PG County police chief resigns after report exposes racism
Study found that Black and Hispanic officers were given harsher disciplinary action and demoted if they complained under Hank Stawinski's watch
Prince George’s County Maryland police chief, Hank Stawinski, has resigned from his job after an expert report details a pattern of racism in his department.
Prince George’s County Maryland police chief, Hank Stawinski, has resigned from his job after an expert report details a pattern of racism in his department.
The report was submitted as part of a lawsuit alleging that Prince George’s County Police Department is biased against Black and Hispanic employees. The officers sued, stating that the department routinely discriminates against them in hiring, as well as in disciplinary action.
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According to The Baltimore Sun, the original lawsuit was filed with the backing of the ACLU of Maryland and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs in December 2018. The suit alleges that Black and Hispanic officers are routinely given harsher disciplinary action and are demoted when they complain.
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Further, the report notes that in 2018 a group of white officers walked out of a racial bias training class presented by the University of Maryland.
The expert report was prepared by Michael Graham, the former assistant sheriff in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Using employment records and other files, his findings are consistent with the lawsuit.
Stawinski has been the chief of the department since 2016. His resignation comes just days before the Maryland NAACP planned to issue a “no confidence” vote against him and his leadership.
Dennis Corkery, an attorney with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, said that Stawinski remains a defendant in the lawsuit. “This is an important step,” he said, “but there is still much more that needs to be done to reform the racist culture within the police department.”
The county has denied the allegations.
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Prince George’s County is Maryland’s second-most populous county and the wealthiest African-American county in the United States.
Neill Franklin, a retired major and executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, made a valid point when speaking about the suit, “If we cannot resolve the racism among our ranks internally, we will never, never, do it within the communities we serve.”
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