Tommy Sanders III was born in Baltimore and grew up in Park Heights, near Virginia Avenue, "a high drug- infested area." He had friends "who sold and who indulged in drugs" and, he said, he was rousted by city cops for no reason.
It is an often-told tale of inner-city life. But while some of his friends grew up and went to prison, Tommy Sanders grew up and became a Baltimore police officer. Then the biases he had against cops were turned on him. "I have had more people disgusted with police than people who liked me," Sanders said.
On Jan. 30, 2008, Sanders, with five years on the force, shot and killed 27-year-old Edward Lamont Hunt at the Hamilton Park Shopping Center in Northeast Baltimore.
Witnesses have said Sanders searched Hunt twice and then shot him in the back as he ran away; the officer's attorney has said Hunt resisted arrest, and his client shot him to protect himself and the public. Detectives didn't find a gun, but they did find drugs. A grand jury indicted Sanders in July on charges of voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, the first Baltimore police officer to be indicted in a duty-related shooting since 1996.
Sanders made his first public comments this week from a witness stand in Baltimore Circuit Court. He didn't say one word about the shooting; rather, he is asking a judge to move his June 22 trial out of the city, saying residents - and, by extension, jurors - distrust cops so much that they can't be trusted to render a fair verdict.
The officer complained about publicity and said that a new police policy of only naming officers involved in shootings ruled unjustified essentially convicts him before his trial starts. It didn't matter to him or his attorney, Sean Owens, that Sanders' name was released before the policy took effect. The lawyer told the judge that "as a result of this policy, an inference of guilt or wrongdoing can be made."
Sanders spent more than an hour on the witness stand, reading from newspaper clips and offering his opinion about radio shows, some dating back to 2001, quoting judges, prosecutors and others about widespread distrust of Baltimore police.
One of the city's most seasoned prosecutors and newly minted head of the homicide division of the state's attorney's office, Donald Giblin, questioned Sanders on whether a handful of newspaper articles in 16 months, only a few of which mentioned Sanders' name in connection with the new police policy, could be considered a media deluge.
