The cost of making this bill on police reform law: Sacrifice
By Courtland Milloy Courtland Milloy Local columnist Email Bio Follow Columnist March 12 at 7:36 PM As a public service, the Maryland General Assembly website offers a flow chart showing how a bill becomes a law. But there is no depiction of the most important part of the process: how nothing happens without sacrifice.
The bill was co-sponsored in the state Senate last week by Sen. Jill P. Carter . But the legislative journey really began in September, with the death of a 19-year-old African American man named Anton Black. It is a common scenario, played out in the aftermath of police-involved deaths throughout the nation.
Residents in those big cities protested. So did the residents in the small town of Greensboro. They formed a group, Coalition for Justice for Anton Black. Anger and frustration were transformed into a political battering ram. The Greensboro Town Council says it was not aware of Webster’s citations when it hired him. That information had not been included on his application for certification with the police department, as the state requires. The matter is now under investigation by the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, according to agency spokesman Gerard Shields.
“If we hadn’t been organized and showed up at every meeting to protest, so much about this case would have been swept under the carpet,” said Richard Potter, a 37-year-old Salisbury University administrator who co-founded the coalition. “The truth would never have been exposed.”
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