Eastern Shore Sheriffs speak out against proposed bill to have State Attorney General’s Office investigate all fatal police involved shooting cases in Maryland

SALISBURY, Md – Sherrifts from Worcester, Dorchester, and Wicomico Counties testified in Annapolis Wednesday against a packet of legislation that changes the way that police-involved shootings involving fatalities or serious injury would be investigated and prosecuted.

House Bill 638 would take the investigation and prosecution of police-involved shootings or serious injuries away from the local departments and state’s attorneys and give that power to the Maryland state attorney general and independent investigators’ office.

“To make sure things are fair and equal across the entire state the best thing to do is to have an independent prosecutor decide whether or not to prosecute,” said bill sponsor Rep. Vanessa Atterbeary adding “Some local prosecutors would say they are never going to prosecute police and some might always do them for the wrong reasons, for political reasons, which you don’t want either, so if you take it out of their hands and put it in an independent body then it will be uniform across the state.”

But local sheriffs disagree, saying the bill would disrupt the chain of command, by making investigations only possible through the IIU office with no input from local departments.

“We want to be able to conduct our own investigations we can work parallel with the IIU but we feel it’s important that we have the ability to investigate these incidents,” said Worcester County Sheriff Matt Crisafulli.

Sheriff Crisafulli tells us if a local department doesn’t have the authority to investigate crucial details could be lost by the time state investigators arrive.

“If we are waiting on an IIU team they could be over the bridge in another county but those first few minutes first few hours after an incident are key for finding information that you might never be able to get again, especially canvassing witnesses,” he said.

Representative Atterbeary tells us that situation would not happen under the proposed bill, and instead Maryland State Police would be mobilized, working on details obtained by those local departments until AG or IIU staff are available. Sheriff Crisafulli tells us, he is in favor of sharing information but disagrees with being locked out of any potential investigations.

“We want to be able to work parallel with them and not be impeded by another agency,” he said.