Maryland legislators will meet Thursday to discuss conditions at the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, DPSCS, as employees remain uneasy after the May on-duty homicide of a parole and probation agent.

“How long do people have to patiently wait for an agency to get its act together after someone was murdered on the job?” Patrick Moran, the president of the Maryland chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFSCME, said in an interview Tuesday.

Rayneika Robinson, a parole and probation agent and the president of AFSCME Local 3661, told The Baltimore Sun that, since agent Davis Martinez, 33, was killed while conducting a home visit on May 31, DPSCS Secretary Carolyn J. Scruggs has not spoken to or met with employees in the division.

Martinez’s body was found in Emanuel Edward Sewell’s Chevy Chase apartment where he was assigned to conduct a home visit on May 31. Sewell, a registered sex offender, was missing. Officers from the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force arrested him later the same day in West Virginia.

Sewell was charged with second-degree murder. His jury trial will be held in Montgomery County next month.

DPSCS spokesman James Moses said that Scruggs has “toured numerous Parole and Probation Offices throughout Maryland” to address agents’ safety concerns since Martinez’s death.

“She has engaged with agents during various trainings and symposiums across the state, ensuring their voices are heard,” Moses said.

After Martinez’s death, leadership at the division of parole and probation was removed and replaced, and home visits for agents ceased. According to Robinson, parole and probation agents are still not conducting home visits nearly five months later.

“We’re still kind of in limbo when it comes to policies and procedures,” Robinson said. “We don’t really have a clear path.”

Employees and union officials have pointed to low-staffing levels agency-wide at DPSCS as a factor in the acts of violence perpetrated against employees.

According to Moses, the division of parole and probation currently has a 6% vacancy rate, with 43 positions available statewide.

“Efforts to fill these vacancies are ongoing, with job postings remaining open to qualified candidates,” he said.

In September, DPSCS announced new leadership for the parole and probation division in Yolanda R. Bethea, who is currently serving as its acting director. Bethea will go before the state Senate during the 2025 legislative session to be confirmed as the division’s official director.

Robinson said that employees are poised to meet with Bethea this month, and that agency officials have been discussing potential policy and procedural changes for the division in light of what happened to Martinez.

Moran expressed frustration that directly impacted employees have not been a part of these policy discussions.

“They’ve rearranged some of the deck chairs on the Titanic without acknowledging they’ve already smashed into the iceberg,” he said Tuesday. “We hope the agency will get its act in gear … and sit down with the people like Rayneika who do the work and say, ‘What can we do to do this better?’ and they haven’t done that.”

Unionized workers are taking matters to the legislature.

According to Robinson, there are plans to introduce legislation in Martinez’s name in 2025 that would establish guidelines for public sector agencies who work with unions, including AFSCME, to develop public safety protocols and standards. Robinson said that the legislation is still being drafted, and they have yet to find a lawmaker to sponsor the bill.

DPSCS officials are to meet with members of the state House Judiciary and Appropriations and Senate Judicial Proceedings and Budget and Taxation committees Thursday.

Scruggs was initially named the agency’s acting secretary under Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who is currently running to represent Maryland in the U.S. Senate. Prior to that, she had served as the assistant secretary for programs, treatment, and reentry. Scruggs was named the full-time secretary under Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat.

Beyond Martinez’s on-duty death, the state recently paid out $23 million to thousands of corrections employees for illegally withholding overtime pay under the Hogan administration, and union officials have been sounding alarm bells about significant levels of understaffing at DPSCS facilities.

Moran said that there are “almost nine assaults per day” at DPSCS facilities. He told The Sun that a corrections employee recently had one of his fingers bitten off while on the job.

“Every day at the beginning of our shifts, we don’t know if we’re going to be able to go home at the end of the night. We don’t know if we’re going to be forced to work another double and go another day without seeing our families. Or worse, be wheeled to the hospital because we’ve been injured,” John Feeley, a correctional officer and president of AFSCME Local 1772, said at an October news conference. “Without enough staff, DPSCS is canceling visits from loved ones, limiting medical and psychiatric services, and running limited classes and programs, all at the expense of those who are incarcerated in these facilities.”

After the death of Martinez, AFSCME called on Moore to remove Scruggs as the head of the agency.

Asked if that call continues, Moran said the decision is Moore’s.

“We still do not have what we believe is confidence in the secretary for a whole host of reasons, but this is the person the governor has chosen to defend and represent his administration, so that’s on the governor at this point,” he said.

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