By Gary Bennett
This article appears in the April 14, 2023, edition of the Frederick News-Post.
In 2021 the News-Post published my LTE extolling the virtues of creating a professional county police department to replace the political office of sheriff.
I felt at the time and still do that Frederick County has outgrown this outdated policing model and that it does not serve us well.
It wasn’t hard to come to this conclusion after listening to repeated political sniping from Sheriff Chuck Jenkins and his challenger and Jenkins’ ongoing railing against a majority of the county’s population, which he is sworn to protect.
I asked at the time “Do we really want elective politics playing a day-to-day role in professional law enforcement?”
Last week our sheriff was indicted on five counts of conspiring and making false statements to illegally acquire machine guns.
And what did Jenkins allegedly receive in return for helping his friend get those machine guns? Political support, of course.
I hate to say I told you so but this was not difficult to see coming. Sheriffs are all-powerful constitutional animals. They answer to virtually no one, that is, until they get caught.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We shouldn’t have our county’s top law enforcement officer constantly pandering to their political base, begging for money, pushing back against political enemies and looking for political favors.
It doesn’t matter that Jenkins is a Republican. I’m not naïve enough to think a democrat wouldn’t do the very same thing.
I have no idea if the charges will stick. It doesn’t matter. The damage has been done.
He is at least guilty of extremely poor judgement. How he can take his broken law and order persona into the office each day and look his deputies in the eye is beyond me. But then again, the shameless chutzpa so many politicians posses always surprises me.
While the Maryland Constitution requires each county to have a sheriff, state statutes allow counties and municipalities to form local police departments. This is the path Frederick County needs to start down. I realize this was not a priority for our new county executive or the citizens advising her, but we can’t delay. The time is now.
I call on the county council and county executive to begin studying the costs and benefits of creating a professional county police department.