Former Maryland State Police Superintendent Thomas E. "Tim" Hutchins defended yesterday the surveillance and infiltration of protest groups under his watch, saying investigators needed to gather information to prepare for potentially "volatile" demonstrations planned around executions of death row inmates.
In his most extensive remarks since revelations of the spying operations in 2005 and 2006, Hutchins said at a legislative hearing that troopers attended open meetings of protest groups and were not required to announce who they were or show their badges. An Army veteran, Hutchins said the operation began as a way to establish "situational awareness" about possible disturbances during protests.
"These organizations may be extremely well-meaning," Hutchins said. "But the fact of the matter is there are times when fringe people try to tag on to legitimate advocacy groups. ... Volatile demonstrations can erupt quickly and can cause harm to demonstrators and to law enforcement."
State police surveillance of death penalty opponents and peace activists over 14 months during the previous administration has angered civil libertarians and prompted Gov. Martin O'Malley to order an independent review that was released last week. Both O'Malley and former Attorney General Stephen H. Sachs, who headed the probe, have said that the operations were wrong.
Col. Terrence B. Sheridan, the current state police superintendent, said his agency plans to mail certified letters to 53 individuals mistakenly identified as terrorists in a database so they can review their files and request to be purged from the system. The state police also transmitted information on activists to a federal database of suspected terrorists or drug traffickers, which Sachs said may have violated federal law.
Hutchins acknowledged that those classifications were a mistake.
Sachs said police worked under the misguided notion that spying was warranted to protect public safety. He found that the surveillance was not prompted by information that individuals or groups had committed or planned any crimes.
Hutchins denied political motivation for the surveillance, which appeared to end after the execution of Vernon L. Evans Jr. was postponed indefinitely because of a de facto moratorium on lethal injections. Monitoring of anti-war activists seems to have stemmed from the fact that many were also death penalty opponents, according to Sachs.
