By DonnaAnn Ward
Community Organizer
On Sept. 29, I sat down and wrote a petition. Along with hundreds of other Marylanders, I watched– in stomach churning horror– the video of an elderly man beaten unconscious and head stomped on the street in front of his home on Sept. 26.
I collated the thoughts of my neighbors and wrote a petition asking Governor Moore to remove Vinny Schiraldi, secretary of the Department of Juvenile Services. The next day a friend put it online.
Since Sept. 30th to today, Oct. 17th, I count at least 20 incidents of youth violence involving an estimated 41 juveniles, only three of whom have been detained and charged. The latest juvenile to be a DJS failure is Tracee Parker the 17-year-old who was in possession of a handgun that had been modified to act like a machine gun when he was arrested at Howard High in Columbia, Md. in the middle of the school day. Out of the three violent crimes Parker has been arrested for, he was on electronic monitoring for two.
Parker murdered a 26-year-old man while on electronic monitoring.
At this point, over 2,000 signatures have been collected and sent to Governor Wes Moore, who in 2022 changed state regulation to remove charging and detaining powers for arrested juveniles from the state’s attorneys. That control was then given to the Department of Juvenile Services, whose secretary, Vincent “Vinny” Schiraldi holds the distinction of being the only appointee to not receive unanimous support.
It was Schiraldi’s failures in New York and D.C. that led to his being fired. New York fired him when the violence at Rikers was so extreme union prison guards were refusing to work. D.C. fired him after a costly two-year investigation into why he was hosting parties for juvenile males from maximum security facilities at his home.
So, here we are twenty days after a 66-year-old resident was beaten unconscious and stomped on the head. And what has Moore done?
The governor has allotted an additional ten million dollars for Schiraldi’s failing Thrive Academy and its 20 percent recidivism rate. In the first year, 23 out of the 126 enrolled juveniles were re-arrested and were in possession of a handgun, two were shot. A state investigation has been requested into the violence and substance abuse in DJS facilities. Juveniles are being re-arrested while on electronic monitoring, several re-arrested on the same day they were put on monitoring.
Ivan Bates has repeatedly stated that juvenile crime is out of control, the police are frustrated, eleven community associations and 2,662 citizens mailed their request for Moore to remove Schiraldi. People are frightened, angry and baffled by Moore’s continued support for Schiraldi.
And the response? Crickets. Not a single town hall, not one victim contacted, no public comment on the problems Maryland did not have before Schiraldi was given power over our state’s juveniles.
There is talk of class action lawsuits, a Federal Consent Decree, investigations, hate crime charges being leveled and parents being arrested. What is this going to cost Maryland, in human capital, money, reputation diminishment and trust? The easiest solution in everyone’s mind is to remove Schiraldi.
Everywhere Vinny Schiraldi goes chaos, violence, lawsuits and failure are the result. So, why is a smart, educated, confident parent like Moore hanging onto a snake oil salesman like Schiraldi? Emperor Vinny has no clothes.
Marylanders are waiting for Gov. Wes Moore to wake up and see reality. How many more people will be killed, beaten, robbed and traumatized while we wait?