The lawyer who prosecutes police misconduct cases for Montgomery County said he has survived a “hit job” on his career by the Fraternal Order of Police union, which was trying to silence him for speaking out against a disciplinary process he said is tilted in the union’s favor.
The Maryland Attorney Grievance Commission dismissed a complaint filed by the union last week, charging that Associate County Attorney Christopher Hinrichs had misled a judge about how often the county gets its way in disciplinary hearings involving police officers.
Hinrichs said the union was trying to punish him, partly for speaking publicly to The Examiner about disciplinary matters.
“I am living proof that the FOP will attempt to eliminate anyone it sees as an obstacle,” Hinrichs wrote in an e-mail. He added that he is considering legal action against the FOP and is “committed to imposing a severe legal consequence” on the union “for the hardship it has placed on me.”
But past union President Walter Bader said the union had a legitimate concern that Hinrichs may have lied in court two years ago and the union was well within its right to question him.
The Examiner reported a lawsuit between the county and the union over the makeup of the hearing boards that try discipline cases. The county wants Police Chief J. Thomas Manger to be able to pick a hearing board, instead of a mixed panel that includes an officer picked by the union, in certain cases involving officers charged with less-serious misconduct.
Hinrichs said Manger in recent years has been able to impose the punishment he originally wanted on officers found to have committed misconduct only twice out of 62 cases heard by a mixed panel.
“I believe the FOP has become sensitive to the fact thatcounty political leaders might have to take action if the chief’s actual ability, or in this case inability, to discipline officers within the parameters of the union contract was made known to the public,” Hinrichs wrote to the grievance commission.
But union officials said Hinrichs’ statements are misleading, and officers are often punished, just not to the level sought by Manger. The county has a history of seeking unreasonable punishments and bringing “weak” cases against union members, they said.
The county and the union are awaiting a ruling by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals on the makeup of disciplinary hearing boards. Part of the case involves a Montgomery County police officer who was found by her superiors to have ignored an armed robbery call less than a block away and was given a one-day suspension, which she refused.
