The retreat from Anne Arundel County’s decade-long experiment in humane policing began with two simple words: “Minimally handcuffed.”
In February 2023, the Police Department updated its policy, adopting a phrase that eliminates officers’ ability to use discretion when transporting people in mental health crises.
And while “minimally handcuffed” might sound easygoing, it’s not.
Handcuffs are the least-restrictive restraints. More severe options include leg chains and the WRAP, a sleeveless straitjacket that immobilizes a person’s legs, ankles and torso.
Almost no one outside the department noticed the change until March, when police Chief Amal Awad removed the longtime head of the mental health crisis unit just months before his retirement.
Lt. Steve Thomas was the first person you wanted to see coming through the door in a crisis. The Crisis Intervention Team he helped create represented the best possible police response to people suffering mental distress.
He was suspended for two days, for what his attorney says was allowing a subordinate to deliver a suspect to the county detention center without handcuffs, in violation of the 2023 rule change.
As is often the case in personnel moves, Awad remains silent about the reason she removed Thomas. He’s finishing his active-duty career this week in a do-nothing post at Arundel Mills mall, basically walking laps.
Crisis Intervention is not the burglary unit. It is not the patrol division.
It is a unique law enforcement element of a mental health system that helps 10,000 people every year in some of the worst moments of their lives.
Awad’s failure to adequately explain the change is an insult to the public, and one that her boss, County Executive Steuart Pittman, apparently has decided to tolerate.
It’s easy to forget the county’s painful past with a different kind of response to mental health.
In 2005, 20-year-old Donald Coates was hallucinating at his girlfriend’s home in Glen Burnie. He believed people were trying to kill him, fired a gun and called 911 asking for help.
He removed his clothes and ran into the street unarmed, where a 23-year-old rookie in his first months on solo patrol found him. Officer Tommy Pleasant had recently seen a training flyer warning officers about the unexpected dangers posed by naked people in distress.
As Coates ran toward him, the officer shot and killed the young Black man. Coates’ family settled a wrongful death lawsuit three years later for $90,000.
Thomas helped create the Crisis Intervention Team in 2014, establishing a partnership with county behavioral health clinicians.
That was the year I met him. Even then, he had a reputation.
The department twice awarded him a Silver Star, its second-highest award for courage. The first time was for killing a robber who pointed a shotgun at him, the second for wading into a flash flood to help rescue two people pinned against a guardrail.
In 2016, Thomas was in the room when then-police Chief Tim Altomare signed on to the idea that handcuffs weren’t always the right response.
It was the depth of Maryland’s opioid overdose crisis. Altomare, Fire Chief Allan Graves and State’s Attorney Wes Adams wanted to stem the tide of emergency calls overwhelming firefighters and police.
The answer was a program called Safe Stations. It encouraged anyone in addiction crisis to come to a police or fire department station for help, with no threat of arrest.
The policy let officers like Thomas decide if it was safe to take someone to a treatment center uncuffed. It was the first step to recovery for many, and the criminal justice system was the better for it.
I had my own chance to see Thomas operate up close. He was a leader in the mental health community’s response to the 2018 Capital Gazette newsroom shooting that killed five of my friends.
That record put Anne Arundel at the forefront of compassionate police response to mental health crises. It would take the state five more years to catch up, changing the law to require officers to always use discretion before force, including handcuffs.
Thomas became a national advocate for change. He started his own podcast. Pittman called him one of his heroes.
Law enforcement agencies generally don’t like change, and heroes — particularly those on a crusade for change — make themselves targets.
Thomas had supporters inside the department, but detractors, too. Some believe police shouldn’t be the ones to give you a hug when your mind breaks.
Awad issued a statement this week saying handcuffs are about safety and that the department is committed to crisis response. But sometimes, even the threat of cuffs and guns deepens a mental health crisis.
Howard County Police shot and killed a man with autism last month during what his family called a suicidal crisis.
Four officers, all of whom had mental health training, confronted Alex LaMorie, 25, holding a kitchen knife. They pleaded with him to drop it, and when he refused, opened fire.
It was a tragedy that shows just how difficult finding the right police response can be. Thomas and his team navigated that challenge.
For the third year, state lawmakers are trying to define it with a bill giving police discretion to use force when taking someone for emergency psychiatric evaluation.
Named for two Prince George’s County deputy sheriffs killed while serving a psychiatric evaluation order, the bill was passed by the House of Delegates but remains in a Senate committee as the General Assembly comes to an end Monday.
Justin Mulcahy, Anne Arundel Police spokesman, explained the change in handcuff policy as a routine cleanup of conflicting rules for prisoner transport and mental health response.
I doubt handcuffs were the reason Awad, who’s been chief since 2020, removed Thomas.
Just as the rise in drug overdoses a decade ago created the humane policing experiment, two years of decline have given Awad cover to retreat from it.
The handcuffs are a symbol. It’s up to Awad to convince the public that slapping them on is now always the right police response.
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