Maryland
Voters Can't Add 4 Seats To Baltimore County Council, 2-Seat Expansion Remains Possible
BALTIMORE COUNTY, MD — The push to add four seats to the Baltimore County Council failed, multiple reports said Tuesday. A November referendum will still decide if the Council should grow by two seats.
The Council has had seven members since 1956, but the county population has more than doubled to 845,000 people.
Supporters say additional council members would allow for better representation of each voter. Proponents also think this will diversify the all-male Council with only one Black member.
Opponents worry about the additional salary costs and allege that four more Council seats would favor Democrats, who currently have a 4-3 advantage.
“Make no mistake – the effort to add four seats to the County Council has been spearheaded by partisan activists with the goal of wiping out two-party government in Baltimore County,” David Marks (R-Upper Falls) said on Facebook on July 24. “The same state legislators backing this effort today supported extreme gerrymandering in Annapolis. Government works best with balance and competition between both parties – not the monopoly pushed by partisan activists.”
The County Council on July 1 reached a bipartisan agreement to send the two-seat expansion to a referendum this fall. Republican council members agreed that the proposed new district maps were fair. The same ballot question will also ask voters if council members should be paid a full-time salary, rather than their current part-time pay.
Marks said the two-seat expansion “gives both political parties a fighting chance across Baltimore County.”
WYPR said the four-seat expansion effort, orchestrated by Vote4More, was trying to gather 10,000 signatures by the Monday deadline to put it on the General Election ballot. It would’ve competed against the two-seat expansion referendum, but the four-member addition measure ran into complications.
The Baltimore Sun reported that the Board of Elections discarded nearly 3,000 signatures during the review required under state law.
Election officials said those signatures lacked the signers’ middle initial or middle name, WYPR reported.
Vote4More submitted 1,400 supplemental signatures, but The Sun reported that they didn’t meet the state requirements.
“What hurts me is that getting them so excited, I can’t deliver it,” Vote4More Chair Linda Dorsey-Walker said, according to WYPR.
Dorsey-Walker plans to appeal the rejection of her petition.
Referendum Will Settle Baltimore County Council Expansion Debate
Maryland
Body-cam video of deadly Howard County police standoff released as Maryland AG investigates
HOWARD COUNTY — The Maryland Office of the Attorney General (OAG) released body camera footage as they continue to investigate an officer-involved shooting that left a man dead after a two-hour standoff in Laurel.
On November 30, around 3:10 p.m., Howard County police responded to a home in the 1000 block of American Pharoah Lane for a domestic incident, according to the OAG.
The 911 caller reported that a man was banging on the front door and a preliminary investigation revealed he had fired several shotgun rounds at the door. He eventually made his way inside the home through a window.
The body cam footage begins as officers arrive on the scene. The video shows an officer walking toward the home as he reports on his radio that he sees a busted window and a case for a long gun outside.
The man – later identified as 29-year-old Tyree Winslow of College Park – appeared in a second-floor window of the home as officers arrived, according to the OAG.
As the video continues, you can hear a woman cry for help, prompting the officer to move quickly toward the front door of the home. The officer then reports on the radio that he sees multiple shell casings.
The officer identifies himself as he moves close to the door and eventually reports that the door is barricaded, according to the video.
The cries for help get louder, and the officer indicates that he may have eyes on a woman in the home as he says, “Ma’am stay there…lay down.”
The video shows officers taking cover behind cars across the street from the home as the situation escalates and the officer gives verbal commands, asking to see Winslow’s hands. According to the OAG, Winslow did not comply and he and two officers exchanged gunfire.
Another officer’s body camera captured him getting close to the home and helping a person down from an upstairs window of the home. The body camera falls off but captures the sounds of the officer helping another person down.
Police previously said three people were evacuated from the home and there were no other injuries.
The Howard County Police Tactical Team responded to the scene and established a barricade, according to the OAG. Officers were not able to contact Winslow and around 5:40 p.m., they entered the home.
Once inside, officers found Winslow suffering from gunshot wounds and he was pronounced dead on the scene, the OAG said. Police said it was unclear if he was killed by officer gunfire or by his weapon.
Several loaded firearms and a knife were found near Winslow’s body.
The OAG previously identified the involved officers as Police Officer First Class (PFC) Christopher Weir, a 14-year veteran, and PFC Joseph Debronzo, a 15-year veteran. Both officers have been put on administrative leave.
Neighbor shares video
During the standoff, the neighborhood was on lockdown for several hours.
A neighbor shared video with WJZ showing the moment that tactical officers entered the home. The neighbor also said officers were using a drone to locate Winslow while he was inside the house.
Officer-Involved Shooting Investigation
The OAG’s Independent Investigations Division (IID) investigates all police-involved shootings as standard protocol.
“The idea is if you have an attorney general who is coming in to investigate these incidents, it removes the opportunity for a local agency to seem biased either in favor or against a local police department,” said Eric Bacaj, an independent legal expert who is not involved in this case.
The IID was created by the General Assembly in 2021 as part of a series of police accountability reform bills, the OAG said.
Since October 2021, the division has conducted 65 investigations into fatal or near-fatal officer-involved incidents in Maryland, including two in Howard County.
See a full list of IID investigations below:
Maryland
Maryland Lawmakers Convene With $3B Deficit and Uncertainties Over Incoming Trump Administration
Maryland
Maryland General Assembly 2025 session starts Wednesday
The Maryland General Assembly’s 2025 session begins at noon on Wednesday, when lawmakers will begin to tackle a number of high-interest issues. Policy decisions will be framed around how much money is available and what additional new revenue sources are acceptable.
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