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Democrats splintered ideologically Tuesday as the Senate began its debate on a bill seeking to make police officer misconduct records publicly accessible.
And while some believe that the transparency the  is looking to provide goes too far, others argue that chiefs and sheriffs too often allow investigations to be swept under the rug, leaving civilians in the dark and problematic officers to continue to act inappropriately in the field.
âWhat I just heard was that we donât trust the chief to make the decision; we donât trust the review board to make the decision â even the civilian review board â that we still need to put up our officers who have had unsubstantiated complaints because we donât trust the people that are judging them and that is a great deal of concern to me,â said Sen. Pamela G. Beidle (D-Anne Arundel).
Beidle introduced an amendment Tuesday afternoon seeking to remove unfounded and unsubstantiated complaints from the list of records that would be available for public inspection under the Maryland Public Information Act when there is no clear and convincing evidence that a transgression occurred.
The amendment, she said, was introduced on behalf of the Maryland Chiefs and Sheriffs Association. Beidle said that the senators received a letter stating the association wants these allegations struck from the bill because its release could âdamage an officerâs career or reputation.â
ąŤ˛Ôťĺąđ°ůĚý, officers can have disciplinary files expunged from their records after three years if they were exonerated or acquitted, if the agencyâs trial board determined that the allegations were unfounded, or if the actions were dismissed.
âYou donât expunge what goes out on the internet; you donât expunge what goes on Facebook; you donât expunge what you can Google about a person,â Beidle said. âAnd so once weâve allowed unsustained complaints to go against an officer, itâs going to be with them for life, whether or not theyâre expunged in three years.â
Sen. Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore City), the sponsor of the legislation, said she understands the desire to protect those who have been falsely accused.
âBut, again â on balance, the chiefs and sheriffs that want this [amendment], it is the very chiefs and sheriffs that actually need to be held to this level of transparency and accountability, because it is the agencies that have failed, time and time again, to properly investigate and sustain complaints that need to be sustained.â
âWe have to make those decisionsâ
Senate Minority Whip Michael J. Hough (R-Frederick) said he supports the police reform package as a whole, noting that there is legislation to ensure âfairness and due process for good officers.â
âUnfortunately, this bill, as itâs currently constructed doesnât do that and the amendment would fix that,â he said.
Hough called the measure that would allow unfounded and unsustained complaints to remain in the public record its âfatal flaw,â referencing a message delivered to the public by Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) at the start of the floor session Tuesday morning.
Over the weekend, the Silver Spring Justice Coalition and the Montgomery County Defund/Invest Coalition organized a car rally that traveled between the districts of Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Chairman William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery) and Vice Chairman Jeffrey D. Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery), showing up outside their homes. The protest was called to spotlight changes to the original legislation that activists said weakened the measure.
Ferguson made a point of addressing the protest caravan at the start of the session Tuesday morning, saying intimidation, particularly of membersâ families, âis a red line.â
âAll of us got into this work, we know that weâre going to get some tough criticism, weâre gonna get yelled at at times â thatâs part of the job description,â Ferguson said. âBut our families donât sign up for that, and I just want to be very, very very clear that our words and actions are watched, but it is totally unacceptable for the use of family, or violating somebodyâs privacy â family membersâ privacy â in objective to accomplish some sort of legislative goal.â
Asked about the weekend protest, both Smith and Waldstreicher declined to comment.
Hough thanked Ferguson for condemning the behavior but asked how lawmakers shouldnât expect the same behavior from advocates and protesters if the legislation is passed without Beidleâs amendment.
âMr. President, quite frankly, thatâs absurd,â he said. âIf we allow false and unfounded allegations against our police in the hands of these people who right now are personally destroying members of this body â attacking their character, their fiber, showing up at their house â can you imagine what theyâll do to our police officers?â
Beidle said she feels the bill is âpunishing all the police officers â even the officers that have done a good job in the departments, because of some bad actorsâ and the failures of a handful of police departments.
And, like several other lawmakers Tuesday, she raised the point that other bills in the package increase oversight of law enforcement agencies.
Beidle specifically pointed to a piece of legislation that intends to repeal and replace the Law Enforcement Officersâ Bill of Rights, which would give police chiefs more authority to discipline officers.
She asked Smith if chiefs would still be able to track patterns of misconduct if these records werenât publicly available.
âThatâs absolutely correct, but what is also true is that we would have no idea that the chief was taking the appropriate action because you donât know, you have no access,â he responded.
Carter clarified this point in her final push for her colleagues to reject Beidleâs amendment, referencing a  from a discrimination lawsuit waged against Prince Georgeâs County by the Hispanic National Law Enforcement Association.
The report details dozens of episodes of inadequately investigated discrimination and misconduct complaints filed against members of the Prince Georgeâs County Police Department.
One incident detailed in the report stated that at least eight molestation complaints were filed by Black men against a single officer. None of these allegations were sustained, one was administratively closed because it wasnât investigated within the appropriate amount of time, and the officer was never disciplined.
âThese are the types of situations and itâs just a snippet,â said Carter. âItâs just a snippet of the mass number of public complaints that we never know about. We never know, and we never will know anything about the large body of complaints and large body of violations if we accept this amendment.â
Carter said she understood Beidleâs desire to empathize with the stateâs chiefs and sheriffs.
âThis is not about that, though,â she asserted. âWe have to make them ensure that they are better. We canât let them tell us how to govern it. We have to make those decisions.â
âPolicing is a public function, and it is unlike any other profession because decisions that are made are often final,â Carter said with fire in her voice. âThere is no appeal from death.â
Beidleâs amendment was narrowly defeated by a vote of 21-26.
