By Ovetta Wiggins January 18
Dozens of bundled-up protesters,
holding unlit candles in their gloved hands, walked to the center of Lawyer’s
Mall in the bitter cold Monday night as the names of victims of police
brutality in Maryland were read.
“Tom, Prince George’s County,
white,” a woman read. “Eric, Baltimore City, black.”
One by one, the protesters lay
down on the frigid pavement. A statute of Thurgood Marshall stood above. The
demonstrators said they staged a “die-in” on the grounds of the Maryland State
House to call on lawmakers to enact “strong” police reform during their 90-day
session.
“In 2016, I want people to look
back and say that this was the year that Maryland made . . .
rebuilding the trust between communities and the police . . . a priority,”
said Larry Stafford Jr., executive director of Progressive Maryland.
Stafford, one of the event’s
organizers, said he chose Martin Luther King Jr. Day to hold the rally, calling
it the “perfect” day to kick off efforts to push for police reform in the
state.
“It’s a day that we take to
reclaim the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King,” Stafford said. “To reclaim his
message of equality and justice for all people, standing up for black people in
this country and demanding respect and justice.”
Similar die-ins have been held
over the past year across the country — including St. Louis and New York City —
to protest the deaths of Michael Brown and other black males at the hands of
police officers.
In Annapolis, the protesters
stood for more than 45 minutes in sub-freezing temperatures, listening to
advocates and chanting “No justice, no peace” and “Can’t stop, won’t stop until
killer cops are in cellblocks.”
Senate President Thomas V. Mike
Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel)
created a panel last year to find ways to improve the trust between the
community and police, after riots erupted in Baltimore following the death of
Freddie Gray. Last week, the panel endorsed 21 recommendations for police
reform.
The recommendations include
giving officers periodic psychological evaluations, allowing the public to
attend police trial boards and providing residents more time to file brutality
complaints.
The panel also called for the
creation of an independent Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission
that would focus on setting standards and training for all police agencies.
The police training commission
would develop and require antidiscrimination and use of force de-escalation
training for all officers. It would also set up a confidential early
intervention policy for dealing with officers who receive three or more citizen
complaints within a 12-month period.
The panel suggested that the
commission require annual reporting of “serious” officer-involved incidents,
the number of officers disciplined and the type of discipline that was given.
Other recommendations include
developing a police complaint mediation program; creating recruitment standards
that increase the number of female, African American and Hispanic candidates;
and offering incentives, including property tax credits and state and local
income tax deductions, to officers who live in the jurisdictions where they
work.
The Maryland Coalition for
Justice and Police Accountability has called the recommendations “a good first
step,” but says additional changes are needed.
Sara Love, the public policy
director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, said Monday that
the coalition disagrees with a proposal that says people who file complaints
against officers must identify themselves.
“There is a role for anonymous
complaints,” Love said, arguing that there could be instances where a person
faces criminal charges and would be worried about retaliation.
Advocates also are pushing for
civilian review boards. They say they are seriously concerned about a provision
that would give the police union more input on who sits on a trial review
board.
Trial boards currently consists
of three law enforcement officers appointed by the chief who have the same rank
as the officer under review. The panel suggested that the board consist of one
person recommended by the chief, one recommended by the police union and one
recommended by the chief and union.
“If this went into effect, it
could undo all of the good that these recommendations are trying to do,” Love
said.
Ovetta Wiggins covers Maryland
state politics in Annapolis.
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