As protests against police brutality continued across the Washington region on Saturday, demonstrators in Prince George’s County voiced their concerns about the county police department, which has been accused of racism by some of its own officers and whose police chief resigned this week.

In a report released on Thursday as part of an ongoing racial discrimination lawsuit filed in 2018, Black and Brown officers described the department as racist and retaliatory. Protesters said it showed how much work the department still has to do to regain the community’s trust.

“Even though the police chief stepped down, there are so many other people in the department who we know are doing wrong, and they know that they’re doing wrong, and people are watching them do wrong,” said Ashley Michael, who told DCist/WAMU she has joined protests in D.C. for the past three weeks. “So that’s why we’re here, to raise awareness. And let them know that we see you and we’re going to be on you until you get it straight and take care of us. Because that’s your job.”

The department’s chief, Hank Stawinski, resigned on Thursday. However, County Executive Angela Alsobrooks said the report was not related to Stawinksi’s departure. She has appointed Hector Velez as the interim police chief.

“[I] just had the sense that it was in the best interest of our county and our department,” Alsobrooks said on Friday. “And it was time to move in a different direction in terms of leadership.”

The report stated that the department has failed to adequately investigate racist incidents against Black and Brown officers. It also alleges that high-ranking officials in the department, including Stawinski, failed to respond to racism in the department.

On Saturday, Ky Gibbs joined at least 80 other protesters at the municipal building in Glenarden to kick off the march, which made its way to FedEx Field in Landover, about two miles away. She said the issues found in the county’s police department showed problems with training and an us-versus-them mentality.

“I find it fascinating that in a county that is the nation’s wealthiest Black county — a predominantly Black county — that we can have such hatred and racism within our ranks of the police department,” Gibbs said. “Who are we supposed to turn to? Who do we call if we can’t trust the police, who are there to protect us and serve us? I think they forget what that means, protect and serve.”

The county is conducting a nationwide search for a new chief and Alsobrooks says the county is hiring an independent consultant to evaluate and provide feedback on existing issues in the department.

Removing Stawinski was a good first step, said Martin Mitchell, the executive vice president of the Prince George’s County Young Democrats. But he doesn’t believe the county has done enough to change the department’s culture.

“It’s rotten at the core,” Mitchell said. “So at the end of the day, changing the police chief is not going to change the system.”

Asked whether he had faith in Alsobrooks, who is also Black, to help make those changes, Mitchell said he did.

“But it’s not blind faith,” he said. “So I will be continually watching.”

Activists and organizers in the county who joined Saturday’s march said it was time to turn demonstrations into action.

“Now, we’re here to march today. But we also have to get to the core problem,” said Christopher Stevenson, a member of the Prince George’s County Democratic Central Committee and an organizer of Saturday’s event. “And the core problem is our laws. As African Americans in minority communities, we know that the laws have never been set up for our people. We’re not confused, we’re not ambiguous to what’s going on. But that’s another reason why we have to make sure we vote.”

The Prince George’s County Police Department has a history of incidents that have eroded trust in the community. Earlier this month, three county police officers were suspended after a video surfaced showing two of them striking and beating a man while trying to detain him. At the time, Stanwinski said he was “sorry” and “angry” over the incident and promised the department would conduct a thorough investigation.

Back in January, another officer shot and killed a man handcuffed in the back of a police vehicle. The officer was charged within 24 hours of the incident. In August of 2019, an officer was sentenced to six months in jail for punching a man in the back of a police vehicle while handcuffed. In another case dating back to 2017, an officer was found guilty of second-degree sexual assault. Sentencing for that officer is still pending.

Angelo Consoli, president of the county’s police union and former police chief, told the county council on Tuesday that he wanted to move forward with reforms and hear from the community.

“Transparency has really been the key, in my opinion, for trust,” Consoli said. “A lot of that has been eroded over the last several months, but we know how to earn back the trust of the community and we’re willing to do that.”