This story was updated at 6:34 p.m. May 26, 2021, to attribute a quote to Montgomery County Inspector General Megan Limarzi. It was updated again at 11 p.m. on May 27, 2021, to correct a reference to a state bill.
Silver Spring residents and education advocates are seeking an independent investigation into a January 2020 incident in which Montgomery County police officers berated and handcuffed a 5-year-old boy to scare him into behaving.
In recorded testimony presented to the school board on Tuesday, Montgomery County Council of Parent Teacher Associations President Cynthia Simonson called on the district to ask the county’s inspector general for an independent investigation into the incident.
“While we recognize MCPS has, no doubt, performed an internal investigation, the MCCPTA Executive Committee has been in conversations with the superintendent all year about the conflicts that reside in MCPS when it attempts to investigate itself,” Simonson said. “… It is important the policies are clear and the training is in place to ensure we do not have incidents where staff are trading jokes over the sound of a wailing child.”
Montgomery County has an inspector general who monitors spending by any agency within the county government, Montgomery College and the Housing Opportunities Commission. The inspector general’s office says it is “a watchdog to detect and prevent fraud, waste and abuse in County government operations.”
A representative from the inspector general’s office wrote in an email that MCPS officials have not contacted the office about investigating the East Silver Spring Elementary School incident.
Montgomery County Inspector General Megan Limarzi added her office is closely following any developments.
“Our office is monitoring the County’s and MCPS’s responses to this incident and continually evaluating where our involvement could add value to the discussions and examinations that are ongoing,” Limarzi wrote in an email.
Bethesda Beat first reported on the East Silver Spring incident in January 2021, when the boy’s family sued the county and the school district. The lawsuit described the police officers forcefully grabbing the boy —who had walked away from his school — and putting him in a patrol car.
The officers — Kevin Christmon and Dionne Holliday — then repeatedly berated the boy, screamed directly in his face to mock his crying and handcuffed the boy to scare him. They told his mother she can beat the boy to discipline him.
The case attracted widespread attention in March 2021, when the police department released 51 minutes of body-camera footage showing details described in the lawsuit.
The police department has declined to specify what discipline the officers have faced, but has kept both of them on the job.
An East Silver Spring Elementary School administrator was put on leave in April. The family’s lawsuit says Assistant Principal Justine Pfeiffer was present while police officers berated the boy.
In a statement released in March, two days after the body-camera footage was released, MCCPTA condemned the officers and school staff involved. MCCPTA wrote that the people involved “repeatedly inflicted psychological abuse” and displayed “a galling lack of regard for the mental and physical wellbeing of the child.”
At the time, MCCPTA called for “immediate and appropriate action, up to and including the firing” of the officers and MCPS staff members involved.
In a recent letter to county officials, the East Silver Spring Parent Teacher Association wrote that a “profound bond of trust was broken” by MCPS and the police department “for the community they have vowed to serve.”
In the letter, the PTA called for an independent investigation into the incident, a review of procedures for when police are called to interact with children, increased training and purposeful community engagement “in the selection of any potential new school leadership.”
In 2019, Del. Jared Solomon (D-Chevy Chase) and Sen. Ben Kramer (D-Derwood) proposed a state bill that would allow the county government to establish an independent inspector general to oversee MCPS. The bill passed that year’s session.
County code says the inspector general has authority over MCPS, but that code has never been codified by state law as required, Solomon said at the time.
The county inspector general’s office oversees 32 government departments, and between 2006 and 2019, issued seven MCPS-related reports, according to its website.