Feds purchase warehouse near Hagerstown, fueling talk of immigration detention center

News: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has inked a deal to purchase a warehouse just outside Hagerstown for $102.4 million, fueling concerns of its potential conversion into an immigration detention facility. For @thebaltimorebanner.com www.thebanner.com/politics-pow...

Corrections officials tell me the victim was serving a five-year sentence for a felony firearm possession charge, with two additional years for offenses committed while in prison. He had been incarcerated since June 2022.

Something's going on in Maryland's prisons. As @conarck.bsky.social continues to chronicle, last year had the highest prison killings in a decade (13) and there's been 3 more already this month alone www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

New: Last night, a 33-year-old named Joseph Harrell was killed in front of the library at Jessup Correctional Institution. It was the third prison homicide in Maryland just this month, putting the state on pace to exceed last year's record of 13 prison homicides. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

We spoke to the relative of a detainee seen in the video, the former field office director for the facility, advocates and lawmakers for this story. This is the kind of coverage you will only read @thebaltimorebanner.com

New: After pushback from reformers and the CO’s union, Maryland’s controversial plan to build a $1.2 billion “therapeutic” jail in downtown Baltimore appears to have hit a major snag. @govwesmoore.bsky.social has pulled it from his proposed budget. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

One project that's NOT funded in Maryland Gov. Wes Moore's budget is a proposed "therapeutic" jail for Baltimore that's been kicking around since Gov. Larry Hogan's time. The cost keeps increasing, and the project is being put on pause. by @conarck.bsky.social: www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

A Montgomery County councilmember watched a teenage boy detained by ICE. Wearing pajamas in the cold, the boy showed ICE agents proof of his citizenship, to no avail, she said. County officials want to prevent this, so they're proposing more restrictions on ICE: www.thebanner.com/politics-pow...

NEW: Two years after a @thebaltimorebanner.com investigation into an abnormally high suicide rate and questionable practices at the Harford County Detention Center, Maryland chapters of the ACLU/NAACP are suing the sheriff, citing extensively from our reporting: www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

NEW: Trump’s DHS forces have shot 11 people since September. NBC News examined every case, revealing a pattern that policing experts called alarming: officers firing into cars, injuring and killing drivers.

NEW: Chuck Jenkins, arguably Maryland's most powerful sheriff, said today he wants to keep working with ICE — regardless of national protests and even if Maryland lawmakers outlaw cooperation agreements (called 287g program) in the state. More in @thebaltimorebanner.com:

Prisoner homicides hit a modern record high last year with 13. There's already been one so far in 2026, at the state's deadliest prison, a "hypermax" facility in Cumberland. by @invisibae.bsky.social www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

Plans for a historically expensive jail in Baltimore just got even more costly: $1.2 billion, @conarck.bsky.social reports. (via @thebaltimorebanner.com)

Plans for a historically expensive jail in downtown Baltimore have gotten costlier, with the price tag up to $1.2B. Meanwhile, a state budget crunch has made the project's future less certain. Justice reform advocates/CO's union sense an opportunity to derail it. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

Plans for a historically expensive jail in Baltimore just got even more costly: $1.2 billion

I like how the vet puts the "May cause drowsiness" sticker on my dog's gabapentin like he might forget and take the car out for cigarettes or something

New: Anne Arundel County police are publicly disputing ICE's account of a Christmas Eve shooting, in which federal officials claimed (as they have in Minneapolis) that the driver they were stopping tried to run them over @alexmann.bsky.social @sararuberg.bsky.social www.thebanner.com/community/lo...

Breaking: Maryland's corrections department has released a safety report on a since-evacuated jail facility downtown that revealed the building had become so decrepit, human waste was dripping from the ceiling and detainees were able to dig through walls. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

Over the past year covering the county, I kept seeing data that marked a concerning trend. Montgomery County is typically considered one of the healthiest in the country, but our mental health is in steep decline. I wanted to figure out what’s happening and why. www.thebanner.com/community/pu...

New: Unannounced inspections of the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center last year revealed a persistent rodent infestation, malfunctioning air conditioning, and a paraplegic child housed in the infirmary who was left sitting in his own waste. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

Maryland prison killings rise to decade high amid staffing shortage

NEW: Maryland’s prison system is becoming increasingly deadly, with the highest homicide rate in recent history despite a shrinking population of incarcerated people. Experts point to staff shortages and an infusion of contraband drugs. Read more: www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

The numbers for Baltimore are astounding. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

Absolutely incredible news in Baltimore, reported out by @conarck.bsky.social, Greg Morton and Sahana Jayaraman in @thebaltimorebanner.com —

An historic drop in gun violence in Baltimore is drawing the nation’s attention. A remarkable success story. What’s behind it? For @thebaltimorebanner.com

Baltimore Police have a ‘pattern’ of using vehicles to injure suspects, lawsuit alleges

Baltimore Police have shown a "pattern and practice" of using their vehicles as weapons, according to a complaint filed in federal court recently by a young man who was run over when he was 16 years old and fleeing from officers responding to a reported carjacking. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

During an immigration crackdown in Maryland this fall, two out of every three people arrested by ICE agents had no criminal history, a @thebaltimorebanner.com analysis found. ICE pushed back, calling the data "simply wrong" but refusing to say what was inaccurate. www.thebanner.com/politics-pow...

Most immigrants arrested in Maryland crackdowns have no criminal record

Former supervisor guilty in cover-up of prisoner beating on Eastern Shore

New: Gov. Moore's admin invited a natural gas industry insider to sit in on interviews to determine the latest Public Service Commission appointees. Records show the official was the only non-government employee present for the interviews: www.thebanner.com/politics-pow...

Officer: I was ‘used as a scapegoat’ after deaf man’s murder in Baltimore jail

New: A former CO who is being sued after a deaf man‘s murder in a Baltimore jail said she was “placed in an impossible position” by her supervisors, made to guard the dormitory where he died “alone, untrained for that post, and unaware of the risks involved.” www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

Update: Maryland Office of the Public Defender says incarcerated children are still “trapped in freezing rooms” at the Youth Detention Center, which is without heat but “operating at 105% capacity.”

Breaking: Citing a third-party engineering report, the state corrections department is planning to imminently transfer all detainees out of an aging Baltimore pretrial detention facility that had numerous maintenance issues last year. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

Locked-up children left ‘extremely cold’ at Baltimore facility, public defenders say

Deeply alarming reporting from @conarck.bsky.social in @thebaltimorebanner.com

Maryland's increasingly violent prisons are relying more heavily on isolation to manage the short-staffed, aging facilities. In one year, nearly 4 out of every 10 prisoners did a stint in confinement. State recently paid $185K to a man who was in for almost a year. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

"Maryland Transportation Authority Police quickly shut down traffic but failed to notify construction workers on the Francis Scott Key Bridge that a massive container ship without power was careening toward a bridge support, federal investigators said Tuesday." www.thebanner.com/economy/ntsb...

Baltimore County councilman calls for investigation into traffic stop racial disparities

New investigation w/ @invisibae.bsky.social: Baltimore County has the worst racial disparities in traffic stops throughout Maryland. Officers accused of profiling are quickly exonerated despite issuing 70-89% of their tickets to Black drivers. Read more: www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

How ‘driving while Black’ persists in Baltimore County

Notably, the least-bad explanation here seems to be that prison officials negligently let a schizophrenic man waste away in an isolation cell covered in his own excrement.

How a Maryland prisoner died an ‘excruciating’ death from dehydration

New: Correctional staff at a Western Maryland prison shut off the water to a mentally ill man’s cell, then allowed him to suffer for eight days before he finally died of dehydration, according to a recent court filing. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

New: the Baltimore County SAO is willing to confirm the chief's explanation, but will not turn over the underlying five-word "partial sentence" justifying his placement on the Brady list. The public defender's office says he's violating a police transparency law. www.thebanner.com/community/lo...

New for @thebaltimorebanner.com: Members of the Baltimore County Council remained silent in the face of questions about the police chief’s inclusion on a prosecutors’ list that tracks officers with potential credibility concerns. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

Baltimore County's Chief of Police is on the county's Brady/Giglio list — a list of officers whose credibility concerns are required to be disclosed to defendants if they're called as a witness in court. No one will say why. Great reporting by @conarck.bsky.social: www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

NEW: A few weeks ago, @muckrock.com shared the Brady list for Baltimore County. Scanning it, I noticed the police chief was on there. I then spent weeks trying to figure out why. But no one — not the state's attorney, nor the police department — is explaining it. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...