"Safety Begins With You"

Finding out that Dayvon Maurice Green, the shooter in Tuesday’s murder-suicide near the University of Maryland campus worked for the campus police, albeit it briefly, is disturbing.

According to a spokesman for the university police, Green was employed as an auxiliary police officer for two weeks in August and September. Fortunately, he was not a sworn officer and was not issued a badge or a gun; rather, Green carried a police radio to be used to call for an officer in the event he spotted trouble.

He was fired after failing to report for work a couple of times.

Riddle me this: Green’s family told police “he had been suffering from mental illness for at least a year” yet he met the requirements and qualifications to be a University Auxiliary Police Officer.

According to their website, “Each year the University of Maryland Police Force publishes the brochure ‘Safety Begins With You’ that ‘includes the latest crime statistics for the campus and the surrounding community.’”

I say safety begins with the University Police Department hiring process.

June Smith founded this tribute website in honor of her late husband, Ron Smith, WBAL Talk Show Host, Emmy Award winner, and Baltimore Sun Columnist. Smith was a media titan in Maryland and beyond for almost forty years. Mrs. Smith is working diligently to raise one million dollars for the Ron Smith Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund at Johns Hopkins. She blogs for Red Maryland www.RedMaryland.Blogspot.com; her email is june@friendsofronsmith.com.