The Johns Hopkins University has asked a state appellate court to uphold a previous decision that dismissed a challenge to the school’s effort to launch a police force.
The police force has been the focus of a concerted opposition effort by some students and community members.
Three Baltimore City residents have been seeking judicial scrutiny of the university’s December agreement with Baltimore Police Department establishing that the new police agency can patrol the school’s three campuses in the city. Hopkins is preparing to release its draft policies for the police force, the university’s police chief, Branville Bard Jr., said at an Aug. 16 meeting.
The three residents — Donald Gresham, Kushan Ratnayake and Joan Floyd — argue the agreement is fraught with provisions that contradict itself and the 2019 legislation that allowed Hopkins to start the creation of its own armed police force.
Baltimore Circuit Judge Jeffrey M. Geller dismissed the plaintiffs’ case earlier this year, finding the plaintiffs had no standing, but they appealed the decision to Maryland’s Appellate Court.
On Aug. 8, they filed a brief arguing the circuit court misunderstood the case and opined on matters that were not presented as a result of defendant motions. They asked the appellate court to reverse the previous decision so that the Hopkins and Baltimore police departments will “be compelled to address the failings of their [memorandum of understanding].”
The appellants have argued since the circuit court ruling that the campus area maps and textual descriptions of campus areas that are to be patrolled by Hopkins police don’t match.
They also said that the memorandum goes against enabling legislation in its initial term of power. The 2019 legislation states that the termination date for the initial term should be July 1, 2029, but the memorandum moves the date beyond that to Dec. 2, 2029, they said.
In a filing Thursday, Hopkins’ legal counsel argued for the appellate court to grant the university oral argument as well as uphold the circuit court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ case.
The filing reiterated that Geller found Gresham, Katnayake and Floyd to have no standing. For example, they do not own property in jurisdictional areas for the Hopkins Police Department, and they don’t have taxpayer standing as Hopkins is footing the bill for the police force.
Hopkins’ counsel also argued that the appellants aren’t affected differently by the Hopkins police force than members of the general public and that such effects won’t even come to fruition until next year, when the police force starts hiring and deploying officers come spring 2024.
“The potential of being subject to JHPD jurisdiction sometime in the future is not a cognizable injury,” the brief reads. “And although [the Community Safety and Strengthening Act] and the [memorandum of understanding] contemplate that JHPD officers may exercise police powers outside of the ‘Campus Area’ under certain exigent circumstances, appellants are still no different from the public at large.”
“We remain confident in the thoughtful, statutory process the General Assembly set out for the development and operation of the Johns Hopkins Police Department,” Hopkins spokesperson Megan Christin said in a statement. “The JHPD is now in the implementation phase as we develop JHPD policies and procedures that align with the Community Safety and Strengthening Act and the [memorandum of understanding]; establish processes to recruit and train officers in accordance with our local hiring goals and requirements; and finalize JHPD services.”
The draft Hopkins police policies will be shared first with the Johns Hopkins Accountability Board, which was set to receive the plan as early as late August, Bard said Aug. 16. The board has not shared whether it has yet seen the draft policies.
Following the board’s first look, the draft policies will be shared online for a 60-day public comment period, similar to the introduction of the memorandum to the public last year.
According to the police force’s website, 21CP Solutions, an organization overseeing implementation of a federal consent decree meant to improve the Baltimore Police Department, also will be involved in sharing the policy drafts with the public and help prompt various discussions on the matter.
The website states that community feedback and the final policies will be published in October, meaning draft policies must be shared with the public this month to comply with the 60-day public comment period.
