Police Accountability Board Agendas - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the July 15th 2026 police accountability board for Frederick County. We have a quorum here and so we're now going to call this meeting to order. The second item on the agenda today is the approval of minutes for April 15th 2026 as we do not have a quorum of the personnel that were at that meeting we cannot legally approve that so we're going to move on to the 3rd item on the agenda. Which is the introduction of the new members so For those in the crowd, those listening, please welcome our new members, Christopher Saucy and Carl Pritchard to the Police Accountability Board. The new members were appointed by the county executive, Jessica Fitzwater, and confirmed by the county council on July 7th. The next item on the agenda is the discussion on the election of a vice chair. I like that role. That said, the rules of procedure call for the chair to be here in attendance. Because of that, I'm asking for a motion to suspend the rules of procedure, and that way we can have an election of the vice chair at the next meeting in October. Do I have a motion for that suspension?

Motion to suspend until October.

A motion to suspend until October, yep.

I'll second that.

Can you second it? Any opposed? Any in favor? Aye. Ayes have it. See, we're moving with purpose here. Next item is the discussion with the law enforcement agencies. This is where we're going to get acquainted with them, for those of us who don't know them or don't remember their faces. And that way we can start building up topics for future items. So please feel free to come forth, gentlemen. At this point, Sarah Ambrosio is going to say something.

We'll introduce the new members to the agencies. If you have any topic that you want to discuss in the future, you can tell me now and we'll add it to this list or you can email me. But we're not really going to get into too much of a discussion tonight because they won't be prepared for that specific discussion. And plus, we don't have a ton of people here to do that. But I will let you guys go ahead and introduce yourselves.

Dave Armstrong, chief of the Vermont Police Department. I've been in that role for a little over three years now.

I'm Lieutenant Matt Corrado with the Frederick Police Department, and I'm currently the Professional Services Division Commander.

Lieutenant Jeff Hyatt with the Sheriff's Office. Currently, I'm the Commander for the Office of Policy and Compliance.

Andrew Crone, I'm the Assistant Chief of Police for the Brunswick Police Department.

Gentlemen, I appreciate that. There was one item for future discussion.

I know that for future discussion, and I have that written down. Does anybody have anything off the top of their head that they might want to put into a future discussion? If you don't think of anything now, please feel free to email it to me. But other than that, Neil, you don't have to keep them.

Any questions? Any items that we want to? Perfect, perfect, perfect. I appreciate it. Gentlemen, thank you. The next item on our agenda is the ACC update. Tom.

Can I start? Always. Okay. Good evening, members of the PAB, especially the new ones. I am Thomas Humphreys, chair of the Administrative Charging Committee. I'm here to give you a brief quarterly update from the Administrative Charging Committee. From April 16th, 2026 to date, the ACC has reviewed 16 complaints about police misconduct. Of the complaints received, 10 are from the Frederick Police Department, five from the Frederick County Sheriff's Office, and one from the Brunswick Police Department. The 16 complaints investigated contain 32 allegations of police misconduct involving 28 officers. Eight allegations have been unfounded, 19 allegations have been exonerated, and five allegations have been administratively charged. Most of the complaints are violations of LEA's policies and stands to include discourtesy, unbecoming conduct, and illegal traffic stops. Here's a list of stats. Five use of force allegations have all been exonerated. Three harassment allegations are unfounded. Seven civility and respect or discourtesy allegations. Six were exonerated, one unfounded. Two illegal traffic stop allegations were exonerated. Two illegal search and seizure allegations were unfounded. Two violations of Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights allegations, exonerated. One illegal entry allegation, exonerated. One failure to accurately document a report, exonerated. Two canine deployment allegations, unfounded. One evidence found in recovered property allegation, exonerated. One, failure to identify and provide badge number allegation exonerated. One, violation of juvenile procedure allegation administratively charged. One, violation of general orders and canine allegation administratively charged. Two, failing to give time and attention to duty allegations administratively charged. One, disclosure of personal information allegation administratively charged. And we currently have three cases pending review. Does anybody have any questions?

So if anyone here has a question, please feel free to hit the button, ask your question. Tom will answer as he can or cannot, depending on what he's allowed to say.

Are all these complaints that you've reviewed, do they all have camera, body, video?

I'm trying to remember if they all do. They typically do. I can't... Yeah, I think that's right. And it was, I think there was one that only took place over the phone that may not have had body cam. And I seem to remember anything that involves an officer out in public is going to have camera footage.

Do body worn cameras account for most of the exonerations? Is that the most common grounds for exonerating? The fact that there's video?

The fact that there was video or audio recorded. Well, I think anytime we have the recording, it gives us context. I mean, obviously sometimes there's going to be situations where someone says something happened and you can watch the video and it doesn't quite match what that person said. I wouldn't, I don't know how often that happens where it's, someone said A happened and then A is just not on video. I mean, it's certainly some of the times, but usually that's not what makes or breaks it.

Okay. Yeah, I was just trying to get a sense of how much of a difference the cameras make. In the cases, and it sounds like it's most of them, what are the sort of most common categories or most common bases for exoneration?

Well, the body-worn camera footage definitely helps because they say if one person is making an allegation saying such and such officer was rude and mean to me and then you look in the, you're watching and you can hear them and you can see them and there's nothing there that, there's no rudeness, there's no mean. They were probably just mad in the moment and they saw it differently in their head and you can clearly see on body-worn camera that is not, Their description of the story is not accurate to things that they had to say.

Yeah, I think where I was kind of drawing a distinction is, you know, did this event happen? A camera can tell you yes or no, and that certainly helps. But I think what happens more is kind of what she just described. is where the camera and the recording puts stuff into context. You can see tone. You can see whether it's getting animated. You can kind of evaluate it much better than just on a transcript of a recording, and certainly better than he said, she said.

How many of the complaints would you characterize as arising from a citizen's misunderstanding of the policing role or of citizens' rights, would having better education for the public about the constraints and duties of law enforcement, would that reduce the number of complaints, do you think? Or is that not a prominent cause?

It doesn't feel like it's part of the issue. It does, I mean, obviously there are a lot of cases. I don't really remember one where everybody agrees on the facts and it's just a matter of, yeah, that's not, it's okay if officers do that. That doesn't really come down to that. So I think it's a dispute as to what happened, not are they allowed to do the thing that I've accused them of.

Right, I mean, do the people who make like Fourth and Fifth Amendment complaints, do they actually know what the Fourth and Fifth Amendment say, that kind of stuff, right?

Yeah, I mean, it's hard to tell if they've had someone whispering in their ear and sort of suggesting it to them. I think any time something is found on them and that they're raising a complaint, they seem to add that in as a potential defense. But it hasn't materialized to anything as far as I can remember. Not just these last three months, but as long as I've been on it.

I have a question.

And this is just in general. You don't have to give me an exact answer. There's two ways that you receive complaints from the citizens directly to you or from the police departments who will receive a complaint from a citizen then to you. What is about half and half? Is it three quarters?

My understanding is that they don't come straight to us. They come to you. The PAB to date.

from January till now in the PAB complaint mailbox has received one complaint. And that person that complained when it was sent over to the agency, they had also complained to the agency. So we both have it. So us this year, this is the least amount.

Complaints we received since the beginning directly as I said, we've received one and that was like a week ago So I mean we're I wonder you might be able to shed some light on this when we were for example working at Pride And we were giving out paperwork and they had the ability to scan a QR code does that QR code? Is that in order to submit straight to the PAB or does it also say you can show how to submit to the agency?

The code that is in the brochure will go straight to the Police Accountability Board website link for them to file directly.

That might be why one came in last week, because two or three weeks ago we were handing out these things that had these QR codes. Okay, thank you.

Tom, I appreciate your time.

You're welcome.

Much shorter than last time. Next item on the agenda is an administrative update from Sarah Ambrosio, our executive administrator.

Well, hello, everybody. My update will be fairly short this evening. A couple of things coming up. The national night out is on August 4th. August 4th, the sheriff's office has invited us to participate there. I have sent out something through Sign Up Genius. If you want to participate right now, I only have two volunteers to be there at the beginning, no one to close up right now. Also, we have In the Streets in September. I can't think of the date right off my head, but I'll be sending out a follow-up with the date and sign-up times for that. Again, like Like I said, with Pride, we didn't get enough volunteers for Pride this year, so we won't be setting up. I know, like I said before, the group in the past has been big on community outreach, public engagement, wanting to be at events. I get them set up, and then we have no one in attendance, and then we've paid for something now that we have to forego because we don't have enough volunteers. So that's something to think of in the future. I am working on other ways for community outreach that don't involve having to possibly be at events, whether it be marketing or campaigning somewhere else, just so that the residents of the county do know that we are a resource out there if needed. Also, now is the time. We talked about this at the last meeting. If you look over the legislation, if you have any legislative ideas, any legislative changes that you would like to see done to the Police Accountability Board Act, please send them to me. Please, if you can, send them to me by the end of the month because I will then have to turn and write up a staff report to the legislative analyst so that they can look at them and before they get turned over to the county executive. So now is that time if you have any changes that you're thinking. I do have a couple already saved from other ones that I've received in the past, but I just wanted to put that out there. So go through it if you find anything you think that needs to be changed or you think could be suggested, we'll see how we can write that up. Does anyone have any questions for me?

Can you describe what the, I guess, the National Night Out or the marketing that we're doing out there, what's it look like to a citizen? Is it a tent? Is it staff? Is it a table? Is it brochures? Are those kinds of things? What else? What am I missing?

No, and when we go to events like that, we'll usually have a table somewhere or a tent, depending if we're outside, we'll have the table and the tent. We will have brochures. We have like little merchandise giveaways that they take that will have our information, our business cards. And we have people that manning the table that will talk to people as they come up and if they ask for information. So just trying to get us out there that we're a resource.

Are we dressed in PAB outfits or are we simply wearing our own attire?

You're in your clothes. You're not in a PAB outfit because you're, I mean, you're stipend members, but you're just members of the board promoting the board that you are out there for.

I don't think I got my PAB outfit.

Nobody. I think I might be the only one with the PAB shirt. But no, there is no PAB dress code. So you can wear, it'll probably be really hot. So shorts and a t-shirt. Anyone have any other questions for me? Nope. Okay.

Well, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

The next item on the list was going to be a legal overview, but as our county attorney is not able to attend, we're going to move on to the next item, which is public comment. If anyone wants to come up and speak, They can just be mindful that public comment is related to the topics that have been discussed today. It's limited to three minutes. Does anyone want to come up and speak? Sold. I shouldn't mute myself when I have another thing to say. The next item is the upcoming meeting will be Wednesday, October 21st. That will be in person. And the only item left on the agenda here is to adjourn. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Do I have a second? All in favor? All opposed? The ayes have it. Meeting adjourned.