Police union endorses Wes Moore in governor’s race

On Aug 18, 2022

Maryland Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wes Moore has picked up a major endorsement from one of the state’s largest unions: the Maryland Fraternal Order of Police.

The police union voted Tuesday to back Moore, a best-selling author and former nonprofit chief, in his bid against Republican nominee Dan Cox to become Maryland’s next governor.

Clyde Boatwright, president of the Maryland FOP, said the union members were impressed by Moore’s résumé and his vision of improving education and increasing jobs as part of an overall crime-fighting plan.

“He spoke to our delegation, and he was organic,” Boatwright said. “He clearly has, with his military background, a deep understanding for the needs of people that wear a uniform. He didn’t come in asking anything or offering anything. What both sides wanted was a partnership.”

Moore, an Army veteran, captured more than 60 percent of the vote from the 400 delegates attending the FOP’s conference. Boatwright said the delegates were deciding between Cox or Moore, or extending no endorsement. To win the endorsement, Moore or Cox needed 60 percent of the vote.

The police support comes as debate intensifies over crime-fighting initiatives in Baltimore and beyond, and as the state continues to implement the sweeping changes it made last year on how police do their jobs and how they are disciplined. The changes were the result of a national outcry over systemic racism and policing after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd in May 2020.

How Black female lawmakers led Maryland’s historic effort to transform policing

An endorsement from the Maryland FOP to a Democratic candidate is not unusual in Maryland. Former lieutenant governor Anthony G. Brown won it in 2014 in his bid against Larry Hogan (R). Hogan received it in 2018 in his run for reelection.

Larry Stafford, executive director of Progressive Maryland, said there has been a sea change in policing since Brown’s endorsement in 2014. Since 2014 — the year Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, was killed by a Ferguson, Mo., police officer — calls for police transparency and accountability have increased, and they intensified in 2020, after the videotaped murder of Floyd.

When told of the FOP endorsement, Stafford said he does not want Moore to take progressive votes for granted. “We want to make sure he holds true to those values in office,” he said. “Our chief role in this election is to make sure that we demonstrate that progressive votes indeed matter.”

Brian Jones, a spokesman for Moore, said the endorsement underscores “how clear the choice is between the Democratic and Republican nominees for governor and the extensive coalition we are assembling and that we are taking nothing for granted in his campaign and are looking to bring every entity that has a stake in the future of Maryland” to the table.

Moore attended the FOP’s conference Tuesday to make a bid for the endorsement of the 21,000-member union. Union officials said Cox was slated to present on Monday, but had a scheduling conflict emerge. In a statement, Cox expressed his disappointment with the choice and took aim at Moore profiting off his 2010 best-selling book “The Other Wes Moore,” in which a man who shares Moore’s name was convicted of killing Baltimore County police Sgt. Bruce Prothero.

“As a State Delegate I have stood firmly with the FOP against efforts to ‘defund the police’ and as Governor, will always back the blue,” said Cox, who has made crime a chief topic of his campaign.

“I have been speaking with hundreds of law enforcement officers throughout the state during this campaign and look forward to continuing to earn every single individual law enforcement officer’s vote come November,” he continued.

At an event launching his headquarters in Annapolis this week, the first-term delegate told a few dozen supporters that crime “is out of control and unfortunately, we don’t have the support of the police that we should have. … It’s not working for our economy. It’s not working for Marylanders for our safety. We need to turn that around, need to make sure that we back the blue and protect them in their jobs.”

Union officials said Moore did not offer or outline specific proposals during his interview.

Moore, who is making his first bid for public office, assured the officers that he would be collaborative, expressed his support of collective bargaining and said he planned to address recruiting and retaining officers and making it affordable for retired officers to remain in the state.