Police Chiefs and Sheriffs will no longer be able to discipline officers.
The Talbot County Council will appoint a “Police Accountability Board” (PAB) who will determine discipline action for officers.
PAB will tell the Police Chief or Sheriff what the punishment will be for administrative violations.
If the officer doesn’t accept the punishment then the PAB will send the investigation to the NEW Administrative Charging Committee (ACC), appointed by the PAB.
The ACC will then conduct a trial for the officer. A typical one-day trial will cost Talbot County in excess of $5,000 per day for even minor infractions for example, “I thought the officer was rude.” Even minor cases like in this example will take months to adjudicate.
- The legislature has taken all power for disciplining officers away from the Police Chief and Sheriff.
Use of Force standard set by the United States Supreme Court has been changed by MD legislators
- The United States Supreme Court issues “case law” regarding the proper use of force by police officers. This “use of force standard” has changed significantly over the past 50 years as the Supreme Court has issued various rulings.
The Maryland Legislature changed the “use of force standard” in April 2021.
The previous standard was, “a police officer can use the minimum amount of force necessary to effect an arrest.”
The legislative new standard has no legal precedent (meaning the Supreme Court has not issued any case law/ guidance on.
Not even the Attorney General for Maryland will provide legal guidance on the new standard.
THIS IS LEAVING LAW ENFORCEMENT IN THE WORST POSITION IMAGINABLE!
Police officers will have to guess exactly what the new rules are.
The new law says that the use of force needs to be “necessary and proportional” but cannot advise what it is in proportion to - proportional to the crime committed?
No one knows and no legal authority has or can provide officers guidance. Meaning some officer is going to use force to effect an arrest and it will be the “test” case that will eventually make its way to the Supreme Court, during which time the officer is likely to be jailed for years while awaiting all the appeals.
This will have a chilling effect on patrol officers and they will limit their exposure to litigation by limiting their proactive policing in crimes such as DUI, drug, gang, crimes with a gun and traffic enforcement).
If you wonder why the homicide rate in our big cities are at all-time high recently, it is because police officers in those cities are basically driving around with blinders on since their mayors, prosecutors and elected officials refuse to support them when they do their jobs.
No Knock Search Warrants have almost been eliminated for Drug Trafficking Investigations and Violent Crime Investigations
- Police are not allowed to serve a no-knock search warrant after dark. Drug dealers and violent criminals, who typically commit crimes at night, will have no fear of the police pursuing them after dark.
- Police will be hindered to investigate during the day and will expose officers to unneccary risk.
-Police personnel files will be the only government files open to the public. Judges, prosecutors, congressmen, senators, fire, ems personnel files are kept confidential but not officers.
- Fewer officers will want work in gang, drug, SWAT and violent crime units since those units are typically exposed to the worst of the worst criminals.
- Officers will avoid those units as they subject to more filed complaints from the worst criminals. Their files will be posted on Facebook and doxed everywhere else.
- All police involved deaths now have to be investigated by the Maryland Attorney General’s Unit
- The AG’s office has absolutely no experience investigating violent crime, shootings, homicides etc. This is a political move to give authority to Maryland’s current Attorney General who made statements about police use of force cases publicly before the investigations were completed.
- Simply, stripping Sheriff and Chief of Police of their responsibility and moving it to Baltimore where crime statistics are much different than in Talbot County.