March 29, 2024
Annapolis, US 47 F

Letter To The Editor: A Bad Police Bust

editorialLast year, on August 10th, your EOA staff posted an article about my husband, James Armstead. Your article was called “Glen Burnie Man Arrested For Threatening State Officials”. The thing I hate most about news articles or anything involving media is that they rarely ever contact that person or that person’s family to get the real truth of the matter. They would rather accept the story they got from the police department or the so-called victim instead of get the real story behind the events that took place. Here is what really happened:

At 2:30 in the morning, the police BURST through my bedroom window. There had to be at least 30 men that came running through my bedroom window, my living room windows, and my front door. I was completely naked, and 5 months pregnant suffering from placenta previa and am at risk of bleeding to death when I go in labor. I immediately jumped up from the bed and ran into my children’s room because I thought they had my kids. And two men chased behind me aiming there guns at me. My husband came close behind, and one of the swat team rammed him in the head with his shield! I was on the floor, terrified, and naked, with the two guns aimed at me. Yes, I was yelling, screaming, and cursing and they had the nerve to tell me to call down. My kids were in shock. They took my husband into the livingroom after giving him his shorts to put on. My daughter gave me her blanket because I refused to let them get me anything. They told me to go into the living room and sit on the couch. I sat there, screaming for them to show me a warrant. They didn’t respond. My husband sat at the table, hands tied behind his back, and blood running down his face. My kids came out of their room, and one of the men had the audacity to hold my 17 month old son. The police destroyed everything in my home looking for alleged weapons and bombs and anything to prove that what that supervisor said at child support was telling the truth. There is no phone recording, all there is is repeat phone calls to the child support office and circuit court.

The police DID NOT show me the warrant until after they took my husband away and until 1 minute before they left out my door. He then told me that he would have to call my unit on Andrews AFB and tell them the situation since it is my address that they got my husband from. That very same morning at 7:30, my commander called me and said he had gotten a call that I have a WARRANT out for MY arrest!!??

Both my husband and my name have been defamed throughout this state. I do NOT have any record whatsoever, but I am being thrown out of my apartment in 30 days because a woman decides she is tired of my husband calling about mistakes that the court has made. The news has EVERYTHING backwards. Yes, my husband has children in Tennessee. The mother of the children filed for child support in TWO states at one time. She was getting child support for the children from BOTH states, which is FRAUD! She received benefits in Texas and in Tennessee, and has gotten away with pressing false charges on him even though she has not had any contact with him in over a year and half since he found out his daughter was raped by a 21 year old when she was 15. James tried explaining this to the court and they wouldn’t listen. He has been through so much in his life and this system is making it so much worse.

My husband is innocent and look how his name has been ran through the mud off of hearsay. My children cannot sleep. My 8 year old cries every night since the incident, waking up from nightmares of the “men in black with the guns”. I have started bleeding from stress. And we are going to have NO place to live because of this nonsense. The media doesn’t care about who’s lives they are ruining either. Why would you state hearsay as if it is a fact? Why not question me sincerely, asking me about what REALLY happened instead of trying to pump information out about my husband and his business with the child support office? Why not ask about all the letters that I wrote to news papers and his blog that I posted online about how much pain my husband has gone through over false charges and accusations?

Our lives are ruined. No one is going to let me move into their property with my husband’s name across the news and me being kicked out because of these lies. I am at risk of losing my job and there is no way that James will ever get one! I went straight to the court house Friday and put a lawsuit on everyone who jumped through my windows that morning, including the “woman” who caused this problem. And if the news wants to know the truth, maybe you all should ask me instead of trusted the police department who will do anything for media attention.

I cannot believe that for years, I have been asking for help for all the wrong that has been done to my husband over the past 7 years of his life here in Maryland. And instead of helping this man, you all would defame him by accepting the information from people who have no damn proof of what they are providing to the public. I am in the military, in the Air Force. Why would my husband call the Child Support office and threaten to kill them with an AK? Why would he tell them that WE have military guns in our house, knowing that the courts are just waiting for a reason to arrest him? The police lied to the media, telling them that they found documentation in my home stating my husband was going to purchase an AK! Where? What documentation?! My husband is disabled–I am the one who does all of his paperwork. The only thing that the police took from my house was a picture of transcripts of his court date at the circuit court, my BGE bill, and his phone! The lied to my Commander and told them I was involved, too!

It took us nearly 4 months to find another place to live. We have been harassed and followed by the police department more since that date. On January 18th, the judge dropped the “Threats to State Official” and 2 counts of Telephone Misuse. BUT, the state (States Attorney Karen Anderson-Scott) brought the case back up again, charging him with telephone misuse, trying to charge him for every time he called the office of child support enforcement last year!! This is wrong! How could someone do this?! How could the court allow the state to bring back a charge that was dropped, that they had absolutely no evidence of, and that did not deserve a bond of 100,000?! The state switched the bond from the case that was dropped and attached it to this new “Telephone misuse charge” of which they are going to use the SAME WITNESSES from the case that was dropped for lack of evidence!

The Office of Child Support Enforcement has been harassing and ripping him off for years. They allowed the mother of his children to file for child support in Tennessee, Texas, and now Maryland at the same time, garnishing wages form his checks for the SAME children! That is fraud, and should have never happned. The money from Texas was released back to the IRS but the IRS refuses to refund my husband his money. The office of child support in Tennessee closed its case out in 2011, but Maryland decided to pick up the case. No one is looking out for my husband’s children who have been victims of stutory rape, abuse, and neglect.

Just this morning, the police department was outside of our building. We (husband and I) saw three police officers knocking on everyone’s door who stayed on the basement floor of our building. I just called the Sherriff’s office at 410–222-1571, asking why there were police knocking at everyone’s door on the basement floor. I asked why they were camped out in the apartment next door when no one stays there. The girl who lives ther moved out about 2 weeks ago. All I saw were 2 or 3 men go into the apartment. I was then connected to the dispatcher who quickly said that “they were performing evictions”.

Just 10 minutes ago, I heard people coming out of the apartment so I looked through my peephole.THIRTY (30) people just came out of that apartment! It takes 30 people to evict someone who’s been gone for TWO WEEKS?!

I am concerned because I am being lied to. Last year, something similar happened when I lived in Glen Mar Apartments. The sherriff’s office were outside of my apartment in broad day light, looking through my window with flashlights. I called the police department who claimed there had been a robbery on Hiddenbrook. What that had to do with my apartment, I have no idea. But the next week, August 10th, at 2:30 in the morning, about 30 men raided my apartment! They destroyed my apartment looking for bombs, weapons, and grenades! The director of the Office of Child Support Enforcement lied on my husband, saying he threatened her. The police department arrested my husband for “telephone misuse” last year. We lost everything and were homeless for three months! I was 6 months pregnant at the time and we had three children!

I do not have time for stuff like this. If the police department is going to continue to harrass us, I am going to have to file a lawsuit against the sherriff’s office along with everyone else that I sued for the year. This doesn’t make any sense. I am not stupid enough to believe it takes 30 men to evict someone who 1) has been gone for 2 weeks and 2) who moved all of her furniture out two weeks ago.

I am sick of the police department harassing my husband. We do not deserve this. As soon as he calls DMV, MVA, OCSE, the Court house, anywhere, people lie, saying he is threatening them! The next thing I know, I am posting a 100,000 bond for his release!

Please, this story, OUR story, needs to be posed on your site. We are not the only victims of this abuse. Just this morning, someone on the news was arrested on a ridiculously high bond for so called “telephone misuse”. I am living witness to this situation, and I know that when you call ANY agency in Maryland to tell them what they are doing wrong, they try to turn it back around on YOU. They lie to the media and the police, telling them “that person is crazy! I don’t know why he/ she is threatening me!” There is always another side to the story. The media takes a bad situation and runs with it.

–Krystal Armstead

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