Into Local Streets: Maryland National Guard and the Baltimore Riots Epilogue

Major General Linda Singh didn’t have long to wait for the effect of her threat to pull out National Guard troops if the Baltimore curfew were lifted. To her relief, Governor Larry Hogan supported her position. State Police Superintendent William Pallozzi also agreed—and the troops remained on the ground for Friday, May 1 and Saturday, May 2. General Singh was glad she’d stood her ground. “I’m there to help them make the tough calls,” she says. “So why am I going to tiptoe around an issue when we didn’t know what we were going to be faced with that weekend, coming in from out of town? That was the unknown.” 1

Charges. As it happened, Baltimore cleared a sizeable hurdle on Friday, when investigators ruled the death of Freddie Gray a homicide, and the state’s attorney announced probable cause to file criminal charges against the officers involved in Gray’s arrest. The charges were second degree “depraved heart” murder (potential sentence up to 30 years) against the van driver, Officer Caesar R. Goodson; involuntary manslaughter (10 years) against supervisor Sergeant Alicia D. White, Lieutenant Brian Rice, and Officer William G Porter; and second-degree assault (10 years) against Officers Edward M. Nero and Garrett E. Miller. All were released on bail.

The news seemed to take the fight out of the protestors. “I think at that point everybody, even citizens, wanted things to go back to normal,” says Brigadier General Timothy Gowen.2 Colonel William Greer agrees: “You could feel the relief come over the city when the charges were issued… It changed the dynamics.”3 Saturday passed without serious incident.

So on Sunday, May 3, the mayor lifted the curfew, and General Singh demobilized the National Guard. She notified her partners that it would take 24-72 hours to evacuate, but nearly all the troops were gone by Monday afternoon. “I had to hold back 300,” she recalls. The mayor, earlier keen to end the curfew, now wanted a few National Guard to stay on duty until Tuesday—when the last departed. “They were a little reluctant to release us,” notes Singh with a smile.

1 Author’s interview with Major General Linda L. Singh on October 20, 2016, in Annapolis, MD. All further quotes from General Singh, unless otherwise attributed, are from this interview. 2 Author’s interview with General Timothy Gowen on October 22, 2016 in Reisterstown, MD. All further quotes from General Gowen, unless otherwise attributed, are from this interview. 3 Author’s telephone interview with Colonel William Greer on October 26, 3016. All further quotes from Colonel Greer, unless otherwise attributed, are from this interview.

This case was written by Kirsten Lundberg for Dr. Arnold M. Howitt, Faculty Co-Director of the Program on Crisis Leadership and Senior Adviser of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Funds for case development were provided by the National Guard Bureau, United States Department of Defense, through the Homeland Security Institute, an initiative of the Chief, National Guard Bureau, in support of Harvard Kennedy School’s General and Flag Officer Homeland Security Executive Seminar and the Leadership in Homeland Security executive education program. HKS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.

Copyright © 2017 Program on Crisis Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA. The Baltimore experience led to numerous changes in the way the Maryland Guard prepared for civil disturbances. First of all, it revamped cooperation agreements with the police. “We have, by orders of magnitude, improved the way that we communicate with both police forces now,” says General Gowen. It also changed internal processes, he adds.

We have educated [ourselves] on how to do operations like this. We have completely reorganized the way that we are set up for the distribution of our weapons, the distribution of our ammunition. We recreated another task force just for logistics. We have a specific OP [operations plan] just for it. We’ve trained on the OP plan. We’ve trained with the police force. We have a different [Baltimore location] that we would set up now. I mean, over and over and over again, we would be so much better if we were to do it now.

There was ample opportunity to prepare for additional deployments. As the accused Baltimore police officers went on trial one by one—in December 2015, and in May, June and July 2016—law enforcement and the Guard went on high alert. The first trial ended in a hung jury and a mistrial; a judge acquitted three other defendants.4 Anticipating a similar outcome with the remaining trials, prosecutors in July dropped all charges. 5 In the end, none of the six officers charged was convicted. While the verdicts sparked protests, there was no widespread violence and the Guard stayed home.

In other fallout from the riots, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in July 2015 dismissed the Baltimore police chief. In August 2016, a Justice Department civil rights investigation found the Baltimore police guilty of systemic racial bias and routine harassment of minorities. In mid-January 2017, the department announced a consent agreement with the city to reform the Baltimore police, and expand training in areas like community policing, and stop, search and arrest tactics.6 In addition, vans like the one Gray rode in would be equipped with video cameras.

Looking back, Singh and her colleagues might have changed a few things. “Communication through this whole thing was challenging, right?” notes Singh. “Because there were so many moving parts. And granted, people didn’t see it from the outside, but there were so many communication missteps.” Colonel Sean Casey was not alone in wishing that the Guard had deployed on Sunday, April 26, instead of the next day. "It may have turned out significantly better if Baltimore City had requested the National Guard on Sunday." he observes. But overall, Colonel Casey speaks for the Maryland Guard in judging the operation a success.

No serious injuries on us, no physical confrontation with the public, even though we were out in public the whole time. We didn’t get any bad

4 Porter’s 2015 mistrial had been rescheduled for September 2016; Officers Nero and Goodson, and Lieutenant Rice, were acquitted. 5 Kevin Rector, “Charges dropped,” Baltimore Sun, July 27, 2016. See: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-miller-pretrial-motions-20160727-story.html 6 Eric Lichtblau and Jess Bidgood, “Baltimore agrees to broad change for troubled police dept.,” New York Times, January 12, 2017. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/baltimore-police-consent-decree.html

2 of 3 press whatsoever. It was all good. The community welcomed us with open arms. It was a very good operation. I think the keys [to success] were the governor making the decision to go, and us making the decision to come in hard. 7

Meanwhile, Singh and her deputies became frequent public speakers as other state Guard forces sought to prepare in case they were next to face a situation like Baltimore’s.

7 Author’s interview with General Sean Casey on October 21, 2016, in Baltimore. All further quotes from Casey, unless otherwise attributed, are from this interview. At the time of this case, Casey was a colonel, and we refer to him as such.

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