Caroline County ACC accepts year-end report; county urged expunging exonerated police complaints from personnel files

The Administrative Charging Committee (ACC) accepted its year-end report at a meeting that included discussion of a Caroline County recommendation for the state Police Accountability Board to allow officers to request removal of exonerated or unfounded complaints from personnel files.

Committee members reviewed the year-end report and noted that Caroline County submitted the recommendation during a state PAB pre-summit. "If an officer is charged and that officer is exonerated of the charges, why that doesn't come out of their personnel files beyond me," the committee facilitator said, arguing that lingering exonerated entries can create implicit-bias disadvantages for officers seeking new positions.

The report also summarized training and policy work the committee and local agencies have undertaken; members said staff and some board representatives attended statewide training at the Maryland Police Training Commission and a PAB pre-summit hosted in Baltimore City. After brief discussion and no substantive additions or corrections, a motion to accept the year-end report was made, seconded and carried by voice vote.

Committee members emphasized that the Caroline County recommendation will be part of the PAB process and does not itself change statewide policy. The facilitator said the county's recommendation "is in that report" and that Caroline County will "be heard on that; whether it'll go anywhere or not, we'll see." No binding statewide action was taken at the meeting.

Next steps: the committee accepted the year-end report and noted the recommendation will be part of discussions at the upcoming PAB summit; the committee did not adopt any change to personnel-record rules at this meeting.