The following column appears in the August edition of The Business Monthly, serving Howard and Anne Arundel counties.
Last year, there were three murders at the Columbia Mall – a double-homicide outside the mall and a murder in the food court.
The murders of young men by other young men shocked the community and led to beefed up police presence.
In 2022, there were four murders in Howard County; in 2023, there were five. Last year, there were 10. Even then, 10 is not a high number for a county of 330,000 people but shocking nonetheless where crime rates have remained relatively low.
Howard County State’s Attorney Rich Gibson Jr. Official photo
The high-profile double-homicide led State’s Attorney Rich Gibson Jr. to decide to prosecute the case himself. It’s an action he’s taken only a handful of times in his six-and-a-half years as the county’s top prosecutor, given how all-consuming a case like that can be.
But Gibson insists, “Howard County is a safe place. Numerically speaking, just by the data,” he said in a long-interview July 14. “We are an extraordinarily safe space. Crime is down across the country, right? So just generally speaking, per the numbers, mathematically speaking, crime is trending downward everywhere. Howard County is no exception.”
He points out that both of these fatal mall shootings “were targeted events. The people that were at the mall knew each other, as you said, and there was some animosity that existed between them and they chose this horrible way of resolving that animosity. I think it is scary because the mall is a place a lot of people congregate.”
Disbelief
But lots of people don’t believe crime is down, I tell him, regardless of what crime statistics might show.
As state’s attorney, Gibson says he has to address “how people feel but also give them a sense of what is [fact].”
“A single crime is too much crime, and we hope to get to a place where crime is even lower, right? Every offense we take very, very seriously. But at the same point in time, it’s true that crime is numerically down. What you’re seeing, in particular with juveniles is that while crime is numerically down, the types of crimes that our youth are engaging in are more egregious crimes and so those crimes resonate in a more significant way with the community.”
A young-looking 49, Gibson is no casual observer of violent crime and death. He’s been a prosecuting attorney for 20 years. That includes 13 years in Baltimore City, where he spent five years on the homicide unit followed by the major investigations unit where he wound up supervising a team of attorneys focused on violent repeat offenders.
In 2018, a Democrat, Gibson was elected Howard County’s first African-American state’s attorney, easily winning the general election with 62% of the vote. In 2022, he got a free ride to re-election. He had no opponent in the Democratic primary or the general election. A familiar figure at political events in the county, Gibson is planning to run again next year.
Loves the job
“I love the job! It’s immensely rewarding. I get to serve my community. I get to try to keep my community safe. I get to shape what justice looks like in this space. It’s an area that I have a degree of expertise in and so I’m comfortable in this space, but no two days are the same…. I have a great team around me that allows me to create what I hope to be the kind of public safety that the community enjoys.”
It’s not like there’s no crime in Howard County. Otherwise, Gibson wouldn’t need a $14 million budget with a staff of 95 people, including 48 attorneys operating in the circuit and district courts.
With no significant public controversies during his tenure, Gibson shows no signs of worry about his reelection, based on his campaign finance report. He only raised $1,000 last year, and has only $41,000 in his campaign account, a meager sum for a countywide race. And no, he has no interest in running for the open county executive seat, a common political career path in neighboring Prince George’s County.
With no term limits for them in the Maryland Constitution, state’s attorneys in some jurisdictions stay in the job for decades. Scott Shellenberger, 66, in Baltimore County is serving in his fourth term, despite a close election last time and a younger opponent next year. He was preceded by Sandra O’Connor who served 32 years in the job. John McCarthy in Montgomery County is also in his fourth term as state’s attorney there.
Representing his fellows
Gibson is coming off five years as president of the Maryland State’s Attorneys Association, representing the 24 elected local prosecutors. Gibson agreed that it was both an honor and a chore.
“It was a real honor, because you get a chance to represent the entire state.” But it’s not always easy to find consensus. “You know, you have rural, urban, suburban, Democrat, Republican, very conservative, very liberal, and you’re trying to find consensus amongst the 24 electeds. Obviously, dealing with 24 electeds, you’re dealing with strong personalities and strong thoughts.”
“Despite the differing opinions on public safety, regardless of political affiliation, regardless of rural, urban, suburban, there was a lot of common ground because on public safety, we are a little more cohesive than on some other issues.”
Body-worn cameras for police, for instance, which Gibson supports, are also an issue of resources for both police and prosecutors. Not only is the equipment costly, but it also creates a lot more work for police and for prosecutors.
Twenty years ago, a robbery prosecution might involve four witnesses, says Gibson – a victim, another witness, a police officer or two. Today, such a case might also involve technical experts on cell phones, surveillance and body-worn cameras.
“So, the density of today’s cases is so much greater than the density was a decade or two ago. And so is the amount of work that a prosecutor must do per case.”
Juvenile justice
How to handle juvenile crime is another thorny issue for prosecutors.
“The leadership of DJS [Department of Juvenile Services] has had a philosophy under the prior secretary that was really a “Don’t touch them, low interaction mindset and model that I think really does our youth a disservice.”
“Governor Moore has changed who’s at the helm, and I’m hoping that new leadership is more in line with the philosophy that says, we have an opportunity to intervene with these kids, and we’re going to do so in a meaningful way. We’re gonna target the underlying root causes. We’re gonna get involved and grab hold of them now with the goal of reshaping them so that we don’t see them tomorrow.
“It is my hope, and I believe the hope of every prosecutor in the state to not deal with kids more than once. And certainly not to see them when they’re adults, because if you don’t train them and teach them that their actions have consequences, if you don’t teach them that there’s a better way to handle problems, if we don’t teach them the right way to interact as a member of our community, the answer will be, you’re going to commit that crime as an adult, and there’s going to be a very different consequence awaiting you. Everyone suffers. There’s another harm that’s on our community. We haven’t done right by that kid.”
Speaking of kids, Gibson has three of them with lots of photos on his desk of them and his wife, physician Dr. Carissa Guishard-Gibson. They live in Ellicott City.
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