Baltimore County civilian committee mostly sided with police on complaints, unless they crashed a car

Cassidy Jensen

The Baltimore Sun

August 26, 2024

When Maryland lawmakers passed legislation three years ago giving communities greater authority to punish police officers for misconduct, high-profile cases of violence and racial discrimination loomed large.

But so far, Baltimore County law enforcement officers have gotten in trouble for more mundane missteps. That’s according to a year’s worth of decisions from a committee of county residents newly empowered to review complaints involving members of the public under 2021 police reforms enacted by the General Assembly.

For example, while the committee didn’t determine any officers accused of excessive or unnecessary force had violated policy, it did fault three different officers for collisions that happened after they forgot to put their patrol cars in park.

A Baltimore Sun review of the 212 opinions issued by the county’s civilian administrative charging committee between July 2023 and June 2024 reveals that the five-member board ruled in favor of officers in 75% of cases. The committee reviewed one complaint about a Baltimore County sheriff’s deputy, while the rest related to county police.

The committee found officers at fault mainly for causing minor car accidents, although in a handful of cases, it determined officers had failed to write a report or activate their body-worn cameras.

The county’s civilian police accountability board or its chair appointed three of the charging committee’s members: Elizabeth Dishon-Feuer, Tiffany Justice and Christopher Tsui. Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. appointed the other two members, Joan Harris and Sharon Knecht. Harris serves as the committee’s chair.

The charging committee found 40 officers were at fault in preventable car accidents, making up most of the 52 cases in which they found an officer violated a department policy. All collisions involving members of the public for which an internal investigation findsthe officer was at fault go before the committee.

In addition to the three officers who forgot to put their cars in park, another officer caused a three-car pile-up after “appearing to send or read a text message which was deemed to have contributed to the collision.” The committee recommended written counseling, the lowest form of discipline, for all four.

The committee also ruled on 33 complaints accusing police of using excessive or unnecessary force, finding that none of those officers violated department policy.

A Sun review in March of more than six years of police data found county officers reported using force less often in recent years. However, officers used force disproportionately against Black people, who make up about a third of the county’s population.

One complaint of excessive force that the committee reviewed stemmed from the arrest of a 15-year-old boy at the Woodlawn Library in September 2023. After reviewing body-worn camera footage, library video, a report from the police department’s Internal Affairs Section, transcripts of the 911 call and police radio transmissions, the committee determined the officer had used “no more force than was necessary to effectuate the arrest.”

The committee’s opinion said the teen resisted arrest and the officer attempted to subdue him during a struggle on the library floor. At one point, the officer appeared to move his right arm toward the teen’s face, but it was unclear from the body-camera footage whetherhe had struck the teen, the committee wrote. The opinion noted that although the teen’s trespass offense was a misdemeanor, “the juvenile subject was known to be previously violent.”

The committee faulted officers for not turning on their body-worn cameras in five cases, and in four cases officers got in trouble for failing to write an incident report. Another was disciplined for not providing his name and badge number.

In another case in which the committee exonerated an officer, a driver complained that police used unnecessary force when officers broke his window, unlocked his door and forcibly removed him after he refused to get out of his car, which was unregistered and uninsured. The car rolled forward and hit a parked patrol car.

In the 52 cases where the committee recommended administrative charges and discipline, it usually recommended written counseling or, in more serious cases or repeat offenses, a written reprimand. A statewide matrix sets punishments based on the type and gravity of the violation and any previous offenses.

Several officers who failed to write reports received written reprimands, a step above written counseling.

An officer responsible for two car accidents about a month apart was among those receiving reprimands. While driving in icy and snowy conditions Jan. 15, the officer lost control and hit another car. Then, on Feb. 23, he “brushed” another car while backing into a parking space.

Under the law, Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough can impose harsher discipline than the committee suggests, but he can’t substitute a lesser form of punishment.

If an officer disagrees with the committee’s findings and punishment, they can appeal to a trial board. Under the same 2021 police reform legislation, community members joined trial boards for the first time starting in July 2023.

One trial board hearing has taken place under the new process, according to county police spokesperson Joy Stewart. The board determined the officer’s punishment for rude and discourteous language was written counseling, but “due to a legal technicality, that decision was vacated,” Stewart said in an email. The officer and complainant agreed the officer would receive verbal counseling instead.

Previously, the job of determining whether an officer had violated policy and what punishment was appropriate belonged to the department’s Internal Affairs Section, which still investigates all complaints.

The Maryland Police Accountability Act doesn’t authorize the civilian committee to conduct independent investigations, beyond asking a law enforcement agency for more information, said Henry Callegary, the county’s senior coordination manager for public safety and accountability,in an email to The Sun.

Callegary said the charging committee asked for additional information or further investigation “on a number of occasions.” The opinions from the last year show the committee did so at least twice.

The committee also doesn’t independently interview witnesses, Callegary said, a limitation some have criticized.

Leah Biddinger, an Essex resident who filed an unsuccessful complaint about Baltimore County Police Capt.Eliot Latchaw, called the process “flawed.”

“You should be able to cross-examine, you should be able to answer questions,” said Biddinger, president of the Sussex Community Association.

She also questioned whether a group of laypeople understood the police department well enough to determine policy violations and punishments.

Biddinger’s complaint claimed Latchaw had targeted and harassed her by asking the Financial Crimes Team to investigate her for fraud and the Vice/Narcotics Section to investigate her for gambling, according to the committee’s opinion. Latchaw declined to comment Thursday when reached by phone.

The committee cleared Latchaw of wrongdoing and described him as “very attentive” to Biddinger, responding quickly to frequent emails requesting police services for her community even when he was off duty or on vacation.

In one incident described in the committee’s opinion, which doesn’t name Biddinger, Latchaw described her as “a thorn in our side” in an email and asked a vice unit to investigate her for running a football pool to raise money for her animal rescue nonprofit.

Two vice detectives were sent to her house for a “knock and talk,” the opinion said. Police didn’t charge Biddinger with a crime, but they told her to get a permit for running the fundraiser. She said in an interview last week that she subsequently applied for and received a permit.