Sean Yoes
Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh recently laid out what he called a “distillation” of current laws prohibiting racial profiling in law enforcement, viewed by some as a positive step in the effort to reform law enforcement.
During an interview on August 26 on First Edition, which airs on WEAA 88.9 in Baltimore, Frosh was pressed further on the new guidelines.
Asked about the state’s capacity to enforce racial profiling complaints Frosh said, “We don’t have the ability to enforce them.”
As for the the function of the Attorney General’s Civil Rights Division Frosh said, “We don’t have the direct authority to bring civil rights litigation…we don’t have the authority to go out and sue people for violating the civil rights of other people.”
The case of Teleta Dashiell, a Black woman who lives in Somerset County, Maryland raises questions about police accountability, alleged misconduct and racial sensitivity in Maryland law enforcement. In 2009, Dashiell was sought for her testimony in a case being investigated by John Maiello, a White Maryland State Police Sgt. During a subsequent phone conversation between Dashiell and Maiello, the state trooper was recorded saying to another person (after he believed he had hung up the phone with Dashiell) referring to her as a, “God-danged nigger.”
Although the American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of Dashiell, sued the Maryland State Police and the case went before the Maryland Court of Appeals earlier this year, the attorney general, who took office this January, was unaware of the Dashiell case, and seemed flabbergasted by the comments of the state trooper. “Oh my God…this was a state police officer?” Frosh asked.
Attorney General Frosh was also unfamiliar with the case of Kelvin Sewell, a former homicide detective with the Baltimore City Police Department, who was hired as the first Black police chief of Pocomoke City, Maryland located on the state’s southern Eastern Shore in 2010.
Despite presiding over historic drops in crime in the city of about 4,000 — with a racial composition roughly half Black and half White — Sewell was fired allegedly for “incompetence” by Pocomoke City Mayor Bruce Morrison this past June.
Sewell’s firing, which most of the city’s Black residents and some of its White residents believe is racially motivated, has triggered — or unearthed — a deep fissure in this town almost entirely along racial lines. Former Chief Sewell’s firing is being investigated by the United States Department of Justice.
The Sewell scenario has also precipitated several alleged incidents of political misconduct. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Maryland filed two complaints against Pocomoke City officials for violations of the Maryland Open Meetings Act alleging, “secret meetings,” which excluded Diane Downing, Pocomoke City’s only elected Black official, and led to Sewell’s firing.
The ACLU complaints were directed specifically to the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board, which is advised by the Attorney General’s office.
Possible Hate Crime in Baltimore County Resolved?
For several days in August a Black woman named Tee Jackson and her family, who reside in the Rosedale community of Baltimore County, were harassed and threatened by a Confederate flag wielding 18-year old White male named Michael Brandon Herold and his father, 47-year old Harry Anthony Herold.
In wake of the tragic murders in Charleston, South Carolina of, “the Charleston Nine,” in June at the hand of Dylann Roof, another young White male obsessed with the Confederacy, among other things, the threats of the Herolds were taken very seriously by Jackson and her family.
Yet, when she initially reached out to all four of the local Baltimore television news outlets (2, 11, 13 and 45), they declined to send news crews to investigate the story.
It wasn’t until after Tee Jackson and her daughter Shandre Stephens appeared on First Edition to tell their story, (August 18) that the television news outlets showed up at their house to report on their plight the next day.
Subsequently, a violent altercation took place between Michael Brandon Herold, who declared he would, “kill those f-ing niggers,” and neighbors of the Jacksons.
Ultimately, Harry Anthony Herold was arrested (August 26) by Baltimore County Police on three separate arrest warrants (including first degree assault and witness intimidation) and is being held without bail. His son, Michael Brandon Herold was also arrested (August 27) on a bail revocation warrant and is also currently being held without bail.
Next week:
An update on some of the businesses adversely impacted by the April uprising.