Maryland Attorney General releases first report after IID takes over all officer-involved death investigations

BALTIMORE - In March 2021, Maryland's Attorney General's Office was put in charge of investigating all officer-involved deaths of civilians.

Attorney General Brian Frosh announced the first report by the Independent Investigations Division, the new office created by the 2021 police reform legislation to investigate all police-involved fatalities in the state of Maryland.

That effort was created as the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021.

"For the first time, Marylanders who died at the hands of police would not have their deaths investigated by the same police agency that employed those of officers. It was a true step toward impartiality and fairness," Frosh said.

This report covers the IID's work from October 1, 2021, through September 30, 2022, its first 12 months in existence.

The AG report includes eight officer-involved deaths in Baltimore City and Baltimore County.

The report includes statistics from the first 23 cases, legal updates, and an overall look at the Division's investigative process.

Of those 23 cases, four officer-involved deaths happened in Baltimore City, four in Baltimore County and three in Anne Arundel County.  

Officials responded to an officer-involved deaths in Baltimore City on Nov. 13, 2021; February 19, 2022; June 20, 2022; and August 4, 2022. 

Officers were involved in deaths in Baltimore County on Oct. 9, 2021; Oct. 11, 2021; May 4, 2022; and June 4, 2022.

At the conclusion of each independent investigation, the IID is charged with preparing a report and transmitting it to the local State's Attorney of the county, or Baltimore City, that has jurisdiction to prosecute the matter.

"The IID's first annual report contains detailed information on the circumstances and nature of police-involved fatalities in Maryland, and what my office is doing to investigate them fairly and with transparency," Frosh said.

According to the Attorney General's Office, IID protocols generally call for response times of between one to two hours.

For the 21 cases where IID and Maryland State Police responded to the scene, the average time from notification to arrival on-scene was one hour and 14 minutes.

Additionally, 11 cases included an on-scene response from MSP's Forensic Sciences Division, which is tasked with collecting and later analyzing physical evidence.

Their average response time was one hour and 27 minutes. As part of its casework, the Forensic Sciences Division test-fired 34 firearms across all IID cases, which included guns recovered from decedents and used by involved officers.

They also performed over 5,800 microscopic comparisons of samples such as shell casings and bullets. Finally, the division tested 30 items for purposes of DNA analysis.

During the first year, local prosecutors made their charging decisions in 11 IID cases, all of which have been declinations to prosecute.

This includes nine cases where the IID transmitted final reports and one case where the IID transmitted an interim report.

The average amount of time for a State's Attorney to make a charging decision is about one month after receiving the IID report. Of the nine final reports in cases for which a State's Attorney has declined prosecution, eight reports have been made public on the IID website within 30 days.

The other report remains confidential while a related case criminal brought against a civilian is pending.

The report states the 11th and remaining case, a deadly shooting in Harford County on April 23, 2022, demonstrates a gap in the current statutory framework.

While the IID investigation into the incident was still ongoing, in June 2022, the Harford County State's Attorney announced he was declining to file any criminal charges.

The majority of the IID's 23 cases were fatal shootings (13). The remainder were fatal vehicle incidents (7) and in-custody deaths (3).

Fatal vehicle incidents included: (a) pursuits by police where an individual in the vehicle being pursued by police died; (b) pursuits by police where the vehicle being pursued struck an unrelated vehicle and an individual in that unrelated vehicle died; and (c) traffic incidents involving a police officer and another individual where that individual died.

According to the report, seven individuals brandished a firearm prior to being shot by police. Three decedents were armed with a knife. Five decedents were unarmed; three of those five were in police custody at the time and died after a medical emergency or drug overdose. In the final case, the decedent implied he had a weapon and was holding a medical walking cane immediately prior to being shot.

A case is mental health related when the decedent had an identified mental health issue prior to his/her death and that issue appeared to play some role in the decedent's behavior while interacting with police.

Eleven cases involved more than one officer, with 45 involved officers in total across the IID's 23 cases.

Click here for the full report.