After several legislative attempts in past years fell short, beginning today, civilians will have the right to request to review police misconduct records.

Anton’s Law, named after 19-year-old Anton Black, who died in police custody in 2018, reclassifies police administrative and criminal misconduct records from personnel records to public records, allowing them to be inspected by civilians through the Maryland Public Information Act.

“Let me be clear, we are not seeking justice for Anton because justice would have been Anton being alive today — with his daughter, with his family, with the very community that raised him,” Del. Gabriel Acevero (D-Montgomery), the bill’s House sponsor, said at a news conference Thursday. “But what we can get and what we’re fighting for is accountability … that will not only ensure transparency but ensure that those members of the public who are seeking information about investigative and misconduct records, that that information is not only accessible but we’re changing the way law enforcement operates in our communities.”

The law also puts limits on when no-knock search warrants can be utilized by police agencies, alters the standard requirements placed on general search warrants and requires law enforcement agencies to provide annual summarized data reports regarding their use of search warrants to the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention, Youth and Victim Services.

Acevero and Sen. Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore City), the bill’s Senate sponsor, unsuccessfully worked two versions of legislation bearing Black’s name in the General Assembly before their bill passed in 2021.

“My hope is that with the passage of Anton’s Law, we will no longer allow the patterns and practices of unconstitutional policing … and most importantly, we will save lives by preventing other heinous, brutal, extrajudicial killings such as that of Anton Black,” Carter said Thursday.

On Sept. 15, 2018, Black was chased on foot by police to his Greensboro home, forcibly dragged from a locked car, put in restraints and subdued under the weight of law enforcement officers for several minutes.

He died on the ground, feet away from the entrance of his mother’s home.

“Out of fear, this mother, this loving mother, Anton’s mother, had to compose herself the entire time while they were killing her son,” said René Swafford, an attorney representing the Black family. “And even in the midst of her pain, her anguish and her fear, she was the only one on the scene that night that did anything to try and de-escalate the situation.”

Carter said that Anton was “one of 31 extrajudicial killings” in Maryland in 2018.

“They threw him on the ground, they beat him, they choked him. He’s crying for his mother,” said Anton’s father, Antone Black. “My son was George Floyd before George Floyd, and there’s no justice, so far, for Anton Black, and there’s no peace for me.”

According to an autopsy report published by The Baltimore Sun, Maryland’s former chief medical examiner, Dr. David Fowler, ruled that sudden cardiac death with factors contributed by Black’s diagnosis of bipolar disorder was the cause of his death.

Fowler testified for the defense during the murder trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin in the George Floyd case. In his expert testimony, Fowler ruled that Floyd did not die because he was restrained, but because of sudden cardiac arrest exacerbated by drug use and potential carbon monoxide poisoning from vehicle exhaust.

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) called for an audit of deaths in police custody overseen by Fowler during his nearly 20-year tenure.

‘The murders will not stop’

The Black family struggled for months to access police and autopsy records following his death.

Black’s sister, LaToya Holley, testified before the House Judiciary Committee in 2020 that only after the media pressed Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) to comment on the case did they receive any State Police or Medical Examiner reports.

Holley said Thursday that, in the meantime, her brother was “demonized purposefully and was made out to be this really bad young man to … prevent the media from actually reporting accurate information.”

“They took the narrative that was provided to them by the law enforcement officers and ran with it,” she said. “It is something that I’ve never forgotten; of course it’s forgiven, but the killings aren’t going to stop.”

One of the police professionals who pursued Black, former Greensboro officer Thomas Webster IV, had multiple use of force reports on his record during his time as an officer on a Delaware police force.

Kenneth Ravenell, an attorney for the Black family, said that, while working in Delaware, Webster “assaulted over 29” Black people, and that the Caroline County police chief “falsified records” to allow him to work in Maryland.

Webster has since been decertified as a police officer by the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission, though he was cleared of criminal charges in Black’s death.

In December 2020, the Black family and the Coalition for Justice for Anton Black, backed by the ACLU of Maryland, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court against the state, the town of Greensboro, Fowler and Webster, among other municipalities, medical experts and members of law enforcement.

The lawsuit asserts that excessive force, racial bias and “positional asphyxiation” — rather than Fowler’s ruling of a cardiac condition — caused Black’s death.

Ravenell, who represents the Black family in the suit, said that law enforcement is trying to get the case dismissed on the basis of qualified immunity.

Qualified immunity is a Maryland law that exempts state and municipal employees from civil liability for actions that infringe upon the rights of others if they fall within the scope of their job description, were objectively reasonable or were enacted without malice or gross negligence.

“We know that until we get rid of things like qualified immunity — when these police officers have this protection under the law that the Constitution never guaranteed them — that we are not going to get justice and the murders will not stop,” said Ravenell.

In addition to Anton’s Law, a bill sponsored by Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Chairman William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery) that limits law enforcement’s ability to procure military equipment and would set forth a process to independently investigate use of force incidents that result in death will also go into effect Friday.

By Hannah Gaskill

As Maryland legislative committees craft comprehensive police reform packages for the 2021 General Assembly session, they appear to have significant support from voters, according to a recently-completed poll.

The Goucher College Poll, conducted in late September and early October, found strong support for a variety of measures designed to crack down on police violence and seek more accountability for law enforcement:

87% of Marylanders surveyed said they support creating a record of police misconduct cases that would be available to the public and other law enforcement agencies, while 10% said they would oppose such a requirement.
85% said they support requiring that criminal misconduct charges against police officers be investigated by an independent state prosecutor rather than by an internal police affairs unit, while 10% said they were opposed.
82% of poll respondents supported requiring police officers to undergo racial bias training, while 17% said they opposed a requirement.
79% supported creating uniform statewide de-escalation and use-of-force policies for all Maryland police departments to follow, while 16% said they opposed.
79% also supported increasing funding for police departments to hire more or better trained officers ― a proposal 19% opposed.
60% said they support laws banning police from using chokeholds or strangleholds when making an arrest, while 35% opposed.
54% said they support reducing the budget for the police department in their community and shifting the funds to social programs related to mental health, housing, and education, a concept that 43% opposed.

“Maryland residents are largely supportive of key police reforms that are currently being discussed by state lawmakers and have dominated our national discourse,” said Mileah Kromer, director of the Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center at Goucher College, who worked with students to craft poll questions and conduct the poll. “Some of these proposals, like creating statewide use-of force policies and requiring police officers to undergo racial bias training, earn support from majorities of Democrats and Republicans. But there’s a mixed message on police budgets.”

Just 28% of those surveyed said they support the movement to “defund the police,” while 68% opposed it.

Two-thirds of survey respondents ― 66% ― said they viewed the police favorably, while 30% said they had an unfavorable view of law enforcement. Among Black Marylanders, 54% said they viewed the police favorably, while 41% said they viewed the police unfavorably. Among white Marylanders, police had a 73% to 24% favorable to unfavorable rating.

Sixty-five percent of residents said they view the Black Lives Matter movement favorably, compared to 29% percent who viewed it unfavorably. Among Black Marylanders, the numbers were 85% favorable and 11% unfavorable. Among white Marylanders, 56% viewed the movement favorably, compared to 38% who viewed BLM unfavorably.

The poll of 1,002 Maryland adults was taken Sept. 30-Oct. 4 and had a 3.1-point margin of error. Some of the questions in the poll surveyed 918 registered voters and carried a 3.2-point error margin.

But policing is not the top issue on the minds of Marylanders. Asked an open-ended question about the most important issue facing the state today, 30% cited the COVID-19 public health crisis, 22% said economic issues, 8% said education, 5% said health care generally, another 5% said politics and political leadership, while 4% said crime/criminal justice/policing. The environment and racism each were mentioned by 3% of Maryland adults.

Sixty-three percent of Marylanders said they believe the state is heading in the right direction ― a surprisingly rosy scenario compared to national polls. Thirty-one percent said the state is on the wrong track. In February ― before the coronavirus outbreak ― the right track-wrong track numbers for the state were 49% to 32%.

Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) continues to rack up high numbers in the Goucher poll. Seventy-one percent of adults surveyed ― including 69% of Democrats ― said they approved of the job Hogan was doing. Twenty-three percent said they disapproved, while 5% said they did not know and 1% refused to answer.

In February, Hogan’s job approval rating stood at 62%; 20% of Marylanders disapproved and 17% said they did not know.

Hogan is viewed a lot more favorably than the Republican Party. The GOP has a 35% to 61% favorable to unfavorable rating, compared to a 54% to 43% favorable to unfavorable rating for Democrats. That roughly comports with voter registration statistics in Maryland: As of a month ago, 55% of registered voters were Democrats while 25% were Republican. The rest belonged to smaller political parties or were unaffiliated.

In the Goucher poll, 26% of registered voters said they considered themselves conservative, while 44% described themselves as moderate and 28% called themselves progressive.

The first installment of the latest Goucher poll, released late last week, was on the presidential horse race in Maryland and measured voters’ attitudes on in-person vs. mail-in voting.

The third and final installment, to be released Tuesday morning, deals largely with COVID-19 in Maryland and the government response.

By Josh Kurtz

After Years of Legislating, Anton’s Law Goes Into Effect

Poll Shows Marylanders on Board With Police Reform

Sections

More