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Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Maryland Appellate Court upholds state police termination of former Trooper of the Year

#1:Maryland Appellate Court upholds state police termination of former Trooper of the Year

BALTIMORE — Maryland’s Appellate Court found this week that there was “substantial evidence” supporting a Maryland State Police trial board’s conclusion that a former Trooper of the Year lied about knowing the location of a traffic stop and made false reports.

As such, the court agreed with Anne Arundel Circuit Court’s previous decision to uphold the trial board’s recommendation and the termination of Kashef Khan.

Khan was fired in 2022 after a trial board found him guilty of two counts of false report, along with unbecoming conduct. It was a swift fall for Khan, who three years earlier was recognized as the agency’s top trooper for performance “above and beyond expectations.”

The former trooper, a Muslim American who grew up in Pakistan, has argued his firing was due to retaliation and racial discrimination. He told The Baltimore Sun last year he wanted the agency’s “‘good ol’ boy’ system and systemic racism gone.”

Khan’s attorney, Clarke Ahlers, said Friday that he is “ashamed, as a Maryland citizen, for the way Maryland State Police treats minority troopers.” He added that he and Khan are “leaning toward” an appeal.

The state police, meanwhile, said in an emailed statement that the agency agrees with the Appellate Court decision: “Integrity, fairness and service are the core values of the department and any individual compromising them undermines the MDSP’s duty to the citizens of Maryland.”

Khan has accused the two internal state police investigators behind the misconduct case of lying under oath. He says the two mischaracterized their second interrogation of him, calling it contentious and saying Khan didn’t answer questions.

Khan has revealed since that he made his own recording of that interrogation — state police say theirs can’t be found, and claim their recorder didn’t make a recording. He says it is evidence of the investigators’ false statements. Part of the proof, Khan says, includes audible beeps in his recording as state police started and stopped the interrogation.

The state police said Friday there is an ongoing administrative investigation into Khan’s two investigators, Sgt. Kristopher Phillips and D/Sgt. Matthew Mann. That probe is being conducted by one state police employee and one employee of the Maryland Capitol Police.

Ahlers, who had requested an independent investigation, said the Capitol Police employee was formerly with the state police.

The matter was investigated previously by the state prosecutor’s office. In a report obtained by The Sun, the office noted its review was “limited,” as some of the investigators’ statements were made during interrogations. A U.S. Supreme Court case, Garrity v. New Jersey, protects police from incriminating themselves in such situations.

The appellate court ruling is a letdown for Khan, who hoped the court would find the trial board recommendation arbitrary. In a brief, Ahlers argued the board disregarded evidence of innocence and drew irrational conclusions.

The judges’ opinion, written by Judge Rosalyn Tang, noted that they have a “narrow” role in reviewing an agency decision — just to determine whether substantial evidence supports the original finding.

It found there was. Evidence, they said, supported the board’s conclusion that Khan knew he was in D.C., not Maryland, at the time of the traffic stop, and that a “reasoning mind” could find he had changed the location in a subsequent report.

Oral arguments held in December largely did not focus on Khan’s other allegations: the missing recording and investigators’ alleged mischaracterizations.

The judges’ opinion makes a passing reference in responding to Ahler’s brief. He had argued state police brought itself into disrepute by “likely” deleting the recording, writing a “provable false and misleading report” and suspending Khan, leading to more than 100 dropped DUI cases.

“The appellant does not explain how MSP’s alleged conduct rendered insubtantial the evidence supporting the board’s conclusions about his conduct,” the opinion said in a footnote. “Thus, we decline to address these points on appeal.”

Khan has said he is one of a group of state police employees seeking class action status in a federal lawsuit alleging the agency discriminates against troopers of color. There is a similar pending U.S. Department of Justice investigation.

The ex-Trooper of the Year said during his trial board hearing that a sergeant told him he wasn’t recognized again the following year because he didn’t have the “complexion for protection,” which he saw as a reference to his race and ethnicity.

“They didn’t want me to be [the] face of MSP for two straight years, so they put me in this mess,” Khan told trial board members.

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Monday, January 22, 2024

When my mom's house burned down, I expected the man I was dating to leave me. Instead, the tragedy fast-tracked our relationship.

#1:When my mom's house burned down, I expected the man I was dating to leave me. Instead, the tragedy fast-tracked our relationship.

    It was the morning after my boyfriend's birthday when my mom's aide call me.

    Her house had burned down and everything was gone.

    We spent the next weeks living out of hotels helping piece her life together again.

I got the call the morning after my boyfriend's birthday. I had booked a luxe Boston hotel for a mini staycation, and as we lay in bed blissfully contemplating where to have brunch, I answered the phone to hear my mother's care aide in a frantic, breathless tone.

"Everything is gone," she told me. I lurched upright, like a cartoon character waking from a terrible nightmare. "What do you mean?" It's funny how much things can change in an instant. A minute ago, our only dilemma was where to get pancakes. Now, we had to figure out how to navigate a devastating fire that engulfed my mother's house and everything in it. We'd only been dating for three months.

At the time, I didn't know that Bryan and I would spend the next two weeks in Connecticut, living out of hotels, trying to help my mom piece her life back together and find a place to live. While I fully expected him to bail on the relationship after experiencing all the challenges firsthand that will come with my complicated family, the opposite happened. It brought us closer. In a way, the fire functioned like a fast-forward button for our relationship.
I worried about what he'd think of my mother

While I dated a small handful of guys in my 20s, almost none met my mom — partly because I was afraid that if they did, they'd run.

My mother has many positive qualities, but she also struggles with a number of mental health conditions as well as physical disabilities and a traumatic brain injury from a car accident, so her behavior is entirely unpredictable. After I started falling in love with Bryan, I was extra careful about keeping him at arm's length from my complicated family for as long as possible. I didn't want anything to compromise the happy and healthy relationship we were building.

But after this tragedy struck, I no longer had a choice. Just as I began mentally preparing myself to face the fallout alone, Bryan began packing his things. "Good thing I took off work today," he said. "We should hit the road."

Upon arriving at the hospital, staff informed us that my mother had been taken to the behavioral health unit. Although he didn't ask questions, I could see the wheels turning inside Bryan's mind. Wasn't she just being treated for possible smoke inhalation? Why was she admitted into psychiatric care? After speaking privately with a social worker about my mother's history of opioid and alcohol misuse, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality disorder, I think he started to get the picture.

When the nurse finally ushered us into her tiny white room with no windows, my mother began weeping. She had put on her johnny gown backward, so part of her breast was visible, and since she hadn't put her dentures in, she was toothless. I held her for several minutes and wondered what Bryan must be thinking. "It's not too late," I told him with my eyes. "This is your chance to get out."

After my mother learned she was required to stay the night to be monitored, she began screaming and swearing at the nurse, who asked to speak to me in the other room. When I came back, I found Bryan gently stroking her bare back with one hand while she rested her head on his shoulder.
I was used to handling crises by myself

Over the course of my upbringing, my mother had to be hospitalized many times for various physical and mental issues. As her only child with a mainly absent father, the responsibility always fell on me to figure out how to handle things.

I got used to this role — to the point where reaching out for help was not even an option that crossed my mind.

One night, after my mom threw a tantrum in her hotel room, I told Bryan, "You can go back to Boston any time, you know." To my surprise, he seemed offended by this remark.

Allowing someone else to share the burdens felt uncomfortable at first. But very quickly, I began to embrace the idea that maybe I didn't have to cope with these challenges by myself anymore.
We got to see how we worked as a team under pressure

Over the course of those few weeks in Connecticut, we faced numerous setbacks. All of my mother's medications for depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and various other ailments had been incinerated in the fire, so we had to arrange for refills. Neither my mother nor I could emotionally handle seeing the remains of the condo, so Bryan met with the adjuster to assess the damage. We also set up a new bank account for the insurance advance and found a social worker to secure her new housing.

Meanwhile, we dealt with my unraveling mother, in withdrawal from her meds and overwhelmed with grief. I became accustomed to calls from the hotel manager regarding complaints of her frequent smoking, screaming, and sobbing in the middle of the night. When she threatened to kick us out of the hotel, Bryan said, "I'll take care of it," and marched down to her office. I never got one of those calls again.
Ultimately, the experience made our relationship stronger

Not even two years into our relationship, Bryan and I began looking at houses together. After buying a condo in 2020, we got married on June 2, 2023 — five years after the fire. Although we've only been together for almost six years at this point, we often joke that it feels like decades, given all we've had to overcome.

Navigating that experience together ended up serving as the ultimate test for our relationship.

In my vows, I told him that seeing how we worked so well together as a team — and under extremely stressful circumstances — gave me confidence for our future. If we can manage to clothe, feed, and care for my distraught, disabled, emotionally volatile, and homeless mother, and find her a safe and happy living situation, then I'm pretty sure we can get through anything.

Sunday, January 21, 2024

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In South Carolina, Democrats See a Test of Biden’s Appeal to Black Voters

#1:In South Carolina, Democrats See a Test of Biden’s Appeal to Black Voters

President Joe Biden’s campaign and affiliated groups are amping up their efforts in South Carolina, pouring in money and staff before the first Democratic primary in February in an effort to generate excitement for his campaign in the state.

It seems, at first glance, to be a curious political strategy. Few incumbent presidents have invested so much in an early primary state — particularly one like South Carolina, where Biden faces no serious primary challenger and where no Democratic presidential candidate has won in a general election since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

But the Biden campaign sees the effort as more than just notching a big win in the state that helped revive his struggling campaign in 2020, putting him on the path to winning the nomination. It hopes to energize Black voters, who are crucial to Biden’s reelection bid nationally, at a moment when his standing with Black Americans is particularly fraught.

“One of the things that we have not done a good job of doing is showing the successes of this administration,” said Marvin Pendarvis, a state representative from North Charleston, South Carolina. He added that the campaign will need to curate a message “so that Black voters understand that this administration has done some of the most transformational things as it relates to Black communities, to minority communities.”

Four years after Biden vowed to have the backs of the voters he said helped deliver him the White House, Black Americans in polls and focus groups are expressing frustration with Democrats for what they perceive as a failure to deliver on campaign promises. They also say that they have seen few improvements to their well-being under Biden’s presidency. Some are unsure whether they will vote at all.

To counter that pessimism and boost Black turnout, Democrats are hitting the Palmetto State with a six-figure cash infusion from the Democratic National Committee, a slew of campaign events and an army of staffers and surrogates.

Party leaders are hoping for a large showing at the polls, which would broadcast to the rest of the country the importance of Black voters and their support for Biden’s reelection, reenergize a must-win bloc and ignite the momentum that was seen in 2020.

“That’s another part of the historic nature of South Carolina going first,” said Christale Spain, the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party who was elected in April. “This is the first time that Black voters are going to vote first to choose the president.”

But the scale of Biden’s investments reflects the challenge he faces. Lackluster turnout by Black voters in February could be more than a stumbling block; it could be a dire sign that Democrats are disconnected from one of their most loyal constituencies.

Increasing Black turnout in South Carolina will be an especially tall order for both the state party and Biden’s campaign in 2024. Many South Carolina Democrats are still nursing wounds from the 2022 midterm elections, in which the party lost several safe state House seats and Black turnout fell to its lowest point in decades.

“You have people who are discouraged because they have not seen the policies translate into their mailbox, their ZIP code,” said Marlon Kimpson, a longtime Biden ally and former state senator who was appointed to the White House Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations this year. “And I attribute that to poor communications, quite frankly, out of Washington, D.C. That is improving.”

Democrats’ efforts in South Carolina over the next several weeks will amount to a one-state test case of Biden’s appeal to Black voters, and they hope the results can be replicated across the country.

Starting in early January, where Black South Carolinians groan about higher prices and failures on student loan debt relief, they will find Democrats on the airwaves and at their doors praising the Biden administration’s push for rural broadband access and increased funding to Black colleges and universities.

Party leaders in rural counties who might feel neglected by Democrats in more populous areas of the state will be able to greet national party brass in their own communities at stops along a multiweek bus tour, which campaign officials say will crisscross the state and deploy multiple Biden surrogates. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are expected to visit the state at least once before the Feb. 3 primary.

And as alarm grows over the pronounced number of Black voters who say they are considering supporting former President Donald Trump or not voting at all in November, allies of Biden will be underlining Trump’s rebuke of democratic norms and trying to explain away the criminal justice and economic measures Republicans have elevated to help appeal to some Black voters.

“I think we just have to give a clear message that the alternative is much worse,” said state Rep. Ivory Thigpen, chair of the state’s legislative Black caucus, referring to the possibility of another Trump term. “I know that isn’t the best campaign strategy, but it’s the reality.”

Several local and statewide elected officials have met repeatedly over the last few weeks to workshop messages to disaffected Black voters, with an emphasis on reaching Black men, who have shown more openness to supporting Republicans in November. Black leaders have also held a series of meetings with White House officials aimed at countering disinformation related to Democratic policies and stopping any further fracturing of Democrats’ base of Black voters.

Biden campaign officials did not provide specific turnout figures that they were aiming for. But no one expects a repeat of 2008, when South Carolina’s Black voters, motivated by the prospect of electing America’s first Black president, Barack Obama, turned out en masse. On the question of turnout, some Democrats have already sought to temper expectations.

“In the absence of any meaningful opposition, it’s hard to get people excited to turn out,” said Kimpson. “I don’t think that translates to lack of enthusiasm for the president at all.”

As the Biden campaign focuses on South Carolina, it has maintained little to no presence in several states that are certain to be more competitive in November. The thin campaign apparatus in Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania has caused some concern among Democratic organizers, even as the campaign says it will expand its presence in battleground states later next spring.

South Carolina Democrats have also staked their success in February on the chance to host the first primary again in 2028, when the party will have a competitive primary field. And a strong showing in February could lay the groundwork for the party to protect against big losses next November, like those in 2022.

“The fact that we’re doing all of this is because we’re first and we take that status very seriously,” said Spain. “Our goal is to turn out as many Black voters as possible.”

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