Sheriff Sam Cogen ends practice of posting eviction notices in apartment common spaces

Baltimore’s new sheriff Sam Cogen has instructed deputies to end the department’s longtime policy of posting eviction notices in common spaces of apartment buildings when deputies are unable to access individual units. Cogen announced the new policy on Thursday, his first full day in office. It went into effect Friday. “This is not something that’s difficult for anyone to understand,” he said. “Why wouldn’t we want to give everyone as much notice as we possibly could?” His predecessor and former boss John Anderson, who held office for more than three decades, did not assist him in the transition, he said. So Cogen studied local laws, read old newspaper clippings and eventually learned he needed to obtain a “sheriff’s bond” and present it to the clerk of court in order to be sworn in.