Families of men killed or injured after contact with law enforcement gathered in Maryland with new demands for police reform.
Tracy Shand’s 49 year-old-brother Leonard was killed in 2019 by police in Hyattsville.
“Over 44 shots was fired at him,” Tracy told WTOP.
A Prince George’s County grand jury declined to indict any of the officers who responded to the call.
Police used stun guns, pepper spray and a beanbag gun, before deploying a flash-bang device to get Leonard Shand to drop the knives he had been holding.
Tracy Shand organized a rally at the Forestville Mall on Saturday with six demands for Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. Earlier this fall, Tracy Shand said she was told by the county police that nothing more would be done with her brother’s case.
Tracy Shand was joined by the ACLU of Maryland and almost a dozen other local advocacy groups including leaders with the Coalition of Concerned Mothers, Community Justice, Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Prince George’s County, Concerned Citizens for Bail Reform, Mount Rainier Organizing for Racial Equality and the JustUs Initiative.
Among the demands is a review of 7,000 cases of use-of-force complaints already ruled justified by the Prince George’s County Police and the release of an unredacted version of an expert witness report on police conduct that is part of a federal case on alleged bias in the department.
She said she hopes her brother is looking down saying, “‘I’m glad you’re out here fighting.’ You know, he’ll be proud that I’m out here fighting.”
Shand said this is just one of many similar events she has planned.
“You can’t get me to sit down now.”
