Vanessa Junkin
SALISBURY — The way things are
now in Wicomico County, law enforcement agencies are policing law enforcement
officers.
The Maryland State Police
Homicide Unit regularly investigates police-involved shootings, and for those
incidents, the Wicomico County State’s Attorney’s Office makes decisions on
whether to prosecute.
Mary Ashanti, president of the
Wicomico County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, would like to see citizens become more involved in the process.
At a Wicomico County Council
meeting Tuesday, Ashanti brought up the suggestion for a police oversight board
with subpoena power during the public comment session.
“The complaints we have is
police are investigating themselves,” Ashanti said.
Ashanti said in a phone
interview that ideally, the board would be made up of citizens, businesspeople,
clergy and maybe also people with a law enforcement background who are not
current law enforcement officers. The board would look at deadly force
situations or other incidents involving police misconduct, she said.
The suggestion comes after
three police-involved shootings, two of which were fatal, that happened within
two months earlier this year in Wicomico County.
“It’s time for a movement,”
Ashanti said at the meeting.
Police oversight boards
There are civilian police
oversight boards in cities across the country and beyond.
Brian Buchner, president of the
National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, said the
biggest benefit of having citizens provide oversight is building a bridge
between the community and its police department, which creates more trust.
This trust leads to decreased
crime, Buchner said. Oversight agencies also help ensure that people’s civil
rights are protected, he said.
Buchner said civilian oversight
boards are normally part of local governments. That’s the case for the City of
Philadelphia’s Police Advisory Commission, where Kelvyn Anderson is executive
director.
Anderson said Philadelphia’s
first police advisory board was formed in 1958, and the current agency was
formed in 1994.
The initial board did not have
subpoena power, Anderson said, which is something the agency now has.
Because officers are not just
disciplined based on the findings or view of the advisory board, and the board
doesn’t have control over the police commissioner’s decision, Anderson said the
commission has more influence when it comes to overall policy issues.
Philadelphia police have done
more training for dealing with mental health issues, for example, because of
the oversight board, Anderson said.
“We’ve found that, again, those
larger policy issues are areas where if we’ve done our homework, if we’re
listening well to the community, we have useful things to say to the police
department,” Anderson said.
Local ideas
Wicomico County has seen three
police-involved shootings between February and March — two which resulted in
the death of two suspects.
Ashanti noted that locally,
when those police-involved shootings take place, they are investigated by other
police –– even if the shooting does not involve the Maryland State Police, for
example, that agency works with the other local departments.
She’d prefer that an objective
board look at the case, and she’d rather have the FBI or U.S. Department of
Justice investigate incidents rather than, for example, the state police.
Ashanti said she’s currently in
the researching stages of this initiative and is interested in seeing what other
areas do.
Tuesday was the first time that
County Council President Matt Holloway had heard about this idea, but he said
if the public and law enforcement are on board with the initiative, he would
support something like this.
He wasn’t sure whether the council
or county executive would take the lead on such an initiative; he said he’d
need to learn more and get further input.
This may be a good time to get
started on something like this, Holloway said, and it could help be more
proactive than reactionary.
“This could be a step towards
accomplishing that,” Holloway said.
Wicomico County State’s
Attorney Matt Maciarello did not have information about the specifics of this
plan, so he did not talk about it in particular. He did say he supports
strengthening relationships between police and the community. Law enforcement
officials regularly meet with community leaders and organizers and hear
concerns, he said.
He noted how important these
police-community relationships are, and that in the majority of cases, citizens
are crucial.
“The police are there to serve
the citizenry, and the citizenry are there to assist the law enforcement,”
Maciarello said.
