On August 4, 2026, National Night Out was conducted in LD21 in four locations: College Park, Beltsville, Laurel, and Crofton. Although I was able to attend each one only briefly, I was pleased that several campaign volunteers were able to represent our campaign at these unique community events.
“Night Out” is a national event designed especially to highlight the special relationship of support and cooperation needed by local police with the communities they serve. The event also allowed other community groups and government agencies to participate.
In LD21, I learned that local police are active in many areas, such as dealing with missing persons, vehicle theft, and property crime along the Route 1 and Route 197 corridors. In one recent incident at Seven Springs Apartments in College Park, a surge of some 50 vehicle break-ins was reported in a single night.
I learned that juvenile gangs, sometimes managed by adult bosses, are common in this criminal activity, often closely related to the large population of illegal aliens. Just recently, a young teenager was found dead in College Park, the likely murder suspects being MS-13 gang members, presumably part of the illegal alien population.
Sadly, Senator Rosapepe, with the Democrat majority in the Maryland General Assembly, recently passed a “Community Trust Act,” which prohibits local police from collaborating with federal law enforcement agencies, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), to pursue a misguided policy of sanctuary for criminal illegal aliens.
In the Maryland State Senate, I would work to repeal such harmful legislation and support efforts to tighten enforcement of violent crime so often found among unsupervised youth in our community.