A word of advice to the Maryland State Police: When discussing the surveillance of anti-war and anti-death penalty groups in 2005 and 2006, use the quote below.
"It happened. It was wrong. We apologize. It will never happen again."
Four simple sentences. A total of 12 words. Those 12 words should suffice. Because if I hear any more lame explanations from state police or former Gov. Robert Ehrlich about why state police did what they did, I'll end up even battier than what I am now.
Last Friday, MSP Superintendent Col. Terrence B. Sheridan held a news conference in which he decried the surveillance before rationalizing it.
According to an article last Saturday by Sun reporter Julie Bykowicz, Sheridan said that police officials launched the operation out of concern about the possibility of violent protests around two planned executions in 2005.
It was at that point - in fact, well past the point - where Sheridan should have simply said: "It happened. It was wrong. We apologize. It will never happen again."
Violent protests around two planned executions? Look, no one is more pro-death penalty than I am. But somehow the image of rampaging anti-death penalty activists is hard for even me to conjure up.
Using the logic of justifying police surveillance because of possible violence, I guess someone, somewhere in MSP headquarters will now tell us they were conducting surveillance on anti-abortion groups who protested or held vigils in front of abortion clinics, right?
Of course we know that most - the overwhelming majority, in fact - of anti-abortion protesters are peaceful people, every bit as peaceful as the anti-war and anti-death penalty activists some in this state felt were such a threat. But not all anti-abortion protesters are peaceful. Some have bombed clinics and murdered, or attempted to murder, doctors who perform abortions. Surely there is far more justification for state police conducting surveillance of anti-abortion protesters than of anti-war and anti-death penalty groups, right?
The anti-abortion protesters who gather regularly - and peacefully, I might add - outside the Suburbia Building in the 5600 block of Baltimore National Pike must have been subjected to such surveillance, right? I first saw them about a year ago, when I took my granddaughter Kaila to modeling classes at the Flair Dance and Modeling Studio, one of several businesses in the Suburbia Building.
