On June 21, less than a month after Worcester County Circuit Court Judge Brian Shockley ordered the Mayor and City Council to provide The Washington Post with use of force records and internal reviews it had requested from the Ocean City Police Department back in 2021, the town filed an appeal of the lower court’s judgment. The case will now go before the Appellate Court of Maryland.
“After carefully reviewing the decision, we believe there are grounds for appeal on this very important issue,” City Manager Terry McGean said this week.
In 2021, following two high-profile arrests on the Boardwalk, Post reporter Steve Thompson filed records requests with the OCPD seeking data and internal reviews relating to police officers’ use of force. The complaint, first filed in December of 2022, said the department failed to provide information for three of the requests – one seeking use of force data from Jan. 1, 2016 to June 30, 2021, one seeking internal reviews of two use of force incidents that occurred on the Boardwalk in June of 2021, and one seeking all reviews and investigations of a lieutenant’s actions on the Boardwalk the night of May 31, 2020.
“At issue here, Mr. Thompson made three requests to the Department seeking records related to use of force by Ocean City officers, but he has not received all of the information he seeks and to which he is entitled under the law,” the complaint reads.
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about !!!!
Transparency, only if you can see through frosted, steamed up bathroom glass.
Double sided mirror, we can see out, but you can’t see in.