Adams scrapped anti-gang efforts after taking office; Guest Column

In recent months, we've seen the very sad and troubling headlines about gangs in Anne Arundel County. Unfortunately, gangs are not new to our county.

For 11 years, I was an assistant state's attorney for Anne Arundel County. I worked for three state's attorneys: Frank Weathersbee, Anne Colt Leitess and Wes Adams. In 2006, under Mr. Weathersbee's direction, the State's Attorney's Office and the Anne Arundel County Police formed the Gang Reduction Investigation and Prosecution task force, or GRIP.

The GRIP task force was led by assistant state's attorneys and brought together participants from the county police, the Annapolis Police Department, the Division of Parole and Probation, the Department of Juvenile Services, our two county detention centers, the Division of Corrections and federal law enforcement and prosecutors. Quite often members of law enforcement and prosecutors from other jurisdictions joined our meetings, either to learn from us or share what they were seeing and doing in their counties.

The task force focused on sharing intelligence and information about gangs and gang members, strategizing on how to deter and reduce their presence, and formulating best practices on how to prosecute them. We discussed emerging gang issues and trends and how to keep them from infiltrating our county.

The GRIP task force helped us deter gang activity, focus our prosecutions and, often, get tougher sentences in court. Unfortunately, unlike his two predecessors, State's Attorney Adams did not continue the strong support for the prosecution of gangs or for our valued, experienced gang prosecutors.

After Mr. Adams won the election for state's attorney in November 2014, and prior to his taking office, he was made aware of the gang issues facing our county. The State's Attorney's Office had prosecutors who were knowledgeable about gangs and were focused on the prosecution of them. It was common for prosecutors to provide training and educational presentations to teachers, parents and other community groups.

It was suggested to Mr. Adams that our efforts at combating a rising gang presence in our county should actually increase - that a team of prosecutors should be dedicated full-time to the prosecution of gang members. Mr. Adams, however, did not take this advice from the experienced prosecutors in the office.

Mr. Adams fired the leading gang prosecutor, without replacing him with a prosecutor of anywhere near the same experience with gang prosecutions.

In the year that I worked for Mr. Adams, he did not form a dedicated gang prosecution trial team, as was suggested, and he generally made little to no effort to support GRIP or specific gang prosecutions. I never heard him inform members of the State's Attorney's Office that gang prosecutions were a priority for him. Neither did he provide additional resources for this important issue. In fact, the GRIP task force withered away shortly after Mr. Adams took office.

So, although State's Attorney Adams is now holding press conferences about what he plans to do about the gang problem, the truth is the State's Attorney's Office already had a plan and efforts in place, with experienced and dedicated gang prosecutors. We tried to carry on those efforts after Mr. Adams became state's attorney. Sadly, however, the formal structure in place for combating gang crime and our efforts with GRIP were allowed to decay, because Mr. Adams did not recognize the potential threat that gangs posed to our county.

As a longtime resident of this county, I am saddened and concerned by the increased violent gang activity in our county and that Mr. Adams did not use the resources already in place in the State's Attorney's Office to combat gangs. I hope the citizens of Anne Arundel County will consider this alarming information when it's time to vote for our next state's attorney.

Brooke McKay is a former assistant state's attorney for Anne Arundel County.

Credit: Brooke McKay - Brooke McKay is a former assistant state's attorney for Anne Arundel County.