GOVERNOR HOGAN: Good morning. Up here with me today are Superintendent of the Maryland Police, Colonel Jerry Jones, Chief Mike Wilson of the Maryland Capitol Police, Chief Kevin Anderson of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, and Glenn Fueston, the Executive Director of the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention, Youth and Victim Services.
We’re also proud to be joined today by police chiefs and sheriffs and law enforcement leaders from all across the state.
This is an especially challenging time for members of law enforcement in our state and in our nation. And sadly, the unconscionable actions of a few have been used to demean and question the character of our law enforcement officers, and to fuel and all-out assault on the entire law enforcement community.
Last year, when the defund the police movement started gaining momentum, I was one of the first leaders in America to speak out loudly against it and to completely reject the idea. Let me reiterate what I’ve been saying for more than a year. Trying to reduce crime by defunding police is dangerous, radical far-left lunacy. Thinking that you can improve law enforcement by defunding the police is like saying that you want to improve education by defunding the schools. It’s absurd and ridiculous.
Just last week, a Baltimore city councilman actually called for abolishing the police department. Violent crime is out of control in Baltimore city. They’re on pace to surpass 300 homicide again this year. The Baltimore police department is short staffed on more than 300 officers. The city of Baltimore is a poster child for the basic failure to stop lawlessness. There’s a prosecutor who refuses to prosecute crime, and there’s a revolving door of repeat offenders who are being let right back on to the streets to shoot people again and again. All of this has had a chilling effect on effective policing and on the willingness of victims own witnesses to come forward.
Residents and community leaders are completely fed up, and they’re pleading with the cities’ elected leaders to take action. Homicide are surging across the country. There are violent crime waves in nearly every major city. Law enforcement agencies nationwide are struggling to attract qualified candidates, and many current officers are retiring early or simply choosing to quit. You could not possibly have a worse time for anyone to be calling to defund the police or for cutting funding for public safety.
The reality is that our police are underfunded and under attack. To reverse the tide of rising crime, we need to stop demonizing and sabotaging the dedicated men and women who risk their lives every single day to keep the rest of us safe. Enough is enough. We cannot defund the police. We need to re-fund the police. Instead of less funding, we need more investment in public safety so that we can recruit and retain qualify officers so that we can increase diversity, so that we can expand community policing programs, so that we can teach better de-escalation techniques and improve training, so that we can provide body cams and other technology and equipment. We need to increase funding for law enforcement in order to improve policing, build more trust in the community, and most importantly so that we can keep our neighborhoods safe.
Cutting funding, reducing resources, reducing the number of police officers, reducing training and the quality of police officers is not the answer. And I can tell you that the state of Maryland will not defund the police as long as I’m governor. Instead, we’re going to re-fund the police. Today is the first in what will be a series of announcements regarding our initiatives to do just that. Beginning today with an investment of an additional $150 million of increased support for our police and increased crime control and victim protection services all across the state. Our re-fund the police efforts include an additional $45 million, a 50 percent increase in state police aid to local jurisdictions statewide. With vacancies rising and recruitment waning, we will provide another $50 million to fund much needed salary increases and hiring bonuses to ensure competitive compensation for all our state police agencies.
Our re-fund the police initiative also includes $24 million to create a new accountability resources fund which will pay for more body cams, more de-escalation training, and other critical tools for state and local police agencies. An additional $1 million will go directly to the Maryland Chief and Sheriffs Associations to help them further expand operational training and support. We will provide an additional $10 million in neighborhood safety grants to be distributed through the DHCD Main Street Maryland program to support hardware upgrades lighting, cameras, and increased security services for community organizations, business districts, main streets and neighborhoods all across Maryland.
Today, we’re also launching a new plan which will provide a 100 percent state-funded match for all crime stoppers supports to incentivize more witnesses to come forward and offer testimony so that more violent criminals are actually convicted and taken off our streets. Our administration has worked tirelessly to empower victims to give them the resources that they need to be safe and self-sufficient and help break the cycle of victimization. Congress is doing just the opposite. They just slashed the Victims of Crimes Act, drastically cutting victim service providers by 40 percent. These are absolutely vital resources for some of our most vulnerable, including victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse. This action by congress would force these incredible and important programs to lay off their workers and in some cases even shut down their operations. That’s going to happen in Maryland.
I’m announcing today that we will provide an additional $14 million in funding to make up for this defunding of victims by the congress. This investment will allow us to fully fund all of the eligible funding requests that we have received from every victim services provider across the entire state.
The Maryland General Assembly also recently defunded state services for victims, including reimbursements for the costs of sexual assault exams, and they cut an important program that shields the addresses of victims of domestic violence and human trafficking so that abuser cannot locate them. Today, we are providing $6 million to restore the funding for this and other critical funding programs — critical programs which were recklessly defunded by the legislature.
Our $150 million re-fund the police initiate I have will provide a desperately needed shot in the arm to our state and local police agencies and their critical efforts to stop crime. But there is far more work to be done. In addition to investing more in law enforcement, we also need the legislature to finally agree to pass tougher laws and hold violent criminals more accountable. We need prosecutors who will actually prosecute criminals, and we judges who are more accountable for the sentencing they give to repeat violent felons.
In the coming week, I will be announcing additional proposals, including legislation to support all of these crime-fighting initiatives. Every day, everywhere that I go, I make it a point to stop and shake the hand of every single law enforcement officer and first responder that I ever see to personally and sincerely thank them for their service. I’ve shared tears and hugs and prayers with the grieving families of our fallen heroes and assured them that their loved ones would never be forgotten.
For seven years now, our administration has strongly supported our police with public safety initiatives to help law enforcement officers do their jobs more effectively, and to help keep our Maryland citizens safe. Not a day goes by that I’m not grateful for their service. And I want every single one of them to know, especially in today’s environment when far too often our law enforcement officers are unfairly criticized and don’t get the appreciation that they deserve, that you will continue to have the full support of your governor, and I will continue to have your back and proudly stand with each and every one of you. Thank you. With that, I will be happy to take some questions.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Those are questions you should probably direct to the mayor. I haven’t seen a whole lot of progress quite frankly. We haven’t seen progress in the statistics of Baltimore city. I just don’t think people are taking it as seriously as they should be. But hopefully some of these efforts will help the problem.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: It’s going to be a pro rata amount. So it’s the fifth largest jurisdiction. Whatever is based on population is the amount of money they’ve receive. Anybody else?
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Some of it will be done right away. Like some of the victim stuff, we have to replace the money that’s been taken away from congress before they shut their doors. Some of it we’ll be able to fund fairly quickly. Some of it has to be in our budget, which will be submitted in January.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: It’s coming from a number of different sources that will be laid out in detail when we submit our budget.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Absolutely. We’ve already provided serious amounts of money, particularly for Baltimore city for both of those programs for victim services, providers all across the city and across the state. We’ve also provided money for things to try to encourage more witnesses to come forward. So it’s great if the city is moving in that direction. Our effort would provide a 100 percent match for any of those dollars that any jurisdiction put up for those very effective and worthwhile programs.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: As I mentioned in my remarks, that’s extremely frustrating. As I mentioned, the folks in this room and law enforcement officers across the state, but in particularly Baltimore city, you know, have a really tough job already. And, you know, when you’re arresting people but no one is ever prosecuted, it really doesn’t stop crime when you keep come back on the street. So there’s no question, the failure to prosecute crime in Baltimore city is a major problem, why we have so many repeat violent offenders on the streets of Baltimore city.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: don’t know if this money is going to solve the problem. I think the city of Baltimore has to address the problem by electing leaders who will address these issues.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: No CARES Act money, I don’t believe, but we might utilize some of the federal funding to cover some of this if we can.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Well look, we’ve invested $1 billion in public safety in Baltimore city over seven years. Unprecedented. Unheard of. State police have provided more assistance than ever before. All five of our state police agencies have provided additional increased support, and we’re going to continue to support them any way we can. But, you know, I did declare a state of emergency and send in the National Guard once before. We sent 4,000 members of the guard and 1,000 additional police officers. We stopped the violence and brought peace to the city. That’s not an ongoing strategy. That’s not what they’re trained for. We don’t want to declare martial law. We would like to see the city leaders step up and provide the assistance they can so we can do something about the crime.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Thank you. On vaccines, we saw the news yesterday about the recommendation from the panel at the FDA, CDC. We expect final approval for some of the other vaccines for — not for the children yet, but for everybody else next Friday, and we’ll be ready to immediately begin providing additional boosters for anybody who wants them that received J and J or Moderna or Pfizer. We made great progress in that regard. We’re one of the most vaccinated states in the country. We’ve already done 200,000 boosters.
Kids, we don’t expect that approval for maybe another two weeks later, but we’ve been working for three of four months to prepare the health department working with the state Board of Ed, and with all our local health departments and local county schools, they’ll be ready to offer a booster shot to every child who wants one.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: No I don’t have any comment about that.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We will be talking with them between now and January and trying to convince them to choose the right things to invest in. Thank you.
We’re also proud to be joined today by police chiefs and sheriffs and law enforcement leaders from all across the state.
This is an especially challenging time for members of law enforcement in our state and in our nation. And sadly, the unconscionable actions of a few have been used to demean and question the character of our law enforcement officers, and to fuel and all-out assault on the entire law enforcement community.
Last year, when the defund the police movement started gaining momentum, I was one of the first leaders in America to speak out loudly against it and to completely reject the idea. Let me reiterate what I’ve been saying for more than a year. Trying to reduce crime by defunding police is dangerous, radical far-left lunacy. Thinking that you can improve law enforcement by defunding the police is like saying that you want to improve education by defunding the schools. It’s absurd and ridiculous.
Just last week, a Baltimore city councilman actually called for abolishing the police department. Violent crime is out of control in Baltimore city. They’re on pace to surpass 300 homicide again this year. The Baltimore police department is short staffed on more than 300 officers. The city of Baltimore is a poster child for the basic failure to stop lawlessness. There’s a prosecutor who refuses to prosecute crime, and there’s a revolving door of repeat offenders who are being let right back on to the streets to shoot people again and again. All of this has had a chilling effect on effective policing and on the willingness of victims own witnesses to come forward.
Residents and community leaders are completely fed up, and they’re pleading with the cities’ elected leaders to take action. Homicide are surging across the country. There are violent crime waves in nearly every major city. Law enforcement agencies nationwide are struggling to attract qualified candidates, and many current officers are retiring early or simply choosing to quit. You could not possibly have a worse time for anyone to be calling to defund the police or for cutting funding for public safety.
The reality is that our police are underfunded and under attack. To reverse the tide of rising crime, we need to stop demonizing and sabotaging the dedicated men and women who risk their lives every single day to keep the rest of us safe. Enough is enough. We cannot defund the police. We need to re-fund the police. Instead of less funding, we need more investment in public safety so that we can recruit and retain qualify officers so that we can increase diversity, so that we can expand community policing programs, so that we can teach better de-escalation techniques and improve training, so that we can provide body cams and other technology and equipment. We need to increase funding for law enforcement in order to improve policing, build more trust in the community, and most importantly so that we can keep our neighborhoods safe.
Cutting funding, reducing resources, reducing the number of police officers, reducing training and the quality of police officers is not the answer. And I can tell you that the state of Maryland will not defund the police as long as I’m governor. Instead, we’re going to re-fund the police. Today is the first in what will be a series of announcements regarding our initiatives to do just that. Beginning today with an investment of an additional $150 million of increased support for our police and increased crime control and victim protection services all across the state. Our re-fund the police efforts include an additional $45 million, a 50 percent increase in state police aid to local jurisdictions statewide. With vacancies rising and recruitment waning, we will provide another $50 million to fund much needed salary increases and hiring bonuses to ensure competitive compensation for all our state police agencies.
Our re-fund the police initiative also includes $24 million to create a new accountability resources fund which will pay for more body cams, more de-escalation training, and other critical tools for state and local police agencies. An additional $1 million will go directly to the Maryland Chief and Sheriffs Associations to help them further expand operational training and support. We will provide an additional $10 million in neighborhood safety grants to be distributed through the DHCD Main Street Maryland program to support hardware upgrades lighting, cameras, and increased security services for community organizations, business districts, main streets and neighborhoods all across Maryland.
Today, we’re also launching a new plan which will provide a 100 percent state-funded match for all crime stoppers supports to incentivize more witnesses to come forward and offer testimony so that more violent criminals are actually convicted and taken off our streets. Our administration has worked tirelessly to empower victims to give them the resources that they need to be safe and self-sufficient and help break the cycle of victimization. Congress is doing just the opposite. They just slashed the Victims of Crimes Act, drastically cutting victim service providers by 40 percent. These are absolutely vital resources for some of our most vulnerable, including victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse. This action by congress would force these incredible and important programs to lay off their workers and in some cases even shut down their operations. That’s going to happen in Maryland.
I’m announcing today that we will provide an additional $14 million in funding to make up for this defunding of victims by the congress. This investment will allow us to fully fund all of the eligible funding requests that we have received from every victim services provider across the entire state.
The Maryland General Assembly also recently defunded state services for victims, including reimbursements for the costs of sexual assault exams, and they cut an important program that shields the addresses of victims of domestic violence and human trafficking so that abuser cannot locate them. Today, we are providing $6 million to restore the funding for this and other critical funding programs — critical programs which were recklessly defunded by the legislature.
Our $150 million re-fund the police initiate I have will provide a desperately needed shot in the arm to our state and local police agencies and their critical efforts to stop crime. But there is far more work to be done. In addition to investing more in law enforcement, we also need the legislature to finally agree to pass tougher laws and hold violent criminals more accountable. We need prosecutors who will actually prosecute criminals, and we judges who are more accountable for the sentencing they give to repeat violent felons.
In the coming week, I will be announcing additional proposals, including legislation to support all of these crime-fighting initiatives. Every day, everywhere that I go, I make it a point to stop and shake the hand of every single law enforcement officer and first responder that I ever see to personally and sincerely thank them for their service. I’ve shared tears and hugs and prayers with the grieving families of our fallen heroes and assured them that their loved ones would never be forgotten.
For seven years now, our administration has strongly supported our police with public safety initiatives to help law enforcement officers do their jobs more effectively, and to help keep our Maryland citizens safe. Not a day goes by that I’m not grateful for their service. And I want every single one of them to know, especially in today’s environment when far too often our law enforcement officers are unfairly criticized and don’t get the appreciation that they deserve, that you will continue to have the full support of your governor, and I will continue to have your back and proudly stand with each and every one of you. Thank you. With that, I will be happy to take some questions.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Those are questions you should probably direct to the mayor. I haven’t seen a whole lot of progress quite frankly. We haven’t seen progress in the statistics of Baltimore city. I just don’t think people are taking it as seriously as they should be. But hopefully some of these efforts will help the problem.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: It’s going to be a pro rata amount. So it’s the fifth largest jurisdiction. Whatever is based on population is the amount of money they’ve receive. Anybody else?
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Some of it will be done right away. Like some of the victim stuff, we have to replace the money that’s been taken away from congress before they shut their doors. Some of it we’ll be able to fund fairly quickly. Some of it has to be in our budget, which will be submitted in January.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: It’s coming from a number of different sources that will be laid out in detail when we submit our budget.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Absolutely. We’ve already provided serious amounts of money, particularly for Baltimore city for both of those programs for victim services, providers all across the city and across the state. We’ve also provided money for things to try to encourage more witnesses to come forward. So it’s great if the city is moving in that direction. Our effort would provide a 100 percent match for any of those dollars that any jurisdiction put up for those very effective and worthwhile programs.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: As I mentioned in my remarks, that’s extremely frustrating. As I mentioned, the folks in this room and law enforcement officers across the state, but in particularly Baltimore city, you know, have a really tough job already. And, you know, when you’re arresting people but no one is ever prosecuted, it really doesn’t stop crime when you keep come back on the street. So there’s no question, the failure to prosecute crime in Baltimore city is a major problem, why we have so many repeat violent offenders on the streets of Baltimore city.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: don’t know if this money is going to solve the problem. I think the city of Baltimore has to address the problem by electing leaders who will address these issues.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: No CARES Act money, I don’t believe, but we might utilize some of the federal funding to cover some of this if we can.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Well look, we’ve invested $1 billion in public safety in Baltimore city over seven years. Unprecedented. Unheard of. State police have provided more assistance than ever before. All five of our state police agencies have provided additional increased support, and we’re going to continue to support them any way we can. But, you know, I did declare a state of emergency and send in the National Guard once before. We sent 4,000 members of the guard and 1,000 additional police officers. We stopped the violence and brought peace to the city. That’s not an ongoing strategy. That’s not what they’re trained for. We don’t want to declare martial law. We would like to see the city leaders step up and provide the assistance they can so we can do something about the crime.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Thank you. On vaccines, we saw the news yesterday about the recommendation from the panel at the FDA, CDC. We expect final approval for some of the other vaccines for — not for the children yet, but for everybody else next Friday, and we’ll be ready to immediately begin providing additional boosters for anybody who wants them that received J and J or Moderna or Pfizer. We made great progress in that regard. We’re one of the most vaccinated states in the country. We’ve already done 200,000 boosters.
Kids, we don’t expect that approval for maybe another two weeks later, but we’ve been working for three of four months to prepare the health department working with the state Board of Ed, and with all our local health departments and local county schools, they’ll be ready to offer a booster shot to every child who wants one.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: No I don’t have any comment about that.
(Question off-mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: We will be talking with them between now and January and trying to convince them to choose the right things to invest in. Thank you.