Panel recommends officer’s suspension
Cop’s gun, radio stolen from truck in September
A panel of police officers and a civilian recommended a 45-day suspension without pay for an Annapolis police corporal whose handgun and radio were stolen from his truck in early September.
Cpl. David Stokes, the department’s public information officer, was found guilty of 11 policy violations Friday for losing his equipment to theft by failing to secure them properly. The board found Stokes not guilty on eight offenses of hindering an investigation that were added after he asked to speak with his attorney before answering questions. He will have to pay $5,150 to replace both the encrypted police radio and Smith & Wesson M&P .40 caliber semiautomatic.
Neither the handgun nor the radio has been recovered. There have been no arrests in the theft.
Annapolis police policy requires officers to store their weapons in a secure place “inaccessible to person who are not members of the Department,” such as in a lockbox inside a house.
“There is a gun still on the street,” Ernest I. “Skip” Cornbrooks, the attorney for the department, said in closing testimony Thursday. “Placing your gun under a seat is not acceptable.”
Stokes was found guilty of violating department policies regarding misconduct, negligence, failing to report missing equipment, failing to follow orders and failing to exercise the utmost care and precaution of firearms.
Police disciplinary hearings, known as trial boards, are heard by three police officers of different ranks. Friday’s trial board introduced a civilian member for the first time in Annapolis. Civilian members hear testimony and weigh in during deliberation but cannot vote on how to charge an officer. The board’s recommendation then heads to the police chief ’s desk.
Chief Ed Jackson has 30 days from receiving the panel’s report to make a decision on an officer’s punishment. The panel chairs
typically take a week to write the report.
Friday’s hearing was chaired by Maj. Richard Ricko from Maryland Transportation Authority, Lt. Jermaine Gulledge from Greenbelt Police Department and Cpl. Kevin McBride from Rockville City Police Department. Carter Minor, a resident who completed the city’s citizen police academy, acted as the civilian member.
A conference room at police headquarters was outfitted to look like a courtroom trial for the two-day hearing. Fold-up tables were arranged on a frayed blue carpet to separate the prosecution and defense. And while a police department’s internal affairs are largely cloaked from public view, the state Legislature in 2016 eked open the process for disciplining officers by allowing the public to view them.
Final disciplinary actions decided by a chief after reviewing board decisions, however, are not public. Information on the allegations against Stokes and even his identity were not made public until the hearing started.
The coronavirus pandemic has further complicated how to make these internal proceedings accessible to the public. Anne Arundel County residents have called on the county police department to stream an upcoming trial board online instead of over a closed network to multiple locations. Friday’s hearing in Annapolis was the second time the city has streamed a police hearing through a closed audio and video network rather than allowing civilians to attend in-person.
At Pip Moyer Recreation Center, 50 seats were set up to watch the trial board through a surveillance camera pointed at the fourpanel board that was drowned by video glitches and muffled audio. All members of the hearing gathered behind faux wood tables to watch a computer monitor that played video evidence.
Stokes testified Thursday he was off-duty and went to a friend’s house on a Friday night on Sept. 4. He placed his handgun and radio underneath the driver’s seat and locked the car. When he returned to the car hours later, items were strewn and compartments rifled through. The gun and the radio were gone. Stokes said he saw a suspect a few houses away run toward a wooded area nearby.
Anne Arundel County police were called, and they opened an investigation. The next day, Stokes and his friend searched the area and tracked the man’s path near Severna Park Taphouse. A surveillance video from the restaurant shows the man walking with a gun holstered to his hip, a county police detective testified.
Cornbrooks, the police prosecutor, and Stacey Rice, an attorney for the police officer’s union, argued over whether Stokes followed department protocol when securing his gun off-duty, informing his supervisors that the gear was missing, and cooperating with an investigation by the Internal Affairs Section. It is department policy to fully cooperate with internal affairs investigations.
Stokes testified Thursday he didn’t realize the radio was missing until days later. He reported it missing on Sept. 14. He didn’t report the missing gun to his supervisor, Jackson, and didn’t report either item were missing in a written statement, as department policy requires.
When an internal investigation was opened, investigators said Stokes wasn’t cooperative.
Sgt. Hil O’Herlihy and Lt. Brian Della asked to inspect Stokes’ truck on three occasions. Stokes replied in two instances he wanted to consult his attorney before agreeing to the inspection and later that he felt uncomfortable responding to the request without Rice’s counsel.
In the video, Della explains that the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights requires officers to comply with searches that are more invasive than a vehicle inspection. He then asks Stokes if he will allow his truck to be inspected.
“Consider yourself suspended,” Della said after Stokes said he was uncomfortable speaking without Rice.
The trial board ultimately ruled Stokes was not hindering the internal investigation when he asked for his attorney in his conversation with Della.
“I felt my rights were being violated,” Stokes said Thursday. “I didn’t fail to obey an order. I asked for my attorney.”
Cornbrooks maintained in closing arguments that asking to inspect a vehicle is not an interrogation that gives officers a right to counsel or a union representative. And though Stokes was found not guilty of eight charges for hindering an internal investigation, the board found him guilty of three other related obstruction offenses.