This is Your Call to Action!
- Email the Chiefs of Police and the Sheriff’s Office (emails below) with the 10 Actions for a Better Harford County below. Check out the Sample Letter to LEAs Elected Officials (Word Doc) for inspiration and check out the responses received to date below.
- Attend the Coalition for Justice Community Forums.
- Then demand your elected officials (emails below) make these changes happen.
- Then vote, register everyone you know to vote, and make sure they vote.
10 Actions for a Better Harford County
- By July 15, 2020, develop a community survey with community input on the parameters of the survey, to assess the level of trust between the community and the LEA (law enforcement agency).
- By August 15, 2020, create or publish procedures that provide transparency for the community regarding misconduct investigations.
- Immediately mandate independent investigation and prosecution of officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths. Special Prosecutors MUST be appointed at the State or Federal Level.
- Within 4-6 months, reevaluate training, hiring and LEA employment evaluation standards and practices, to ensure procedural justice, remove implicit bias, enhance cultural proficiency, and teach how to de-escalate situations without the use of deadly force. These new standards and practices should be published in all local newspapers and e-papers, on the Harford County Web site, on individual jurisdictions’ Web sites and on all relevant “Social Media” pages.
- Within 4-6 months, abolish the “double standards” that shield police accused of misconduct. Revise the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights to eliminate the 5-day waiting period before an officer is interviewed.
- Immediately implement effective data collection on all use-of-force incidents. There is a proposed bill in the Maryland Legislature called the “Law Enforcement Trust & Transparency Act”; use this bill as a blueprint for the implementation of effective data collection.
- By January 2022 (the next Election Cycle Year), establish an independent Civilian Review Board to address and respond to any complaints of bias, discrimination, or misconduct by, police and sheriffs.
- By January 2022 (the next Election Cycle Year), add funding for the implementation of body & vehicle cameras to the budgets of Harford County and all local municipalities to the extent not presently in place. Also, develop privacy, storage, and review and release policies around the use of these cameras in anticipation of their implementation.
- By 2023 (within three years), increase minority and women hiring, so that the personnel makeup of Law Enforcement Agencies is equal to the demographics of Harford County.
- Immediately abolish the use of chokeholds and strangleholds.
Police Emails
Sheriff Harford County: gahlerj@harfordsheriff.org
Bel Air Chief of Police: cmoore@belairmd.org
Aberdeen Chief of Police: HTrabert@aberdeenmd.gov
Havre de Grace Chief of Police: twalter@havredegracemd.com
Elected Officials
County Executive, Barry Glassman: countyexecutive@harfordcountymd.gov
President of the County Council, Patrick Vincinti: pvincenti@harfordcountycouncil.com
County and municipality: https://harfordvotes.info/contact-your-officials
State: http://www.mdelect.net
Responses
We have had the following responses from our outreach:
- Aberdeen Police Response to Actions for a Better Harford
- Sheriff Gahler Response to Actions for a Better Harford
- Bel Air Police Response to Actions for a Better Harford
- HdG Police Response to Actions for a Better Harford