Baltimore County Councilman Izzy Patoka is calling for an outside investigation into the county’s police department over its traffic stop practices.

The Pikesville Democrat — who announced his run for county executive last month — demanded transparency in the wake of The Banner’s investigation into how the county’s police department officers stop, search and ticket Black drivers at significantly higher rates than white drivers.

Despite county officials calling attention to the issue six years ago, the county continues to have the most pronounced racial disparities in the state.

“We need to address this, there’s some urgency to it,” Patoka said in an interview on Monday. “We need an outside lens.”

That outside lens, Patoka said, should come from the Baltimore County Office of Inspector General (OIG), which he said is “trained to look at the operational aspects of an agency, then address those based on a level of experience an inspector general might have.”

Patoka said he has spoken with Inspector General Kelly Madigan, and has not filed any formal motions as of yet, “though there could possibly be.”

Madigan declined to comment.

Councilman Pat Young said an OIG investigation should be a last resort.

The Catonsville Democrat first wants the council to call on the members of an “equitable policing advisory group” that former County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. established in 2019 to explain what went wrong.

“We should publicly discuss what’s been presented in the article,” Young said. “An investigation has its merits, but I don’t see why the public has to wait to review a disparity in Baltimore County that needs to be addressed.”

None of the Republican councilmen — David Marks, Wade Kach and Todd Crandell — responded to requests for comment.

Nor did Councilman Julian Jones, a Woodstock Democrat who is also running for county executive, or Councilman Mike Ertel, a Towson Democrat who chairs the dais.

In a statement, County Executive Kathy Klausmeier said: “I want to acknowledge the concerns raised and reaffirm that racial profiling has no place in Baltimore County.”

“Every person deserves to be treated with the fundamental rights of fairness, dignity, and respect, and Baltimore County Police officers are extensively trained to uphold the law impartially and effectively,” she said, adding that she has “full confidence” in the police chief.

Inefficient boards?

The Banner investigation found that complaints to the independent Police Accountability Board were quickly dismissed by the Police Department’s own investigators, even though the officers accused of profiling issued 70-89% percent of their tickets to Black drivers.

Meanwhile, the county’s Equitable Policing Advisory Group has only met a handful of times in recent years. The last meeting, over a year ago, was scheduled to last an hour but wrapped up in about 15 minutes.

“I was under the assumption that they were working efficiently, meeting regularly, so that was a little surprising to me,” Patoka said.

Jones is a member of the work group, alongside Chief Robert McCullough and State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger.

Jones, the lone Black councilman, has been a staunch police reform advocate in the county. Jones lobbied the council to pass the SMART Policing Act in 2020.

Young, who has also mounted a campaign for county executive, is disappointed by the work group’s inconsistency.

“These work groups, these commissions are only as effective as the leaders in charge of them,” he said.

Since Klausmeier was appointed county executive by the council in January, it has been unclear who exactly is running the advisory group, Young said.

“The purpose is to build public trust,” he said. “If it’s being used as another tool to make excuses for actions, than that’s the exact opposite of what it was intended to do.”

Empowering police accountability

Nick Stewart, a corporate attorney and Democrat who is also running for county executive, said The Banner’s investigation showed how far Baltimore County has to go when it comes to systemic inequities and structural racism, “and how that continues to plague us.”

”We are a big, beautiful diverse county, we really are,“ Stewart said. ”And these numbers indicate that peoples’ stories differ greatly based off their skin color, and that simply cannot be the case.”

Stewart said he believes the Police Accountability Board is “the right government apparatus and arm to investigate the issue, and make recommendations related to the patterns and practices that we’re seeing here.”

But Stewart said he has concerns about the board, which recently voted against an effort by one of the board members, Peter Fitzpatrick, to empower it to read and review citizen complaints, which are public record.

Fitzpatrick has also said the board should have independent attorneys who are separate from the Police Department or the county law office. Stewart said he supports both ideas.

“It’s really hard for the office of law to serve as counsel for the PAB while also operating and existing to protect the county,” he said. “I think those are conflicting interests, to some extent.”

Stewart called the advisory group a “missed opportunity” for county government.

“We had an opportunity to not be in this place, to proactively identify these trends, and to have intervened in a way that made it better,” he said.