Adler Steven H. Commitee To Elect issued the following announcement on July 20.
A Baltimore police detective who is suspended from the force amid domestic violence allegations appeared before the department’s internal trial board this week, accused of wrongdoing during a robbery investigation.
Calvin Moss, a 14-year-veteran who most recently worked for the department’s robbery unit, sat before the internal disciplinary panel to determine whether he broke departmental policies while executing a search warrant on a robbery suspect. During the search, Moss transported the suspect’s 12-year-old daughter, who attorneys said helped him locate a second residence where officers later obtained and executed a second search warrant. Sgt. Brian Patterson, who supervised Moss, is also being tried in the same hearing.
Moss used the suspect’s daughter “to go on a fishing expedition,” assistant city solicitor Kristin Blumer told members of the board during opening statements. The officers did things “they shouldn’t have been doing to get a gun off the street,” she said.
Michael Davey, Moss’ attorney, said the investigation by Moss was an example of “a good investigation and good police work.
Although the trial ended Thursday, and the board made recommendations, those findings are not released to the public or to complainants. The parties declined to comment on the case.
Rene White, who testified against Moss after she said he drove her daughter to her home without her permission, said she felt disillusioned by the process.“It’s very disheartening not to know whether he got reprimanded,” White said Friday.
The night before, members of the Civilian Review Board — a panel independent of city government that investigates complaints about police — fought with the city solicitor Andre Davis over concerns that its hearings process was going to be diluted because of a new nondisclosure agreement proposed by the solicitor’s office. Davis said the new agreement would not change how the board conducts business, but some board members said the city had misinterpreted disclosure laws, severely limiting the board’s ability to address misconduct and remain transparent.
The process for citizens making complaints against officers unfairly protects police, shielding complaints against them from public scrutiny, White said.
“It’s Code Blue — everybody keep your mouth shut,” White said. “Now that I go through the process, I totally understand why [others] don’t. It’s frustrating,” she said.
Since joining the department in 2004, Moss has been named as a defendant in four lawsuits filed by people alleging misconduct. He was cleared of wrongdoing in two, but settlements in the others have cost the city $250,000.
The complaint brought by White against Moss was made after the arrest of White’s then-fiance, Brian Joyner, and the search of his parents’ home on Elsrode Avenue on March 24, 2017. Joyner was wanted by police in several commercial robberies along the Harford Road corridor in Northeast Baltimore. He has since been federally indicted on similar charges.
Davey said in opening statements that after searching Joyner’s parents’ home, Moss learned of a vacant home on Cliftview Avenue in Darley Park where Joyner and White were thought to have stayed. Moss did not know the exact address, only the street.
Moss “was very concerned about the location of that gun,” Davey said.
Moss drove to Cliftview Avenue and called White on her cellphone, asking her to come outside in an attempt to locate the second home.
White claimed during her testimony Tuesday that she did not see an officer outside her home, became concerned for her safety — questioning whether she was actually speaking with an officer — and left the house. She said Moss did not initially identify himself, except that he was a police officer.
Davey said White accused Moss of not being “real police” and asked him to bring her and Joyner’s daughter to the house. The girl had been at the Elsrode Avenue home during the search.
Moss then drove back to Cliftview Avenue with White’s daughter. Davey said Moss parked on the street, and the girl went directly to the home, helping the detective identify the house where Joyner had allegedly been staying.
At the house, Davey said, the detective called White, who returned home in another vehicle. At the house, body camera footage shows White angry, cursing at the officer, asking her daughter why she willingly rode with Moss to the house.
“I was kind of freaked out,” White told the board.
White said Moss disrespected her by threatening her and repeatedly swore at her. Those alleged exchanges were not captured on the body-worn camera played at the hearing.
White said she was upset that the officer brought her daughter to the home without her permission, and she was angry with her daughter for trusting police.
“I don’t really trust the police. The neighborhoods we live in, the police are not kind,” she told the trial board.
Patterson’s attorney, Martin Cadogan, said his client didn't violate any departmental policies and wasn’t responsible for Moss, but another supervisor was and that officer has not been disciplined.
“He acted as a proper supervisor,” Cadogan said, but added that his client was not directly involved in Joyner’s arrest and did not review the probable-cause statements in the case.
At the hearing, several officers also testified, including an internal affairs investigator, but the board closed the hearing to the public, citing a section of the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights. The law allows the board to close the otherwise public hearings “to protect a confidential informant, an undercover officer, or a child witness,” the cited section says.
Original source can be found here.
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