About 50,000 criminal warrants have not been served, Prince George’s County Sheriff Melvin High said, a major concern as the county reels from a spree of homicides at the beginning of the year.
High, the former county police chief, told the County Council that he wants some old warrants — some going back as far as the 1960s — thrown out.
“We have to look at those cases in conjunction with the State’s Attorney and the courts to see if those are the situations that should be recalled,” he said.
Assistant Sheriff Darrin Palmer said 860 of the outstanding warrants are for violent crimes. About 26,000 of the warrants are for charges of failure to appear in court for motor vehicle violations, he said.
Palmer said one reason for the massive backlog is that misdemeanor warrants in Maryland do not expire like some do in Virginia. He also said many warrants are out for people serving sentences or being held in other jurisdictions.
“Understanding these warrants is critical,” he said, speaking about suspects in the custody of other departments. “Many of the violent crimes — like homicide, rape or carjacking — may show as being open, but we have identified the wanted person and that person’s location.”
High boasted that since taking office at the beginning of December, the sheriff’s office has increased the number of deputies in its warrant unit and reduced the growing backlog of outstanding warrants.
There are 3,000 fewer active warrants now than there were in December, Palmer said.
“We have a greater number of people actually doing enforcement work every day out there looking for people,” he said.
The county saw almost-daily slayings in the first weeks of January. Sheriff’s deputies joined the police department then to conduct saturation patrols and deliver warrants in target areas, High said.
A spokesman for the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department said the county has a backlog of 1,775 warrants. But that doesn’t include a large number of other warrants for which the county’s police department is responsible. County police did not return a call requesting information about those warrants.
A D.C. police spokesman said he could not immediately provide the number of outstanding warrants, instructing a reporter to file an open records request.
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