Four years after it was established, the Baltimore Police Accountability Board doesn’t have its own investigator and still has to rely on the Police Department’s internal investigations when it decides on discipline for officers in misconduct cases involving a member of the public.

In an unusual move, two veterans of the civilian oversight system this week blamed City Councilman Mark Conway for the board’s lack of independence, wading into a political fight days after Conway was removed as chair of the powerful Public Safety Committee.

“The fact that we no longer have an independent mechanism of police oversight in Baltimore is the result of a very specific piece of legislation,” said Aaron Maybin, who chaired the Civilian Review Board before it was unceremoniously shuttered in 2024.

That piece of legislation was Conway’s bill to establish local control of the Police Department. In the complicated rush to return local control to the city for the first time in 160 years, Maybin said, the local legislation interrupted the state statute that enabled the CRB to operate.

The result was a civilian oversight system neutered of its power to independently investigate police officers.

The CRB had independent investigatory power and could subpoena documents from the Police Department, but could not force the department to adopt its recommendations for police discipline.

In contrast, the current board’s Administrative Charging Committee can recommend discipline for misconduct involving members of the public, and the Police Commissioner cannot impose lesser discipline. But the Charging Committee’s conclusions are entirely dependent on information provided by police.

With the sudden death of the CRB, Maybin said, the board’s independent powers never got transferred to the new Accountability Board, which was created in July 2022 following the passage of the 2021 police reform legislation in Annapolis.

The Accountability Board has repeatedly called for greater independence, including the establishment of a quasi-governmental Office of Police Oversight and Accountability, but that hasn’t happened. (The PAB is currently administered and staffed by the Mayor’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights.)

Jamal Turner, the PAB’s chair, said the board has tried to work toward greater independence with the Public Safety Committee, but did not make progress under Conway’s leadership.

“I’m looking forward to being able to achieve these goals with the new chair of this committee,” Turner said, referring to Councilman John Bullock.

Looming Lawsuits

Turner’s comments came days after Conway was removed as chair of the Public Safety Committee.

In the ensuing political spat, City Council President Zeke Cohen accused Conway of failing to attend budget meetings and said Conway “has not introduced nor passed a single substantive piece of legislation this term. He has not been able to even pass a non-binding resolution.”

Responding to Cohen’s remarks, Conway suggested his removal was retaliation for his efforts to back the Office of the Inspector General, which is also embroiled in a legal battle over its independence.

He further pointed to his work on the effort to restore local control of the police department and to establish the Police Accountability Board.

Meanwhile, the city is facing two lawsuits from Jesmond Riggins, a PAB member who claims he was removed from the Administrative Charging Committee in retaliation for his public calls for greater independence.

Riggins’s first lawsuit claims that he was pulled off the committee 10 days after he testified before the Public Safety Committee in favor of greater independence for the PAB. The city has asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit.

Riggins is also suing because nearly every PAB member was recently informed by the Scott administration that they would need to re-apply for their positions because their terms have expired.

The city said the surprise announcement was normal procedure to align PAB members’ terms with the mayor’s four-year term.

But Riggins has argued that PAB terms are not intended to be coterminous with the mayor’s, and that giving each new mayor the power to influence the board’s membership could politicize the board.

He has asked a city judge to issue an injunction blocking the re-appointment process. The city has yet to respond to his lawsuit.

• Madeleine O’Neill is a freelance reporter in Baltimore.