Maryland Town Suspends Entire Police Force

Ridgely, Maryland is a very small town on the eastern shore with a population of roughly 1,600 people. It has most of the features you would expect to find in a small, northeastern town near the ocean. But as of this week, it’s missing one of those features. Ridgely currently does not have a police department. The town’s entire police force was suspended by its three-member commission. We’re only talking about six officers, at least according to the police department’s website, but that’s all the coverage they have. If there were some sort of serious scandal or corruption uncovered, it might still be understandable. But nobody in charge has told the locals or the press why this was done. It’s truly something of a mystery, but the people of the village are on edge, wondering about what this move will do to response times if a problem arises. (Baltimore Sun)

A small town on Maryland’s Eastern Shore has suspended its entire police force pending the results of an investigation by state prosecutors, a largely unexplained decision that has left residents shocked, skeptical and on edge.

With the Ridgely Police Department temporarily defunct, other public safety agencies have agreed to fill the void. But residents of the historic town are concerned about response times should they need assistance. And they remain entirely in the dark about why their police department was shut down.

Laura Cline, a longtime Ridgely resident, said she’s frustrated with the lack of transparency from town leaders and law enforcement.

Perhaps once the mystery is resolved it won’t turn out to be all that serious. The suspensions were all “with pay,” which you might not expect if the officers had done something truly awful. The Office of the State Prosecutor of Maryland is conducting an investigation. Also, the suspensions are being classified as “temporary,” at least for now. Some are speculating that this could all be the result of some type of administrative snafu. 

In terms of coverage, the county Sheriff’s Department has offered to conduct extra patrols in and around Ridgely. The State Police have also announced that they will increase their presence until the matter is resolved. It’s not as if they should have all that much work on their hands. The town has a ridiculously low average crime rate. The entire county has only reported four homicides since 2000. Violent crime in the town of Ridgely “peaked” in 2010 with 41 recorded incidents. That’s barely three per month during one of its worst years in recent memory.

The Baltimore Sun did a great deal of digging in an effort to find some dark underbelly of Ridgely that might explain this curious development, but they came up with very little. There were a few minor incidents involving the police, largely administrative in nature, but nothing recent that attracted much attention. One former police chief was “involved” in a fatal police encounter with a Black suspect back in 2016, but he’s no longer on the force and the incident didn’t take place in the town anyway.

None of the locals that the press spoke with seemed to have any complaints regarding the cops. Most thought of them as part of the family and their community. In fact, the residents sounded more perturbed over the fact that they had been suspended than any potential misconduct that might have taken place. Yet none of this answers the underlying question on everyone’s minds. Whether it was something serious or some trivial administrative matter, why would the town commission refuse to offer an explanation? All they’re doing is feeding fuel into the rumor mill. If whatever situation that caused this turns out to be resolved quickly, will they simply bring the cops back and never tell the public what happened? Were the officers given a reason when they were let go or were they kept in the dark as well? This simply doesn’t make any sense.