Posts about Police

A police department statement pointedly noted that Toles's "violations [were] observed by a uniformed patrol officer operating a marked police cruiser on the Capital Beltway..."

Apparently, it took more than the usual amount of effort from police to stop the speeding councilmember. The Examiner reports that Toles's vehicle was "surrounded by officers"—indicating that multiple vehicles and officers were involved in the chase prior to the vehicle being stopped on Branch Avenue. WJLA states that "some officers approached Toles's car with their guns drawn."

Multiple officer accounts state that Toles repeatedly identified and referred to herself as the District 7 county councilmember and acted in a belligerent manner toward the officers throughout the traffic stop.

After police realized that they had stopped a member of the county council and not some ordinary scofflaw, they decided to issue her a citation only for an unsafe lane change, which carries a $90 fine and one point against her driver's license. The officer gave Toles a written warning for speeding.

Police defend their actions, claim no preferential treatment

Police were quick to defend their initial handling of this matter. However, they also left open the possibility that additional charges may be forthcoming after further review of the situation by police brass.

In response to growing concerns from the media and the public about apparent preferential treatment of a county official, the police stated:

The issuance of a warning citation for the speed is consistent with the typical discretion applied by police officers to speeding motorists. The traffic violations were captured on the police officer's in-car camera, and the incident will be subject to command review. At the moment, the video is evidence in a pending District Court traffic case, and will not be released.

Clearly, most drivers who are observed by a uniformed police officer going 50 miles over the speed limit would be immediately ticketed, and possibly arrested for reckless driving. This is especially so if, like Toles, they are crossing multiple lanes on the Capital Beltway, not immediately stopping in response to multiple police lights and sirens, and acting belligerently toward police, who felt the need to draw their weapons in response to the traffic stop.

For the county police to suggest that the issuance of a warning under such circumstances is "consistent with the typical discretion applied by police officers to speeding motorists" defies logic.

Toles released a statement shortly after the incident, stating that she "consider[s] moving violations serious matters," that she regrets the incident, and that she intends to pay the $90 ticket for the unsafe lane change. She later said she would temporarily give up her county vehicle and also take a driver safety course.

Toles is no stranger to serious traffic violations

Based on her driving record over the past couple of years, the public has ample reason to question whether Toles genuinely regards moving violations as "serious matters."

On August 5, 2010, Toles pled guilty in Upper Marlboro District Court to making an unsafe lane change on March 31, 2010, at Martin Luther King Jr. Hwy and Greenleaf Road. She paid a $90 fine. This is the exact same charge for which she received a ticket in the February 22, 2012 incident.

On April 1, 2011, Toles pled guilty in Hyattsville District Court to driving off the roadway while passing a vehicle on September 7, 2010, at the Capital Beltway and Pennsylvania Avenue. She also pled guilty to failing to display her registration card upon demand by the police during that same incident. She paid a total of $150 in fines.

In both of those 2010 instances, court records reflect that Toles' driver's license was temporarily suspended for several weeks, prior to her guilty pleas, after the councilmember failed to appear in court to answer the charges.

Justice and fair play require that Toles face charges

After the Jack and Leslie Johnson scandals, the last thing Prince George's County needs is for another of its public officials to get away with gaming the system by trading on their political office.

Two days before Toles was stopped by police, another driver killed herself and injured 4 others in a horrendous crash. She was driving similar 100+ mph speeds on Martin Luther King Jr. Highway. Like Toles, the driver in that fatal incident was a repeat traffic offender. Indeed, she actually had received a ticket on January 22 for traveling 91 mph in a 55 mph zone—which is 14 mph less than Toles' alleged speed on February 22.

Toles knew exactly what she was doing when she belligerently and repeatedly identified herself as a county councilmember after leading police on a high-speed chase. She wanted to intimidate the police into not charging her with serious traffic violations. And in that effort, she has been successful—at least up to this point.

Based on the police officer accounts that have been reported thus far, there appears to be ample probable cause to support charging Toles with multiple serious traffic violations arising out of the February 22 incident, including but not limited to reckless driving, fleeing or eluding police, and obstruction of justice.

Police claim that one of the reasons the ticketing officer did not cite Toles for exceeding the speed limit initially was that the officer had no radar, had not properly calibrated his speedometer, and did not have time to pace her actual speed while giving chase. However, the determination of Toles's precise speed is not an essential element to either of the above charges.

Under Maryland's point system, a conviction on these traffic charges could result in mandatory suspension or revocation of Toles's license, in addition to any other applicable fines or jail time.

The Prince George's County Police have said they will review the situation and may charge Toles with additional violations. Hopefully, Chief Mark Magaw, Assistant Chief Kevin Davis (301-772-4740), and the rest of the executive review panel will take this opportunity to do the right thing and charge the council member in the same manner as any other driver would have been charged under similar circumstances.

If the police don't do their job, then it is up to the State's Attorney's Office to protect the interests of Maryland's citizens in Prince George's County. The office's District Court Division, headed by Chief Mary Brennan (304-952-3967) and Assistant Chief Michael Glynn (301-952-2875), is ultimately responsible for prosecuting misdemeanor crimes in Prince George's. That office should not hesitate to pursue these charges directly if the county police department lacks the political will.

Once properly charged, Councilmember Toles should be afforded all the constitutional protections and presumptions that any other criminal defendant would have under our justice system—including the presumption of innocence, the right to a jury trial, and the requirement that the state prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Repeated reckless driving on Maryland's roads is, to use Karen Toles's own description, a very "serious matter." Nearly 600 people die each year in Maryland as a result of automobile crashes. If the police saw the councilmember engaging in such conduct on February 22, as multiple media reports suggest, they should not turn a blind eye toward that conduct, and neither should the State's Attorney's Office.

In America—including in Prince George's County—no one, regardless of their position in government, should be above the law.

The following Monday, while retrieving my bicycle after a day of work and community meetings, I ran into an MTPD officer at the station. He saw me approaching the bicycle racks and asked, "Is your bike still there?"

Sure, it was meant to be a joke to lighten the mood, but given the knowledge I have of what has been happening at the station and my most recent interaction with the MTPD dispatch, I didn't find it particularly funny. I told him, "Mine's fine, but I can't say the same for this guy," while pointing at the frame that remained locked up, sans wheels and gears, next to my bike.

The officer came over to look at it. He thought that the bike might have been stolen, locked up by a thief, and then vandalized by someone else. I told him about my attempt to call the crime in, and how the dispatcher rebuffed my plea for help. He mentioned that a sticker could be put on the bike (as in the photo below), then told me to have a good evening.

It's worth noting that the bicycle frame in the first photo was removed by Wednesday evening, but the one in the photo above has been there for weeks.

In the Examiner article, Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn blames the victims of these crimes for allowing their bikes to be stolen and vandalized. "Many buy expensive bikes but buy inexpensive locks," he says, and while personal observation tells me that there certainly are bicycles that haven't been properly secured at the Metro station, there is also a lack of seriousness on the part of Taborn's force regarding crime.

If the attitude from the top of the MTPD is dismissive of bicycle-related crime, it's not surprising to see the rest of the force serving beneath him being apathetic about it as well. That's a real shame, and it's something that I hope will change. Blaming the victim and not accepting help from civilians when it's offered will keep MTPD from being as effective as it could be.

Cross-posted at The District Curmudgeon.

Some would argue that class, not race is the biggest divider in today's Montgomery, especially with a black County Executive and three minority Councilmembers. But we're still far from being a color-blind society. At Saturday's community roundtable on youth issues, I talked to Joey, who lives in Four Corners and said he'd support a curfew. He won't take his family to Silver Spring at night because of "thug-looking kids" hanging out there. "And I'm not just talking about black and Latino kids," he quickly added. If we don't see race, is that statement necessary?

For years, Montgomery County has been proud of its liberal politics. Now that we're a majority-minority jurisdiction, we actually have to show our progressive values. After all, it's easy to be open-minded when the only minorities you see are the token black family on your cul-de-sac. It's harder when your kids go to a school that's 25% white and the signs in your neighborhood are all in Amharic or Spanish.

Some people are comfortable with that. The rest struggle each day to negotiate a world that doesn't look like it did just twenty years ago, unsure how to respond. Usually, they go with fear. And that can make even the most staunch liberal consider things normally offensive to their principles. Like trusting that police can pick out "bad" kids on a busy downtown street, even before anyone's done anything illegal, and not wrongfully accuse someone based on vaguely-defined characteristics.

The perennial debate over youth behavior and crime in Silver Spring has been going on for years. It's a reflection of how committed people are to ensuring that this community, once lost to disinvestment and urban decay, can remain vibrant and safe. Yet the discussion rarely touches on the elephant in the very diverse room and, as a result, can never be fully resolved.

WJLA yesterday picked up the story of unsafe crossings here. Their video mentions the same solution Stephen suggested: HAWK signals, which DDOT officials told them have been very effective.

Other residents suggest some kind of stoplight. None suggest responding to the rear-end collision by yelling at drivers who do stop. But that's just what the Park Police did. Whether they're overreacting to dancing, shutting down food trucks, arresting journalists at public meetings, or tasering pedicab drivers, there seems to be a pattern of very poor Park Police responses to issues that arise.

The "Smooth Operator" road safety campaign just sent out a press release entitled, "Speeding belongs on the raceway—not the roadway," citing the Baltimore Grand Prix and its drivers' maneuvers as something appropriate for the track but not for everyday driving. The ramps between the GW Parkway and Memorial Bridge even are oval-shaped like a racetrack; maybe the Park Police got confused.

Correction: The original headline on this article erroneously suggested Beaujon was a pedestrian. He was actually on a bicycle.

The county transportation officials who designed this street to be so dangerous, the AJC reporter who pointed out she hadn't been charged, the prosecutors who overcharged the case, and the jurors who had never taken a public bus all showed no remorse for encouraging a situation where people have to break laws and put themselves in dangerous situations just to travel to work and shop.

A similar windshield perspective is on display in a recent Anne Arundel crash. A driver fatally hit Alex Canales Hernandez and, as in Nelson's case, left the scene. Also like Nelson's, it happened on a busy arterial street that's been designed for maximum vehicle speeds and not for bicycle or pedestrian safety.

Anne Arundel police spokesperson Justin Mulcahy told the Maryland Gazette, "Certain stretches of roads should really be just for vehicles." He also encouraged cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers all to pay attention and make eye contact.

Setting aside the fact that "vehicles" include bicycles, certain stretches of road are just for motor vehicles, like freeways. But those always coexist with networks of other roads that can potentially serve all modes. In most suburban areas like Cobb County, Georgia and Anne Arundel County, Maryland, designers have often made local arterial roads more freeway-like without actually providing for safe bicycle and pedestrian alternatives.

Bus stops become tiny roadside perches mere feet from speeding traffic with few or no places to cross, and people trying to get around without a car, sometimes because they can't afford one, have to take their lives into their hands and risk being blamed when anything goes wrong.

Not only do rude commenters and commentators blame these victims, but so do some police and callous spokespeople like Mulcahy or Jonathan Perok of Prince William, who blamed a pedestrian for getting killed in Dumfries who turned out to be a VDOT contractor there to install a traffic signal.

Jay Mallin made a great video in response to a similar Prince William incident that's equally relevant to Raquel Nelson's and Alex Canales Hernandez's cases. It's worth rewatching:

Wired also wrote today about a new report (PDF) framing transportation as a civil rights issue:

According to the report, the average cost of owning a car is just shy of $9,500. That may not sound like much until you realize the federal poverty level is $22,350 for a family of four. One-third of low-income African-American households do not have access to an automobile. That figure is 25 percent among low-income Latino families and 12.1 percent for whites. Racial minorities are four times more likely than whites to use public transit to get to work.

Yet the federal government allocates 80 percent of its transportation funding to highways.

"This is the civil rights dilemma: Our laws purport to level the playing field, but our transportation choices have effectively barred millions of people from accessing it," the report states. "Traditional nondiscrimination protections cannot protect people for whom opportunities are literally out of reach."

The report couldn't be more timely. Sarah Goodyear asks, could the intense media coverage of this issue mean that society is ready to start taking pedestrian rights more seriously?