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Caroline Police Accountability Board, law enforcement officers clear the air

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DENTON – In a sometimes contentious but mostly civil discussion, Caroline County law enforcement officials and members of the Administrative Charging Committee and the Caroline County Commission-appointed Police Accountability Board and aired concerns for one and a half hours during the Commissioners’ Tuesday morning meeting, Dec. 17, in Denton.

The consensus among all who participated: the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021 needs overhauling. Less consensual were differing perceptions of the scope of the responsibilities of the Police Accountability Board (PAB) and the Administrative Charging Committee (ACC).

Commission President Travis Breeding set the tone, saying he hoped the meeting could be constructive as “different interpretations” were voiced. “The law is very vague and very poorly written,” he said.

Breeding, Vice President Larry Porter and Commissioner Frank Bartz all praised the county’s law enforcement officers, as well as members of the ACC and PAB for volunteering their time.

Likewise, ACC and PAB members thanked the Commissioners and gave credit to the law enforcement agencies for their service. The PAB requested the meeting with the Commissioners.

Both the ACC and PAB were established by the 2021 law which became effective July 1, 2022. The PAB “establishes many requirements for police accountability and discipline” at the county level, including holding quarterly meetings with heads of law enforcement agencies and county government officials, receiving complaints of police misconduct filed by members of the public, reviewing outcomes of disciplinary matters considered by the ACC and submitting an annual report.

The ACC is a group of citizens who review internal investigations of police officer misconduct; they then decide whether officers should be administratively charged. The 5-member committee is comprised of the chair of the PAB or another member of the PAB designated by the ACC chair, two civilian members selected by the PAB and two civilian members selected by the county’s chief executive. While the ACC is subject to the Open Meetings Act, because they deal with personnel matters, “a significant portion of their meetings will be in closed session.”

While three members of the PAB and ACC addressed the Commissioners, at least two dozen law enforcement officers, as well as State Del. Jeff Ghrist (R-36) and State Sen. Johnny Mautz (R-37), packed the meeting room.

PAB Chairman John Bartlett began his remarks by citing his 44-year law enforcement background, saying he had “tremendous respect for the law enforcement officers of Caroline County, but most important, for the Commissioners and citizens.”

Having served on the PAB, Bartlett said he now understands more how (citizens) perceive law enforcement.

Bartlett said one of the biggest concerns the PAB is dealing with is the inability of officers who have been exonerated to expunge a complaint against them. He urged elected officials to “fight this in Annapolis.”

Nancy Nagel, also a retired law enforcement officer, said one of her purposes for serving on the ACC was “to be able to be transparent, fair and honest.”

Nagel said she asked to have the meeting with the Commissioners, but “this setting is not exactly what we had planned,” she said. Caroline County Sheriff Donald Baker’s intent in bringing “16 chiefs, captains, all of which I have total respect for,” was to “intimidate” the PAB. She said it was “a little hurtful” and said that they attended “to go against this legislation when they know that it’s required.”

The third PAB member who attended was retired firefighter Jeff Martin. He reiterated that the state statute “is a very vague issue, and we do the best we can with what we know.”

With an attorney present at the quarterly meetings, Martin said he and his fellow Board members “do our best to stay within the legal parameters that are set forth. Hopefully, as time goes on and case law is established, then it'll narrow the parameters that we're allowed to operate in, and it will be more concrete to see what it is that we can do and what we can't do.”

Following the meeting, Baker said he had no intention of intimidating the PAB members; rather, he wanted to call in “experts in the field” to comment on a practice that was not happening in any other county, but had occurred in Caroline. He also invited Mautz and Ghrist, hoping they would “wrap their minds around” the flawed legislation as the 2025 Maryland General Assembly meets next month.

“We’re blazing new territory,” Breeding said. “We’re stepping on land mines and learning some lessons the hard way.”

An incident in spring 2024 propelled part of the discussion, illustrating the law’s vagueness in delineating the scope of the PAB and ACC’s responsibilities.

According to five of the law enforcement officers Baker invited, the PAB overstepped its responsibilities.

Those officers were Baker; Denton Police Chief George Bacorn; Carroll County Sheriff Jim DeWees, president of the Maryland Sheriffs’ Association; Talbot County Sheriff Joe Gamble; and attorney and Laurel Police Chief Russ Hamill, an attorney and president of the Maryland Chiefs of Police Association.

The spring incident involved a simple traffic stop. According to Baker, the driver filed a complaint against the deputy for rudeness. Although the deputy was eventually exonerated, the driver was found guilty of his traffic violation in district court.

However, the deputy later was asked by the PAB to answer some questions. Bartlett told the Commissioners, “The legislation does give subpoena power, but it doesn't say, How do you do it?” The PAB and ACC members undergo extensive training by the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission (MPTSC).

The Caroline ACC asked the deputy to come to a meeting and “answer one simple question.”

The problem for the veteran law enforcement officers was in the PAB’s not approaching the deputy’s superior, and placing the deputy in an awkward situation in the parking lot outside the meeting venue.

Following the meeting, Baker said deputies already go through a rigorous internal investigation and should not be called into closed door meetings, especially without legal representation and where Public Information Act requests can be declined.

Hamill said the PAB was trying to do a good job, but were hampered working with “poorly constructed legislation.” DeWees said he was “not here to beat up on the ACC.” On behalf of the Maryland Sheriffs’ Association, he sent a letter to the Commission.

DeWees said Maryland lawmakers from the heavily populated, urban western shore counties created the legislation “for a perceived problem they think goes on throughout the entire state.”

Characterizing the incident with the deputy as a “due process issue,” DeWees said, “I think if somebody's got to meet a deputy out in the parking lot and ask them if they need an attorney, then they shouldn't be inviting them in.”

“It's about transparency, but it's about making sure the public gets what they need, and the deputy and the officer have the due process that they expect,” DeWees said. “It's a precedent that I simply don't think that Caroline County wants to get involved in.”

While exact figures of the number of encounters with Caroline law enforcement officers were not supplied during the meeting, only seven complaints were filed against sheriff’s deputies in 2024. All of the officers were exonerated.

“I don't think that there's any law enforcement officer in this room who would not agree that citizens have the right to know that if they have a problem, if they have a complaint, they should have a place to go,” Porter said.

“I think the proof is in the pudding,” Porter said. “When you look at the numbers, when you look at the ratio of calls that we've had compared to the actual cases where citizens have had the right to complain – and they have – but you look at the actual number of cases where problems or wrongdoing was found, that's all you’ve got to look at. And I think that just speaks to, not only the job that law enforcement is doing in this county – municipal and county – but it also speaks to the job that this Board is doing.”

Breeding said that, ultimately, it is the voters who elect the sheriff, and town council members who have responsibility for hiring law enforcement officers, and they can vote them out of office, as well.