Calls for police oversight have grown louder in recent years, leading the state of Maryland to mandate the creation of police accountability boards in 2022. But after all the fiery rhetoric, just how often were cops in Prince George’s County actually going rogue?
In 2023, the county’s Police Accountability Board received 104 complaints documenting 245 total allegations of misconduct against the more than 2,000 officers working across 28 various county and municipal policing agencies. Less than a quarter of those allegations were sustained.
The findings of the 2023 report were presented to the Prince George’s County Council this week. Topping the list of complaints were allegations of “conduct unbecoming” and “discourtesy.”
“Things like being rude and discourteous when dealing with the public. Also profanity,” explained Cardell Montague, vice chair of the administrative charging committee. “Misconduct, that’s mostly what we get.”
The county police department, by far the biggest in Prince George’s, was on the receiving end of 128 of the allegations.
“That’s because they’re the largest police law enforcement agency,” noted Kelvin Davall, chair of the Police Accountability Board.
Another 24 were lodged against the county sheriff’s office, and 19 were leveled against police in Greenbelt. Several departments — including New Carrollton, Riverdale Park and Cheverly — didn’t have any. They’re the fifth, eighth and 10th largest municipalities in the county.
Council chair Jolene Ivey said it seems most of the complaints could be remedied with more training, “just to make sure people know how to speak to people, how to treat people,” she said.
“To have basically, what, 100-and-some that are found, it’s not that bad. Not one is good, not one is good, but it looks like it’s mostly just some training for some people … I’m glad to see use of force isn’t a huge part of it.”
There were 30 allegations of improper use of force.
Of the 245 complaints, 53 of them were sustained. Another 44 were unfounded and 33 led to exonerations. There were 30 complaints that couldn’t be sustained, meaning the allegations couldn’t be proven one way or the other.
During the hearing, Davall stressed that his board is recommending police departments improve their training on when body worn cameras should be in operation.
“We want to make sure police officers understood this was very important to the citizens and there’s really no excuse not to have your body worn camera on,” he said.
There was also an acknowledgment that actual incidents of misconduct could be undercounted in parts of the county where immigrant populations are higher and trust in the process is lower.
Wanika Fisher, who chairs the county council’s Health, Human Services and Public Safety Committee, asked about how many complaints were made by Spanish speaking residents, or those who don’t speak English.
“What are we doing as a board?” she asked. “I don’t want a whole community sort of being underground with the complaint process because their oral complaint in a different language isn’t being taken seriously or the online portal in different languages are not accessible.”
It’s something members of the oversight panel acknowledged was already being talked about for the future.
“We do understand that those really are the marginal communities and they don’t report because they don’t really trust the process,” said Anthony Bennett, the county’s inspector general. “We want to make sure we have something in their native tongue that they can reach out to us.”
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
