‘This is not a time to moan. It’s a time to organize.’
Following Tyre Nichols killing, Anne Arundel civil rights leaders call for police accountability
Anne Arundel civil rights and law enforcement leaders reflected Thursday on the horrors that unfolded last month in Tennessee when five Memphis police officers severely beat 29-year-old Tyre Nichols during a traffic stop.
Nearly a month after Nichols died of his injuries, the local officials condemned what most saw as signs of a national epidemic of brutality in law enforcement, demanding further legislative protections from police brutality and stronger measures of accountability.
“This is not a time to moan. It’s a time to organize,” said Carl Snowden, convener for the Caucus of African American Leaders of Anne Arundel County. “And we’re going to organize, mobilize, and energize people of good will in Maryland so that we’re able to pass significant and effective police reform legislation.”
Thursday’s news conference in front of the Maryland Supreme Court encapsulated many of the frustrations Black leaders have with law enforcement in their communities. Together, they spoke of the need for transparency, the right to be seen as people with dignity and the lasting, traumatic effects of brutality.
It also followed “in the tradition” of the grieving actions after such tragedies, Snowden said. Those gathered for the news conference bowed their heads in prayer for those mourning Nichols’ death. Crowd members echoed phrases, responding at times with applause or groans. Banners and signs celebrated the memories of victims of police violence such as George Floyd and Aiyana Jones.
Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police in May 2020, igniting months of protests against police brutality and calls for reform. Jones was a 7-year-old Black girl from Detroit who was shot and killed by a Detroit police officer in 2010.
Speaking as the only law enforcement representative Thursday, Annapolis Police Chief Ed Jackson said he was “dismayed” and “frustrated as a policeman” by what he saw in Memphis, adding that Nichols’ death did not “represent the core values of American policing.”
“It’s not good policing,” Jackson said. “It’s not what the citizens support us in doing. It’s not what the citizens pay us to do.
“Police cannot and do not hold police accountable. From top to bottom, we expect more from our local officials.”
— Bishop Antonio Palmer, president of the United Black Clergy
It’s not honoring the oath that we took to protect and serve.”
The chief listed precautions and strategies to create a “successful” police force.
He said a better vetting process for recruits — finding compassionate people who are “not co-opted by the thin blue line and this other silly brotherhood” — was just as important as implementing training “above the minimum standards.” And once brought into the force, officers must understand the area they serve and the people they’re accountable to.
“Every human being deserves dignity and respect, even if you’re under arrest,” Jackson said. “You’re a man or a woman, you’re somebody’s child, brother, sister, it doesn’t matter. Every human being deserves respect.”
“The police should be the community, and the community the police,” he added. “We’re all one.”
The Rev. Rickey Nelson Jones, the recently appointed NAACP president for Anne Arundel County, described the Memphis video as “satanic.” He scrutinized the “culture of evil” he sees in policing nationwide, calling what happened to Nichols “the reason why a state-bystate piecemeal approach to police reform will never work.”
“Evil always resists change,” Jones said. “Therefore, law enforcement, both leadership and the rank and file, must become fearless and courageous to oppose any human being, whether in uniform or not, who would treat another human being as if he’s less than human.”
Jones called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a broad, national reform bill stalled for the past year and a half.
Bishop Antonio Palmer, president of the United Black Clergy, called for legislative action at several levels of government. In addition to the Justice in Policing
Act, he said “more definition and clarity” was needed at the state level for “vague” reform statutes susceptible to “misinterpretation and manipulation.” And at the local level, the bishop said, counties needed to revisit the “weak” Police Accountability Board process, which he described as “flooded by law enforcement involvement.”
The Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021 required every county in the state to establish an accountability board last year to oversee citizen complaints on police conduct. Though administrative charging committees recommend punishments or charges for violating officers, law enforcement agencies investigate the initial complaints. Anne Arundel County appointed its board last summer.
“Police cannot and do not hold police accountable,” Palmer said. “From top to bottom, we expect more from our local officials.”
State and local lawmakers Thursday said Nichols’ death in Memphis reminded them of the need for fair and equitable policing. District 1 County Council member Pete Smith recalled a 2002 incident in Illinois when he was home on leave from military service. Attending a ceremony at his former high school, he saw two police officers respond to a fight by beating a teenager with a club. When he questioned the officers, Smith, a sergeant in the Marines, was arrested for obstructing police procedures. The charges were later dismissed.
“Whether you’re a police officer or a citizen, never be afraid to do the right thing,” Smith said, “even if you believe it comes with consequences.”
As for the General Assembly, Jenese Jones Oden, of the Anne Arundel
County Democratic Central Committee, read a letter on behalf of Del. Jheanelle Wilkins, a Montgomery County Democrat and chair of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus. The letter said members of the caucus were “outraged” by Nichols’ “heartless” killing and “fully recognize that deep-rooted and institutional police violence remains here in Maryland.”
In 2020, Daniel Jarrells from Odenton filed an excessive force lawsuit against Anne Arundel County, saying county police Det. Daniel Reynolds knelt on his neck during a 2019 traffic stop. The case is currently in U.S. District Court.
In December, the family of Renardo Green, a 51-yearold Annapolis man whose 2021 death in police custody was ruled a homicide, filed a federal lawsuit against the city claiming police and first responders were negligent while restraining him.
After Thursday’s news conference, Jackson confirmed the Annapolis Police Department had completed its investigation into Green’s death and transferred the case to the State’s Attorney’s Office.
The State’s Attorney’s Office declined to comment on what it called an “open matter.”
“The work to realize fair and just policing in Maryland is far from over,” Wilkins wrote in her statement. “And it’s a matter of life and death for Black Marylanders.”