Maryland county linked to ‘lawyering while black’ case has other complaints of discrimination

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A Maryland Legal Aid lawyer opened the flood gates when he filed a complaint against a Harford County police deputy for detaining and questioning him because he is Black. Since Rashad James’ accusations, others have come forward alleging other instances of discrimination across the county.

James, who is an attorney for Maryland Legal Aid’s community lawyering program, said the police deputy didn’t believe he was an attorney and thought he was actually impersonating his client, who is also Black, according to The Baltimore Sun.

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In his complaint, James is asking Harford County Sheriff’s Office to conduct a thorough investigation and to place the incident in the accused officer’s personnel file.

But as of Thursday, the Baltimore law firm of Brown, Goldstein & Levy, which represents James, has spoken to an additional nine people all complaining of “racial discrimination in Harford County generally,” Chelsea Crawford, an attorney with the firm, told The Sun. One caller was a woman with Black sons who said her children suffered “constant harassment and profiling from Harford County deputies.”

“That’s the flavor of what we’ve been getting,” Crawford told the newspaper. “We’re hearing anecdotes of Harford County being a place that’s not as welcoming to people of color.”

It is unclear whether the additional complaints all were against the Harford County Sheriff’s Office.

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Cristie Hopkins, spokesperson for the agency, said she hadn’t heard of any of the cases that Crawford mentioned but said if they want to make additional complaints, the office encourages them to do so.

According to James’ lawyers the incident involving him occurred on March 6 when he appeared in Harford County District Court for an expungement hearing on behalf of a client, who was absent from the hearing. After the hearing, an officer from the sheriff’s office questioned and detained James on suspicion that he was his client, impersonating a lawyer, according to a press release from the firm. They have called the incident a case of “lawyering while black.”

James told the officer, who was not present in the courtroom at the time of the hearing, that he was an attorney and even produced a driver’s license to confirm his identity. That didn’t stop the officer from taking James into an interview room for 10 minutes of questioning and phone calls, the release adds.

“If Mr. James were white, the officer would not have doubted that Mr. James was an attorney, would not have questioned his identity, and certainly would not have detained Mr. James after seeing his driver’s license,” said Andrew D. Freeman, of Brown, Goldstein & Levy. “There is no plausible explanation other than racial bias.”

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Jeffrey R. Gahler, Harford County Sheriff, told The Sun that James’ complaint was “promptly assigned to the Harford County Sheriff’s Office — Office of Professional Standards for a complete and thorough investigation. We take all complaints seriously.”

Hopkins said the investigation is continuing.

“When someone files a complaint against the agency or a deputy, an investigation is launched, and we have to see that investigation that all the way through,” Hopkins told The Sun. “Investigations take time to interview all the appropriate people[and] look for surrounding information that might be pertinent.”