Myles Thornton will be in Annapolis Tuesday afternoon.
It’s where he’ll mark his daughter’s 39th birthday, almost two years after she died in a Baltimore County crash. A young man fleeing police smashed head-on into her.
Thornton will ask delegates to pass the Dimeka Thornton Act, requiring all Maryland police agencies to file their pursuit rules with the state Office of the Attorney General.
The goal is to create a model policy aimed at reducing the number of people killed in police pursuits on Maryland roads. Thirty-one have died across the state since the attorney general began investigating police-related deaths in 2022.
“No police officer has ever talked to us,” Thornton said. “My daughter was a sweet, intelligent young lady who overcame adversity in her life and gave herself to the Lord.”
It’s not clear why anyone would object to this idea. Fourteen more people have died in police pursuits since Dimeka was killed.
But police aren’t sure they can support the bill.
“There is no greater priority for Maryland’s police agencies than the safety of its officers and the citizens they swore an oath to protect,“ said Yianni Varonis, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
”That is why the Police Training and Standards Commission is actively working toward determining if a model policy on police pursuits is feasible."
The pursuit and crash that killed Dimeka Thornton started shortly after midnight on April 8, 2024, in a hotel parking lot in Windsor Mill. Baltimore County Police spotted a stolen Infiniti driven by a man later identified as DeMarco Davis, now 25, of Baltimore.
He slipped around four officers and sped away, with eventually five cars in pursuit for three minutes at speeds topping 90 mph.
Davis drove the wrong way up a Baltimore Beltway exit ramp at Liberty Road and quickly collided with Thornton’s car. A Social Security employee who sang in her church choir, she was on the way home from a family celebration.
The attorney general’s investigators cleared Officers Derek Hadel, Rafael Marrero, Sean Daley, Daniel Creter and Sgt. Justin Ferguson of any wrongdoing in the Beltway crash.
Unsatisfied with the results, Thornton looked for an attorney to sue the police — one even filed a notice of intent to sue — but none would.
Then last year, Thornton went to Del. Sheila Ruth, a Baltimore County Democrat, asking for help.
“Obviously, this was a devastating thing for a parent to lose a child in that way, or to lose a child at all,” Ruth said. “But they were looking to make some changes to help save other parents from having to go through what they went through.”
Like other major police agencies in Maryland, the Baltimore County department has a pursuit policy. It is a complicated document.
A matrix of conditions spells out whether officers should pursue a fleeing suspect or drop off and ask others to make an arrest down the road. Supervisors get involved.
“I’m not a police officer,” Ruth said, “but I look at this matrix where it’s like, low-risk factors, medium-risk factors, high-risk factors. You know, is the road wet? Is it straight? Are there pedestrians around? Is it night? Is it day? Like, it’s this whole list of things.
“And I’m thinking, when you’re in the heat of the moment, how can you possibly be evaluating all these different factors?”
Police officers are trained in extreme driving, but 90 mph on roads like Belmont, Lord Baltimore, Ambassador and others the chase followed that night is enough to give anyone pause.
Police chose to pursue the stolen car and, according to the investigation, assessed the risks correctly.
In the end, though, it was just a stolen car. Driven by someone clearly demonstrating a lack of concern for others’ safety, yes, but cars can be replaced.
“If my car were stolen, I would obviously want it back,” Ruth said. “I would want the police to catch the person. But which is worse, losing a car or losing a daughter?”
“I just think that the policies need to be very clear that that’s the priority. That makes sense.”
Baltimore County Police are watching Ruth’s legislation. Officers worked frantically that night to free her as flames spread from her car’s engine.
Apologies, though, are weighty things, fraught with legal meaning.
“This incident involved a tragic loss of life, and our thoughts are with those affected,” said Joy Lepola-Stewart, county police spokeswoman.
It’s not clear that all 140-plus law enforcement agencies in Maryland have detailed chase guidelines.
The Police Training and Standards Commission is surveying them, collecting policies and thinking of ways to track and report pursuits — not just fatalities.
“Upon the conclusion of these efforts, the commission will make its decision on the development of a model pursuit policy and the collection and reporting of future such data,” Varonis wrote in an email.
That parallel effort, as late as it seems, could doom the Dimeka Thornton Act.
Ruth, who co-sponsored the bill with Del. Scott Phillips, said she’s wary of stepping in front of police on technical standards.
Myles Thornton isn’t as sensitive.
He’s watched the bodycam footage of the chase posted online by the attorney general’s investigators.
He thinks police should have captured Davis in the hotel parking lot.
Creter spotted the stolen Infiniti that night, then parked nearby and walked into the lobby. He confirmed it was stolen over his radio, then got back into his car as other officers parked outside the lot.
Once the driver of the car escaped their roadblock, why didn’t officers decide to track it down another way?
“I do think they made a mistake,” Thornton said.
Second-guessing is natural. Davis is the person held responsible for Dimeka’s death.
He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and drug distribution charges. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, he’ll be out in five.
In June, when Judge Sherrie R. Bailey sentenced Davis, she ordered him to pay the Thorntons for their loss.
He owes $6,697.
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