Listen as Larry spoke with Prince George’s County Police Chief Henry Stawinski III about gang related activity in the county and how Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ new criminal charging policy will impact the county.
O’Connor: Can I just ask you one quick follow up, does that cooperation with your federal partners include working with ICE on any detainer that they might send based on anyone you have in custody?
Chief Stawinski: Well again, what I try to do, and I had my Chief-on-the-go outreach with Casa de Maryland just a few weeks ago, making it clear that the long standing relationship between the Prince George’s County Police Department and members of the community in and around the Langley Park area but throughout the county who are first generation or have recently come from other lands. The police are a trusted resource, we are there to investigate crime and hold people accountable. But as the Chief of Police, I have to be able to have conversations with my peers across the whole spectrum of law enforcement. And there are people out there who, in my opinion, are dangerous criminals and must be removed from our streets, and must be removed from our country and I haven’t gotten a bit of disagreement from my community when it comes to people like MS-13 gang members who are committing crimes, murders, assaults, trafficking young women or young men, drugs. And then where those other things are concerned we obviously have to enforce the law fairly and partially but we must do it in a way that every member of our community regardless of their background, regardless of when they came to our country or whether they’ve lived here for generations, trust the police to investigate and keep them safe. And that’s the balance that I’ve tried to strike and that’s why I continue to do outreach but I also continue to talk to all my peers in law enforcement.
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