The search for Montgomery County’s next police chief will include at least three phases and involve residents who will be appointed to two review panels.
The process was spelled out at a Thursday night public forum in Glenmont attended by more than 100 people, some sharing concerns over allegations of mistreatment by police officers and others suggesting qualities they want in a chief.
County Executive Marc Elrich said he has narrowed a list of applicants to less than 20, including Marcus Jones, an assistant police chief.
The screening process will be one of the most extensive in recent county history.
A first screening panel will include two staff members from the county executive’s office, two staff members the County Council, one from the sheriff’s office and two laypeople from the community, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Caroline Sturgis said.
All of the interviews will be closed to the public and the selection is expected to be complete in August, Sturgis said.
The vacancy for the top position in the 1,300-member force occurred after 15-year veteran Chief J. Thomas Manger retired in April and comes amid community concerns about police treatment of minorities.
Sturgis said the panel will finish the interviews before the end of the month, and then select finalists to appear before County Executive Marc Elrich and Chief Administrative Officer Andrew Kleine.
Once a finalist is selected, a community panel will conduct the last round of interviews.
County Executive Marc Elrich, who co-hosted Thursday’s forum with Council member Will Jawando, when asked which members of the community he wanted to be involved in the selection process, said he wanted “a diverse group of people who have different perspectives.”
“I want to make sure minorities are represented,” Elrich said.
Former County Executive Doug Duncan, who hired three chiefs during his 12 years in office, said he didn’t recall a three-round interview process. He said candidates would often have “meet and greets” with the community to determine whether there were any “red flags,” but that the community “did not have a say in who we hired.”
Duncan said he often saw more than 50 people apply for the top job, but of those he only interviewed between three and five. “You don’t bring in 20 people to interview,” he said.
Thursday night’s forum was attended by more than 100 people at John F. Kennedy High School.
Some told of their concerns over a lack of trust in the police.
Tara Smith said she recently had a conversation with her 9-year-old son about what he should do if stopped by the police, to which his first reaction was “run.”
After telling him not to run, he asked, “what am I supposed to do,” she said.
“I kind of walked him through this process, and eventually got to the point where I said, don’t say anything, speak to an attorney. I don’t like that I have to conversation with my-year-old black son … mothers should not have to have those conversations with their black sons,” she said.
White Oak resident June Henderson said she was forcibly evicted in October due to a foreclosure that lasted 10 years, and was put on a gurney after being hit by one of the police officers’ batons.
“At this point I may not want to be here. I may want to go back to Arkansas,” she said.
County police have attracted attention after the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in Silver Spring almost a year ago, and the use of the n-word by a white police officer toward black youths at a McDonald’s restaurant last month in White Oak.
Danielle Blocker, a 24-year old Silver Spring resident, said she moved back to the area after attending college in St. Louis due to the frequent mistreatment of minorities by police, most notably the 2014 unarmed shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Last year’s killing of Robert White, she said, brought back bad memories.
“I remember in St. Louis always being scared,” she said. “One of the reasons I moved back here was that I didn’t want to feel scared. So when I see incidents eerily similar to the ones in St. Louis and Ferguson and I see incidents like Robert White being killed and not much discipline from that… I worry. I don’t want to be scared for myself or my friends.”
Jawando said he had met privately with 50 students of color prior to the forum, and half of them said they had been stopped by the police for trespassing without cause. He said according to police data, nearly half of all arrests in Montgomery County are of black residents, and more than one-quarter are of Latino arrests.
“This system is flawed. It’s a national problem, and we’re not immune here in Montgomery County,” he said.
Other residents said they want the next police chief to ensure that bias training is implemented throughout the department as well as better mental health training. Others suggested a “community policing” model, in which neighbors meet regularly with officers, and the officers walk the streets during the day to get to know residents.
Sturgis said the responses from Thursday’s forum will be put into a notebook and used during the selection process. Additionally, responses from a community survey that closes June 10 will be used in the selection process.
Thursday’s forum was captured on video, and Elrich said he expects candidates for the chief to watch it.
“This is not the kind of job where you can afford to make mistakes,” Elrich said.
Dan Schere can be reached at Daniel.schere@moco360.media
