November 11th 2023.
The Board of Public Works has unanimously approved a financial settlement that resolved a lawsuit filed by Anton Black’s family against the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for his suspicious death. The long-awaited settlement amounted to $100,000, with an additional $135,000 being paid to the lawyers representing the Coalition for Justice for Anton Black.
The settlement brought about much-needed changes to the protocols and procedures of the Office of the State Medical Examiner. The newly enforced guidelines are in line with the national standards for cause of death determination and the investigations that are to be conducted with specific designations. The National Association of Medical Examiners requires a death to be ruled a homicide whenever it is determined that the death would not have occurred but for the intentional conduct of another person.
These policies outline explicitly how deaths are to be handled when they occur in-custody. The rules also state that all procedures must be performed without “improper police influence”. This is maintained by the strict rule that no one outside of medical examiners office employees can contribute to autopsy or examinations, and all decisions must be checked by the chief medical examiner before the results are released to the wider public.
Richard Potter, founder of the Coalition for Justice for Anton Black, said, “This settlement is an excellent first step, but as we engage in this new process community members must stay vigilant and engaged to make sure it’s effective.” He continued to express that the new reforms would invoke responsibility and accountability within the systems that judge wrongful death cases.
“The best frontline approach to eliminating harm is increasing accountability within,” Potter said. “That is why I hope that with this settlement agencies will begin to recognize their own wrongdoings, catch them and change them before they cause harm. What is needed is a sense of shared ownership that can only come through trust and mutual accountability, with police confronting their own biases about mental illness, committing to de-escalation, and truly serving a diverse community.”
Anton Black, 19, was killed on September 15, 2018, after being physically restrained by several white police officers and a white civilian while in front of his mother’s home in Greensboro, MD. After the teenager was reportedly seen fighting with an acquaintance, he was chased by three officers and a civilian back to his mom’s home. While the officers tried to subdue Black, they threw him to the ground, used a stun gun several times, and sat on top of him for multiple minutes, ultimately resulting in his death.
The subsequent autopsy conducted by the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that Black’s death was the result of cardiac arrest, however civil rights organizations and the boy’s family pushed further investigation due to their suspicions that the police officers’ excessive force, driven by racial bias, directly caused his death. Investigation revealed that proper procedures were not followed by those who performed the autopsy, and thus began the long lawsuit and fight for justice.
Sonia Kumar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Maryland, said, “This hard-fought settlement is about ensuring that the Maryland Office of the Medical Examiner tells the truth about what happens when people, and particularly Black people, are killed by police or corrections officials. We can’t prevent such deaths if we aren’t honest about what caused them, and this settlement is a crucial step towards that goal in future cases. We hope this settlement will make a real, positive impact, but it is truly just the beginning of the reckoning needed to address decades of misrepresentations so we can bring justice to families still waiting for the government to tell the truth.”
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