Around Maryland

An effort to destigmatize the use of overdose reversal drugs that started as a pilot in two West Virginia counties has expanded to all 13 states in Appalachia this year. The first-ever “Appalachian Save a Life Day” comes Thursday, on the heels of the approval of Narcan as drug that can be purchased over the counter for nonprescription use — a long-awaited victory towards normalizing and improving access to the decades-old, live-saving medication.

A bipartisan group of Maryland prosecutors doubled down this week on claims that a new law requiring that underage defendants consult with an attorney about their rights before police can interrogate them is making the public less safe. As it is now, Baltimore Police and other agencies across the state are not adhering to the law, known as the Child Interrogation Act, which is designed to reduce the number of false and coerced confessions by young people, The Baltimore Sun reported in an article published Sept. 5.

Growing up in a Puerto Rican law enforcement family in New York City, Michael A. Cortes III always knew he wanted to be a police officer. He said his late father, a retired New York Police Department Highway Patrolman, was a “huge influence” on him, and he was raised among a tight-knit community of police families. “Seeing him on the motorcycle, seeing him in his patrol car, going to the Highway Patrol Unit for Christmas and seeing Santa come down in a police helicopter was the coolest thing,” Cortes said in an interview this week.

The Baltimore Police deputy commissioner overseeing the department’s consent decree with the federal government will leave the agency at the end of September, he announced Wednesday. Eric Melancon, who leads the agency’s Compliance Bureau, said he will return to New Orleans to be closer to his family and to pursue a new career opportunity. He did not specify what the job was.

Howard County Public Schools is adjusting school start times in order to adapt to ongoing school bus issues. In a letter to families, HCPSS Superintendent Michael Martirano said that thousands of students are experiencing delays and some students are even being dropped off nearly two hours after dismissal. The school bus problems began during the first day of school.

Raychel Santo was both a Johns Hopkins University alumnus and employee in 2018 when she decided to tackle the inequity she saw in her employer’s free shuttle system. It “weighed on her” that the free shuttle wasn’t convenient for a lot of Santo’s coworkers, many of whom would pay for transit that brought them to the North Baltimore campus from less-connected, more remote parts of the city.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the Frederick County Board of Education meeting on Wednesday during a pair of passionate — and at times tense — demonstrations related to the district’s gender identity policies. Local groups opposing the board’s Policy 443 — which, among other things, directs school employees to use students’ preferred names and pronouns, and says school employees will keep a student’s gender identity private, not disclosing it to the student’s parents or guardians, unless the child consents to sharing it — advertised the event as a “rally for parents’ rights.”

A ban on broadcasting court audio recordings in Maryland will end Jan. 1, after the state’s highest court approved new rules regarding the release of court recordings. The Maryland Supreme Court approved the change during a meeting Tuesday. The Daily Record reports that starting next year, the public will be able to obtain copies of audio recordings and disseminate or broadcast them, though the recordings will first be subject to a redaction process to shield sensitive information.