A Maryland probation agent who authorities say was killed by a client during a home visit had earlier reported to his agency that the man — a convicted sex offender — no longer wanted to cooperate with the probation process, according to police radio traffic on the night the agent was found dead.
Maryland
Md. probation agent reportedly raised concerns before he was killed
The concerns, as captured by the public-safety-scanner archiving service openmhz.com, are consistent with other worries raised by probation employees about the client, Emanuel Sewell, of Chevy Chase, according officials at the union for the agents.
Sewell had been under their supervision since 2021 after serving 25 years in prison for sex assault and other crimes.
The slain agent, Davis Martinez, 33, had gone to see him for a routine home visit on May 31. Martinez was stabbed repeatedly in his head and face before his body was wrapped in plastic bags and stuffed under a bed, police say. Sewell, 54, was captured a day later in West Virginia and has been charged with murder.
His attorneys have declined to comment about the case.
The tragic death — and what safety procedures had been in place — are the source of growing controversy between front-line probation workers and their management at Maryland’s Division of Parole and Probation, which is part of the state’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
Union official Stuart Katzenberg said members “raised multiple concerns about Sewell” before Martinez’s killing.
He spoke Tuesday several hours after more than 50 members of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME) rallied in Catonsville to call for enhanced safety procedures.
Among the union’s demands: safer staffing levels that would allow agents to conduct visits in pairs — not alone, as Martinez had.
The union also called for “a third-party investigation into the problems that led to the killing of Agent Davis Martinez.”
Officials at the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services declined to comment Tuesday on the specific police radio traffic that cited Martinez’s concerns. But a spokesman there said that in the wake of Martinez’s death, the department is committed to fixing any safety deficiencies.
“The department has taken immediate and decisive action to reassess and enhance our current policies and practices,” the spokesman said. “This reassessment includes examining equipment and policies that affect every element of work done by Parole and Probation employees.”
Among the areas of focus are home visits and whether high-risk clients should be visited alone by agents.
The department earlier had announced a management shake-up in the parole and probation division and said it is continuing to investigate events around Martinez’s death.
Sewell’s criminal record goes back to at least the mid-1990s. In 1997, he pleaded guilty to first-degree sex offense amid accusations that he climbed through the ground-floor apartment window of a man he didn’t know and raped him at knifepoint.
After his release from prison in 2021, his status as a convicted sex offender made him subject to monthly home visits by probation agents. An agent who had this responsibility earlier this year grew concerned about going inside his home, according to Rayneika Robinson, president of the Parole and Probation employees’ AFSCME local.
“Agent Martinez came across the case because one of his co-workers didn’t want [it]. She felt unsafe,” Robinson said in an interview. “He didn’t want his co-worker to go out feeling unsafe. So he went ahead and stepped up and went to the home for her.”
Robinson said the case was officially transferred to Martinez on May 7.
It wasn’t immediately clear how much agency managers knew about the switch or the reason it was made.
Martinez went to Sewell’s apartment for a home visit on May 31. Based on a witness statement to police detailed in court charging papers, he appeared to have gotten there around 9 a.m. He wore a bulletproof vest but was not armed with a handgun. Probation agents are not armed, according to their union.
Court records do not say when Martinez was attacked. A witness indicated that Sewell left his apartment about 2 p.m., charging documents say.
Shortly before 6 p.m., Montgomery County Police received a request to go to Sewell’s apartment and check on the agent’s welfare. As they tried to piece together what was going on — looking for the agent’s car, trying to reach him on his phone, growing more concerned — an officer came on the radio and told his colleagues what he had learned about information reported into the Parole and Probation’s system:
“There’s an entry in the P and P system where this agent who’s missing had a phone call with this client and the client said he didn’t want to be harassed any longer by Parole and Probation, and he was not going to cooperate,” the officer said, according to openmhz.com. “That phone call took place on May 7th of this year.”
Officers eventually forced their way inside. Scanner recordings report that they found blood on the floor, discovered Martinez’s body and requested homicide detectives come to the scene.
Union workers rallied at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday in Catonsville about continued change they want to see after the killing of a parole agent. Under criticism last week, state leaders announced they named three interim leaders, including one to lead the parole and probation division, though it did not make clear what had become of those in the jobs previously.
One of the most unique ships featured in Sail250 Maryland and Airshow Baltimore can be found docked at the Baltimore Peninsula.
USS Marinette LCS25 is one of the most functional ships in the Navy fleet. At 370 feet long with 80 crew members, the ship has a helicopter landing pad and hangar, two rib boats in the belly of the vessel, and heavy artillery, including a cannon.
The ship has four engines, two of which are like jet engines, meaning it can sprint ahead of other vessels to intercept watercraft. It can also truck side to side and spin 360 degrees with controllable reversing and steering deflector buckets attached to the stern of the jet propulsion system. It can also traverse the littoral zones, water close to shore, and navigate waters as low as 15 feet deep.
“Where we shine is our ability to operate where other ships can’t,” said Cdr. Brian Sims, the ship’s executive officer. “For a 370-foot ship, one of the smallest in the fleet, it packs a punch. We can go 40 plus knots.”
The ship is used in counternarcotics missions primarily on the East Coast and in the Caribbean.
It is based in Jacksonville, Florida, but was built in Marinette, Wisconsin, which is where the ship gets its name. It began operating in 2023 and has yet to deploy. The ship can be out on the water for weeks or even months.
“We go out and find drug trafficking individuals and intercept, and the Coast Guard then takes over and arrests,” Sims said.
The pilot house is where the ship truly shines. An officer and junior officer monitor the radar and navigation, while another sailor sits at the helm and oversees steering the vessel and monitoring the engines.
“This is a very unique design for Navy ships,” Sims added.
The ship also hosts several heavy artillery pieces, including a cannon on the bow with different types of rounds to combat different threats. It can fire 220 rounds in a minute.
With its rich Naval history, Baltimore is playing host to some of the Navy’s finest, and the crews are equally as excited to be here in Maryland, the backbone of the Navy, celebrating 250 years of American history.
“Baltimore is a fantastic city, steeped in maritime tradition. Of course, we have Fort McHenry that we sailed past and rendered honors to when we arrived,” Sims said. “Having the ability to be in this role in this position on board this ship to celebrate the nation’s 250th, it’s an absolute honor, and one that, one that gives us all pause, and lets us reflect on where we’ve come as a nation.”
As Maryland families head into another hot summer, many are about to receive an unpleasant reminder of just how badly some state leaders failed to address Maryland’s growing energy problems this year.
Higher energy bills are not coming by accident. They are the predictable result of years of poor planning and a continued refusal by Democratic leadership in Annapolis to confront the real issue facing our state: Maryland does not produce enough electricity to meet its own growing energy needs.
Instead of seriously addressing that challenge during this year’s legislative session, Democratic leaders celebrated passage of the so-called Utility Relief Act (House Bill 1532), which offers Marylanders roughly $12 in savings per month. At a time when families are facing soaring energy costs driven by a massive shortage of reliable in-state power generation, that is not meaningful relief. It is a political talking point designed to avoid the larger conversation Maryland desperately needs to have.
Our state imports nearly half of the electricity it uses. Nearly half of the power keeping homes cool, businesses operating and communities functioning every day comes from outside our borders. Yet even as demand for electricity continues to rise, Maryland continues falling behind on building the reliable generation capacity needed to support our future.
That is not a serious long-term strategy.
Families across Maryland are already struggling with inflation, rising housing costs and economic uncertainty. Energy bills are becoming another major financial burden for working families, seniors and small businesses. But instead of focusing on increasing reliable power supply, meaning fully lowering consumer costs, and strengthening Maryland’s long-term energy security, Annapolis continues offering temporary fixes that fail to address the underlying problem.
The reality is simple: Maryland needs more power generation, and every responsible energy source should be part of the conversation. Natural gas, nuclear, renewables, battery storage, clean coal and emerging technologies all have a role to play in creating a more reliable and affordable energy future for our state.
Maryland also needs a broader conversation about the role experienced infrastructure providers and utilities can play in strengthening reliability and supporting future generation needs. These are organizations that already manage the systems Marylanders depend on every day and understand the long-term planning required to maintain dependable service.
Reliable and affordable energy is not a partisan issue. It is a basic requirement for economic growth, business investment and everyday quality of life.
As summer begins and air conditioners start running around the clock, Maryland families will once again be reminded that energy policy decisions made in Annapolis have real world consequences.
Unfortunately, they are paying for those consequences every month.
Del. Jason Buckel is the Minority Leader of the Maryland House of Delegates and represents Allegany County in the Maryland General Assembly.
MARYLAND (WBFF) — A group of Republican candidates, a voter, and an election-integrity organization are asking an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge to stop the state from certifying primary election results until election officials contact every voter whose original ballot was rejected and allow them to correct the problem.
The lawsuit, filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court against the Maryland State Board of Elections, comes a month after state election officials acknowledged that some Maryland voters were mistakenly mailed ballots for the wrong political party and sent replacement ballots to affected voters.
The ballot error affected voters who requested physical mail-in ballots for the June 23 primaries.
The Maryland State Board of Elections said its vendor, Taylor Print and Visual Impressions Inc. (TPVI), mailed some of the voters’ ballots for the wrong political party, but the administrator said the board’s vendor couldn’t identify which voters received erroneous ballots. Over 500,000 Maryland voters had requested mail-in ballots, most of them in Montgomery, Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties, and Baltimore City.
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