Michael Amon

April 25, 2004 — The Washington Post, SM1
Michael Amon, Washington Post Staff Writer

When news broke this month of a state audit questioning the handling of contracts at the St. Mary’s County Department of Social Services, the director, Ella May Russell, shut the agency down for an hour and held two emergency staff meetings in the department’s Leonardtown and Lexington Park offices.

Russell told staff members that the 19 problems noted by the auditors — the most findings in recent memory — were being corrected, according to a summary of the April 12 meetings obtained by The Washington Post. She blamed the problems on seven management vacancies, all positions she cannot fill because of a state hiring freeze.

“Not having individuals in these positions impacted this Department’s ability to provide adequate program supervision and monitoring,” the summary said.

But several managers who resigned in the past two years and created those vacancies said in interviews that they left because of Russell’s management style. Although they acknowledged her innovations in the delivery of services, they described a workplace in which senior assistants’ suggestions are unheeded, agency problems are overlooked, and disciplinary action is personal.

“That’s the reason why I left,” said Celeste Belmont, 31, a former agency supervisor who managed welfare caseloads. She resigned abruptly last month after four years and moved to Virginia without a job.

“This is something that needs to be addressed at a higher level,” she said of Russell. “Unfortunately, it’s not being heard, but this is a major problem for St. Mary’s County.”

Former supervisors Katherine Parker, who left in 2002, and John Johnson, who left last month, also said in interviews that they resigned because of Russell.

“It was an abusive environment,” said Parker.

The positions Belmont, Parker and Johnson held remain vacant.

Russell, a respected agency director who has had her post for nearly 20 years, did not return several phone calls over two weeks seeking comment for this article. In a previous interview, she said her detractors — inside and outside the agency — were few.

“I don’t know of any organization that has 100 percent of the staff who are always satisfied about everything,” she said.

The disputes between senior staff and Russell go back several years. In June 2002, they came to a head when nine of 13 staff supervisors voted “no confidence” in Russell’s leadership and asked her to resign or transfer to another department.

In a separate ballot, the supervisors voted unanimously that Russell needed to change her leadership style, according to seven managers who were present for the vote.

“We are now stating our unwillingness to be verbally intimidated and demeaned,” the supervisors wrote in a letter to Emelda Johnson, then-secretary of the Maryland Department of Human Resources, the social services agency’s parent. “We have also become intolerant of being forced to observe and live with contractual, financial and unethical improprieties on the part of the Director.”

Leonard H. Ames, then-assistant director for operations and the local social services agency’s second-in-command, took the supervisors’ issues up with Russell on June 11, 2002. A week later, Russell fired Ames, according to a termination letter signed by her that was obtained by The Post. His position remains vacant.

The inspector general for human resources launched an investigation into the supervisors’ complaints, according to state documents obtained by The Post. In the end, state officials found Russell did nothing improper, according to documents.

But, in a Jan. 13, 2003, letter to Russell, Johnson noted that the inspector general “raised questions” about the St. Mary’s agency’s awarding of contracts. Johnson said the department’s procedures “often appear to be biased,” though, she added, “there is clearly no biased intent.”

Less than three weeks ago, on April 6, the most recent audit of the social services agency again questioned Russell’s handling of contracts. Auditors said Russell served as both project officer and approving authority on at least five contracts, a violation of state policy.

Project officers help contractors execute plans; approving authorities allocate the money for the contract. State officials say the two duties are separated to ensure that more than one person is aware of a contractors’ responsibilities.

For those contracts, it was at first unclear whether any services were delivered by the contractors, the audit said. Documentation was later offered proving the services were performed, according to the audit.

In 2002, Ames wrote letters to state officials, asking them to investigate problems with the same five contracts cited now by state auditors. All of the contracts were for just under $25,000, the amount at which a more competitive bidding process is required.

Ames also complained of a “bullying” work environment fostered by Russell, which he said caused “the loss of talented managers and staff.” He said supervisors would not propose ideas at group meetings involving Russell because they were afraid she would disapprove, leading them to be nicknamed “The Cardboard People.”

“The staff exodus will continue, and citizens of St. Mary’s County will be adversely affected,” Ames warned state officials in a June 2002 letter.

The staff problems come during a period of great change at the agency. Several years ago, Russell overhauled the department, requiring nearly every social worker to be trained in almost every facet of social services — assistance with cash, medical needs and housing problems.

Most social services agencies separate these functions, causing welfare recipients with multiple needs to go through several different offices. Russell’s plan became a model for the state, and even detractors, such as Ames, have called her a “visionary.”

Russell has said her internal critics were employees not willing to deal with change. “Not everyone likes change,” she said.

Sen. Roy P. Dyson (D-St. Mary’s), who has described Russell as “fantastic to work with,” said Friday that he had spoken about her recently with Department of Human Resources Secretary Christopher J. McCabe. Dyson said he told McCabe that Russell has been doing a great job.

“If there was something wrong there, I would know about it,” Dyson said.

“She is not the kind of person you would run up to and give a hug,” he added. “It took me a couple of years to warm up to her, but she really knows how to get things done. I can’t imagine the agency would be better without her,”

St. Mary’s County Administrator George G. Forrest also praised Russell’s work. He said she has been instrumental in relocating poor residents from Lexington Manor and in finding work for welfare recipients.

“Without Mrs. Russell, we would not have been as effective as we are,” said Forrest, who called the issues noted in the audit “minor.”

“What you have there are some disgruntled employees,” Forrest said of Russell’s critics. “You have some folks who are being required to perform duties, and they are not happy with that. . . . I don’t think I’ve seen enough evidence that I would vote no confidence in her as a director.”

But former employees and three current employees who spoke only on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution from Russell said the director’s management style continues to drive hardworking employees away. In two months, two supervisors — Belmont and Johnson — have resigned.

“In Baltimore, the Department of Social Services couldn’t get away with this,” Ames said. “But [Russell] is far from where the action is. Nobody knows what’s she’s doing.”

November 25, 2002 — The Washington Post, p. B3
Michael Amon, Washington Post Staff Writer

Matt Irby hears it all the time as he patrols the cellblocks of the Charles County Detention Center. “I’m old enough to be your father,” prisoners tell Irby, who at age 20 is one of the youngest correctional officers in Maryland.

To succeed in a demanding job, Irby needs to keep an even temper, holding in check any fear, contempt or anger as he breaks up fights among prisoners, serves their meals, brings them library books and listens to their grievances and requests.

“This isn’t something that most 18- or 19-year-olds have to live with,” he said. “It all comes down to respect.”

Only in the past year has Maryland allowed correctional officers so young. Last November, the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commission lowered the minimum hiring age, from 21 to 18, for jobs at the state prison system and in county jails.

The change came in response to complaints from jail officials in largely rural parts of the state who said they were having trouble filling vacancies. Because of the vacancies, officials said, some jails have incurred huge overtime costs.

But so far, the age change has done little to solve the problem.

In Cecil and St. Mary’s counties, where calls for reducing the hiring age were loudest, no young correctional officers have been hired. Only two people younger than 21 have sought jobs in St. Mary’s, officials said, and no one has applied in Cecil.

“It just doesn’t seem to be appealing to 18-year-olds,” said Tom Sacks, personnel director in St. Mary’s. “We’re dealing with people who are more high-tech, who are going on to college. That’s what we’re up against.”

Meanwhile, the commission’s decision has worried correctional officials in more populous parts of Maryland who opposed the age change.

“I believe correctional officers need broad life experience, and 18 doesn’t cut it,” said Arthur Wallenstein, corrections director in Montgomery County.

Wardens at larger jails with few staff vacancies, including those in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, fought against the change and wanted the option of leaving their minimums at 21. This month, however, the Maryland attorney general’s office ruled that the change applied to all correctional officer jobs in the state and that all jails would have to give equal consideration to applicants under age 21 or risk being sued for age discrimination.

The director of corrections in Prince George’s, Barry L. Stanton, is a member of the training commission and voted for the new policy — but only because he thought it would be optional, he said. Like some of his colleagues, Stanton said he thinks it is generally a bad idea to put people under age 21 to work in such a dangerous environment, where maturity and sound judgment are important traits for the job.

“I’d like it to return to 21,” Stanton said. “The vote was taken at a time when . . . we didn’t have all the information to make what I think is a credible decision.”

No one under age 21 has yet applied for correctional officer jobs in Montgomery and Prince George’s, officials said. It is unclear whether any have applied for jobs in state prisons, but no such applicants have been hired. No one has been hired in Anne Arundel County, either, officials said, although 24 have applied.

At least four people younger than 21 have been hired as correctional officers in Maryland, including Irby, two 19-year-olds in Carroll County and a 19-year-old in Charles. Officials in those counties say the new young officers have performed well.

“They made a believer out of me,” said George C. Hardinger, warden of the Carroll County Detention Center.

Hiring teenagers is not unheard of. In Virginia and Pennsylvania and in the federal prison system, correctional facilities can hire at age 18, though they rarely do. In Northern Virginia, almost all correctional facilities hire only applicants who are 21 or older, and federal correctional officers must have a bachelor’s degree or three years’ experience in management, officials said. In Delaware, the hiring age is 20.

Maryland detention facilities were able to hire 18 year olds until 1982, when questions about maturity led officials to increase the minimum hiring age to 21, said Francis L. Manear, assistant director of the state training commission.

In Charles, 20-year-old Irby has the same responsibilities as other correctional officers, said Walter “Buddy” Poynor, deputy director of the detention center. Irby had been a leader in youth programs run by the county sheriff’s office, which made him an ideal candidate for a correctional officer’s job even before the policy change, Poynor said.

Some detention centers have started targeting teens for recruitment. The personnel director of the St. Mary’s sheriff’s office gives presentations to high school seniors. William Jacobs, warden of the Cecil County Detention Center, said he plans to talk with 10th-graders, telling them to stay away from drugs so they can qualify for the job, and its $ 26,000 salary, when they graduate.

“They’re looking for these people to start looking at these jobs as careers,” said Stephen Ingley, executive director of the Maryland-based American Jail Association. “The younger you get started into a career, the more likely you are to stay in that career.”

Staffing shortages at correctional facilities have been acute in the past decade.

Incarceration rates rose dramatically in the 1990s, and prisons and jails were built faster than officers could be hired, Ingley said. In addition, the booming ’90s economy gave young people more employment options, and the low pay and high safety risk of corrections did not attract strong candidates.

Correctional officer unions say that lowering the minimum hiring age is tantamount to lowering standards. Verjeana McCotter, president of the Prince George’s Correctional Officers Association, said detention centers should do what some police departments have done in trying to attract more applicants: Increase pay, benefits and training.

“I don’t want to see us go backwards,” McCotter said.

Despite difficulties attracting young people, corrections officials said they will continuing seeking enthusiastic applicants like Irby, who had long dreamed of a law enforcement career.

“You got to take it on a case-by-case basis,” Irby said. “There are 26-year-olds who are not mature enough to do this job.”

November 25, 2001 — The Washington Post, p. C1
Michael Amon, Washington Post Staff Writer

St. Mary’s County sheriff’s detectives are wrapping up a two-month internal investigation into an inmate’s suicide at the county detention center, and they expect to report that correctional officers did everything they could to save 19-year-old Robert Allen Nelson’s life.

But the man’s mother, Victoria Nelson, has charged that jailers did not closely watch her son, who had a history of depression and had attempted suicide several times. Nelson hanged himself in his cell Sept. 28 and died a day later at Washington Hospital Center.

The mother’s account is supported by the “call sheets” that were filled out by nurses and by paramedics who were called to the jail. The documents suggest that correctional officers failed to make an hourly check on Nelson the night he hung himself.

The dispute comes as law enforcement officials have begun calling for more staffing and training of officers at the St. Mary’s County jail, saying unfilled positions have led to dangerous lapses at the facility.

Critics, including some top county officials, point to the sexual assault of a retarded man in the jail last year, an incident that officials acknowledged happened when correctional officers failed to make a routine check of the man’s cell. They say a similar failure allowed Nelson time to hang himself.

“I think it’s something that should be checked out,” Richard D. Fritz (R), St. Mary’s state’s attorney, said of the suicide.

Fritz pointed to two reports from county grand juries that examined the detention center. On March 7, a grand jury said that the jail “is without a doubt undermanned” and, along with a report from the year before, recommended that county commissioners allocate money for new positions.

With the November 2000 sexual assault in mind, the grand jury wrote: “Up front action taken to help prevent a repeat of the situation could well prevent a costly lawsuit to the county in the future.”

In April, Sheriff Richard J. Voorhaar (R) asked commissioners for 10 new correctional staff positions. They budgeted money for two.

“I’m getting a little fed up and a little tired of those recommendations not being taken into consideration by the county commissioners,” Fritz said.

Julie B. Randall (D-At Large), president of the St. Mary’s County Commission, said the problem is how Voorhaar spends the money the board gives him.

“Many of the ways he has decided to spend the funding, certainly I and others would not have made those same choices,” Randall said. “However, that’s his to do. To merely come back on this board and say that there are still funding issues, I take exception to that.”

Fritz said that he is willing to investigate Nelson’s suicide but that he is waiting for Victoria Nelson to put her concerns in writing.

Victoria Nelson said she does not trust Fritz to do the investigation because he was once her son’s defense attorney, and the family’s relationship with him withered after Robert Nelson was put in a juvenile detention center several years ago.

“I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t start an investigation based on the circumstances alone,” Victoria Nelson said.

At 1:10 a.m. Sept. 28, Robert Nelson was found hanged in Cell C-14. He had fashioned a noose of bedsheets and shoelaces tied to a vent in the wall. He died the next day at Washington Hospital Center, though sheriff’s officials released information Oct. 1 saying that Nelson’s life had been saved by correctional officers.

After Nelson’s death became public, sheriff’s investigators said the correctional officers made a routine hourly check of the young man about midnight, a claim that detectives investigating the incident stand by.

“The correctional officers did nothing wrong. They made their hourly checks,” said Sgt. Michael Merican, head of the sheriff’s internal investigations unit.

But according to two documents filled out by paramedics at the scene and nurses at St. Mary’s Hospital, Nelson was last seen by correctional officers at 11:15 p.m. In separate interviews, inmates Daniel Ball and Garry Shubrooks, whose cells were near Nelson’s, also said the guard did not make a check at midnight.

Voorhaar said he “would have to look into that” discrepancy. He said that the jail had six vacant positions at the time of Nelson’s death and that the jail remains so understaffed that supervisors are doing the work of regular correctional officers.

“That means they can’t do their supervisory responsibilities,” Voorhaar said.

Lindsay M. Hayes, who has conducted several national studies on jail suicide, said many of the 400 to 600 inmate suicides every year happen when guards fail to make checks.

“Often a suicidal inmate may time their suicide attempt with a guard’s check and then the check never happens, and the suicide is completed,” Hayes said.

Such lapses in inmate monitoring occurred 900 times during fiscal 2000, Sgt. David Zylak, acting commander of the detention center, told county commissioners after the sexual assault.

Zylak said he could not comment on Nelson’s case because of the open internal investigation.

Voorhaar said the jail usually has an inmate classification specialist who determines whether an inmate is suicidal and makes sure the inmate is supervised properly. But that position was vacant when Nelson hanged himself and won’t be filled until December, Voorhaar said.

Officials said Nelson had been placed on suicide watch before, though they were not sure if that was when he was in juvenile detention or in the St. Mary’s jail. Nelson was in jail in connection with two June burglaries. He was arrested and jailed in the detention center July 10.

Nelson had been placed in disciplinary confinement in August. On the night he hanged himself, a correctional officer had disciplined him and threatened him with another month of confinement for throwing a shoe at her, according to a jail citation written Sept. 27.

Nelson’s mother said correctional officers should have made a point to check her troubled son, who had tried to kill himself several times while in juvenile corrections facilities, according to hospital documents.

Even before his short stay in the St. Mary’s jail, the teenager seemed to feel imprisoned.

According to hospital records, Nelson had bipolar disorder and severe episodes of depression. He turned to crime at a young age, and so many of his teenage years were spent in juvenile detention centers that he never sat for any of his family’s portrait photographs, his mother said.

While incarcerated, Nelson obsessively wrote his girlfriend’s initials on the pages of crossword puzzle books, composed poetry about “the prison within myself” and lifted weights.

In a letter to his mother dated 2 a.m. Aug. 28, Nelson wrote from solitary confinement that he was contemplating a life in prison, saying he was “working out 10 hours a day” to protect himself from other inmates.

“You say you want me to write you to tell you how I’m improving my behavior, but the truth is . . . I’m not. I’m preparing myself for prison,” the 19-year-old wrote.

On the day he hanged himself, Nelson was chipper much of the time, playing a game of pickup basketball and joking with friends, inmate Ball said.

He wrote two letters that night. The first, written before he was disciplined, was cheerful, his mother said.

The second letter was written a few minutes before he hanged himself. It was a suicide note.

“I was told that in jail would be the safest place he could be,” Victoria Nelson said. “Now there are so many what-ifs. If they had just checked on him, who knows?”

February 28, 2004 — The Washington Post
Michael Amon, Washington Post Staff Writer

In her first 16 months as a St. Mary’s County Circuit Court judge, Karen H. Abrams, a gubernatorial appointee, has won praise from local lawyers for her temperament and knowledge of the law.

But her professional fate ultimately depends on another of her skills — courting voters.

Like all lawyers appointed to fill circuit court vacancies in Maryland, Abrams, to keep her job, must win a ballot contest for a 15-year term in the first election cycle. But, unlike many jurists in the state, she is locked in a contentious primary race against two formidable challengers: lawyer Bryan T. Dugan and St. Mary’s State’s Attorney Richard D. Fritz, a proven vote-getter who has won two countywide elections.

Fritz has called Abrams “left-wing,” and Dugan has accused her of interpreting the law badly. For Abrams, a political novice who has never worked on a campaign, fighting back has proved difficult as Tuesday’s election looms.

“It’s been a huge learning curve,” said Abrams, an appointee of former governor Parris N. Glendening (D). “It’s difficult to politic and be judicial at the same time.”

On Tuesday, Abrams and jurists from Harford, Anne Arundel, Frederick and Baltimore counties will have their jobs on the line. Because the races are nonpartisan, the candidates’ names will appear on both Republican and Democratic ballots.

According to judges and lawyers, an unspoken covenant allowing sitting jurists to go unopposed has broken down in the last few years. And the trend has only picked up steam as lawyers who felt shut out of judicial appointments by Glendening have scored victories against sitting judges.

Of the 28 contested judicial elections in Maryland since 1986, 16 have involved Glendening appointees since 1996. And those who have lost have been minorities and women.

Alexander Wright Jr. was appointed by Glendening to Baltimore County Circuit Court in 1998 but lost in the 2000 primary. He was appointed again in 2001 but lost a second election in 2002. If he had won, he would have been the first African American in Baltimore County to be elected in a countywide race.

In 1996, Donna Hill Staton, Howard County’s first black female judge, failed to keep her seat in a race with two opponents.

Lawyers “have seen certain judges get defeated,” said Jane Eveleth, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Bar Association, which opposes judicial elections. “It may be inspiration for others to try it. . . . This may be their opportunity to become a judge.”

To be appointed to circuit court, lawyers must submit their names for a vacancy. They are then vetted by a county nominating committee, which looks at qualifications and sends a list of worthy candidates to the governor.

While the system is designed to remove politics from the judiciary, critics say the process is shielded from public view. And politics always plays a major role in selections, say critics, who point out that very few Republicans were appointed to judgeships by Glendening.

“For whatever reason, my name never gets sent to the governor,” said Steven J. Scheinin, a Harford County lawyer who is a Republican. He has unsuccessfully run for judge at least four times and is again challenging the incumbent on Tuesday. “If I want to be a judge, I have no other choice but to run,” Scheinin said.

In St. Mary’s, Dugan, a Democrat, applied for the vacant judgeship but was passed over in October 2002 for Abrams, also a Democrat and now the county’s first female judge. Fritz, a Republican, did not apply.

“It would have been a waste of time,” Fritz said. “It would do me no good, when I absolutely, unequivocally know Parris Glendening would not have appointed me.”

During the campaign, the former governor has been a focus of attention. Fritz, a veteran prosecutor who bills himself as a law-and-order candidate, attacks Glendening at every turn and, without naming Abrams, calls his judicial appointees “left-wing liberals” who are soft on crime.

“He keeps trying to tarnish me with Governor Glendening,” Abrams said. “I hope that nobody is going to be fooled by that.”

Abrams has campaigned relentlessly, hitting up voters at pancake breakfasts, volunteer fire department halls and supermarket parking lots.

She has been endorsed by Frances Eagan, a former Republican county commissioner, and her campaign chairwoman is Dana McGarity, a well-known Southern Maryland GOP activist.

Abrams has raised more than $37,000 for the campaign. Fritz and Dugan have raised $50,000 combined.

“Judicial campaigns are starting to look more and more like trademark political campaigns,” said Jesse Rutledge of Justice at Stake, a judiciary watchdog group in the District. “You see a lot of money going into these races and a sense of partisan competition that wasn’t there before.”

Changing how Maryland elects judges would require amending the state constitution, and efforts to do so have stalled in the General Assembly. Rutledge said Maryland’s system has not caused as much controversy as the systems in Texas and Alabama, where judges are elected every four years.

Judicial challengers say elections open the judiciary to public scrutiny.

Annapolis lawyer Thomas J. McCarthy Sr., one of four candidates challenging three sitting Anne Arundel judges, said jurists should have to pass some “litmus test” other than a governor’s approval.

“This is an opportunity for the voters of Anne Arundel County,” he said. “Now they have a choice.”

September 18, 2003 — The Washington Post, SM1
Rivalries Could Spark Turf Wars, Officials Say
Michael Amon, Washington Post Staff Writer

The two groups of bikers stood on either side of the North Beach street, wary and tense, like boxers waiting for the opening bell.

At least 40 black-clad members of two allied Southern Maryland motorcycle clubs, the Iron Horsemen and the Phantoms, lined one side. On the other waited about the same number of Hells Angels and their supporters, wearing the club’s red and white colors.

Nearby, almost 100 police officers watched, waiting for the first punch to fly.

It was May 4, and the presidents of the Iron Horsemen and the Hells Angels had arranged to meet at the Blessing of the Bikes, an event that drew more than 3,000 motorcyclists to North Beach, in Calvert County, to have their vehicle blessed by a minister.

Robert Grieninger, the longtime leader of the Maryland Iron Horsemen, and John Beal, the head of an upstart Hells Angels chapter based in North Beach, walked to the middle of Bay Avenue and had an animated conversation, shaking their heads and pointing fingers. No punches were thrown, and the two men shook hands and went their separate ways after 30 minutes.

But the meeting worried local authorities, who believe it was another sign that the founding of a Calvert County Hells Angels club in January has stoked rivalries between what police call “outlaw motorcycle gangs” in Southern Maryland.

“The only thing that kept them from fighting was the police presence,” said Sgt. Ricky Thomas, head of the sheriff’s special operations team. “They came for turf. They came to mark down whose spot this is on the ground.”

Since eight Calvert County men in January chartered the state’s first chapter of the Hells Angels, a biker group with more than 2,000 members nationwide, Southern Maryland authorities have cited potential gang conflict as one of the region’s most urgent threats to public safety.

“They are not ‘clubs,’ ” Thomas said. “They are outlaw, organized criminal gangs who are known to be violent.” Club members who agreed to be interviewed denied the allegation.

Leaders of the Iron Horsemen and the Phantoms said they have no problems with the Hells Angels. Grieninger said authorities made too much of the Blessing of the Bikes meeting.

“We had some issues we wanted to discuss, so we discussed them,” Grieninger said. “There wasn’t any of us getting ready to shoot or fight. It was just a friendly talk.” When asked what was discussed, he said, “That’s personal.”

Police, however, point to an incident May 30, 2002, shortly after word leaked that a Hells Angels club was forming in Calvert.

One member of the Hells Angels was having dinner with an aspiring member at the Happy Harbor Inn in southern Anne Arundel County when they were challenged to a fight by two men who authorities said were members of a rival group called the Pagans. Once outside, the Hells Angels member and his friend were ambushed with pepper spray, then hit several times by gunshots fired from a white van, authorities said.

In addition, a man with no ties to the bikers was grazed on the left cheek by a bullet as he walked out of the restaurant’s bathroom.

“I was very fortunate,” said Robert Hudson, 45, a warehouse manager from Calvert County.

The shooting occurred at the same time as a series of bloody turf clashes between the Hells Angels and the Pagans in New York and Philadelphia.

Anne Arundel police charged Christopher J. Brennan, 39, of North Beach, a former member of the Pagans, with attempted murder in the shooting, but that count was dropped because no witnesses would cooperate, Anne Arundel prosecutor Fred Paone said. Brennan served 90 days in jail after entering a modified plea to the lesser charge of reckless endangerment. Brennan declined to comment for this article.

Members of the Hells Angels and the Pagans also declined to comment for the article. A Hells Angels member who spoke on condition of anonymity last year said: “We didn’t come down here to make enemies. Not that we don’t want problems. But we’re not here to start problems.”

Motorcycle clubs have been roaming Southern Maryland since 1959, when the Pagans, now a national group, were founded in Prince George’s County. A few years later, the Phantoms were founded, and in the early 1980s the Iron Horsemen were born in Charles County. Authorities estimate that 50 to 70 local men belong to one of the four groups.

Like their counterparts across the country, the groups became notorious in the 1980s for dealing PCP and for violent clashes over turf, Maryland State Police Lt. Terry Katz said. Investigations by federal and local authorities put many of their leaders in jail, and a truce was called in the early 1990s, club members say.

Until recently, the biker clubs had few brushes with the law, other than a few bar fights, authorities said. But the Hells Angels’ presence has “changed the landscape,” said Capt. F. Michael Wyant, head of gang intelligence for the Charles County sheriff’s office.

“Their propensity for violence is high, and that is a concern for the public,” he said.

The shooting in May 2002 has had widespread repercussions, including a law enforcement crackdown.

In July, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives targeted the Calvert County Hells Angels as part of a series of raids on biker clubs across six states. The ATF charged Beal and Lewis J. Hall, the county group’s vice president, with distributing drugs and illegally possessing guns, and charged a third member, Cornelius Alexander, with gun violations. The three have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to stand trial Dec. 2 in U.S. District Court.

According to a court affidavit, two undercover ATF agents witnessed Beal selling $ 175 worth of cocaine to two men before the Blessing of the Bikes. The affidavit also said the two agents had entered into a deal with Hall to buy $ 5,000 worth of methamphetamine, though the deal never came off.

Others in Southern Maryland have also responded. The Hells Angels were evicted this month from a house on Route 4 in Owings that Calvert officials said they were using as a clubhouse. County zoning laws prohibit clubhouses on the property, which is zoned industrial, and officials threatened the landlord with $ 500-a-day fines if the group did not leave.

The North Beach Town Council recently voted to cancel the annual Blessing of the Bikes because of the biker clubs. And now, some local bars that the clubs once frequented have begun to shun them. At the Happy Harbor Inn, bikers who wear club symbols on the backs of their leather jackets are no longer allowed inside, said a manager who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Calvert County Sheriff Mike Evans this year assigned one deputy to monitor biker activities. Even the clubs’ parties prompt dozens of police officers to watch over them and stop traffic to check for drinking and driving.

“It could be a serious problem in Calvert County, and we’re trying to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand,” Evans said.

According to court documents, six of the eight Hells Angels members in Southern Maryland have criminal records, mostly for misdemeanor offenses. Some members of the other groups have more serious criminal histories, according to court documents.

But local authorities have not uncovered any large-scale organized crime by Southern Maryland biker clubs in recent years. And some residents question why police spend so much time and money conducting surveillance on biker clubs.

“When the police can’t be effective, they try to make themselves look effective by cracking down on bikers,” said Doug Barber, a North Beach photographer who says he is friends with many biker club members. The members “are not professional criminals,” he said. “They all have jobs. They are all from the area.”

North Beach Mayor Mark R. Frazer said he does not consider the Hells Angels chapter a threat. “From what I can see, the problems, to the extent that there are problems. . . . it seems to be originating with the clubs that are rivals with the Hells Angels,” Frazer said.

Bikers speak of their clubs as if they were substitutes for religion and family. The Iron Horsemen call their weekly meetings “churches.” Other club members are “brothers.” Each member receives a nickname that is used exclusively in the club.

“If I had a problem at, like, 3 in the morning, and I needed to call someone, a lot of our families would probably hang up on us,” said an Iron Horseman who goes by the nickname Jester. “These guys would be there for you.”

Though most own their own homes, some Iron Horsemen live in a clubhouse in Charles County. It is a one-story, white, wood-frame structure on about an acre of land surrounded by a 10-foot-high brown fence. At least five security cameras transmit images to televisions inside.

Walls inside the house are adorned with photographs of club members carousing with women in bathing suits. The refrigerator is stocked with Coors Light and Budweiser and little else.

It is a place, Grieninger said, where he can find camaraderie. That deep friendship, he said, pulled him out of the doldrums nearly 20 years ago, when he was 22 years old and just out of prison. Work was scarce then, he said, and he did little besides hang out with deadbeat friends in the strip mall parking lots of Waldorf.

Then, one day in 1983, his father introduced him to a man named Hector and, as Grieninger remembers it, everything began to change for the better.

Hector had just founded the Maryland Iron Horsemen chapter in Charles County and soon allowed the young Grieninger to join. Grieninger bought a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and rode around the country with members of his club, who nicknamed him “Backwards Bob.” He found direction in life, he said, and opened his own mechanic shop, Scooters, in western Charles County.

“I saw this life, and I loved it, and this is what I’ve been doing ever since,” Grieninger said. “Who knows where I was going to end up?”

Grieninger said he doesn’t mind being called an “outlaw,” although he dislikes his club being called a “gang.” He prefers the term “1 Percenter,” embracing the American Motorcycle Association’s claim in the 1950s that 1 percent of motorcyclists give the other 99 percent a bad reputation.

“Most of our people don’t fit society’s norm,” Grieninger said. “We just don’t buy into society’s beliefs.”

In 1997, Grieninger and another member of the Iron Horsemen were charged with murder for allegedly beating a man to death with a flashlight at the Mouse Trap bar in St. Mary’s County. The murder charges were dropped, but Grieninger pleaded guilty to second-degree assault on another man at the bar and recently finished serving four years in prison.

Grieninger denies beating the man to death, but he admits to fighting at the Mouse Trap because someone disrespected an Iron Horseman.

“You may have to go to prison if you are a 1 Percenter,” Grieninger said. “You have to be willing to die for your brother or to go to prison for your brothers.”

But Grieninger and other members of the Iron Horsemen laugh when they hear about police officers calling their club a criminal moneymaking enterprise.

“You want to know how an Iron Horseman becomes a millionaire?” asked a member who goes by the nickname Frisco. “He starts out with a billion.”

Jan. 3, 2004 — The Washington Post, p. C1
Michael Amon, Washington Post Staff Writer

When three young people robbed a Charles County post office at gunpoint, authorities quickly arrested two suspects in nearby woods. To catch the third, officers took a trip to the place where all three suspects were supposed to be on that Friday morning — Henry E. Lackey High School, just a few miles away.

Terrell King, 17, Marcus Mitchell, 17, and Brandon Dickerson, 18 — all seniors at Lackey High — were charged as adults with armed robbery, assault and using a handgun in the commission of a felony. Authorities say the youths pushed over an elderly female customer and stole $600 at gunpoint from the Bryans Road Post Office in the Nov. 5 robbery.

Charles County authorities say the post office robbery was part of a series of violent crimes last year carried out by young people with guns. Teenagers as young as 14 have been charged in Charles with attempted murder and robbery at rates much higher than in past years, police statistics show.

“They are getting a lot more brazen,” said Lt. Karl Hense, chief of the sheriff’s community policing squad. “The respect level is not so good.”

About 55 percent (82 of 149) of the people arrested in Charles on robbery charges from January to October were 17 or younger, according to sheriff’s office and Maryland Department of Juvenile Services records. At least 43 of those juveniles were charged in adult court and could face penalties of 20 years or more in prison.

By contrast, in 2002 about 28 percent (24 of 85) of suspects arrested in Charles on robbery charges were juveniles.

Capt. Joseph Montminy, executive assistant to Charles County Sheriff Frederick E. Davis, called the number of youth robberies “alarming.”

“I don’t think the kids understand the consequences of what they are doing,” Montminy said.

The number of youths processed in the juvenile court system in Charles increased 20 percent through October compared with the same period in 2002, according to state records. Juveniles charged with auto theft increased by 60 percent last year, according to state records.

In raw numbers, the youth crime numbers in Charles are still far lower than those in nearby jurisdictions such as Prince George’s and Montgomery counties and the District. But in Charles, authorities say, teenagers account for a larger percentage of violent crimes. For instance, in Montgomery, about 25 percent of those arrested for robbery in 2003 were younger than 18, according to police statistics.

As for why youth crimes have increased in Charles, law enforcement officials and social workers offer a number of reasons.

In part, officials said, the crimes are a sign of growing pains in Charles, where the population has increased by 25 percent, to 125,000, in the last 13 years. Once a community of watermen, tobacco farmers and local entrepreneurs, the county has transformed into the regional center of commerce in Southern Maryland and a growing suburb of Washington.

Most of the youth crimes have occurred in Waldorf, a densely populated community of about 60,000 where much of the area’s commercial and residential development is centered.

“There’s been a change in our population,” Sheriff Davis said. “We have people moving here from outside the county, and they are getting involved in crime.”

Rising poverty rates in Charles and broken families also play a role, social workers said.

“We’re somewhere between the old rural community and the urbanization of our county,” said Sandy O. Washington, director of Lifestyles Inc., a charity organization in Charles. “There’s been a big migration to this county, of the wealthy and also the socially and financially disadvantaged.”

According to the 2000 Census, 9 percent of Charles County households are single women with children, the third-highest percentage in the Washington region behind the District and Prince George’s. The number of Charles children living in poverty increased 45 percent from 1990 to 2000, the census found.

“Just about every kid that comes through the court now, you’re much more likely to see a kid with some serious issues: substance abuse, learning issues or a seriously dysfunctional family,” said Charles Circuit Court Judge Robert C. Nalley. “Kids [are] in much more serious trouble than in the past.”

Authorities said some of the crime is spillover from neighboring Prince George’s and the District, where juvenile crime also increased in 2003.

According to Davis, one of the most serious auto theft sprees in Charles was committed by three 14-year-olds, a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old — all boys from Washington. They were charged as juveniles in October with stealing 10 vehicles in Charles.

On Sunday, a 16-year-old youth from Southeast Washington was charged with robbing four Charles convenience stores in three weeks.

But local youths have been responsible for the most serious juvenile crimes this year, according to police reports.

In July, a 15-year-old pleaded guilty as an adult to first-degree assault for firing a shotgun at his neighbor in Indian Head. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

Two 17-year-old Waldorf youths are awaiting trial as adults on charges of shooting an 18-year-old during a robbery attempt in Waldorf in June.

And a 16-year-old Waldorf youth, described by a judge as a drug dealer, pleaded guilty as an adult in August to attempted murder for shooting another 16-year-old in the head in November 2002 after a dispute over a stolen video game.

Police also have scrutinized crime in public schools. Students suspended from the county school system for bringing a weapon on campus increased by 95 percent in the last five years, from 43 in 1998-99 to 84 in 2002-03. Students suspended for attacks, threats and fights increased by 27 percent during the same period, while the system’s enrollment increased by only 11 percent, according to the Charles County Board of Education.

The sheriff’s office added another officer to the department’s squad that patrols the county’s high schools last year, bringing the number to five.

Many of the juveniles are repeat offenders, officials said. In an effort to keep them off the streets, prosecutors, police and juvenile services officials instituted a policy in recent months to make sure serious youth offenders are brought before a judge within a week. In the past, it often took two to three months for youths to reach trial, and they sometimes committed more crimes in the meantime, said Douglas Mohler, the Charles County supervisor for the state Department of Juvenile Services.

“We want to move quickly on these cases,” Mohler said. “What I hate to see is a period of time going by and then he goes and out commits the same crime.”

Oct. 12, 2002 — The Washington Post, p. B1
Calvert and St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Races Stir Scandal, Division in the Ranks
Michael Amon, Washington Post Staff Writer

In Southern Maryland, where elected sheriffs are still the top lawmen in their counties, there’s an old saying that every four years their deputies are transformed from law enforcement officers to political operatives.

This year, the adage has the ring of truth.

Two St. Mary’s County sergeants are caught in a messy race to replace a retiring incumbent, with two controversies tarring the Democratic candidate and a powerful lieutenant.

Meanwhile, the Calvert County race has devolved into a power struggle between the deputy sheriffs, who have endorsed their boss, and Calvert’s state police troopers, who have endorsed a former trooper for the job.

The Maryland Troopers Association endorsement of Republican challenger Mike Evans has infuriated some deputies, who now use their off-duty time for political work, such as knocking on doors, to help Sheriff John A. Bartlett Jr. (D).

“Why would the Maryland State Police go to great lengths to not support us,?” asked Detective Michael Moore, the Calvert Fraternal Order of Police president.

Such power struggles are nothing new for Southern Maryland law enforcement. But this year’s campaigns have also featured an unending barrage of scandalous revelations, politically tinged investigations, leaked documents and spirited letters to the editor that local political observers say is unprecedented.

“It seems like every week there’s something new,” said Vernon Gray, a Republican candidate for St. Mary’s County commissioner.

The scandals have prompted one candidate to propose creating a citizen advisory panel, and both counties have toyed, in recent years, with turning law enforcement powers over to an appointed police chief, as most cities and large suburbs have done. But in both St. Mary’s and Calvert, the system has proved stubbornly resistant to change.

This year’s elections have provided Calvert with a fresh set of scandals.

In the primary alone, two Republican candidates were investigated and charged by the sheriff’s office; Bartlett forced Evans, now a deputy sheriff, to take a physical examination for a 24-year-old knee injury; and another GOP candidate asked the state’s attorney’s office to probe three-year-old assault allegations against his ex-girlfriend, a sheriff’s lieutenant recently promoted by Bartlett (no charges were filed).

Now Vonzell Ward, a two-term Republican sheriff who lost in the primary after Bartlett charged him criminally in connection with confidential documents leaked to the press, says he may run a write-in campaign. The idea has dismayed Evans, who grew up with Ward and considered him a friend.

“I’ve tried to talk to him, but he hasn’t returned my calls,” Evans said.

Ward’s potential candidacy complicates an election that has already driven a political wedge between two law enforcement agencies.

The sheriff’s office and state troopers have always had competitive but cordial relations. The two agencies split law enforcement duties, and deputies and troopers often race to see who can get to a 911 call first. But a feud has emerged during the election, deputies and troopers say.

Bumper stickers that say “Anybody But Bartlett” were distributed throughout the Prince Frederick barrack. Some troopers put up campaign signs and hand out literature for Evans, who spent 15 years as a state trooper in Calvert. State law allows such political activity, as long as the officers are off duty.

Some troopers grumble about Bartlett’s relationship with state police Col. David B. Mitchell, whom Bartlett once worked for at the Prince George’s County Police Department. They say the sheriff shuns the local barrack commander, Lt. Homer Rich, and Rich said recently the “relationship between the two departments has become considerably worse over the last year or so.”

Bartlett said he has a right to talk to higher-ranking officials. Mitchell said Bartlett “follows the same procedures as the state’s 23 other sheriffs” and said the two agencies’ troubles are more imagined than substantive.

In St. Mary’s, the department’s image has suffered under election-year scrutiny and two damaging controversies.

One imbroglio involves a 19-year department veteran, Sgt. David D. Zylak, the Democratic nominee for sheriff. Last month, The Washington Post reported that he faces an internal administrative charge of failure to perform his duty in connection with a jail suicide in September 2001. The commander of the detention center at the time, Zylak is accused of failing to put a 19-year-old inmate on a 24-hour watch, despite the teenager’s previous attempts at suicide. The teen, who was awaiting trial on burglary charges, hanged himself in his cell.

Zylak, who has built his campaign around his command experience, will not comment on the charge.

In addition, the department’s second-in-command, Steven M. Doolan, was recently suspended and demoted from captain to lieutenant amid an investigation into the disappearance of as much as $ 80,000 in construction material from the department’s evidence room. No charges have been filed.

Doolan was briefly investigated in 1999, along with six other deputies, in connection with a memorable Election Day prank known as the “Newspaper Caper.” He and the other deputies bought more than 1,300 copies of a county newspaper that contained negative stories about the sheriff and the Republican candidate for prosecutor, making it difficult to find a copy. No charges were brought.

The recent embarrassments have made it hard to run a clean campaign, said the Republican candidate for sheriff, Sgt. Mickey M. Bailey.

“I try to stay away from it . . . but you can’t avoid it,” Bailey said. “You try to give voters the best answer you can and tell them how things will change if you’re in charge.”

Zylak and some St. Mary’s commissioner candidates say the department should obtain national accreditation. Some power brokers have privately floated a proposal to take control of the detention center away from the sheriff and create a county department of corrections.

Bailey has proposed something called a citizens’ advisory committee. It would not have investigatory powers, but Bailey says it would help the department’s image.

Previous attempts to reform the departments, in part to remove the impact of election-year politics, have met total failure.

A proposal last year to replace the Calvert sheriff with an appointed police chief met a tide of public opposition last year, despite the forced resignation of Ward from the sheriff’s position months earlier.

In St. Mary’s, some officials looked to create a county police department in 1998, after deputies were involved in a series of controversies. But the plan failed to move forward, and any momentum it might have had has died, Gray said, “probably because of the fiasco that occurred in Calvert County.”

James K. Raley Jr., a former department captain, said St. Mary’s residents are left with two conflicting views of the sheriff’s office. The department presided over a 19 percent drop in crime last year and received a 66 percent approval rating in a recent survey of county residents.

At the same time, a series of investigations and lawsuits leave the impression of an agency in disarray.

“People still seem to have a high regard for the sheriff’s office, but in the law enforcement business, you have 90 guys running around with arrest powers and guns, and sometimes things don’t go right even if you want them to,” Raley said.