When the law passed, Alexa Renehan decided to find out what happened to the police officer she had complained about all those years ago.
She was still waiting this summer, long after Montgomery County’s legal deadline to release the records. A day before the county pledged to turn them over, the officer and local police union sued the county to stop the disclosure, arguing that officer privacy concerns outweigh the public’s right to know.
The litigation is an early test of Anton’s Law, which Maryland lawmakers passed last year to ensure the public has access to police internal affairs records amid the nationwide clamor for increased accountability following the murder of George Floyd. Supporters of the measure say disclosure ultimately bolsters trust between officers and those they police, but unions like the Fraternal Order of Police, or FOP, have long asserted that disclosure would harm officers’ reputations, hurt their employment opportunities, and invite unfair smears or harassment.
“This is supposed to bring transparency,” Renehan said, so that complaints about officers don’t “stay hidden behind the FOP curtain.”
Whatever the litigation’s outcome, it has stalled the disclosure of records the county had prepared for release, thanks in part to an uncommon arrangement that allows the union to review internal affairs files before their disclosure. And it has left Renehan wondering whether to intervene in the case at her own expense or leave it to county and union officials to hash out what information the public should be able to access.
“You have a process now where the adversaries aren’t exactly adversarial,” said Kevin Goldberg, a veteran freedom-of-information lawyer and First Amendment specialist for the Freedom Forum, referring to the county, officer and union, which are so far the only parties to the case.
“That’s troubling,” Goldberg said.
Acting Montgomery County Attorney John P. Markovs declined to comment on the case, but said in an email that “all litigation is adversarial.”
Under Anton’s Law, police disciplinary records are no longer prohibited from release as “personnel” records. But the Maryland Public Information Act, or MPIA, contains other exceptions under which at least portions of such records might be withheld.
Privacy concerns are common in public records disputes. The question is not only whether information might be private, legal experts say, but whether any harm from releasing it would outweigh the public interest in disclosure.
Renehan, who practiced family law in Montgomery County for more than a decade and now volunteers for African animal conservation and female empowerment groups, first requested the disciplinary records of Montgomery County police officer John J. Gloss in January. More than a decade earlier, she had made a complaint to the department about Gloss after a traffic stop she felt he had handled inappropriately.
“I got a letter, which I didn’t save, but it said your complaint was found to be valid — he will be, or he is being, sanctioned,” Renehan recalled. But before Anton’s Law, there was no way for a member of the public to learn about the investigation of a complaint or what discipline, if any, may have occurred.
Now, Renehan wanted to know exactly what became of her complaint, along with any others against Gloss. A few weeks after her request, she received from the police department an estimated fee of $63,030, which she learned through later correspondence was based on the size of Gloss’s disciplinary file, which spanned five cases, 2,711 pages, and dozens of hours of audio and video, according to correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post. It’s not unusual for individual internal affairs cases, which sometimes include allegations against multiple officers, to run hundreds of pages.
The county estimated it would take 1,315 hours to review and redact the material. Maryland law allows agencies to charge for costs incurred in releasing records.
In April, after some back and forth with the department, Renehan agreed to reduce the scope of her request. She paid $270 to receive only the investigative reports and dispositions of the five cases, amounting to 174 pages of records. Then she waited.
The MPIA requires officials to release public records “promptly,” without unnecessary delay, and within 30 days unless the requester agrees to an extension.
“It’s been 8+ weeks since I paid you and this is outrageous!” Renehan wrote to the department in early June.
A department clerk replied that the records were in “a final legal and officer review prior to release.” Two weeks later, the clerk notified Renehan that the department needed an additional 10 business days while the Fraternal Order of Police looked over the file, records reviewed by The Post show.
The Post reported last month that the union representing Montgomery County officers, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 35, secured an agreement early this year with County Executive Marc Elrich (D) allowing it time to inspect internal affairs files and object to their release before a member of the public can see them.
During separate interviews for that article, the union’s president, Lee Holland, and Montgomery County Assistant Police Chief Darren Francke told The Post that the agreement gives union members a chance to correct any mistakes the department might make in preparing records for release. They said the union had reviewed about 10 sets of records and raised only one issue — over whether an alleged violation by an officer amounted to a technical infraction. Neither Holland nor Francke mentioned the lawsuit.
On Thursday, Francke said the lawsuit involves a separate issue than the one he disclosed earlier. “It fell off my radar. I had completely forgotten. I was asked to call you at the last minute, so I apologize for that. I wasn’t trying to hoodwink you or anything,” he said.
Holland did not respond to an email and phone message requesting comment about the lawsuit.
The union filed its complaint in Montgomery County Circuit Court on July 5, a day before Renehan was to receive the records. The county notified Renehan and later sent her a copy of the union’s complaint, which does not name Gloss and instead refers to him as “Officer John Doe.”
The lawsuit seeks to block the release of records documenting internal affairs investigations into allegations against Gloss dating back “almost two decades.” They include sustained allegations of “Conformance to Law,” and “Conduct Unbecoming,” along with other allegations that were not sustained, according to a summary the department released to Renehan, who contacted The Post after reading a recent article. The summary, which was reviewed by The Post and is called a “Concise Employee History,” includes five cases, some of which include multiple alleged policy violations.
The records also include a sustained “Courtesy” allegation dated Dec. 3, 2010, the summary shows. Renehan said she thinks that was the date of her complaint. Court records show that Gloss issued her a speeding citation on Nov. 27, 2010.
Goldberg, of the Freedom Forum, said the lawsuit seems to be more than an attempt to ensure proper administration of the new law. “I think they’re actually trying to undercut it at the first turn,” he said.
Court filings in the case refer to Gloss anonymously per an order signed by Montgomery County Circuit Court Associate Judge Bibi M. Berry, which was proposed in a motion by the union that it said was necessary to protect his privacy and that the county agreed to. The union’s complaint describes “Officer John Doe” as “a decorated sworn police officer” and a “medal of valor award recipient.” Gloss did not return an email or phone message requesting comment.
The Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce gave Gloss a “Silver Medal of Valor Award” for confronting a group of gun-shop burglars in 2019. As the getaway SUV sped toward and past him, Gloss fired five shots, one of which entered the back of the SUV above its brake light and struck a 17-year-old in the rear cargo area, killing him, investigators said. The Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office, which investigated on behalf of Montgomery County, found the shooting justified.
The union’s lawsuit gives various reasons Gloss’s disciplinary records, or at least portions of them, should be withheld from public view, including asserting that releasing them would be “an unwarranted invasion of privacy” and would disclose “protected personnel records.”
The complaint said it would be “contrary to the public interest” to release records of allegations that were not sustained. The same argument was made to lawmakers as they debated Anton’s Law, but its proponents disagreed. The legislature declined to adopt a narrower version of the law that would have excluded non-sustained complaints from disclosure.
“That was a big, big, big, big point for me, and that was what Anton’s Law was pushing for — sustained as well as unsustained complaints,” said Del. Gabriel Acevero (D-Montgomery), who sponsored the Maryland House’s version of the bill. The public cannot assess whether the police are appropriately policing themselves if they can’t see the complaints that were not sustained, he said.
Under a schedule approved Aug. 16 by Berry, the union had 30 days to submit a sealed memorandum furthering its arguments to withhold the records, and the county will then have 30 days to file a sealed response.