March 29, 2024
Annapolis, US 41 F

County Police Officer’s police powers suspended after video incident

WolfordOn Saturday, August 5, 2017 at approximately 4:15 p.m., Corporal Wolford, ID #1740, of the Anne Arundel County Police Department responded to a customer dispute call in the 8200 block of Sebring Court in Severn. While the officer was discussing the matter with one of the involved parties, his interactions were being video recorded by another person at the scene. The video shows the officer, upon realizing he was being video recorded, approach the person taking the video in an apparent attempt to grab the recording device from the person.

It is the policy of the Anne Arundel County Police Department that members of the general public have a First Amendment right to video record, photograph, and/or audio record officers while they are conducting official business in any public space, unless such recordings interfere with police activity.

The actions of this officer are a detriment to the relationships we have fostered within our community and do not reflect our commitment to providing courteous service to all citizens.

“The Anne Arundel County Police are 100% committed to providing courteous service and protecting the rights of the citizens we serve. When we see these standards not being met, we will deal with violations of our policies forthrightly and with integrity.  We are doing so in this case.” – Chief Timothy Altomare.

Corporal Wolford’s police powers have been suspended pending an investigation by the Internal Affairs Unit.

In May of 2014, Corporal Wolford was selected as an Patrol Officer of the Month by his District Commander.

Cpl. Scott Wolford has been with the department for over six years. Cpl. Wolford is a truly motivated officer who comes to work every day full of energy and ready for whatever the mission calls for during his tour of duty on the shift. He has fully grasped the concept of community policing. He not only knows the people who make up the communities he serves, but the managers and employees of businesses in the area of his post (5C1). He has been proudly serving the areas of Severn and parts of Glen Burnie in Western District since his career began in law enforcement. His post is all encompassing with a large citizen population as well as a large volume of retail and commercial businesses.

Cpl. Wolford, with his knowledge of the citizens and business members in his assigned area, never has a problem seeking out information for solving crimes and/or quality of life issues in his post. His investigative abilities lead to many of closures of cases that are not on view and require an investigation to develop suspects. He completes this aspect of his duties through investigative techniques to include but not limited to photographic line-ups, interviews and/or interrogations, and various uses of numerous computer data bases. By using these methods he is able to bring cases to fruition usually resulting in an arrest of the suspect(s). There are so many cases of this nature he is involved in to single out one example would not be fair to him.

Cpl. Wolford’s value to the department and to the citizens along with the business communities he serves cannot be measured in statics produced. However, to give him credit for everything he does proactive in his post it has to be mentioned he is usually one of the top producers of traffic stats every month on the shift. For the month of April with all the time he spends on investigations and visiting community members as well as businesses he had forty-eight moving violations, twenty-eight warnings, and ten SEROs.

His sense of community policing is all encompassing and creates a sense of omnipresence. Based on this well-developed sense of community policing, I believe he truly deserves to be Officer of the Month for April 2014.

Previous Article

Fall Boat Show to host American Sailing Summit

Next Article

Get your drive-through flu shot on September 30th for free

You might be interested in …